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Welcome to the Empowered Leader Newsletter Article #5:

I read 2,000 resumes. Here are 10 hacks to stand out.

October 10, 2022

I read over 1,000 resumes as the Recruiting Director at BCG and another 1,000 resumes recruiting 100s of team members over the last 20+ years. Here are my top 10 hacks on how to stand out from the crowd and land your dream job.

Hack #1 - Include your Linkedin Profile

The first thing a recruiter does is to look up a potential candidate on LinkedIn to usually check mutual connections. Many people still don’t include a link to their linkedin profile and research has shown that people who have a link, have a higher chance of getting an interview. What does a linkedin profile link look like? Mine is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanchan/ and I customized mine by:

1. Going to my profile page - click on your profile picture
2. Clicking on the link at the top right of the profit picture that says “Edit Public Profile & URL”
3. From there, you click on the pen icon in the top right corner that says “Edit your custom URL”. Hint: Use something that is easy to remember.

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Hack #2 - Include quotes from your references.

Many people are hesitant to add references, especially as they are going through the interviewing process and their best reference is usually their boss. If this is the case, what I normally do is include excerpts or quotes from my formal and informal performance reviews from my managers, include their names and title and then say that contact details are available upon request. This means that I can firstly create a positive impression with good quotes and also show that I have references who would be my advocates. Once I am successful and make it to the reference check stage, I get the formal OK from my references to release their contact details.

Hack #3 - Include Measurable Metrics.

Too many of the resumes I read had statements without any measurable metrics. Recruiters actively look for statements that have clear and measurable metrics. Whether it is a % of cost savings or a % revenue growth or an improvement in Net Promoter Score, ensure that for any achievement that you include in your work experience section that you include a metric that is measurable.

Hack #4 - Keep it simple.

I read too many resumes that extended over 4 or 5 or even 7 pages. The ideal resume length is 500 - 600 words or a maximum of 3 pages. Anything more and recruiters will either lose interest or think that you can’t summarise your history.

Hack #5 - No fluff, please.

I read too many resumes that contained a lot of words, but didn’t say anything meaningful. For example, here are some bullet points under an internship work experience:

1. Shadowed a Partner of the firm for 3 weeks
2. Demonstrated a key understanding of the important steps to drafting Contracts and Wills
3. Opened additional insight to environment in a Conveyancing Law Firm

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• What does “demonstrated a key understanding” mean?
• What does “opened additional insight” mean?
• Instead, this candidate could have written about how many hours were spent shadowing this particular partner, how many drafts or pages of drafts of contracts and/or will he had read through as part of the internship and any measurable outcomes that were realised as part of that activity.

Hack #6 - Keywords.

Keywords are words or phrases that describe specific job requirements. Recruiters look out for these abilities, skills, expertise and values and using these keywords to describe something that you did will help you land that job. How do you understand what keywords to use? The job description or job brief is a good starting point to understand what keywords are important to include in your resume. If you don’t reflect at least some of these keywords in your resume from the job description or brief then your chances of making it to the next round will be significantly lower.

There are many guides from top universities. Here are just a few:

• Yale
• Stanford
• MIT
• Berkeley

Hack #7 - Understand the culture or vibe of the company.

I know people who have been told directly that “you just aren’t a [Company X] person” from the way that they dressed. To be fair, it was a fashion company. The point is to ensure that you first understand the culture of a company and then tailor your resume to fit with that culture or vibe. For example, when applying for management consulting jobs, a professional and business tone is important relative to applying for a job at a start-up.

Hack #8 - Read through every line, and then read through every line again.

Mistakes in a resume usually result in an immediate bin. If you can’t get 3 pages of your resume 100% correct, then the question for a recruiter is how can they trust you with more.

Hack #9 - Some tools to help.

I personally use two tools to ensure that I get my writing as correct and as clear as possible. The first is Grammarly and the second is Hemmingway Editor. Grammarly helps to ensure that my grammar, punctuation and spelling is as correct as possible and Hemming way ensures that the readability is bold, clear and pitched at the right level (see point 7 above).

Hack #10 - Win the battle before it’s started.

My final “hack” is the most valuable and has helped me get an offer in all of the jobs in my career. The principle is to have some kind of human contact with the company that is recruiting you BEFORE you even submit your resume and ideally with someone in the team that will be either interviewing you or in that team that you are interviewing for. How do you do this? Simply search up the company on LinkedIn and search for people in that company. Then reach out to each person through cold DMs by introducing yourself and talking about how you are interested in joining the company and a request to chat with them to ask them more questions. In the past, I did this by attending job fairs and speaking to the recruiters there and making an impression on them, but nowadays, LinkedIn is much easier to track down people.

The fundamental purpose of your resume is to stand out from all the other candidates in a positive (not cheesy) way, so the key question as you are writing it will be: what makes you special and why should company X hire you?

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