The Kickass Resume Course (2 Sample Lessons) by Kickass Resume Course

THE

KICKASS RESUME COURSE Craft a powerful resume with this 11 step action-oriented framework

CHRIS ALEXANDER

KICKASSRESUMECOURSE.COM

LESSON ROADMAP 1

Origins: Why do we write resumes?

Mining for Skills Keywords

Telling Micro-stories

First Draft Part 1: Disassembling

First Draft Part 2: Rearranging

First Draft Part 3: Quantifying Growth

Design Principles: Understanding Cognitive Load

Design Principles: Choosing Typefaces and Fonts

Design Principles: Crystal Clear Headers and Visual Ratios

10 11

Discover how the resume was invented in the 1400’s and how it was used as a conversation starter.

Learn how to mine job listings for specific skill keywords employers are looking for, and build your resume around these keywords.

Follow the fundamentals of storytelling to package your achievements into high-impact 30-second sound-bytes.

Deconstruct your micro-stories, rebuild them into results-oriented bullet points, and tell your short in bursts of information.

Explore how an organization generates revenue and learn how to position your experience for maximum relevance to any employer.

Attach real-world numbers to your achievements to make them measurable, comparable and defensible.

Declutter your resume to deliver essential information in a short amount of time.

Get a crash course in the world of typeface design and learn how to pair fonts for optimal readability.

Use headers as visual anchors to lead the eye and improve your page layout with visual ratios.

Writing for Humans and Robots Design your resume to evade Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and avoid the shred bin.

Real World Optimization Adapt and evolve your resume with each interview experience, and treat it as a living document that grows with you over time.

L E SS O N

Origins:

Why do we write

resumes?

Origins: Why do we write resumes? Let’s take a trip to Florence, Italy. The year is 1482. A local artist is looking for a job in a highly competitive market full of other artsy dudes like Botticelli and Verrocchio. Several years before painting the Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci invented the resume. Da Vinci wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, hoping to find a job elsewhere. In this letter, Leonardo introduced himself and, like any eager job-seeker, included a list of his skills. This list illustrated eleven different ways he could help the Duke out with his problems. Which skills ranked at the top of this list? Bronze sculpture? Figure painting? Nope! More like designing indestructible fireproof bridges, destroying castle walls and constructing terrifying death-machines like cannons, chariots and mortars. Golden Nugget: Known as an artist, inventor, and all around genius, Da Vinci used this letter to demonstrate how his skills could help the Duke arm his troops and conquer nations. Leonardo focused the conversation not on himself, but on the Duke and his needs. From a hand-written letter in 1482 to a formal typewritten document in the stuffy corporate culture of the 1950’s, the purpose of the resume hasn’t changed all that much.

It evolved to become a form of professional currency in the modern world - a way to prove your worth on paper. Today, just like the late 1400’s, the job search process is at its core a communication exercise. It’s no different from asking a friend to help you move a couch or agreeing on where to meet up for a second date. Two people come together, each wanting certain things, and talk it out. A resume is simply a tool we use to begin this conversation. Now that we know how resumes began and what they are, let’s wrap up with our action and takeaway...

ACTION Ask yourself this question: What keeps your target employer up at night? What are their goals? Is it selling insurance policies? Diagnosing illnesses? Raising money? Make a list of their NEEDS and begin to think about how your skills can match those needs.

TAKEAWAY The job search process is a communication exercise, and resumes are the tools we use to begin this conversation.

L E SS O N

Mining for Skill

Keywords

Mining for Skill Keywords When reading your resume, hiring managers spend about 80% of their time skimming basic information like names of companies you worked for, titles of job you’ve held and dates you were employed. While doing this, they’re asking themselves “Does this person have the basic experience required to actually do the job?” For the remaining 20% of their time, hiring managers skim for the same important keywords that they included in the job posting. If you don’t have those keywords, they move on to the next resume. That’s it. That was your chance to blow their socks off in 6 seconds.* *A 2012 quantitative study conducted by The Ladders.com found that recruiters spend about 6 seconds reviewing resumes for a “fit/no-fit” assessment.

