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Crafting A Resume To Highlight Your Competitiveness

If your resume portrays your accomplishments with vividness and clarity, it is already successful. However, for many industries, a healthy dose of competitiveness tactfully portrayed is an attractive quality - so if your resume highlights how you surpass your peers, all the better.

To portray this edge in your resume, first, keep the details of fairly obvious job responsibilities to a minimum. For example, for an investment banking analyst, that means foregoing the nitty-gritty of the financial analysis and modeling that virtually all analysts do. Or for a legal assistant, skip the list of research sources you are familiar with, impressive though it may be. These types of experiences only show you to be "on par" with your peers - competent, but not a standout.

Instead, present your resume points in the context of three factors:

Leadership. Look for times in your work experience when you presented a solution or sought a change that surpassed the scope of your defined role, and then worked to gain support and engage others in implementing it. When you write about this innovation in your resume, make sure to specify how it exceeded the requirements of your job.
Impact. Did you complete a tough assignment successfully? Congratulations, but that won't lift you out of the "competent" and into the "standout" category. Look for times in your work experience when you made an identifiable impact that went beyond expectations or requirements. In presenting such experiences, note the difference between the anticipated and the actual outcome, and quantify if possible.
Advancement. Have you assumed responsibilities that are usually shouldered by people with more experience or of a higher organizational rank? Or been promoted faster or higher than your company guidelines provide for? If so, make sure your resume reflects that fact explicitly.

Handling these three factors as suggested will make you stand out among your competitors, not just for your distinctiveness, but, frankly, for your power to succeed. Your reader will conclude, "A winner."

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers

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