Values and Value-based Resumes

In a discussion on LinkedIn, a poster confused value statements in resumes with statements about values. I included the post after my comments (below) because he made some excellent points.

A value-based (not values-based) resume addresses exactly what the poster said. I do not know who started the use of value statements, but they appear to have taken a lesson from marketing: Instead of just telling the customer (the hiring manager) the products' specifications (your skills and experiences), show him how hiring you will relieve his headaches, make his office sparkle, and put money in his pocket.

Have you met somebody who bored you by talking about nothing but themself? Most job seekers still use self-centered objectives and static lists (or even worse, paragraphs!) to identify all the mundane things they were supposed to have done. In contrast, a value-base resume stands out by letting the hiring manager know that you are the labor-saving, money-making machine that makes him the envy of his corporate neighbors.

Several tactics will help hiring managers see you as the product they can't live without:

• Replace the heading, Objectives, with the title of the position you want. This starts to give you a "brand," creating a mental image of you in the coveted job. It also helps you focus on the job, making it easier to tailor your resume.
   
• Replace the statement of your objectives with a statement about how you will make your employer the one that smiles like "Bob" when he walks around the office. For example, from one version of my wife's resume:

Events Manager

• Events facilitator with training and experience in successfully planning and coordinating events attended by up to 10,000 guests.
• Leads with passion for the mission, flexibility, respect for coworkers and guests, and exemplary ethics.

• Tailor your experience to the opening. Cut out irrelevant tasks. You're going to need the room.
   
• Tweak tasks into accomplishments by adding results that draw a mental picture of your value. For example:

Facilitated successful church and civic events with attendance up to 10,000 and guests such as Phillips, Craig & Dean, the Heritage Singers, and Oliver North.

It is not ironic that I used the most verbiage for a single word, Objective. Using the job title molds the reader's first impression of you and renders unnecessary the old practice of saying, "My objective is to [blah blah blah me me me]." Your resume has mere seconds to grab readers' attention before they move to the next sheet in the stack, so don't waste their time with superfluous labels and statements of the obvious.

Applying the 80/20 rule, 80% of their impression of you will come from the first 20% of their reading. Accordingly, conveying at least 80% of your value in the first 20% of your resume.

The bottom line is that most hiring managers choose someone based on confidence that the candidate will deliver value corresponding to their level of experience and training that meets the hiring manager's need, AND based on perception that the candidate is a good fit for their work environment and position. Fit is based, in part, on the degree of alignment that a candidate presents himself or herself.

The poster offered excellent advice except with respect to values. As he stated, "hiring managers choose someone based on... perception that the candidate is a good fit for their work environment and position." Many corporations, especially those that deal with the central government, stress values. Issues such as ethics, compliance with government regulations, and teamwork can spell success or failure, so you need to say something about how you will support your employer as a good corporate citizen.

Most hiring managers, especially but not exclusively in the secular world, are utilitarian when it comes to hiring rather than values-based. In other words, as a hiring manager do I have confidence that you can do the job better than other candidates? Will you ease my work burden or create more work for me to do? Values, when they are considered at all in hiring, are in reality lower down the chain. The key to your question is to put yourself in a hiring manager's shoes. As a hiring manager what would you look for when sifting through a hundred resumes?

95% of what a hiring manager cares about is a candidate's relevant experience and education to a particular job opening. Everything else, including an objective or value statement, is secondary at best. That being said, if I was to rank objective or value statement, objective would be higher. However, objective should not be a generic statement such as, "Marketing position in a high quality company that values its employees." The objective should be customized to your target job and organization, such as, "Marketing Assistant at Nike." This demonstrates that you want a specific job in a specific company. If you are unsure whether a particular job opening exists in an organization, I advise omitting the objective altogether.

As a hiring manager I want to know that a candidate wants my job opportunity and my organization. I'm less interested in candidates that submit resumes in what I perceive as mass distribution.

The bottom line is that most hiring managers choose someone based on confidence that the candidate will deliver value corresponding to their level of experience and training that meets the hiring manager's need, AND based on perception that the candidate is a good fit for their work environment and position. Fit is based, in part, on the degree of alignment that a candidate presents himself or herself.

Values can be presented with impact when they are incorporated into a cover letter or as measurable performance in a resume. But that's another discussion.