In the previous lesson, we learned that the resume is a tool to begin the conversation. This time we’re going to: Gather a ton of data from a job search engine Use word-cloud software to extract common industry keywords from that data This process of extraction (also known as data-mining) will teach us about the most important element behind every conversation: having a common language and vocabulary. Golden Nugget: In order to achieve maximum outcome (interview opportunities) with minimal input (time), you can never write in a vacuum. You need to get out into the world and do some research.

Ready? Okay! Put on your hard hat and let’s go! First, we need a job search engine that will give us a gazillion search results about your target job. My favorite is indeed.com. We’ll use their advanced search and type in as many specifics about your target job as possible, including geographic region. The more realistic our search results, the more data we will have about how employers talk about that job. This will eventually let us optimize your resume to make our conversation with them easier. For this example, we’ll look for an entry-level job in, let’s say, marketing. We’ll look for one within, say, 5 miles of New York, NY. That will get us started. You can follow along by using the specifics of your own target job and industry.

Now we’ll click “Find Jobs,” and we’re off! The indeed.com search engine will spit out a whole bunch of jobs for us. We now have a selection of job listings to work with. We’re all set. Take a glance at them. The first thing you may notice is that there’s no standard format for job listings. This is because every company has their own definition of “skills,” and treats these “skills” differently. It’s the Wild West out there – a no-rules free-for-all that can be challenging to navigate. But every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. Here’s your opportunity to be creative and cut through the noise. From your list of search results, choose 8 to 10 listings to view in new tabs (WINDOWS: CTRL-CLICK; MAC: COMMAND-CLICK).

Now, open a basic text editor like Notepad. We’re going to copy everything listed under skills, responsibilities or qualifications from each of the job listings - basically anything with a bullet point. These are outlined in blue in the image above.

We’ll paste all of this into the text editor.

Now, in the text editor, we have big, long, messy blob of text. Perfect. We’re going to Select-All (CTRL-A) and Copy (CTRL-C) the entire contents of the text document. Still following along? Awesome! Now we’re going to use the power of word-cloud software to help turn that hugh blob of text into something more organized. Using this tool, keywords repeated often in our job listings will rise to the top and we’ll be able to quickly identify patterns in the descriptions. Jason Davies (@jasondavies) has the best version of this word-cloud software. Go here: http://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/

Paste the entire contents of your text editor into the text box and add these inputs: Scale: n

1 orientations from 0 to 0

Number of words: 200

Then click “Go!” Your word cloud will trim that nightmare of a list into a few hundred key words. Of course, this is not a completely 100% accurate picture of what is most important to employers. This is hardly an exact science. Its usefulness depends on the quality of the job postings you choose, and how typical they are of the job you are looking for. So you’ll need to spend a few minutes reading over this word cloud and try to identify roughly 10-12 keywords that look most relevant given your understand of the type of job you’re seeking.

My resulting word cloud:

From my word cloud, I’ll choose these 12 keywords: Analyze

Data

Organize

Assist

Learn

Sales

Campaigns

Marketing

Support

Client

Media

Team

These are my optimized keywords.

With these keywords, we have the backbone of our resume. Think of this list of keywords as simple writing prompts for 12 miniature stories you’re going to tell. In the next part we’ll begin writing those miniature stories using a super easy, bulletproof formula! And now, our action and takeaway…

ACTION Read over your list of keywords and begin to think of examples of how you used these skills in school, in work, or in your personal life. Just brainstorm for now and jot down a few ideas.

TAKEAWAY Never write your resume in a vacuum. Do real research on your target job and build your resume upon a foundation of the most current information on the market.

9 more action-oriented lessons are waiting for you! Get the entire book at www.kickassresumecourse.com/book