Blue Sky Resumes

Aaliyah had an interesting background having spent the first 10 years of her career in office management. Her relatively recent career change to design meant that potential employers sometimes didn’t always take her seriously.

We dealt with this first by all but eliminating that early experience from her resume so that the whole document spoke to her design background. We then created a profile that highlighted two of her most impressive business and creative achievements. This helps to grab attention and ensure that hiring managers will read more of the resume.

Finally, we used colors and a layout that tie into her web portfolio, so that she presents a consistent image across all media. Aaliyah first used our services when she was transitioning into the design field and she has come back to us each time she wants to advance her career.

Joan was very clear about the industry she wanted to work in and she had lots of good experience. Our task was to ensure that readers could see how effective she had been.

We did this through a compelling introduction and also by bolding key accomplishments so that they stood out on first glance. We also used a quote from Joan herself that encapsulated her approach to her work and placed that right below the headline.

The result is a strong executive resume that stays within the boundaries of a traditional resume while setting Joan apart from other people in her field.

As you can see from Jane’s original resume, she struggled to sort through all the information about her career in order to tell a clear compelling story.

Our Explorer questionnaire was a huge help for Jane. She later told us that she had no idea she had anything to boast about until she completed the questionnaire. Hard to imagine looking at all she has achieved!

Her new resume clearly conveys her extensive entertainment background and makes very clear that she isn’t restricted to just one medium.

Note: We had to disguise names on this one, but trust us, you have heard of all the people Jane worked with!

We really enjoyed working with Renee because her enthusiasm was contagious. While results are the corner stone of any successful marketing resume, we also wanted to convey her high-energy personality.

For that reason, we started the resume with a powerful description of her style and skills and then included a ‘business philosophy’ that quoted her directly.

Of course, hard numbers are important too and so each bullet point shows the exact business impact of all that energy and creativity.

Notice how we focused on facts and results in the introduction to this resume.

Too many professionally written resumes are filled with over-the-top hype. The problem is that no recruiter in his right mind pays attention to hype.

Here we backed up our claims about Susan with facts – that she doubled sales and increased traffic 20x.

We also backed up her claims of expertise with the fact that she’s frequently featured in industry publications.

Dwayne had an exceptionally varied background encompassing non-profit PR, agency work and a political career, but the common thread that ran through all his work was his ability to bring others together to get things done.

This was an important theme because, while Dwayne didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do next, he knew that he wanted to continue working with worthy causes. This always requires pulling together lots of people who often have competing interests, so we focused on this in the sub-header to his resume and then again in the ‘selected career highlights.’

Dwayne was immediately successful with this resume, attracting many interviews and eventually settling on a role as Executive Director of a start-up foundation.

Terius loved his work and only left because his employer was experiencing financial difficulties. He wanted to do exactly the same thing he had been doing, but his last position had been in an animal hospital and he knew that human healthcare was more of a growth industry.

Therefore, we highlighted Terius’s human hospital experience in the sub-header and also stressed his transferable skills, in part by using the testimonials he had from former bosses.

Testimonials are always a nice addition to a resume if you have them because they prove that other people are willing to vouch for you. Be sure to ask permission though before quoting someone else.

Karthik had just graduated so he didn’t have any paid game industry experience, although he did have some web development programming experience.

We decided to highlight the classwork he did while studying for his degree since it was video game-related. We described this just as we would describe a regular position.

This is important to remember – experience doesn’t have to be paid to be included on your resume. Work you did for school projects, or volunteer work you did, or things you did for friends, all these are valid to include on your resume.

Susan really loved her work. She especially loved the idea that event attendees would remember her events for years, and she had a very strong philosophy about how to make that happen.

To highlight this, we decided to use a quote from her Explorer worksheet as a resume header. The quote is powerful because it gets to the heart of her value proposition.

We also used a career highlights section to draw attention to some of the accomplishments that would otherwise have been relegated to page 2.

