By Mark Oppenheim
This article is intended to help executives interested in leading nonprofits to refresh their resumes. We’re holding a free live Resume Clinic on July 17 (click here to register), and there are opportunities for individual counseling (click here for details).
Career-disrupting forces are at work in today’s economy, causing nonprofit, business and government leaders to reassess and reset their orgs and careers. Changes to government policy & funding, consumer tastes, tariffs and rollout of AI have created a perfect storm of factors leading to career changes and organizational challenges.
In a certain sense it doesn’t matter why people and orgs are in reset mode – we just all have to navigate. So let’s discuss key points to consider when you require a resume refresh as you seek a nonprofit or other leadership role.
We suggest doing your resume refresh using a three step process:
1 – Know what you want
2 – Know what they want
3 – Produce a resume showing you will deliver what they want
Step 1 – Know what you want
Most people entering or re-entering the job market start with assumptions based on what they have done in the past. The positions we consider can fall into set categories, at a particular salary or seniority level, in a particular geography, and in a particular sector or function. Following past practices is a kind of conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom can be a wise way to go.
But sometimes “conventional wisdom” is unfulfilling, unremunerative, boring and ultimately unsatisfying in terms of how we want to spend our limited time on this Earth. It can amount to career autopilot, where the next years of work will simply amount to an unremarkable repetition of unfulfilling past jobs.
We talk daily with accomplished people who initially resist a big change in their career, work or salary level. Some go so far as to see ANY big change as a personal failure of sorts. I’ve been there myself. Yet after embracing change, their (our) attitude can be, “I was so reluctant to give up anything, reluctant to try anything really new, that I never really processed WHY I was doing what I was doing.” Change can be really difficult, so when there’s no choice but to change it’s important to take a moment and consider: What do I REALLY want?
What are your values? Where do you want to live? What do you want to do? Who do you want to work with? What kind of business culture do you want to work in? What kind of life/work balance do you wish to have? What kinds of values and causes do you want to advance?
There are also career questions. What kind of a work day do you want? Do you enjoy managing, analyzing, facilitating, coaching others or selling? Do you want or need power or recognition? What competencies do you want to exercise and acquire? Do you care about career path, and if so what career path do you want? How much money do you need to earn, and what sacrifices are you willing to make to earn that money?
Knowing what you want, what you REALLY want, is so very important to writing a resume. It will help you target certain jobs. Knowing what you really want will help you in the interview process and in negotiations. After all, YOUR purpose during a job hunt is getting what YOU want. If you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.
So take your time. Talk with friends, family and others. Above all, figure out what you want and need, what will make you happiest, where your center lies.
Step 2 – Know what they want
Those hiring have a set of challenges or problems they need solved. They seek people who can solve those problems. It’s that simple. To a reader of resumes, your resume isn’t about you. It’s about them. It’s about, “can this candidate give me what I want.”
Different people who are hiring want different things.
Some people hiring want candidates with certain technical competencies. Others value loyalty above all else, or team members around them that provide positive reinforcement (“you’re so brilliant boss”). Some only care about accomplishments and track record, not so much about workflows. Others focus strongly on methods by which results were delivered. Those hiring might value a candidate’s existing networks, their intellectual heft, their ability to influence others, name recognition, ability to drive revenue, a candidate’s status within the sector, their political connections or their ability to spin a tale that engages others.
The point here is that writing an effective resume involves knowing what might motivate and interest the reader. What motivates the person hiring also might indicate a good match for you. You can tailor resumes that are better at connecting with particular readers who are hiring and to particular kinds of work environments.
Hiring done through a Board, Committee or Human Resources department is more complicated for candidates, because different people involved in a hiring decision might have different, even conflicting, priorities and candidate evaluation criteria.
Regardless, you will be seriously considered for a job for just one reason: the evaluator feels that you will deliver exactly what those hiring want.
Know what that is before you construct your resume.
Step 3 – Produce a resume showing you can deliver what they want
A resume is a technical document with one purpose: to convey that you are THE solution. You will deliver what the person hiring wants. This means that the resume isn’t really about you. As stated above, to the reader your resume is about them.
