CV Wow Factor

Here's what Daniela Mamica, Aspire recruitment agency’s Executive Director of Media, Marketing and Technology, says makes the difference for a winning CV.

They highlight outcomes in role descriptions.

“For me, this is the wow factor on any CV. It separates good candidates from brilliant ones. CVs shouldn’t just be a list of what you did. They should detail how you did it and the difference you made.”

Upon reading this I realised I'd seldom seen such treatment when scanning CVs.

The format typically runs;

Sales Manager, XYZ Corp, 'n' years

With the first line of what lies underneath beginning something like;

Managed HUGE territory ...

What Daniela prefers to see is perhaps more along the lines of;

Raised revenue X% from $Ym to $Y+m as Sales Manager @ ...

Given that most salespeople these days surely know to state what they do in stark terms of the bottom line, I suspect that there's usually an attempt at this styling.

In fact, you might say us solution sellers led the way in this approach.

Adapting the language of metrics - the monetary quantification of an outcome - from what product we sell to when we pitch ourselves to potential employers.

Yet what this recruitment reminder gave me, was the idea to maybe work on how we frame such doings and differences made.

I often discuss with solution sellers that the bigger the number they trumpet, the less it tends to stick with the prospect.

Because enormity can be a struggle to picture. Billions can blur into one indistinguishable mush.

When you deliberately ignore the macro and instead promote the micro, your impact can conversely actually grow.

Decreasing the amount can increase your value.

In a market where most will display their credentials in numbers with several zeroes, to stand out you may simply need to offer the alternative of a smaller, more precise, yet crucially everyday relatable, number of your own.

It could be from a mere slither of your activity.

But remember, its use is only for your 'title' line. You can easily expand in your bullets or prose below.

You may well have been part of a team that raised sales from whatever-millions to evermore-millions.

Surely anyone could say the same.

How many though, could lay claim to say;

Won first 'n' clients for brand new 'product-x'
Solely responsible for slicing y-months off typical deal cycle time
Added 1.2 to till-ring(/AOV) for deals in 'sector-z'

Anything similar to these that is not your standard 'increased sales by' feels both more distinctive and prone to jolt the reader into being interested in you over others.

Breaking the expected pattern truly working in your favour.

You can extend this parallel into presenting what you do.

I myself learned from the start of my cubrep days never to have a presentation title slide with your name, job title and company logo.

Leading either when 'warm' with what the prospect hoped to achieve in their own words or if going in 'cold' (not really advisable), a measure of where you outshine others in the minds of buyers. The former often simply a line about where they wanted to go. The latter quantifying an element where we made measurable, proven improvement.

Again, where competitors seek to bedazzle with oversized toplines, you can better sparkle with bijou believability.