The Multi-Dimensioned Resume: A Primer

The success of your resume as a useful job seeking tool depends on its ability to get selected by a resume screener (e.g., recruiter or hiring manager) in a competitive field of candidates. This competitive field has drastically increased not only due to economic conditions, but also from the mass adoption of online recruitment, and its current iteration, social recruiting. To write a resume that can hold up against the competition compels a job candidate to go beyond one's personal career biography (employment history) to produce a multi-dimensioned document that is not only visible in a resume or social database, but is eminently persuasive. While writing a multi-dimensioned resume appears to be a complex task, it isn't if you plan your writing accordingly.

The Foundations of a Multi-Dimensioned Resume

Multi-dimensioned resumes are built on three foundations. They are:

• Communication
• Technical
• Persuasion

The communication dimension emphasizes clear, concise writing that is grammatically correct (this includes spelling) and directly communicates the basic elements of a resume -- objective, skills, employment history and credentials -- from the point of view of an employer.

The technical dimension is a rather new phenomenon which, as previously cited, has been driven by the growth of online recruitment and is essentially the sourcing of candidates from resume or social databases hosted on job boards, corporate career sites, or social media venues. To satisfy the requirements of the technical dimension, the resume writer must ensure that the resume information mirrors the database's structure or fields and the type of information contained within the resume will have search terms that correspond to those used by recruiters who search candidate databases.

The persuasion dimension positions the resume to 'rise to the top of the application pile.' This dimension focuses on adding information to the resume, which demonstrates tangible successes that directly impact an organization. Adding these successes to a resume assists the recruiter in gauging how to 'sell' you to the employer. In addition, it gives credence to the high probability that you will positively impact the employer or work team upon hiring.

Writing a Multi-Dimensioned Resume

One can use the three foundations as a 3-draft, structured writing guide for producing this type of resume. Here's how:

Draft 1 (Communication): After assembling all the supporting information to write your resume, begin the writing task using a simple, expository style in the universal format including, objective, career summary, education, employment history, professional development and affiliations. Target the resume’s objective around your preferred job title. Each section of the universal format should support the targeted objective. This will tightly focus the resume’s content thereby increasing its relevancy. The result of this resume draft should a basic resume, which will communicate a job candidate's objective, experience and credentials in a quick skim of 20 seconds or less.

Draft 2 (Technical): Prior to writing this draft, take a few minutes to visit the resume or social database of your choice and review its structure (fields). Now, compare the resume you produced in draft 1 to the fields of the database. If your resume is missing information that is requested in the database, then take some time to add this information. For example, if the database has a skills field, then detail your skills and add them to your resume. Finally, think about the search terms a recruiter would use to find your resume in the database. Add these terms to the appropriate sections of your resume rather than in a separate section. Recruiters place more weight with terms used in context than grouped in a summary section. The result of this resume draft should a detailed resume that has a high level of visibility in a resume or social recruiting database.

Draft 3 (Persuasion): At this point, you have a documented and detailed resume. But, everyone you are competing against has a similar type of resume. In other words, the recruiter who is viewing resumes sees the haystack, not the needle, so to speak. To make your resume stand out, go back to the employment history and review each position. Reflect on what you achieved or accomplished for the organization. Did you improve customer service, productivity, or efficiency? Did you reduce costs? Did you generate more revenues? After reflecting on these elements, write a brief description of each and add them to the resume. If you have more than 10 years of experience, add them to each chronological position's narrative. If you are an early career professional, you can opt for placing these achievements in a discrete section of the resume. The result of this resume draft will be a concisely written, detailed resume that has a high level of visibility in a resume or social recruiting database with maximum market differentiation.

Writing a resume using this writing guide will create a decisive, job seeking tool. You will receive more callbacks or interview inquiries. Since successful job seeking is essentially a numbers game, the more calls you receive, the more interview you will have. This increases the likelihood of obtaining a job offer quickly.