Free resource for any job hunter who has ever felt frustrated by the job-search process.
The purpose of a résumé isn’t to spotlight situations and experiences; instead, skills and experiences!
How are you going to tell your professional story one line at a time?
As an advisor of college finance students, I’ve reviewed my fair share of résumés. Time and time again, two issues seem to keep coming up:
1. failure to speak to the results one has achieved through their work or a particular experience.
2. poorly chosen verbs that don’t promote (marketable) skills.
Let me help you get:
1. ready for your interview,
2. aim those bullet points toward your targeted job, and
3. fire off a killer résumé.
Writing effective résumé bullet points is best accomplished using the STARE tactic™ formula:
Skill + Task + Action + Result = Experience
The STARE tactic™ for writing effective résumé bullet points recognizes that a Task, Action, and Result are bookended by a unique combo of skill and experience. In other words, between the S and the E is what happened during the hours of 9 AM to 5 PM or whichever hours you put a certain skill to work to get experience.
In addition to providing job candidates with a tool for writing effective résumé bullet points, because the STARE tactic™ is based on a formula, the risk of leaving one or more important pieces to your professional story out of the equation—information that prospective employers need or want to know—is mitigated.
If I were to say, “What’s 1 + 1 + 1 + 1?” you’d say, “4.” One of the value propositions of the STARE tactic™ is the logical progression from one input to the next. Here’s an example of a résumé bullet point that was written using the STARE tactic™:
Analyzed property financial statements to ensure compliance with loan documents which maintained the integrity of the client’s commercial loan portfolio
Here is how this bullet point pretty much wrote itself using the STARE tactic™:
S(kill): Analyzed
T(ask): (Reviewed) property financial statements
A(ction): to ensure compliance with loan documents
R(esult): maintained the integrity of the client’s commercial loan portfolio
E(xperience): Asset Management
If you struggle to find words for the T, A, or R parts of the bullet point, you might benefit from the “What did you…” and “Why did you…” and “How did you…” questions:
T(ask): What did you…(do in this role)? Reviewed property financial statements.
A(ction): Why did you…(review property financial statements)? To ensure compliance with loan documents.
R(esult): How did you…(know that your work produced a positive outcome)? The integrity of the client’s commercial loan portfolio was maintained.
If you don’t know this already, a résumé won’t get you a job. But your skills and experiences will!
Oh, but if it only stopped here. The “game” that is the job search includes many mini victories, one of the first of which is getting a human eye to stare at your job application and related professional documents. To do that, I’m going to pull back the curtain and unveil some of the mystery surrounding the job-search process. You wouldn’t want your newfound knowledge of how to write effective résumé bullet points to be all for nothing. The STARE tactic™ continues into the Free Bonus Chapter, only here, it takes on a new meaning.
Free Bonus Chapter
Provide your email and we’ll send you the free bonus chapter that complements the book Would Your Boomerang Return? What Birds, Hurdlers, and Boomerangs Can Teach Us About the Time Value of Money.
