So far I have:
Any thoughts?
Way too heavy on the needlessly wordy corpspeak. It sounds canned, and self-inflated, like you’re trying to hide the fact that you don’t have much to say. Just say it straightforward.
Based on 7 years’ experience in HR, which I must confess doesn’t include recruiting for positions like yours, but I have heard opinions from lots of other HR folks.
This seems a little too vague and jargony. A couple of suggestions
Put the Project Manager bullet first, this tells what kind of job you are a fit for.
Make the 3 sentences into bullet points, not a paragraph.
More specifics, without getting wordy. Are these ERP solutions? What kind of cost savings and operational enhancements? Recovering payables? Eliminating manufacturing defects? The idea here is to get the specific words they are looking for in front of their face right away. You may want to tailor this a little for each company you apply to (example, list manufacturing defects if you have that experience only if applying to a manufacturer).
Take all the -ings off your verbs. “Who manages and executes” not “managing and executing.”
“This sounds like dirty water being forced out of a hole in a burst rubber ball.”
–Flann O’Brien, Irish humorist, critiquing some convoluted Old French legal-speak
And how do you do that? Write “I don’t have much to say”? :rolleyes: That’s just bound to impress.
Then again, if you know the culture of the company you’re applying to, and that they get off on windy multisyllabillicisms and value an ability to say much while imparting little, this might just be your key to a nice cushy position with one’s nasal cavities filled by the 'crack of The Man.
Of course, that’s not what I meant. I meant say what you (OP) do straightforward, instead of hiding it in a bunch of meaningless jargon because then it sounds like you don’t have anything to say and are trying to hide it. Obviously he does have something to say, and should just say it.
Resumes styles change over time. A prefect resume 5 years ago does not meet todays standards. For example:
Objective - More properly in the cover letter and not the resume. If you want to put one in the resume that’s fine especially if it fills out a sparce resume.
Job description - verbose is bad, bullet points are good. don’t just tell me what your title was, tell me what you did.
“Reference will be available on request” - Duh! todays resumes leave this off.
Harriet, you should make extra money helping people do their resumes.
Well, one problem I see right away is that those are not sentences in any language. At least have a subject and a predicate.
Resumes (at least the ones I’ve ever read or written in the States) use almost exclusively that format of grammar. Very basic, no usage of “I” or “me”, etc. Very fragmented.
I’m going to add another “Why even have this in the resume at all?” vote. I don’t have loads and loads of experience in hiring, but I have done a little, and I didn’t have much interest in seeing an objective listed on the resume. I kind of figured that the objective boiled down to “I want this job!” anyway.
This opening sounds like bullshit to me. It makes me suspicious you don’t do anything, because there’s nothing specific. And two of the three things that are punctuated as sentences discuss “solutions”, which sounds like a trendy way of saying “nice things”. You’re asking for eyerolls, here.
I think you should specify more exclusive things - you improve plant efficiency in a union-dominated environment, or you get multinational technical groups to work consistently together on a single best approach, or you can improve profit and loss for value-added resellers on both short term and long term bases. That’s fair - you probably aren’t better at everything - tell them what particular blend of advantages you are offering. You’re best at long term technology development, and they can guess you’re not into marketing? Great. If that’s what they want, you’re the one. If it isn’t, you would have been miserable anyway. Give them information that is useful. Good people value that - giving them something useful in the first ten seconds they know you is starting off on the right foot.
If you want every single person who sees this to want to hire you, well, maybe you can offer a witch-hazel rubdown and a blowjob, I don’t know. I don’t like that strategy. Business is the art of informed compromises, and your opening isn’t useful for that.
I think it’s a summary, not an objective. I’ve seen several resumes come my way that use that format. They have a summary at the top, sometimes followed by a bulleted list of core competencies, then a chronological list of positions held including responsibilities and accomplishments. The chronological list is where you get the details. The idea is that a summary gives a busy reader the chance to see what you’re all about in one quick glance. Details are provided later in the document.
It is a bit “jargon-y”, but a project management position may be one that often uses a lot of jargon. If the job description has a lot of jargon in it, they may be looking for those key words. I would watch some of your jargon. You say things like “executing” and “managing” in the same sentence. I’m not sure if they’re different. Also, you don’t mention anywhere that you may have initiated or developed the plans.
I think I may ditch it altogether.
I only made this part up because it’s included in a lot of the sample resumes I found on the web, like this one:
All of the other project managers will love it and wish they had used it for their own.
But then, project managers are like that.
I’m sure there are jobs for which that’s not appropriate. And you’ll need to tailor away from that style in those jobs. But if you’re looking for the kind of job I think it’s for (technical project manager), replace one of the “solutions” and it should be fine.
Just reading that makes me want to punch you in the nose.
Just so you know, I was a Project Manager before I went on hiatus, and I didn’t love it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been a PM that I recognized it as being a fancy, wordy way of saying not alot.
Whereas for me, I fell asleep after about word three. Just woke up a few minutes ago.
I have mentioned this site a couple times on the boards since someone mentioned it in another thread. It looks like a good resume builder.
But seriously…that is one el-crappo opening statement. Toss it all out and start over. Please.
My thoughts echo others.
What you are trying to say:
#1. Project Manager
#2. Developed organizational changes
#3. Reduced costs
#4. Increased productivity.
My quick and dirty re-write
“Project manager with experience in developing and implementing business wide organizational changes that enhance operational effectiveness and reduce costs.”
Note, that may suck*. I am not an HR person nor a resume expert. But it is shorter, to the point and covers most of your points. I didn’t include anything about being ‘result driven’ because you list the results.
Slee
*I hate writing my resume, and I am rewriting mine now so looking at yours gives me a chance to think about how to word stuff.