In the professional resume writing world, we always advise our clients to make their resume tell a story. Usually, we mean for your career trajectory, however while you’re describing that, one of the best storytelling methods to include is the STAR method which stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. Or PAR which is Problem, Action and Result. Most of you have probably heard of these, but never thought to add them to a resume. Maybe you think this method would take up too much room when the normal page count is two (remember it’s the content that matters most), but it can be quite beneficial depending on how many positions you’re listing and if you’re creating a targeted resume. All you simply have to do is tell key information and get to the point.
Here's an example:
Problem:
Two team members left the company and our team of five during the middle of a major project, causing an insurmountable workload for the remaining three.
Action:
I called an emergency team meeting to discuss what we could handle as it was unlikely the previous roles would be filled in time for someone new to be caught up to speed. We divided the work among us, and decided to come in either one hour earlier or stay one hour later every day of our shift.
Result:
We exceeded expectations by completing the project before the deadline and under budget saving the company $18,000 in labor costs and other expenses.
Here’s another one:
Situation:
The software company was losing sales to a competitor during a downturn in the economy.
Task:
We researched not only what the competitor was doing, but also what they were not doing.
Action:
Our findings showed the competitor was great at selling, but they offered little consulting or follow-up customer support. We realized that we regularly offered this, but rarely advertised it. So, we developed a special advertising and marketing team, in addition to additional training for our sales team.
Result:
Sales doubled within just two months and by the end of the year, boosted our ranking for sales volume and exceptional customer support to. We also created a new revenue stream by selling tiers of support services.
Get the idea? Notice I went into just enough detail to paint the picture (tell the story), letting the reader know that I have problem solving skills, and that I can help save time and money.
Of course, these are just two very minor examples, but when you create your own, you will want to make sure you find the pain points of the company you’re targeting and show the value you bring.
For more info. check out BluePrint Career Group and click on samples for your career level.