So your resume isn’t about your life story, recreational interests or family. It’s not about writing style or fancy formats. It isn’t about pictures, icons, tables, columns, fonts, lines, colors or flowery writing filled with adjectives and self-complimenting language. A resume conveys, “here is evidence that I can give you what you want.”
The resume must be accurate and true, not embellished. On occasion we find a real disconnect between what is in a resume and what others say about a candidate. It’s always a problem when that happens. Be careful to make claims in resumes that others will verify in reference checks.
The resume should use your voice, not that of a resume writer or an AI. We sometimes receive resumes whose content doesn’t match the language used by the candidate in interviews. When resumes employ words a candidate doesn’t use, describe workflows differently than a candidate does, or highlight responsibilities that go unmentioned by the candidate in the normal flow of conversation… it’s a red flag. Our clients have us filter out candidates that require an AI or intermediary to communicate, because such candidates will often not have the kind of communication skills required for the job and their claimed knowledge and accomplishments can turn out to be deficient.
Candidates who construct and really know their own material have a distinct advantage over those that outsource their resumes.
Here are some other resume basics:
- Include your name in larger font and keep everything else one font size – 11pt is easily read when printed, and people still tend to print out resumes for interviews. Be sure to include your name, city, state and/or country where you live (a street address isn’t needed), an email address and phone number.
- If you start your resume with a thematic statement, use something unique to you, and be specific. Everyone is a, “…mission driven strategist and entrepreneur who builds high performing teams that deliver successful outcomes and strong finances.” When everyone uses the same non-specific, adjective-loaded descriptions about themselves, they might as well drop the language because it has no impact on the hiring decision.
- A resume should be in reverse chronological order so that readers hiring know what you accomplished, for whom, when and in what setting. Forget about a resume organized around function across career stints. We’ve yet to find anyone hiring who likes those.
- Let the resume breathe – don’t make it an edge-to-edge claustrophobic affair. Have reasonable margins, space between separate points, etc. Don’t have big blank spaces either. Resumes need to be easy to navigate, functional and correct.
- “Long enough” is relative – there’s no need to squeeze things into two pages, so you can have a 4 page or longer resume if the experiences and accomplishments listed will be of interest to readers. Academic and arts resumes can include really long lists of publications and credits. We suggest having such elements as an attachment. The reality is that those hiring will move on if they don’t find what they need in the resume, or if a resume contains information that is irrelevant or unimportant to the reader.
- Some people omit long-past experience, but we don’t suggest that. We like insight into how careers developed and so do our clients. That said, not every detail is needed for long past jobs.
- Cite facts and numbers where you can. The eye tends to rest on numbers, so be sure to use them.
- If a point won’t get you selected for the job you want, consider omitting it.
Most important is knowing what will sway your audience.
If your audience wants to hire someone with certain technical knowledge, you must include indicators of technical knowledge into your resume. This might include degrees, lists of publications, descriptions of workflows, speeches, honorary and board positions held, exhibitions curated, software applications used, instruments played, plays directed, white papers written.
On the other hand, when the people hiring care only for bottom line results delivered in a particular context, name those results and their context and leave detail for the interview. When those hiring value who you know and your existing network, convey that in the resume or during the interview. Bottom line: if you know what the person hiring wants and what you want, you can shape a resume that triangulates between the two. Readers of resumes will certainly want to know what you accomplished. What difference did you make? At the very least, your resume should convey four things: what you know, your unique value proposition, what you have accomplished, and the context for those accomplishments.
Conclusion
We’ll go over more of this during the July 17 Resume Clinic. There will also be more articles and webcasts on such topics… and of course you can always call us. For now, I’ll just leave you with one final thought.
Most of us just want a solution, and that is true for those hiring who will read your resume. Your resume should be designed to convince those hiring that YOU are their very best solution!
We’re holding a free live Resume Clinic on July 17 (click here to register), and there are opportunities for individual counseling (click here for details).
To recruit nonprofit c-suite leaders & staff or for strategy support services, email info[@]moppenheim.com or call (415) 762-2650.