Project Description

Build an Updated Professional Resume by taking tips from the below resume builder, which includes a template, content builder, and “journal.”

INSTRUCTIONS SECTION

Below is the instructions section for filling in each section. You’ll find instructions regarding how to layout the section and what content/topics to include. You can review the layout section above to see exactly how to format each section!

CAREER PROFILE

INSTRUCTION: The Career Profile provides a quick snapshot of you as a professional. Your goal is to provide a two-paragraph, high-level overview of your entire career. This helps employers develop of picture in their minds regarding who you are and what’s forthcoming in your resume. You want to entice them. Keep in mind; this is your “sales copy” of you to get them interested!

First Paragraph Career Profile should contain two to three sentences for optimal digest. Include your aggregated work experience (i.e., how many years of work experience), your major area or industry of focus (banking, business services, communications, education, engineering, entertainment, financial, gaming, leisure, media, technology, and so on), and the types of companies you have worked for (e.g., large Fortune-500, medium-size Fortune 2000, startups, and so forth). The second portion of this paragraph should include an extremely high-level explanation of your accomplishments and activities (e.g., sold products, developed marketing strategy, optimized business processes, built teams, operated restaurants, and so on).

Second Paragraph Career Profile should contain one to two sentences for optimal digest. List your specific professional competencies within your industry (e.g., Strategy Development, Business Development, Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Recruiting, Financial Management and so on.)

Your content quick list for the Career Profile:

 A couple of paragraphs that contain pertinent information.

 Aggregate your work experience (this is what creates bigness)

 How many years of total experience or relevant experience

 Types of companies and industries

 Accomplishments and activities (high level not specific)

 Specific professional competencies

Career Profile Structure

[2-3 word professional descriptor] with [number of total or relevant years] years experience in [your profession here] within [types of companies, institutions here]. [Insert your major career accomplishment here]. [Insert additional major achievement or description here].

Core competencies include [function1, function2, etc.]. [Add additional related point(s) here].

Career Profile Content Ideas

Descriptor: Chief Financial Officer, Project Manager, Senior Business Analyst, Network Engineer, Accountant, etc.

Types of companies: Small, Start Up, Medium, Large, Public, Private, Fortune 500, Non-Profit, etc.

Major Career Accomplishment: Sold, Managed, Built, Operated, Optimized, etc. Focus on magical 8 areas, which you can find in the Highlights Section.

Core Competencies Samples: Corporate Development, Profit and Loss Management, Mergers and Acquisitions, Human Resources, Recruitment, Financial Management, Budgeting, Forecasting, etc.

Two Sample Career Profiles

Senior international marketing leader with 25 years experience in life sciences sector supporting Fortune 500 healthcare companies. Developed brands and new products from ideation through launch, executed marketing strategy and operated teams of up to 300 people responsible for creating brand awareness for $1 billion medical device brands.

Core competencies include Strategic Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Brand Management, Sales Management, Channel Management, New Product Development, Joint Ventures, Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing, Public Relations, Product Pricing, New Product Launches. Multilingual, with fluency in English, Spanish, and French.

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Senior Project Manager with 10 years experience implementing Information Technology solutions for Fortune 500 companies in the financial services and healthcare sectors. Conceptualized and managed full software development lifecycle programs ranging from $500,000 to $2 million in budget including team sizes from 5-25 people.

Core competencies include Project Design, Project Scoping, Project Management, Team Management, Risk Management, Budgeting, Forecasting, Project Tracking, Financial Management, Expense Management, Software Development, and Quality Assurance Testing. Educational credentials include MBA from Harvard and Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Additional Notes on the Career Profile

What is the career profile?

The career profile is a summary of who you are and what you bring to the party. Some call it a career summary, professional summary, or other similar name. It’s all the same. (Students will have an analogous Profile as opposed to a Career Profile.)

The most important feature about the career profile is where it’s found on your resume—at the top. It resides in the most prime piece of real estate on the “paper.”

Why is it important?

It’s the first information the reviewers (should) see after your name.

