Change Management & Outcomes, the two essential ingredients in your executive CV.
Most people struggle to prepare a CV. The confident worry to fit everything in, for the introverted, it can be uncomfortable having to promote oneself. CV’s are often written at a time of vulnerability, not always the easiest point to frame positive personal statements.
Writing an executive level CV requires thought and planning. As a leader, your experience is more complex, your past or present command, much broader. So how do you communicate your capability in just two pages? And that should be your limit, two pages. Concise communication is a highly valued executive skill, your CV needs to demonstrate this.
Recruiters vary in how they want to see a CV structured. Some like a skills or competency lead demonstration of your experience, personally I prefer a reverse chronological document. Either way, bullet points are essential with a maximum of eight to ten words for each.
To achieve a concise and informative resumé, plan your content before attempting to put it in to CV format. Leave out any personal information, other than your name and how to contact you. So, no date of birth, nationality (other than to confirm a right to work in the jurisdiction if necessary), photograph or graphics. If you include a link to a social media network, make sure the content is current, written to the same standard as your CV and reflective of the experience you wish to accentuate for the role to which you are applying.
Begin with a short three or four sentence paragraph, to a maximum of 60 words, which summarises your professional life to date. Concise paragraphs are more likely to be read. Write it in the first person and touch on the skills or competencies most relevant to the position for which you are submitting the CV. These might include technical aspects to your work or examples of organisation leadership, but make sure to provide evidence at some point throughout the document that supports their validity.
The core content of your CV is that which shares your work history and experience. The reader is looking for just two elements here; 1. Change Management and 2. Outcomes.
The first of these, Change Management, is telling the reader what you were accountable for. A recruiter for example, will infer that if you were effective with change, you were capable of creating a vision and leading others to the achievement of that vision. This applies to smaller but important task areas like a process change as well as larger scale projects. It allows you to weave in technical skills, team sizes you have managed and initiatives you have delivered.
The second element, Outcomes, explains to the reader what difference did you make, what you actually achieved. The measurable Outcome indicates a level of prowess in the area for which you were accountable.
Plan your content under these two headings of Change Management and Outcomes. Bring the content together in bullet points that share, what you did in the position, and what impact you had. For example, the Change Management heading for a task area in one of your roles might have been to improve production efficiencies. The Outcome would have been measurable efficiency improvement. The bullet point is set out as “Streamlined manufacturing processes for two sites reducing waste by 14%”. A project to automate processes using digitalisation within projected cost and timelines might read as “Led a digital transformation programme improving customer experience, delivering on budget and within timeframe”.
Maintain this format throughout your resumé, using areas of accountability from your Change Management content pool, combined with the result achieved from your Outcomes. Depending on the number of employers you have been with or positions you have held with the one company, keep your bullet points to between five and seven per role.
Complete your executive CV by setting out your education, professional qualifications and professional memberships/affiliations at the end. As a very final step, get someone you trust to proof read it thoroughly. Grammatical or spelling mistakes are not acceptable at your level.
Article written by Michael O'Leary, Chairman, HRM Search Partners.