Advertising Resume Makeovers: Part 4

Danielle Hueston, Rochester

Before/After:

Why:

I've chatted with Danielle a few times via email. She reminds me entirely of my mentee, Lauryn. If the similarities are as close as I think, Danielle is going to be horrified when she sees this resume. We have completely ripped the security blanket of CONTENT out from under it.

Let me back up a second. Danielle is at her first agency job and is going above and beyond at it. But, like John, is nervous about what comes next. How do you leverage the sometimes-menial work of an entry level gig into a meaningful career? Plus, she wants more responsibility and to bring more of her ideas to the table. Danielle mentioned that she already made the "difficult decision to remove my first job ever - 5 glamorous years of making pizzas and salads," but we're going to cut even further.

Here are the changes we made:

• Added a profile. Basically the positioning statement of a resume. What you fundamentally stand for. An opportunity to get a little passionate about what you do and how you work. We truly believe that most people cannot write their own profiles. It's hard to really see yourself that clearly. Best practice: Ask your mentor to write it for you. The one we're showing here for Danielle is based on what it's been like to work with Lauryn (although I'm pretty sure that it applies to Danielle, too.)


• Slashed all non-agency jobs to little more than a timeline. Same reasons as Kate and John.


• Blew out Danielle's current job to talk about what her core position is and then how she really over delivers on that. Like a lot of smart people in an coordinator position, I get the sense that Danielle is doing a lot more than she's technically being paid for. This is a (completely non-bitchy way) to call that out.


• Cheated a little and replaced her title (Coordinator) with her role (Account Services). You know what Dave Barry says - a resume isn't just a piece of paper. It's a piece of paper with lies on it.


• Simplified the education section. Unless you're applying to Google, no one much cares about your GPA these days.


• Deleted the awards section. They all felt kind of dated and more associated with finding a first job than growing into a second one.


• Added a call to go to a Web site for references, work samples, etc. If you can't help but say more, this is a great way to do it "on demand" and still keep your resume straight-forward and simple.

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Comments

[Jason]

The other revisions were very pleasant to the eye, very open and the hierarchy was great. This on the other hand has some elements that make it distracting to the content. The use of the brackets, which in essence are to bring focus to something. In this application they are doing quite the opposite. Since the headings make your eyes view the bracket, the next line of the heading is lost because it extends past the first line past the bracket. The other thing really hurting the flow of this is the leading. The contact information is practically resting on top of the sub-sequent lines, along with the headings. Any employer with a well educated sense of typography would keep this resume just to amuse herself while blacking out the contact information with sharpie. Enough ranting. The other two were spectacular. Im just an old cranky designer who just doesnt know how to construct his criticism.

[Brandon Zeman]

These resume makeovers are wonderful! They are great for recent graduates like myself who are still learning all we can.

p.s. I tried befriending you on Facebook.

[Shana Ray]

I just wanted to say thank you for your few latest posts.

They are a great reminder to anyone (entry level, mid-level and even senior management) to take a look at their own resumes. I have already updated mine based on a few of your comments!

Keep the great posts coming!