You need to grab—and hold—the reviewers’ attention and get them excited about what they are about to read. Consider the career profile like your “smile.” It’s the first impression. You want it to say, “I’m warm and welcoming and you are gonna love reading about me!”

What does it do for the reviewer?

It provides reviewers an easily-remembered summary of who you are, who you help, what you’ve done, what you’ve achieved, and your most important credentials.

It sets their biases on the positive side. It will get them optimistic about you instead of pessimistic. It will make them “read” the rest of your resume assuming the best.

How does it position you in the best light?

It’s not only important for you to shine up top so the reviewers are giving you the benefit of the doubt throughout their reviews, but also for you to “control the narrative!”

Remember, the top portion of your resume helps shape the reviewers’ attitude and excitement about you, and it also helps you deliver the information YOU want them to see first.

That means, you can highlight the experience, skills, capabilities and other assets YOU want them to notice.

You can do this irrespective of your current job, current career, or current situation.

Think about how important this can be for those wishing to return to a previous industry or job type, career changers, and students soon-to-be or recently graduated.

You get to position yourself regarding who you WANT TO BE.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

INSTRUCTION: The Career Highlights section provides a quick snapshot of your greatest accomplishments as a professional. Regardless of your tenure in the workforce, provide three to four major accomplishments. Your goal is to show the magnitude of the accomplishments and the benefits your company, its customers, or partners have realized as a result of your accomplishments. It is always best to identify tangible, quantifiable benefits, but non-tangible benefits are also effective.

Your content quick list for the Career Highlights:

 3-4 of your most important accomplishments

 Note the benefit to others; the awards you’ve earned should be secondary to the benefit others have achieved as a result of doing what you did to earn that award

 Focus on the 8 biggies employers love most (such as but not limited to):

o Revenue generation (made)

o Market awareness (recognition)

o Customer attraction (lead generation)

o Customer happiness (service)

o Company growth (positioning, events)

o Employee happiness (attitude)

o Cost reduction (saved)

o Process efficiency (easier)

Additional Notes on the Career Highlights

What are career highlights?

The career highlights are three or four of your most important accomplishments.

While the career profile is a summary of who you are and what you bring to the party, the career highlights section transitions the reviewers from summary to detail.

This detail shows evidence of the impact you can have on their organizations.

Why are they important?

With your career highlights, you are still controlling the narrative (your story) and shaping the way the reviewers consider you.

The reviewers are still “reading” the top half of the first page of your resume and forming an impression of who you are.

Isn’t it a smart idea to grab their attention with your best and most impactful accomplishments?!

No need to answer that. It was rhetorical. :)

What do they do for the reviewer?

It provides reviewers with specific detail regarding your awesomeness and shows the major contributions you are capable of making for their organizations.

While the career profile tends to make reviewers think about your history, the career highlights section often shifts their thoughts to their future—exactly where you want to them to be going!

When reviewers see the depth, detail, and impact of your highlights, they starting thinking whoa, I wonder what this person could do for our company!

How do they position you in the best light?

When constructed properly (and I stress the word properly), your highlights show how the world—your customers, community, company, market, groups, team members, employers—benefited from your contributions.

These show huge benefit. And, that will without question put you in a shiny light.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

INSTRUCTION: The Professional Experience section provides a more detailed view of your work experience. You should list your experience in reverse chronological order (i.e., most recent work history on top). It is best to highlight the company name and its location (city, state) as well as the months/years you worked there.

Immediately below the company name, there are a couple of options. You can provide a one-sentence, high-level description of the company to ensure the employer understands your current and previous companies’ goals. This is simply for frame of reference, but is helpful especially if you have worked at lesser-known medium or smaller-sized companies. You can follow that sentence with one or two high-level sentences regarding you, your accomplishments, and your role(s) at that company. This is a summary of you at the time you worked for that specific company.

Immediately below the company name, provide your title. If your company uses titles that might confuse the prospective employer, you can provide a parenthetical explanation next to the title that highlights your business function. This general explanation can be helpful when the title is not intuitively obvious.

