Competency-Based Resumes: How to Bring Your Resume to the Top of the Pile

Millions of job hunters and employers are frustrated. Why aren't they working together more effectively? Because employers have changed the job-search playing field and too many candidates are using yesterday's strategies.Do you want the key to the best jobs with the best employers? It's time to play offense instead of defense. Competency-Based Resumes shows today's job candidates a new, more targeted way to write resumes to get them back on the same playing field with the best employers and improve their odds of winning the job they want. The system an employer uses when filling jobs has changed significantly in the past few years, and it is still evolving. Rather than simply looking at an applicant's past jobs, companies are instead looking at candidate's experiences in certain key areas--including measurable work habits and the personal skills, known as competencies, used to achieve objectives at work.

Competency-Based Resumes offers you a new and effective way to create resumes that emphasizes the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have and employers need. Many sophisticated U.S. and international organizations are using competency-based systems to recruit, interview, select, and promote. Corporations such as American Express, Coca-Cola, Sears, and MetLife are all looking for specific competencies. Creating your own competency-based resume will:-- Confirm to the employer that you have the expertise--or competencies--they are looking for.-- Improve your chances of being selected for interviews for the position you want.-- Help you to be perceived as being more competitive.-- Enable you to explain sticky areas in your background in a more positive way. Most applicants do not know how to apply for jobs based on this new dynamic. Few candidates write their resumes so their critical competencies are obvious. Competency-Based Resumes will move your resume to the top of the pile, giving you the edge you need in any job market, no matter how competitive.

Robin Kessler is currently president of The Interview Coach, a human resources and career consulting firm in Houston, Texas. She has more than 20 years experience improving interviews, resumes, presentations, and organization communications as a human resources professional, consultant, career coach, and adjunct professor. Kessler is author of Competency-Based Interviews and Competency-Based Resumes, the first books to teach people to write their resumes and prepare for interviews considering the competencies employers are looking for. She has trained managers and employees to write effective, competency-based statements on their performance reviews and to communicate about competency-based accomplishments. She has her B.A. and M.B.A. from Northwestern University.