We bet you would never guess that these positions were not full-time roles. By ignoring her other, unrelated jobs, we were able to help Susan get full credit for the event planning experience she has. Remember, you don’t have to tell them everything!

Peter is one of those lucky people who absolutely loves what he does. We wanted to convey that in the resume and so we used a direct quote from him in the resume header.

He’s an incredibly creative guy but we wanted to go further than just showing that, so we worked with him to identify the revenue associated with his designs. Many designers don’t have this information and that’s such a shame.

If you’re in this situation, start collecting the information on results before you need to write a resume. And make a point of doing it through your career. Ask your managers or clients for the information – most will be happy to share and if they’re not, you didn’t lose anything by asking.

Gillian sent us some reference letters along with her completed Explorer questionnaire. One of them contained the line “If Gillian Gilbert walks into your office looking for a job, hire her on the spot.”

We made this the sub-header of her resume because it’s so powerful. Quotes like this are always better than claims you make about yourself – but only if you can include the name and position of the person quoted, so that people can check for themselves that the person actually exists (don’t check this guy – we made the name up when we disguised the resume!)

Mark was looking to leave financial services and move into a sales role in another industry. This can be a challenge because employers are often not adventurous about taking a ‘risk’ on someone from a different industry.

To help mark make the transition, we focused on his sales skills and results rather than on his industry experience.

A key strategy was to highlight his awards. These are a powerful sales tool because they provide third party proof that Mark has been a good salesperson. Third-party proof is always better than claims you make yourself.

Like most marketers, Jay had some projects that were more successful than others. We worked with him to highlight those while dropping the projects that either didn’t work well, or where he just didn’t know the results.

Remember to be selective in this way. You don’t have to tell potential employers everything you have done. Just tell them the best stuff and leave the rest out.

Notice also how the introduction to this resume is purely fact-based. There is no hype, just an overview of the scale and scope of the projects Jay has worked on. We like this style because recruiters respond very well to a concise, fact-based presentation.

Bill had a very strong record of success, which allowed us to use this resume structure.

After a quick job description for each position, we used a bolded ‘impact’ statement to highlight key results. This makes it easy for potential employers to see what Bill has accomplished, even on that all-important first quick “skim-read.”

If recruiters read in more depth they will learn the details of his successes, but such an in-depth reading isn’t essential and that’s the sign of a really high-impact resume.

Ian had a great background and we wanted to make sure that his resume clearly showed the impact he had made in each of his positions. This meant choosing a structure and format that would draw the eye to his business impact.

Notice that we cite results right in the introduction and then continue the theme through the resume with the bolded ‘impact’ statements along with the choice to bold quantifiable accomplishments.

Reading this, no senior executive could be in any doubt that Ian’s focus is on the business, rather than on technology for technology’s sake.

We led this resume with a statement about Jeremy’s skills in leading change and increasing revenue, since those are two areas of concern to all media outlets.

We’re not big fans of claims that are not backed up by evidence, but in this case, we were able to tell the story throughout the rest of the resume.

Notice the use of bolded ‘challenge’ statements that set the scene and help the reader understand the types of change Jeremy has led.

Nelson saw his varied background as a hindrance to his desire to continue working in a non-profit organization. His most recent position had been part-time and he had been supplementing his income with other work.

We left all that information off the resume. This is important to remember. You don’t have to tell employers everything on your resume. Just tell them what they need to know in order to be impressed.

By eliminating extraneous information, we helped Nelson show that he actually had 8 years of continuous non-profit experience. He quickly secured a new position that he loves.

We kept this resume introduction very short because Susan had amazing results in each of her positions and we wanted to highlight those.

When hiring a marketer, employers are not looking primarily for creativity – they’re looking for results. They want you to be creative of course, but only if what you create drives revenue or profit increases.

Because Susan had great results in every one of her jobs, we were able to use this structure and place her results above the details of what she achieved. This way even a cursory glance of the resume would convey the key message: hire this woman and you’ll make more money!

