Is Your Résumé a Summary of, “What’s In It For Me?” or “What’s In It For Them?”

It’s time to look at your résumé with an objective eye. Does your résumé talk about you, the candidate, or does it talk about what you can do for your potential employer? Does your résumé highlight your skills, knowledge and attributes, or, does it demonstrate to potential employers that you have the ability, expertise and intestinal fortitude to solve the company’s problems and make positive contributions to their bottom line?

When the candidate pool is deep, those candidates who can demonstrate that they have solved similar company/organizational challenges in the past are more likely to get interviews and land the career opportunities they seek.

Optimizing opportunities for success necessitates that candidates be able to make the transform their tradition résumé i.e. a summary of, “What’s In It For Me?” to one that is able to help hiring managers immediately recognize and glean the many ways that you can solve problems and help increase revenue.
The “What’s In It For Me?” résumé is easily identified because it typically contains the following elements:

• An Objective Statement e.g. “To obtain a position at the XYZ company that will enable me to use my strong organizational skills, educational background, and ability to work well with people.”


• Job Responsibilities that describe what the candidate believes to be the most important elements of the job


• A profound lack of quantifiable evidence to verify accomplishments

The easiest way to transform your résumé from “What’s In It for Me?” to “What’s In It For Them?” would be to do the following:

• Replace the ‘Objective Statement” with the job title


• List the skills that have been acquired throughout your career history


• Use numbers wherever possible

Hiring managers care about what’s in it for you only as an afterthought. When you can solve a problem for them, your chances of being hired increase significantly.