Page 150 - Marky Stein - Fearless Career Change_ The Fast Track to Success in a New Field (2004)

Fearless Career Change

When making a career change, you should probably use a
chronological format, which is contrary to the traditional advice
given to job searchers. I recommend chronological because in my
experience, employers strongly prefer a chronological format. Please
refer to the sample résumé later in this chapter for an example.

How to Write Your Fearless Career
Change Résumé

According to several surveys of hiring managers and human
resources professionals in larger Fortune 500 companies, as many
as 1,500 résumés can pile up on one person’s desk in as little time as
a week.

These managers, department heads, and human
resource professionals admit that they read only
about the first five or six lines at the top of the
résumé—about three to seven seconds’ worth!

That means that we must get the employer’s attention within that
crucial seven seconds of that first look. Here’s how to do it.

Streamline Your Objective
The first step in preparing your résumé to grab the reader in the
first few seconds is to streamline your job objective (see sample
résumé). Several years ago, it was popular to write objectives that
sounded something like this:
Seeking a challenging position that will leverage my interperson-
al skills, business savvy, and technical know-how to make a signifi-
cant contribution to the company, with the potential for continu-
ous growth and advancement.
How long did it take you to read that sentence? About two or
three seconds? Well, once that time is over, so is your first chance
at “hooking” the employer’s attention.
A fearless career change résumé uses only a job title to express the
objective. That way, the employer knows immediately what you want and

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