Notice how the introduction to this resume is very concise. People often think they have to write long introductions to make themselves look more impressive but this isn’t true.

Recruiters are always going to quickly skim an introduction, so keep it as brief as you can and still make your point.

In this case, we wanted to keep the intro short because we wanted that great quote to stand out. A quote like that is gold, so if you have one, make sure it’s very prominent.

Our goal here was to show that Christine had handled all of the work a corporate PR person would need to handle and in some ways had even better experience – especially in the realm of crisis management.

Notice that in the introduction we focus very little on the fact that she works in law enforcement and instead focus on things that would matter to any company looking for a PR Manager.

If her goal had been to stay in the same field, we would have done this very differently. As always, the audience is key to the resume strategy.

Nia wasn’t looking for a job. She wanted to attract new clients to her business. In particular she wanted to work with more corporations in order to grow her revenue.

For this reason we dropped a lot of big names – corporate executives like to know they’re working with the best – but we also presented the resume with more creativity than we would for an accountant. We didn’t want these people to view Nia just like any other job applicant, and a traditional resume header would have given that impression.

This sample reiterates how important it is to create a strategy for your resume before you start to write. What message are you trying to send? Who is your audience? What will impress them?

Darnell had a really interesting background but didn’t have a resume because he had always been hired by people he knew or through recommendations.

Finding himself needing to make a move, he had no idea how to translate his experience into a powerful resume.

But once we got to know Darnell, we realized that our focus for the resume had to be results. Notice that the sub-header sums up his value proposition perfectly. Any troubled community would be lucky to have Darnell on their side.

This graphic and web designer had created her resume based on a template. There are only a few resume templates loaded with MS Word and as a result, managers and recruiters receive hundreds of identical resumes every week. This is especially off-putting for a graphic design resume where creativity is important.

To correct this resume, we created a simple, clean layout that reflected Lisa’s personal design style. We also highlighted key design skills at the start of the resume. Finally, we provided much more detail regarding Lisa’s design achievements to clearly demonstrate her value.

In his most recent position, Ravi had discovered a love for social media. He enjoyed using it and he was good at it. He wanted to parlay his experience into a position that was more focused on social media and less on traditional marketing.

We completely transformed his resume by going into a lot of detail about his social media and blogging experience and almost eliminating unrelated achievements from his most recent position.

Lots of those achievements were impressive but they were distracting readers from the skills that would be most important for someone managing social media.

This is a key point – keep your resume focused on what your target employers want to know and be ruthless about eliminating information that doesn’t serve that purpose.

Chris was a junior project manager (only 2 years of experience) and she had decided that she wanted to make a career in the nonprofit sector.

To help with this transition, we focused on showing non-profits why she would be valuable to their teams. The resume sub-header balances her professional qualities with her commitment to helping others. But after that, the whole resume focuses on her contributions and results.

If you decide to take this path, remember that non-profit organizations are not looking for fluffy idealists. They need organized, hard-working, results-focused people who can get a lot done, often in difficult circumstances.

The main goal with Joe was to show that he was more than just a cameraman. He had produced shows, presented the news, shot stories and edited them. As newsrooms tighten their budgets, this breadth of experience is incredibly valuable.

For this reason, we created the career highlights section, where we summarize the key points that make him so valuable to a new employer.

When choosing what to include in this section, put yourself in the shoes of potential employers. Ask yourself what 4 or 5 facts will be most important to those people and then present those in an eye-catching and concise fashion.

Beth was a very accomplished artist but she just wasn’t taking enough credit in her old resume. Like many people, she stated a few basic facts and then hoped that readers would see how special she is.

Of course they didn’t.

Her new resume design is eye-catching while still being professional. All her key skills are now clearly highlighted. Note also how specific projects are described. This is important to show readers the variety of creative challenges she has handled.

