The Goal:
Christine came to me with the goal of securing a promotion to advance her career in the healthcare field. She had worked as a nurse for 12 years in 3 different facilities and was seeking to take the next step in her career and become a Clinical Nurse Manager in the Intensive Care Unit. Christine did not have an original résumé to work from, and instead provided a list of the positions she had held and the related responsibilities and achievements. The lists for each position were similar and resembled the following:

Sentara, Virginia Beach General
Job Title- Nurse/educator
Dates of employment 4/00-5/01
Daily Responsibilities
Educated patients for pre and post open heart surgery
Educated patients for pre and post pacemaker procedure
Educated patients for cardiac interventions
Educated patients of cardiac medications

Accomplishments
Served on Cardiac rehab research committee
Was selected to attend Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Conference

The Plan:
Differentiating nursing professionals is often quite difficult as I find my nursing clients struggle to delve deep into their experiences to identify the additional value they contributed over and above patient care. However, as a résumé writer, and perhaps more importantly my client's advocate, I take my job of differentiating my client's candidacy very seriously. Christine and I spent time reviewing her background at length, discussing her contributions over and above direct patient care, and uncovering what made her truly unique and equipped to take this next step in her career.

From my consultation with Christine, I was able to build an engaging, thorough presentation of her background. By utilizing a softer font, a very balanced aesthetic, and some light color on her résumé, my goal was to further engage the hiring manager who would be spending a considerable amount of his/her day reading résumés from candidates who probably had very similar backgrounds. As is the goal with any client/candidate, I utilized these strategies, and the content that I developed, to differentiate Christine and separate her from the hundreds of other qualified applicants.

The Result:
Not long after Christine's project was complete she was kind enough to write and say, I got the job. [My husband] and I are thrilled. Thank you for the perfect résumé. I received many compliments on the résumé. Thank you!

When developing your résumé, taking the time to really understand how you are different and uniquely qualified is key. Serving as the foundation to your ability to do this is an understanding of where you are headed in your career and what that hiring audience is going to be seeking in their next recruit. When you couple these two areas of knowledge together, the outcome will be a stronger, more targeted, and much more effective résumé.

View Christine's job-winning résumé at www.ladybug-design.com/blog

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