One of the cornerstones of my coaching practice is to work with my clients and to show them how their résumé comes to life by telling their leadership stories of accomplishments instead of the typical one-liner bullets that describe the task they did on any of their jobs. What makes it even more difficult to separate their message from all the others is that they are not able to differentiate between a task, responsibility, experience, assignment, and an accomplishment. As a result most résumés are blasé in their narrative and fail to excite the reader of the possibilities that the writer of the résumé can induce in a reader’s mind.
The other benefit of learning how to write stories of your accomplishments is how it transforms the writer—you! When you are able to write a concise story of your accomplishment in any of your stints (in just two-three lines, instead of the typically one liners that most bullets are) it disciplines you to think about your work and extracting from that just the essence of your contribution that made a difference and an impact in bringing meaning to your work. This is what makes the soul of a great résumé that speaks to your leadership in ways that any other approach does not. I call these stories your Aha! stories.
Here is a Before/After example of how to transform a blasé bullet into an exciting, but concise story of your leadership:
Before:
As the Regional Sales Manager managed a team of 15 and improved sales revenues 25%.
After:
As the new RSM, quickly realized that the downturn was impacting sales. From the team of 20, worked-out five underperformers and mentored the rest to shift their focus on building customer trust. Within just five months sales jumped 25% and the team morale with it.
Here, the After version tells a story of how, despite the downturn, this RSM was able to create action by doing some things that are NOT apparent in the Before version. If you were a hiring manager which story or bullet will get you to call that person?
After reading this example it is easy to see the impact of telling leadership stories in a concise and compelling way. In the process that I have developed for writing an Inductive résumé (a message that induces its reader to think beyond what is presented), I have a structured approach to constructing these stories that works for most people, who have not thought about narrating their stories in this way. But, even without having such a tool you can see that constructing such stories is not that difficult; it just takes more effort. The difference, though, can make a big impact in how your message is read.
The other benefit with such an approach to storytelling is that once people are able to master this technique, they do not do their next job the same way. Now they know that every assignment they have must tell a story. With this mindset their approach to doing their job is transformed.
Hope that this approach works for you in how you tell YOUR story!
Good luck!