Julie had an interesting challenge in that much of her work with big name TV networks had occurred a few years prior. When we started writing her resume, it became clear that those larger networks were getting lost on page 2.

That’s why we opted for the ‘Selected Highlights’ section which allowed us to shine a spotlight on those big names and also emphasize her Emmy awards right up front.

Always look for ways to show your best stuff on page one!

We were lucky to work with Dan – he had an absolutely stellar reputation in his field and that gave us the chance to do something a little unusual.

First we included testimonials from his peers and partners, but then we went a step further with the invitation to research his name online. (Don’t try it – this isn’t his real name!)

That message shows an immense amount of confidence and since employers will do it anyway, you might as well address it head on. (Be sure you know they’ll find good stuff though!)

Jan was very clear that she wanted to work for a large organization, preferably international. But her most recent position was with a small company.

Therefore, we needed to draw attention to her large company experience right upfront. You can see that we did this in the sub-header.

If she had wanted to work in a small organization, our introduction would have been very different. This is a good illustration of how important it is to know your goals before hiring us to write your resume (or writing your own).

Stephen’s original resume suffered from a common problem – he was trying to tell potential employers too much.

With his new resume, we focused on two main messages:

1) Industry expertise (because he was staying in the same industry).
2) Results (and how he achieved them)!

We used selective bolding and other formatting tricks to emphasize these two points. It’s hard to imagine an employer in the CRM industry not wanting to interview Stephen.

When Peter came to us, he was frustrated at his inability to communicate his value via his resume.

Note how the new resume makes an immediate impact – this is a perfect example of the importance of page layout and design.

We also made use of an ‘executive highlights’ section to point out accomplishments that would otherwise be buried far back in his employment history. Recruiters may only glance at the first page, so it has to be good!

Aaron loved his job as an executive assistant because it brought him right into the heart of what was going on at the top levels of the business. Now he wanted to move to a larger company working for a more senior executive.

Notice the tag line we chose for him – “making life easier for busy executives” – which gets at exactly what hiring managers need and want from an executive assistant.

You’ll see that we added an ‘on the web’ section. If you have professional, well-maintained online profiles, put links to them in your resume. You’ll convey confidence, and your profiles will show more of you than you resume can (just make sure everything on there is professional!)

Note that you won’t find Aaron at these URLs – we have disguised his real name.

Melissa was great to work with because she had really contributed at a high level in her prior jobs, but had not sold herself effectively at all in the past.

When she finished completing the Explorer questionnaire, even she was surprised at just how much she had done!

Notice how the use of color and a simple graphic really makes the resume stand out. (It’s important to give yourself any edge in a competitive job market).

Steven wanted to move out of the game industry and was referred to us by an headhunter who had been unable to market him.

It was clear that Steven’s resume was holding him back. Much of the problem was layout, although the content also needed to be worded more clearly. To help Steven change industries, we played down his video game experience in favor of emphasizing his transferable skills.

We were thrilled when Steven’s recruiter called to say he began to get interviews as soon the new resume went out.

Mona’s original resume was simply a listing of the productions she had worked on. This is a common mistake for artists and animators, who imagine that everyone will know their work.

Never assume! You have to tell people what you’ve achieved because, even if they have heard of your game or movie, they may not know how well-received it was or what awards it won. And they certainly won’t know about your individual contributions.

Mona’s new resume clearly showed her accomplishments. To focus attention on them, we used a ‘professional highlights’ section along with a quote from a famous production executive (name changed here).

Jane made a common error in her original resume. She started by just listing her positions without creating a strong introduction.

The resume introduction is your chance to quickly tell readers the key facts you want them to know. It allows you to set the stage for your career history by positioning yourself effectively.

Without that, you leave employers to draw their own conclusions about you and you have no way of knowing what they will conclude.

Patrick was fun to work with because he had a very strong background and yet wasn’t initially very sure of himself.

