The Goal of a Resume (hint: it's not to get the job!)

Now, some people might think I'm splitting hairs here by saying a resume is for getting the interview as opposed to being for getting a job. Not so, my friend. Let me explain it in terms of a sales analogy. Have you ever had a sales person try and pitch you within the first 60 seconds of meeting you? I've had that experience while shopping for a new car, and it was brutal. Who would really expect me to drop thousands of dollars immediately after meeting them? It's crazy! The sales guy didn't know me, or my needs, and it was very off-putting to have him be pushy like that. The sales guy who eventually did get my business took a different route. He took the time to get to know me and to let me get to know him. He built a relationship before trying to close the deal.

I think a resume is similar. Your resume serves as an introduction to you. It's the first step in building a relationship with your potential employers. The idea is that you set the stage for the potential employer and get them interested enough in you to invite you over for an interview. 

I always recommend that people do the following with their resumes when applying for a new job, bearing in mind that the goal is to get the interview:

1. Make the resume job- and employer-specific

2. Be sure to talk about what you've done and what the results were, and

3. Pay very close attention to formatting and presentation.

The first thing to do in order to use your resume to get an interview is to tailor it very specifically for the job you're applying for. A resume should only be a page or two long for most people (as opposed to a C.V. which would be more than a dozen pages for someone who does academic research, for example). That means you only have room for the most relevant highlights that are directly relevant to the job you're applying for. When I'm job hunting, the resume I send to each employer has been tweaked for the specific role I'm applying for.

Your resume should also show what you have done and what the results were. By that I mean that an employer doesn't care what your team did, they care about what you did while on that team, and to what end. This shows off your specific skills and how you've used them. This is the kind of thing that an interviewer is interested in, because it serves as a starting point for a conversation. It gives them the impetus to invite you for an interview to learn more about you.

Finally, I recommend you spend a lot of time on formatting and presentation. Remember, you've got to stand out in a good way. Your resume is the first impression a potential interviewer has of you, so your resume needs to be as "well-dressed" as you would be for an in-person meeting, so that you can evenruallt get that in-person meeting. I've known HR managers to take a stack of resumes and scatter them across their floor so they could pick out the nicest looking ones from a distance as a starting point. I'm not kidding. (Protip: That's why I always print my resume on off-white, heavy parchment paper). 

If you can follow these steps, you'll be setting yourself up for success in getting the interview, and eventually the job.

What resume tips do you have for engineers trying to score an interview? Tell us about it using the comments section below.