Your content quick list for the Professional Experience:

 Company

 Quick summary of your accomplishments

 Title

 Summary of description of accomplishments during the time you held that title

 Bullets developed in the same format as your Career Highlights section; focus on the 8 biggies that show value (mentioned above); whatever your responsibilities are, they WILL coincide with the 8 value areas employers want to see!

Additional Notes on Professional Experience

What is the professional experience section?

Well, this one is likely the most obvious to you. Of course, we want to include your work history as a big part of your resume.

While that point might not be earth shattering, you do need to do it correctly to shine.

This is also the section where people make the most mistakes!

Why is this important?

With your professional experience, you are now sharing a more complete story of your work, achievements, skills, and where you gained those skills and experiences.

Consider this the unveiling of the career profile and career highlights.

What does it do for the reviewer?

It provides reviewers with the context they’ve been eagerly awaiting!

This section should answer all their questions…

 Where does she work now?

 Where did she work before that?

 How did she sell all of those $50 million in services?

 Where was that awesome career highlight I saw?

 Has she grown throughout her career?

 How long has she been at each company?

 So on and so forth!

Your professional experience section backs up all the hype you created in the career profile and career highlights sections!

EDUCATION

STATE UNIVERSITY, City, State, Year

B.S., Field of Study

Your content quick list for the Education Section:

 Schools (Universities Executive Programs, Trade Schools, etc.)

 Degrees

 Certifications

 School projects if appropriate

 To-be complete degrees, certifications, etc.

EXTRACURRICULAR & VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES

Company, City, State, Dates

Activity Function, Title, etc. – Served as [insert function here].

Non Profit Entity, City, State, Dates

Activity Function, Title, etc. – Served as [insert function here].

Your content quick list for the Extracurricular Section:

 Boards

 Foundations

 Charitable work

 Volunteer work

 Community service

 Non-Profit Groups

 Unpaid internships or work experience

 Research activities

 Any activity that shows motivation and leadership qualities you possess

 Languages you speak

 Clubs

 Publications

 Media appearances (if appropriate)

 Special interest groups

 Networking groups (if you actively run or participate)

Career Achievements Journal

Use this checklist to capture the most vital information regarding all your major projects. Think back on your projects and recollect as much information as possible. Document it appropriately in your resume. Going forward, use this portion of the guide to journal your achievements. Use that information during career discussions such as performance reviews and promotion opportunities as well as new material for your resume!

PROJECT

List all major projects and initiatives. They can be a daylong, monthlong, or yearlong initiative.

STATISTICS

Identify anything quantifiable. This includes budget, timeframe, number of resources, number of customers, etc. Capture anything that shows magnitude and impact.

BUSINESS PROBLEM

Identify the high-level business problem you and your company are trying to overcome, improve, and so on.

THE PLAYERS

List everyone involved from stakeholders, contributors, key team members, units within your organization, partners, and vendors to customers or companies who are benefiting from your project.

SOLUTION

Identify how, at a high-level, you and your company solved the problem.

RESULT/OUTCOME

Capture what happened as a result of the project implementation.

BENEFITS

Capture the entities that benefited (employees, customers, partners, other units in the organization) as well as specifically how they benefited.

CHALLENGES

List the high-level challenges that surfaced during the project. There are the issues that arose as you were building your solution (as opposed to the high-level business problem you were addressing overall).

OVERCAME CHALLENGES

Identify how you overcame the challenges throughout the project.

HINDSIGHT

Identify what you would have done differently if you started the project knowing what you know now.

LESSONS LEARNED

Capture the high-level lessons you and your organization learned as a result of implementing the project.

YOUR DEVELOPMENT

Identify how you grew specifically. What can you do now that you couldn’t at the beginning of the project? What new skills do you have?

COMPANY DEVELOPMENT

Identify how your company grew and improved. What can your company do now that it couldn’t at the beginning of the project?

VICTORIES

Reflect on the high-level victories you achieved over the course the project. Even if the project wasn’t implemented fully, still consider all the accomplishments along the way!!

Hassan Rageb

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