1 of 22

Write now Article Tools

When it comes to writing resumes, I'm just too good for my own good. I've gotten jobs I didn't want, jobs I hated, jobs that were fine while I had them and even a few I liked. Never said I was good at keeping jobs, but I know how to get em like nobody's business. Now you have my credentials.

My husband once had his resume laughed at by a potential employer at a pharmaceutical company. I was the one who called to check up on the resume, since my husband was wrapping up his dissertation at the time. The man laughed, snorted in contempt ,(Yes, people actually do that. It's not just something writers say.) and said, "Well, it'd be just fine if he wanted to work for Phillips 66 or Exxon, but we're a pharmaceutical company!"

The problem was that my husband had worked on a petroleum project for his dissertation. Since I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry, I knew exactly how ludicrous the pharmaceutical company was being, and I knew how to fix the problem. I revised the resume (yes, behind every successful man there's a woman telling embarrassing stories about him) completely. All the petroleum stuff had to go. My husband was no longer the man who "researched fuel enhances", he was the man who "performed organic synthesis using both microscale and macroscale techniques". He didn't "test materials" in grad school; he "performed kinetic and thermodynamic experiments using "

I won't bore you with the details, but the simple fact is my husband had skills that applied equally well in the petroleum industry or the pharmaceutical industry. Coming out of graduate school, he had no industrial experience. He wasn't a "petroleum chemist" or a "pharmaceutical chemist". He was just a chemist. By rewriting his resume in terms any chemist could understand, I showed that he was the man for the job (at a better company than the one with the snorting guy).

You might be thinking, "well, of course he did organic synthesis if he made fuel enhancers! Wouldn't a chemist be bright enough to see that if you can make a fuel enhancer you can make a drug?"

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But you would be wrong. The employer has a stack of resumes, and he doesn't want to have to think hard. When he sees the resume that says "made fuel enhancers" next to the one that says "performed organic synthesis", he'll automatically choose the one that seems closer to the job.

Now, if my husband had been applying for petroleum-related work, I would have left the resume as-is. His specific experience would

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Writing an effective resume?
We want to hear your view. Write now!