Resume Strategy: What Works, What Doesn’t
If you’ve listened to my episodes on resumes in my previous podcast, you know I have a strong opinion: LEAVE RESUME WRITING TO THE PROFESSIONALS.
Having said that, some of you will want to give it a go yourselves, so I wanted to give you a bit of a primer on resume strategy in 2025. Let’s start with the basics, then I’ll move onto strategy.
Format & Design
Length
Here’s my stance: Your resume should be two pages if you’ve been in the workforce for at least 6-7 years. While CVs can be much longer, your resume should be a succinct marketing document that sells you for an interview – not a comprehensive rehashing of your entire career.
Design Elements
Assuming you aren’t a professional resume writer like me, I recommend leaving design elements off your resume, because you risk creating a document that the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can’t read.
Text boxes, graphs and charts, unusual bullets, two columns – these things work against you when it comes to the ATS, as does shading and underlining.
Although it has no effect on the ATS, I strongly recommend a standard sans serif font that can be read by almost all Macs and PCs, such as Tahoma, Calibri, Aptos, Abadi, Arial, Verdana, Lucida Sans, or Avenir Next LT Pro.
Headings
The ATS needs to be able to find what it is looking for, so use standard section headings like “Professional Experience,” “Education,” and “Certifications.”
Resume Strategy
Job Descriptions vs. Achievements
Almost every resume that I review falls into one of two categories: Either there are no achievements in sight, or the achievements are mixed in with job duties and everything is bulleted.
Here’s the problem with this: The achievements get lost. Professional resume writers who have received ACRW training will write a brief (2-3 line) paragraph outlining the client’s job duties, followed by a maximum of five bulleted achievements.
Your job duties paragraph is a great place to pack in keywords relevant to the kinds of positions you’re applying for.
Here’s an example from one of my clients, who was looking for a role in Operations:
“Deliver operational leadership for $100M in assets under management (AUM), with annual gross income of $5M+ and $3.5M operating budget. $25K weekly payroll, $200K monthly accounts payable. Hire, onboard, train, manage, and conduct performance reviews for 10 direct reports; total team of 50.”
For that same client, here are a couple of achievement bullets:
-Revenue Optimization: Grew annual revenue from $3M to $5M, net income from $300K to $1.5M, and increased assets from $40M to $75M with no debt.
-Strategic Leadership: Led 6-member family-controlled Board through year-long consulting process to explore options to better meet changing shareholder needs.
-Negotiations: Shepherded a strategic asset divestiture for owners including negotiating final sale price from an initial offering of $42M to $65M for core portfolio of 4 properties.
Front load your achievement bullets with the result, like this:
-Profitability Enhancements: Increased rent revenue 25% in year 1 by implementing new leasing policies and marketing initiatives, while decreasing expenses for insurance, furniture rental, and advertising.
Keywords
Here’s the process I go through with my clients: I have them send me three job descriptions that are representative of what they will be applying for. I then utilize AI to determine what keywords and competencies found in the job descriptions are missing from my client’s resume; I then pack as many of these in as I can.
I put these in two primary places: At the beginning of achievement bullets, and in the job description paragraph. This marries the keywords with where they were utilized or developed.
This is more effective than a separate Skills section that is a divorced laundry list of keywords without context, and the ATS doesn’t score them as highly.
What doesn’t work: Putting the job description, in its entirety, into the resume in white. This is known as keyword stuffing. While it may get you through the ATS, the humans will not see why you made it through.
One more thing about keywords: Use the exact term listed in the job description of the position you are applying for. One company may call it Revenue Management and another company calls it Fiscal Responsibility. Use their terms.
Branding
Invariably, the resumes that come to me either have no branding, or their attempt at branding is merely a list of the basics any qualified candidate should have.
As an analogy, it would be like Nike trying to sell shoes by marketing the fact that they have soles and shoelaces.
Will those soles help me run faster? Help me with my foot issues? How will the shoelaces help me run my next marathon? This is what I care about.
Here’s an example of an undifferentiated branding statement:
“Versatile, creative, and resilient business operator known as a self-starter and growth driver. Passionate about rapidly propelling existing and new ventures to next level success.”
SHOW IT – DON’T SAY IT
What do you bring to this role that no one else will likely be able to say? What are your brand differentiators?
It’s not enough to tell them the features – you must give them the benefit. Don’t assume the humans will extract that information on their own, given that they spend an average of less than 10 seconds on an initial pass of each resume.
Here are some examples:
Architecting creative concepts and language into a range of exceptional results including:
-Growing [company] list by 35% in 2024 via emails, social media/blog posts, original research reports, webinars
-Reducing cost-per-lead (CPL) by 93% for a client struggling to attract participants for an adult learner course; exceptional reach resulted in filling all seats prior to the campaign’s intended deadline
-Facilitating 2 consecutive years of record growth for a private university by creating a comprehensive suite of marketing materials and strategies
Now, I am quick to say that doing your own branding is perhaps the most difficult aspect of DIY’ing your resume – it is very difficult to have perspective on your achievements and uniqueness.
I spend a full hour with each client, coming at their personal brand from many different angles because what grabs me for one client is different from what will grab me for another client.
And, because I do this every day, for more than 15 years, I know what is going to grab the reader’s attention.
As I wrap up, here’s what I want to leave you with: Is writing your own resume the best use of your valuable time?
So many clients come to me after they’ve spent countless hours writing and re-writing their resume, only to have it fall flat as they use it to apply for jobs.
How about you recognize the limits of your genius, and reach out to someone like me who specializes and excels in this area?
I’m not getting into what to look for in a resume writer in this episode; I just want you to come talk with me.
One final point I want to make: Part of the consult process I take clients through is to determine if, in fact, their resume is the problem. Most of the time it is a part of the problem, but usually not the only problem.
Are you ready to take your career to the next level in a way that is intentional and fulfilling? Check out The Exclusive Career Accelerator coaching program at: https://theexclusivecareer.com/teca