Keywords: Lean Six Sigma, Continuous improvement
Reaching to the dream destination by passing the career years in a minimum possible time frame is hallmark of an ambitious professional. And as the adage goes “The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation”.
Nowadays increasingly fierce market competition focuses on quality. Only through the pursuit of high-quality products and services, it is possible to have competitiveness.
The travails of job hunt kick starts with the creation & floating of a document called Bio data or résumé which ought to be trailblazer to face the fiery furnace of brutal competition.
Your résumé is a real estate, utilising each inch of space for the portrayal of your calibre is an art which can’t be an overnight affair rather a continuous improvement process till it gets noticed for its deserving net worth in the job market.
Six Sigma is a comprehensive system for process improvement through which you measure how many defects are in a process, how you can figure out and systematically eliminate them and get as close to perfection as possible.
One of the popular process improvement methodologies that is a part of Six Sigma is DMAIC, which consists of: Define, Measure, Analysis, Improve and Control. Originally Six Sigma was first incorporated into manufacturing industries; but this methodology received well acceptance in other walks of life too. The benefits of Six Sigma philosophy can very aptly be implemented in crafting a qualitatively & compelling résumé by applying following 4 tools:
Self-adulation
Get rid of all self-describing adjectives, which no one believes, and which even you would not believe if they were on the résumé you were reading that belonged to someone you had never met. The beginning of your résumé needs to be eye-catching, rather than something that makes you indistinguishable from everybody else. Otherwise, you simply will not get the job.
Filled with self-praise and overstatement is more demaging than a misspelled résumé or addressing the recruiter by the wrong name during an interview. Slice out any and all boastful adjectives and phrases as recruiters have no room for candidates who describe themselves in excessive ways.
Fancy fonts are harder to read. That translates into the reader absorbing less of what has been written. When you use script fonts as a way to make your résumé look “classier,” you are only making it harder for the hiring manager to retain what you are all about.
Skip the script font and go with something clean-lined, like Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri. While that may look more basic, the hiring manager will at least take in more and that can lead to the phone call you want.
Always keep in mind: Your résumé is your marketing document. Paying attention to these minor details can help you get a better response to your marketing message.
Verbosity
Being verbose is one of the cardinal sins of designing a résumé. By being too wordy, job seekers end up using more words than are necessary to convey an idea, causing the reader to take more time than necessary to follow your thoughts, causing immense confusion. Not only is a verbose résumé difficult to read, it is visually unappealing.
Many people assume they should list everything they have ever done at every job. It makes them feel like they are proving they have got valuable experience. Well, in reality, it detracts from your core message and strengths. Information overload to a recruiter is not a way to stand out. It is actually the fastest way to get in the ‘no’ pile. That is because, when they see you have listed everything, they look for every single skill they need. And, if even one skill is missing, they assume you do not have it.
The best idea is to simplify the résumé, to list only the key skills you want to leverage. Then you will be implying that you have a lot more to offer but less is more. If the hiring managers like what they see, they will contact you to get more details. And that is exactly what you want the resume to do: Make the phone ring!
Never approach résumé writing generically. Always remember to approach it keeping the perspective of the recruiter a top-most priority, so that in effect, you will be the employer’s top-most priority when being considered for the position
Most job applicants fail to understand the importance of brevity and clarity in outlining their credentials and job experience. Remember, a recruiter needs to sift through hundreds of résumés and if yours contains vast amounts of irrelevant content, then it is definitely going into the garbage pile.
Value Additions
A most often repeated recommendation when it comes to updating your résumé is to focus on accomplishments instead of duties. Duties state what you did while accomplishments demonstrate how well you did. Duties certainly let a Recruiter to know the scope of your role; Accomplishments go a step further by illustrating your ability to complete potential assignment.
Accomplishments paint a vivid picture of your impact at each job you’ve held. There are many ways to quantify your success—from asking “how much or how many” to simply comparing your job this year to your work or the work of a predecessor’s from previous year.
However, to better emphasize what you specifically bring to the table, you need to dig a bit deeper. Start by making a list of all of your duties, then for each one ask yourself: “What is the evidence that this was done successfully and what actions did I have to take to make this happen?”
Curating your accomplishments is not just about choosing the best ones, it is about choosing the best ones for the job you want to have. A longer list does not impress if most of the points on it are unrelated to the job, so align your accomplishments to what would be assets in the new job.
Actionable words
Your résumé is your signature, indirectly it depicts your temperament & personality hence you must characterize yourself as a highly motivated, aggressive & charged up candidate. Which is possible only through choosing actionable words for the résumé. Words are of paramount importance, but most employers are looking for real results that back them up. Therefore, it is imperative to articulate any positive attainment by using impactful words. Because seeing the less emphatic words and catch phrases used might incite yawns and eye rolls from the very people that job searchers are hoping to impress. According to the experts, the key to an eye-catching résumé is strong and memorable language.
In the process of job search a recruiter is your customer and presenting self-profile in the most flawless manner should be your attempt since on the way to perfection, quality cannot be compromised. Abiding the above tenets will surely fetch not only your résumé but to you to the interview table and I am sure you will come up there with flying colours.
