The Secret to Writing Strong Work Descriptions on Your Resume (And a Formula to Make It Easier)
Posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2017
Look, we get it—writing resumes is hard. You’re putting together a document that lists your work history and experiences in the hopes that it will be good enough to land you a new job. Often, you’re doing so without having any relevant experience to the job you’re applying to, which adds a whole new level of stress and confusion.
And then there are the job descriptions. A list of the places you’ve worked and the tasks you did while you were there. As students, this often means describing retail, service industry, or food service jobs. How can you possibly make those job descriptions relevant?
Luckily, we have great news for you: there is an easy way of writing job descriptions. There’s even a formula. And today, we’re going to share it with you.
Remember: it’s not a biography.
One of the weirdest but most helpful things to keep in mind when writing your resume is that it’s not a biography. It should never be a straight recollection of what kinds of things you used to do at work.
Instead, think of your resume as a point-form essay. You have a thesis and proof points. You’re making an argument and providing evidence.
This approach changes everything. Suddenly, every job you’ve had is an opportunity to further support your thesis: that you are the best person they could hire.
Now, let’s look at how to build up your evidence to support your thesis.
Build your arguments based on your tasks and skills.
The first step of writing strong work descriptions is to consider what your tasks were at your job.
Did you:
- Run cash?
- Order products?
- Deal with a busy environment?
- Set up window displays?
- Meet sales goals?
These kinds of day-to-day activities will form the basis of your argument, so write down everything you can think of.
Now that you know your tasks, it’s time to figure out your skills.
Transferable skills are your new best friend.
Transferable skills are the secret key to writing a strong resume, no matter what kind of background you have. They’re so important that we’ve written a whole guide on figuring out yours, so give it a read to help you with this section.
Essentially, transferable skills are qualities that go with you no matter where you work. They’re skills that are important in any environment. Things like communication, teamwork, time management, and attention to detail are all examples of transferable skills, and they’re all in demand by employers.
There are lots of handy lists of transferable skills on the internet. This is a good one.
Now take a look at your list of tasks, and compare them to that list of transferable skills. What skill did you use to complete your task? Let’s look at the examples of tasks we listed above, and how they might use transferable skills.
- Running cash: analytical, organized, attention to detail
- Ordering products: organized, conducting audits, attention to detail
- Dealing with a busy environment: time management, prioritization, communication
- Setting up window displays: attention to detail, expressive, communication
- Meeting sales goals: analytics, setting targets, auditing
Matching your tasks to the skills you used starts to build your professional story. You start to see how your experience—even, and sometimes especially, your non-relevant experience—gave you a whole range of vital skills. These kinds of skills are important and sought-after in any industry.
Learn to set up your resume using evidence.
So, you have your list of tasks and the skills you used to complete them. Now you can take a look at the description of the job you’re applying to, and start matching up your experience to the capacities they’re hiring for.
Do they state that the work involves conflicting priorities? Great: your time management, prioritization, and communication in a busy environment prepared you for this. Does the position involve research and numbers? Awesome: you worked cash and met sales goals, so your analytical skills and attention to detail is on point.
Build a list of what the employers are looking for, and how your experience matches up. Now, all that’s left is to write your work description—you’ve got all the information you need.
Use a formula to write strong descriptions.
Here’s the magic of this approach: by using this formula, your work descriptions will always be clear, concise, and strong. Here it is:
[task] + [skill] + [outcome]
You should write your work descriptions by stating the task you were expected to do, the skill you used to do that task, and the outcome of your task. This shows employers exactly why your experience is valuable specifically to the role they are advertising.
What does that look like in real life?
Let’s say you worked at a fast food restaurant. You’re applying to a business environment with multiple conflicting priorities and tight deadlines.
Here’s an example of how to apply your fast food experience to your resume in a way that targets a business environment:
Crew Member
Fast Food Restaurant Sept. 2016 – Present
- Handled cash accurately in busy environment to ensure store cash balanced at end of shift
- Managed conflicting priorities to ensure customers received proper orders in a timely manner
- Established daily sales goals, communicated goals with coworkers, and followed procedure to ensure goals were met
Every description above clearly states your task, the skills, and the outcome. You’re stating your abilities and explaining why those abilities benefited the organization.
This works with your technical, industry-specific skills, too. Setting up all your job descriptions this way will show employers exactly why your work experience matters. It will show them that your unique background of work qualifies you for the job, and what valuable skills you’ll bring to their organization. It’s the best way to build a strong resume.
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