Your Resume Is Your Portfolio

When you create a resume, you are creating a portfolio of yourself that will communicate your skills, experience and attributes to a potential employer. The concept of resume as portfolio may seem a bit strange to some people, but just as an artist puts his or her best work into a portfolio, so too are you putting your best work into a resume.

Detail your skills

A resume should describe the skills you possess in a way that tells a potential employer exactly what functions you can perform for them. Each skill you include should be accompanied by an example statement that consists of an action and a result. For example, let's say you want to highlight your budget management skills. Here is one way to write a statement about these skills:

Pretty plain. And not very impressive to a potential employer. Here is another way to write a statement about your budget management skills:

Do you see the difference? How would you improve this statement even more? Now think about your own skills and create similar statements for yourself.

Detail your experience

A resume should detail your work experience in a way that makes it clear to a potential employer that your experience matches the requirements of the job you are seeking.

For example, if the job posting states that the position requires three to five years of supervisory experience you need to make sure your resume calls attention to how you meet that requirement. You might do it with a statement something like this:

Or, you might use a statement something like this:

Again, do you see the difference between these two statements? Think about how you could improve this statement further, and then create similar statements for your own specific experience.

Tailor it to the job

Perhaps most important, though, is tailoring your resume to match the needs of the job for which you are applying. This does not mean that you make things up, exaggerate, or embellish your qualifications in any way. It does mean, though, that you should emphasize any qualifications you have that the employer has specifically stated they are seeking.

For example, if a potential employer is looking for someone with sales experience, tailor your resume to emphasize how you meet that requirement. You might move that part of your resume content toward the beginning of the document, or highlight it with a bullet point, italics or bold face type. Be careful, though, not to overuse changes to the font look or style, because if you do too much of it then it loses the impact that you are trying to make.

Take a step back

As you work on creating your resume, take a step back periodically to look at it from the perspective of a potential employer. Think about what they want to see, how to make it easier for them to read and understand, and any other things you can do to make your document stand out from the crowd.

One way to do this is to ask yourself some of these questions:

• What first impression does this resume make?
• Is the order of information logical and easy to follow?
• Does the layout draw the reader's eye to key information?
• Is the content written clearly and concisely?
• Do the statements in the resume include both an action and a quantifiable result?

After you have gone through this process yourself, share your resume with a trusted peer or colleague and ask for their honest feedback. If you are looking for a position in a different industry or job field, find someone who works in that field to look at your resume and see if it accurately speaks to a potential employer in that industry.

A work in progress

Remember that your resume, like an artist's portfolio, is a work in progress. You should review it, re-evaluate it, and revise it periodically as needed. This will keep your resume fresh and ensure that it always represents you in the strongest manner possible.

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