A lot of young professionals ask me to review their resumes after getting frustrated in their nonprofit job search. They send their applications out to a bunch of openings, yet never get called for an interview. I feel for them. The nonprofit job market seems a lot more competitive now than when I got my first nonprofit job eight years ago. At my last job, we received 200 applications for an entry level, administrative position we were hiring for. But even though we were inundated with resumes, it was still pretty easy to spot the “A level” ones because most of them were either average or just plain sucked.
See the problem?
You could be the most talented, experienced candidate with the friendliest personality from here to the Aloha State, but if your resume doesn’t reflect that, there’s no way you’re getting close to hired. Many young professionals make the mistake of simply listing everything they ever did in their previous positions, all the way down to making copies as an intern and mopping the floors as a restaurant worker in college. All the while, the hiring manager is reading this sucky resume, wondering, “is this supposed to impress me?” I know, I know, you may think you have to fill in space on your resume if you don’t have much experience. But you should take comfort in the fact that it’s not so much about how many years of experience you’ve had, but what you’ve accomplished in each particular position you’ve held.
Don’t Focus on Duties
- Prepared packets for meetings
- Made copies of important documents
- Researched information on the Web
- Scheduled important meetings
- Supported program staff
- Answered phones
- Opened mail
- Mopped floors, vacuumed the office, kept the kitchen tidy
Focus on Accomplishments
- Developed or created X program
- Supervised X volunteers or interns
- Managed X process from start to finish
- Organized the very first X committee
- Implemented X new activity for my student organization
- Took X program from X number of participants to X in less than a year
- Reorganized X procedure and saved the organization X dollars
- Facilitated the launch or expansion of X, Y & Z
Which of the above impresses you more, the list of duties or accomplishments? That’s what I thought. If you’re job searching, start thinking from the perspective of the hiring organization. They want someone who can come in and produce results; they don’t really care about how wonderfully you opened the mail or mopped floors in the past. So, don’t waste your time telling them!
If your nonprofit resume sucks, you may want to consider having it reviewed by a resume coach like the fabulous Elisa Ortiz or ask one of your close colleagues to read it and give you honest feedback.
What are some ways you’ve improved your nonprofit resume?
