Rewriting Your Resume

August 30, 2017
Annette Maggi
Career Development

By RDBA Executive Director Annette Maggi, MS, RDN, LD, FAND

Whether you’re trying to enter the retail dietetics field, apply for a promotion within your retail company, or looking for your next role, ensuring your resume is up-to-date is crucial.  This applies not only to your roles and responsibilities but also to style and format, and how you position your key accomplishments.  Consider these tips to refresh your resume:

• Being good at your job is one thing, but effectively translating it to a resume is another. For example, a resume can say you were a clerk at a grocery store or it can say you took responsibility for end-caps and increased product sales by 15%.  Both may be accurate, but the second one defines the result and is clearly written by someone who understands the big picture of retail financial goals and business.  The second is also more likely to get this person a job in management.  Spend time thinking about your key responsibilities and the impact they have on your retailer’s business, and write your resume through this lens.
• Talk about achievements not duties.  While a duty describes what you did, an accomplishment explains how well you did it, and these results are what really matter on a resume.  Focusing on accomplishments tells the hiring manager what your capable of doing in your next role.  In your accomplishments, use as many facts, figures and numbers as you can.  For example, by what percentage did you exceed your goal?  What has been the sales lift of your various programs?  How many shoppers have you reached?
• Focus on those things that set you apart.  It’s essential on your resume to highlight how you went above and beyond the responsibilities of your position.  What problems did you solve? What new programs or processes did you initiate and lead? What awards – internal or external – have you won?
• Include social media in contact information.  The majority of job recruiters will view your social media channels before deciding whether to hire you, so make it simpler for them by including links to your social channels (including LinkedIn) as a part of the contact information on your resume.

The goal of your resume is to tell your unique, individual story in such a compelling way that hiring managers want to meet you.  Following these tips will help you stand out from the crowd and convince hiring managers you have something special to bring to a position.