RESUMES
When applying for a diagnostics or life sciences job, your resume or CV will be the first impression you give to employers. No matter how well you interview or perform on the job, a bad resume will sink your chances of even getting through the door. Hiring Guru Lou Adler firmly believes that you should not submit a traditional resume but instead submit a “proposal.”
Minor Mistakes
Do not be fooled; a “minor” mistake is all it takes for a hiring manager to toss your resume away. Hiring managers are dealing with dozens of applicants and always looking for a way to shorten the pile. If they can find a good reason to discard a resume, they will not give it a second thought. There are too many good candidates to waste time on someone who can’t correctly format a resume.
The Most Common Mistake
Nearly all of your competition will create a traditional resume: a list of tasks, duties, qualifications, and positive traits. Even in the case of awards, many candidates forget to give context. Was something special required to win the award?
This error comes from the belief that a resume exists solely to describe the candidate.
The true goal of a resume is not so simple.
Work Experience is for Explaining Achievements
Hiring managers don’t want resumes so that they can learn fun facts about you. They want to know what you have to offer them. They aim to hire someone who can add value while performing beyond expectations. Your application should solve problems, not just list experience, education, and skills.
Instead of describing tasks from your last job, think of your five or six biggest achievements. These will tell hiring managers more about you and your performance than a list of your previous jobs, awards, and work.
Tailor Work Experience to the Job Opportunity
Your goal is not to explain what you are best at. The goal is to explain why you can perform all the required activities that the hiring managers are looking for. Being able to play the piano at an expert level is commendable, but it is unlikely to change the minds of hiring managers for a medical device and diagnostics company.
For each new job, Career Specialist Elizabeth Craig explains that you should “ “Look at the work you’ve done before, piece by piece,” says Craig. “Look at each segment and ask,
‘How would that relate to the new work?’ ”
Go back to your list of accomplishments, and look for times when your superior performance solved a problem that relates to the difficulties posited in the job description.
How to Describe Work Experience
To help orient your work experience presentation, ask yourself why you are an ideal candidate for the position you now seek. Use this answer to decide which of your accomplishments are most relevant to this job.
Note how the job description is written. What problems do they want to be solved? When jobs only list qualifications, this has to be inferred by job seekers. However, the job title usually gives a good hint as to what will be required. You can also check sites like Glass Door to see if others leave any reviews in the company who relevant job titles.
Hiring managers are tasked with finding an individual who can solve problems. Some hiring managers ignore this as hiring is based only on qualifications and skills. By not considering prior performance, these hiring managers set themselves up for failure. If a hiring manager rejects your resume because it is not “traditional” enough, then you should probably avoid that company in the first place.
By combining Lou Adler’s insights with a common-sense approach to formatting and spelling errors, you can create an enticing resume that speaks to the desires of hiring managers in the life sciences and beyond.
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