What comes to your mind when you hear the word resume? If your answer is a short, prosaic summary of your professional career comprised of boring phrases listed in bullet points within 1–2 pages, then your answer is correct.
Sadly this is what most recruiters want us to do: to make their decision easier and select the ideal candidates within a jiffy. Naturally job seekers want to stand out with something, which is usually the appearance of their resume.
But there are other methods to convince hiring managers; and one such method is storytelling.
Believe it or not, storytelling is one of the most effective ways to draw the HR manager’s attention to you. The reason is pretty simple: just like the speakers of ancient Rome, if you can tell something in an effective way people will stop and listen to you. And if you storify your accomplishments instead of writing them down in the most prosaic way possible, you can not only draw the readers in, but you also reveal something about yourself. Thus the hiring manager will get to know you even before you actually meet.
If you have a big gap in your professional career and/or you are a career-starter/senior/employee with several years of experience you must apply this technique. However, if none of the above is true, you can still apply storytelling to your resume. If you manage to write a convincing story of your achievements, you will very likely convince hiring managers to call you for an interview.
The storytelling technique should be about you and you only; you are not writing about a third party, but yourself, so your story should include you.
Next, decide what to write about. Think about a situation in which you achieved something and tell it in a story in the following way: describe the situation, explain the problems you encountered, what you did to come up with a solution, what were the results and then conclude your story with an evaluation. For instance: a losing company was turned around because you reorganized customer service by introducing a new technique, thus the company finally balanced out profit and loss.
And last, but not least: practice a lot. Remember: you are not writing a novel, so fancy words are (thankfully) not needed, but you have to find the right words to effectively tell your professional achievements.
Of course they are! If the resume builder has customizable sections with text boxes you can simply write your story therein and add it to your resume with a few clicks. In fact, this software has additional text-only sections in which you can simply write anything you want – including the story you want to tell.
Furthermore, some software can give you useful tips and hints about what to include in these sections, so you will always know where to put your story with which you won’t win a Nobel-prize, but something more valuable: a job.
Share your thoughts, ask questions, and connect with other users. Your feedback helps our community make better decisions.
©2012-2026 Best Reviews, a clovio brand –
All rights
reserved
