‘Am I Money?’ #5 – Catherine, An Executive Assistant With Experience

First thing, your resume absolutely needs a header with your name, phone number, and page number on every single page. Most important change!

Next thing that caught my eye is a grammatical snafu in the opening line, "with proven success to provide." That just catches my attention. It seems more natural to suggest that you are successful "at" something, or "with" something rather than "to" it. I'd change that.

I'd like to see less white space before your Education section, and larger headers for Education and Professional Development that match Experience.

I would not say, "Plan to enroll." That could send a bad message. Just state with confidence, "Continuing student in pursuit of Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Marketing." If you haven't enrolled yet, then in the dates section, just state Fall 2009, or whenever is accurate.

Your CMP designation really distinguishes you! It's positively BURIED in this resume, however. It's the last item in the entire resume when it should be the first! It's buried in the middle of your Qualifications section.

As for that, "Proficient" in the software packages does not instill me with confidence in your abilities. I'd like a stronger adjective there -- Advanced proficiency, Expert familiarity, and so forth. There are lots of good resources on the web for strong resume adjectives.

Good luck!

very nice & interesting. good luck

Hi Catherine!

I love your experience and professionalism. I also think your cover letter and resume are well formatted. There is no question you are a very strong professional. That being said, I actually think the brand you are creating isn't 100% sending the message you want to convey. So, I'm going to give you a 3.75 and say that you can quickly get this to 'money-status' with some stylistic changes. Let me explain...

In the case of all three of your personal branding tools (LinkedIn, Cover Letter & Resume) there is one classic mistake I see - TMI (Too Much Information). I'm overwhelmed with text that isn't giving an instant snapshot of your strengths. The most important thing is to stick to the facts. You need to have a fair amount of white space on a page so a hiring manager's eye is drawn in to your accomplishments. The easiest way to do this is to simplify all text and concentrate on listing quantifiable measurements of your experience. For example, "16 years experience working with C-level executives" speaks volumes with a minimum amount of text.

I'm going to encourage you to go back through all your text and take out the subjective comments about yourself. It's very normal for us to want to present ourselves in a confident and accomplished manner, but the use of too many complimentary adjectives in describing ourselves comes off as a hard-sell to the manager reading it. Think of how we feel when we see an ad that says something is , "Amazing, Superior, Awesome, Excellent, and the Best" all in one sentence. Hard to believe, right? Well, the same thing goes for people when they describe themselves as, 'adept, experienced, proven, exceptional, positive..." - these are our personal interpretations of ourselves, but the person reading it doesn't know if we are telling the truth. In fact, I know some hiring managers feel it comes off as cocky and overconfident. So, it's better to stick with the facts and let them speak for themselves.

I suggest you go back through and remove all subjective text in your resume. In particular, I'd remove the summary statement at the top of your resume and let the skill sets be the first thing readers see. Then, I'd replace every bullet point with a quantifyable accomplishments - numbers are always unforgettable! Please know, I'm not saying you should play yourself down, I just want you to find the right balance. More numbers, less text is the key!

I'd do the same in the cover letter. You list bullet point examples of your experience, but again, in a subjective fashion. Replace each one with an accomplishment from your past experience to support the skill they are looking for and you'll be in GREAT shape.

I hope this helps. You do have such strong experience, I want it to pop off the pages in the right way. I know for a fact what a strong multi-tasking, highly professional person it takes to manage an executive - it is not easy! You definitely have a track-record that says, "I'm what you need!" to C-level folks, we just need to tweak the brand to make sure anyone who sees your personal branding tools recognizes that immediately. As we both know, someone is screening your credentials before the executive sees them!