As an executive, you have resiliently overcome multitudinous struggles to carve out a unique position in your given industry. Adequately representing this reality and the ancillary details which support this reality is absolutely vital to your executive-level resume. However, resume writing is rarely an area of expertise that expedites your trajectory to executive leadership. Thus, writing an executive-level resume can often be as bewildering as it is important. To maximize the value of your executive-level resume, follow these four clear steps.
First, develop a top-down outline of your accomplishments.
To become an executive, one must consistently manifest key leadership traits throughout their career that allows for consistent vertical progression. This consistency must be unmistakably clear throughout your executive-level resume. To do this, think of every memorable moment in your career, either accomplishments or moments of recognition. Document them all in a comprehensive diagram. By increasing your awareness of your career highlights, you will create the core plot that will ground your executive-level resume.
Second, narrow down your key areas of expertise.
As a recognized leader in your given industry, you have actively expanded your professional skill set, but more importantly, you have continuously refined those skills which are most fundamental to your work. Make a list of the skills which you depend upon in your daily routine to ensure successful outcomes and remember to reference them consistently throughout your executive-level resume. By articulating the persistent prevalence of these areas of expertise, you will optimize the credibility of your accomplishments, descriptions, and growth; consequently, you will also exponentially increase the impact of your executive-level resume.
Third, define two essential processes, often connected to your areas of expertise, that ground your professional brand.
Reflect on how you’ve added value to your various employers and identify two consistent processes that perpetually yielded positive outcomes. Include them in your executive-level resume’s professional summary. By situating your expertise in the milieu of the two aforementioned processes, you will craft a coherent top-down depiction of your professional skills as inherent and active parts of your professional brand.
Fourth, do not exceed two pages.
An accomplished executive must have the capacity to discern, excise key elements out of daily life, and to inspire staff. An executive-level resume must not only articulate these characteristics but serve as a direct testament to their existence. Increasing the length of an executive-level resume does not increase credibility; it conversely erodes it, over-saturating hiring managers with an uninspiring wall of information. A clear and concise outline of your career accomplishments, bolstered by your areas of expertise, and systematized through your consistent process implementation, will result in a resume as irrefutably significant as your position of leadership.