Writing Your Executive Resume for the New Normal

While we will most likely end the year with more layoffs than hires, but that doesn’t mean hiring is zero. Job landing hasn’t ceased. It has simply changed.  Hiring still happens in recessions, as we saw in the market crashes of 2001 and 2008, and it will continue today.

We are living in a new normal where your executive resume must shift to accommodate the unforeseen needs a prospective employer may have before a hiring manager will to want to interview you. Executives need to emphasize in their resumes and career searches how they are going to be the answer companies need today.

Here are 4 topics that need to be included:

1) Start with your target company’s goal in mind. Demonstrate how you can create new and maintain existing revenue streams. Companies want to see leadership anticipate revenue flows and take the steps to preserve revenues or devise new opportunities as some revenue streams cannot be resurrected.  Spell out where you have done this in measurable accomplishments that are relevant to the target job. Realize many have taken financial hits and the quicker they can recover the better. 

2) Leverage technology for scaled, automated and remote business functions. Outline how you have streamlined costs and timelines using automation and remote tools. Not only being familiar, but showing how you succeeded using these tools will put you ahead of the pack of senior-level applicants. That can help demonstrate how they can ride out the crisis.

3) Show that you have had success, not just experience, hiring, training and managing remote teams to achieve goals and milestones. This is definitely the future of work for many companies and expertise here helps considerably. Using project management systems and online workflow communication tools are what you want to show in today’s virtual work climate.

4). Showcase your track record of thriving in ambiguity and uncertainty.  I call this the “ability to make something out of nothing.”  Most people can make sound decisions based on past precedent or previous experience. But what about highlighting your experience where you pioneered through something that is unprecedented?  When you call attention to your ability to create revenue, forge profitable relationships, and minimize expenses without a road map.

The bottom line is the only people who definitely don’t get hired in a pandemic are those who believe hiring has halted and stop looking. Don’t be that person. Instead, pivot and bring out the traits employers want to see in your executive resume in this new normal. 

Lisa Rangel is the founder and managing director of Chameleon Resumes LLC a Forbes Top 100 Career Website. Rangel has been a moderator for LinkedIn's Premium Groups since 2012. Chameleon Resumes reviews the goals of senior-level job seekers to ensure career documents serve their goals while meeting the needs of the prospective employers.