Through our ‘Explorer’ process, he began to realize just what an asset he was to potential employers and watching that transformation is always fun.

Throughout the resume, we used accomplishments and quotes from former employers to emphasize the positive impact he had made. With his new resume and his newfound confidence, it wasn’t long before Patrick found a new job at a much higher salary.

Jaycee was looking to continue working freelance and just needed a document to give potential clients.

This gave us the freedom to go outside the boundaries a little bit and we always like those projects,

Note the introduction, which is much more informal than many resumes. That style works in Jaycee’s field and with the clientele she’s appealing to. (This is why keeping your target audience in mind is so important when you write your resume).

The great thing about Luke was that he had a lot to brag about! His political cartoons had been published in major newspapers for years and he had been featured in a ‘best of the year’ book every year for 15 years.

None of this jumped out from his existing resume, so we made sure that those big names were prominent in his new document (any time you can say the Wall Street Journal says you’re great, it beats anything you could say!)

Finally, while completing the Explorer questionnaire, Luke mentioned a compliment he had received from a US Senator. We couldn’t resist that!

Alyssa, like many of our clients, had never needed a resume in the past. She had been hired into each of her prior positions by someone she knew. So we were starting from scratch.

The key to this resume is that it is absolutely packed with results. If you work on web development, everything you do can be measured. You can actually show people the impact you’ve made!

Make the most of this. Write down any successes when they happen, so that you don’t forget them later when you need to write a resume.

Notice how we completely changed the lead-in to this resume. Clive had started with his design education because he felt this would be important for employers to know.

But employers know to look at the end of the resume for education information. If that’s important to them, they’ll find it.

Instead, we started his new resume with a summary of his background and approach, a list of key skills, and some quotes from former client and employers. Much more powerful!

Our strategy for this resume was to position Peter as the expert he undoubtedly is. We wanted readers to quickly understand that he had worked with some of the industry’s top designers.

(For the purpose of this website, we’ve disguised the names, but if we hadn’t done that, trust us you would know these people!)

First we dropped names in the bolded sub-header and then we emphasized their trust in him with the unusual direct quote halfway down the page.

If you have worked with impressive people or big name companies, consider dropping names to impress potential employers.

Paula Heaton was a young artist looking to get a full-time video game industry job. For several years she had freelanced for a foreign video game company while earning her full-time living as a driver.

But on her original resume, this freelance experience got lost. She made herself look like a driver and not an artist.

By selecting what to include and what to omit, we completely changed perceptions about Paula. And yet everything we said is 100% true!

William had very broad writing and editing experience and that worried him. He’d been working as a full-time technical writer while handling more creative work as a freelancer.

His career goal was to return to magazine editing or to run a content-based website. Therefore, we rearranged his work experience so that the relevant information was upfront.

This transformed his resume by minimizing the unrelated technical writing experience and showing employers just how much of his actual work experience related to their needs.

Notice the resume design – this bold but professional design can’t help but stand out when viewed among a pile of less striking resumes. (The black and gray colors were chosen to match Sarah’s online portfolio).

Sarah only has 2 years of full-time experience, but in that time she had much more senior responsibilities than most people her age. We wanted to make sure that message came through loud and clear, hence the job description and overview statement.

Notice the selective use of bolding to draw the eye to key points.

This client’s main concern was that he had done many different types of work, albeit all related to taxes. He felt his background looked too disparate.

We turned that diverse experience into a positive by showing that he was a true expert, who knew tax issues from just about every angle possible.

One recruiter told Peter this was the best resume she had ever seen, and within a few months he landed what he dubbed his’dream job’ running a huge tax department for a major international retailer.

David had an exceptional work history but you’d never know it looking at his old resume!

To bring his qualifications to the forefront, we replaced the outdated “objective” with a strong introduction that shows the value he can add to employers. To inject some life and personality, we included a quote from one of his managers.

Note that we wrote this resume a few years ago so some of the skills are a little outdated, but that’s less important than seeing how we presented them.

