To move your resume to the top of
the applicant pile and land an interview, your resume must be focused. Focused on the competencies desired
by the hiring organization. So let's take a moment to
review the organizational thinking behind competency based hiring. Remember that competencies identify what
top performers do to achieve success. Competences include skills but
they also include abilities and behaviors as well as knowledge that
is fundamental to the use of a skill. You can think of competencies
as the key characteristics that helps successful
performers be successful. Most importantly competencies describe those successful behaviors in
terms that are observable. For example, here is an entry
from a competency dictionary. It describes mid level proficiency
in one area of team leadership. Team leadership is here defined
as taking on a leadership role to help others achieve excellent results. One of the components of
competency at this level is being able to build a strong team. You can see the actions that go into that
from identifying gaps in team expertise to coaching to delegating responsibility. That's just one entry from
a competency dictionary. It might be used for a mid-level manager. I hope you can see from it how an
organization can use a set of competencies to describe the job profile. Just as a blueprint guides
the building of a house, a competency architecture can guide
the development of job descriptions. Such an architecture provides a common
set of rules that create consistency and continuity across every
job in an organization. It gives organizations objective criteria
they can use to evaluate performance. It also gives everyone in
an organization a shared language for talking about job requirements and
work performance. All this has tremendous value. that's why top tier organizations
today use competencies. This is just a short
list of those that do. All these organizations have to
deal with the fact that the cost of hires has gone up,
like the cost of everything else. That means the value of good hires
has gone up, and the penalty for bad hires has gotten worse. It's become more and more important for organizations like
these to make good hiring decisions. That's why they've turned to
competency based systems. That's why behavioral interviews
play such an important role today. The simple fact is the hiring process has
evolved, just like other technologies. And one of the key evolutions is
what you've been learning about, competency-based systems. And you've also been learning throughout
this specialization a fundamental strategy to succeed as a job hunter, namely to think from the perspective
of the hiring organization. Consider this thought,
from computing pioneer Alan Kay. He's well known for his observation that, the best way to predict the future
is to invent it, end quote. But he has this to say about perspective. You can take this to heart especially
when it comes to job hunting. Most candidates think about themselves,
their needs, their wants. But if you can think from the perspective
of the hiring organization you'd be that much smarter and that
much further ahead of the competition. All this is to say, you need to tailor your resume
to the new hiring technologies. More and more organizations use LinkedIn
and other sites to search for candidates. They use competency-based approaches
in their resume screening software. They use competency based
behavioral interviews in managing their hiring decisions. They use competency based training and
competency based pay systems to help them manage their training,
compensation, and promotion decisions. And finally, organizations list positions
with clearly identified competencies. But most candidates
still write resumes and still prepare for interviews
the same way they did in the past. They've not adapted to how employers
today make hiring decisions. And that means that what you
need to do is take the time to position yourself differently
than candidates have in the past. You learned about from the beginning
in this specialization. How to demonstrate your competencies,
how to position yourself for a specific opportunity, how to prepare for behavioral interviews and now,
how to write competency based resumes. You might be wondering if this means
you should tailor your resume for each position that you're responding to. Well, I'd say only if you want
to chance to get the job. Forget about the one-size-fits-all resume. Remember the resume is
a strategic marketing piece, not a tell all autobiography. You don't need to include
every job you ever held. You don't need to list
all your accomplishments. You tailor your entire resume to
support your specific objective. There is absolutely no reason to include
information that doesn't do this. In this day and age, with the technology
you have the only obstacle to creating tailored resumes is your
own willingness to put in the effort. If you're not willing to put in the effort don't be surprised if you're
beaten out by someone who is. In the next lessons, you'll learn the six step approach
to resume writing that I recommend. Your first step is to identify
competencies for the position. The research that you've
learned to do will be key here. Then you'll think about what you've
done that demonstrates expertise or experience with each of the competencies. You'll use your accomplishments journal
together with a self questionnaire, to develop accomplishment statements for
as many of the competencies as you can. Then you'll write a keyword-rich
summary section that emphasizes your experience and strengths related to
the key competencies for the position. You'll personalize that
section to show how your why aligns with the needs
of the hiring organization. You'll determine which resume format
best fits your objectives and write the first draft. You'll then add additional sections for
example education or publications as needed
to flush out the resume. Finally you'll polish the resume for
power and impact. You'll prioritize competency related
phrases in your summary section. And competency based
accomplishments within the resume. You'll deploy power packed action
words to upsell your experience. From there, you'll finalize the resume and prep it in whatever formats you need,
electronic, plain text, hard copy. In the following lessons, you'll see,
they all have their place.