Creative accomplishments can’t always be quantified, but they can still be described. With David, we focused on his history of project successes and where possible we used third-party quotes to strengthen the message.

Notice how we set the stage for Larry’s accomplishments by describing the situation when he took the position. This is a very important strategy because without that information the reader wouldn’t be able to appreciate the scope of his accomplishments.

Consider this strategy always, but especially if you have worked in a tough situation where you weren’t able to have the impact you would have liked.

In this case, growing funding 10% might not sound too impressive until you know that when Larry took the job, the situation was dire. Once you know that, you know just how much he achieved.

Our goal for Erin was to show the depth and breadth of her background, so that potential employers and headhunters could quickly see the types of roles she could handle.

Erin was not interested in a status quo position. She wanted to work in a turnaround or growth situation where she could really make an impact.

This goal impacted what we presented and the way we presented it. Note how the introduction gives a sense of someone who is always moving and is very comfortable leading change. Definitely not a person who wants to just keep things the way they are.

Sandy had a great record of success, but his old resume didn’t show it clearly enough. Results were buried and it was hard to tell exactly the type of roles he was qualified for.

We started his new resume with a solid introduction that tells recruiters exactly who he is. The ‘areas of strength’ highlight his core skills both for human readers and electronic databases.

The body of the resume is structured to place the emphasis on results. Each bullet point begins with a business impact and then goes on to explain how he achieved that result. The results are also bolded to draw the eye.

This new resume is designed to address all the concerns of Sandy’s target employers.

Mindy had used one of her graphic designs as a logo on her old resume and we carried that over to the new resume. (Note: this wasn’t it – we have disguised the resume and removed the client’s work.)

It’s important for designers to know that they absolutely must have a resume in MS Word. if you create a resume in Illustrator and do a lot of great design stuff on it before turning it into a PDF, lots of applicant tracking systems won’t be able to read it. Your resume won’t be stored in databases and therefore you won’t be contacted about new opportunities.

Unfortunately Word is quite limiting in terms of design – but there are things you can do as in this case. We used Mindy’s own design and then carried the same colors throughout the resume to keep a consistent look.

Clive was quite new to the workforce and had limited paid experience. But he had much more actual experience than he was taking credit for because his resume didn’t include freelance work he had done since leaving his last employer.

We created a section for that work, presenting it just the way we presented his full-time positions. This allowed us to highlight some interesting freelance projects.

Never leave off contract work when it directly relates to your goals. Especially if you don’t yet have a lot of paid experience.

Oliver came to us needing to update and redo his resume (which hadn’t been rewritten in 8 years). Notice that we transformed the opening of his resume.

His original resume started with an objective statement. This is a common mistake. The problem with an objective statement is that it is all about you, but the employer doesn’t care about you – he cares only about his problems. Your job is to show him that you can solve those problems.

So the new resume focuses on doing just that. Oliver was targeting small design houses, so we focused on his ability to be creative while keeping costs low. Lots of the accomplishments we highlighted relate to this ability.

James needed something a little eye-catching while still being very professional. His resume would be read by CEOs and Board Members and therefore it couldn’t be too crazy. But by using splashes of color, we made sure his resume would be noticed immediately.

One struggle for James was that his more recent company didn’t have a lot of success to talk about. the music industry is struggling and James’ label is no exception.

If this is true for you too, notice how we focused on the positives. Think of it as shining a spotlight on the good things (leaving the not-so-good things in a dark corner where no one will see them!)

Note the introduction to this resume, which doesn’t follow the standard resume format of a solid block of text.

Instead we highlighted key facts that would be important to Sam’s next employer. This is one of the reasons it’s so important to know your target positions. Once you do, you can craft a resume that directly appeals to those people.

By the way, this also has the added advantage of turning off the people you don’t want to work for. In this case Sam wanted a fast-paced company where he could be very creative, so we made that clear in the introduction.