If you hope to advance your marketing career and move on to a new job, it’s not enough to just be good at marketing an employer or client’s product. The ability to market yourself and your abilities to future employers is equally important. You must be able to express your value in a modern way, and your resume serves as the heart of your personal brand.
Your resume doesn’t need to be flashy to make an impact. But if it isn’t modern, efficient and relevant to the people looking at it, then marketing recruiters and hiring managers are going to assume you’re not either.
Avoid these 4 common marketing resume mistakes that make you look like you’re applying to a job in 2007.
1. Including Your Home Address, But Not Your Web Address
It’s 2014, folks. The specific location at which you live doesn’t matter to hiring managers, especially when it comes to filling marketing positions. No one is going to send you interview follow-ups or reference requests via snail mail. Just list your city and state so marketing recruiters and hiring managers understand if you are a local candidate or someone that will require relocation.
Including your home address only puts you at risk for identity theft; do you really want to be unnecessarily distributing your personal information where you have no control over it?
Replace your street address with your digital presences. Your website, your blog, your social accounts, your online portfolio, whatever you think best represents your capabilities and personality. More than most other professions, marketers can really leverage their online brand alongside their resumes to distinguish themselves from the crowd. It’s a great opportunity to showcase your creativity, personal branding ability, digital savviness, and more essential marketing skills.
2. Not Listing a Personal Number
Some job applicants list their home (or worse, their work) number for phone conversations. This reduces their responsiveness to discussions and inquiries and can make them appear less professional.
When you list your personal cell number you’re much more likely to notice calls from interested recruiters and hiring managers. You won’t miss anything when you’re out for lunch, commuting or otherwise away from landlines. Instant and consistent responsiveness is noticed and appreciated by potential employers and reflects positively on you.
On the other hand, calling a home or work number is often a very awkward experience for marketing recruiters and hiring managers. Your spouse and children are probably lovely, but that doesn’t mean we want to get to you through them. And it’s even more troublesome if you don’t pick up at work and we’re redirected to a secretary or asked to leave a message on the corporate voice message system. If you’re willing to use your current employer’s resources to look for a new job, we’ll assume you’re willing to do the same at the next place.
Save everyone the trouble and awkwardness by just listing your personal cell number.
3. Using a Uniform Resume for Every Application
When it comes to marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all resume. Different positions and organizations will value certain aspects of your skills and experience more than others.
Do as much research as possible on the company’s marketing position and needs. Modify your resume to highlight relevant information while shifting focus away from less vital capabilities and achievements. Elevate industry experience and achievements related to the company’s core operations.
It’s fine to have a standard “base” resume to put on your web profiles or use as a template. But when you’re submitting applications for specific jobs and including a resume, it should be specially tailored to each individual job you pursue. Remember when adjusting your resume that it must always be completely factual, so double check to make sure all your information is correct. After all, this is a legal document representing your background, and you can get in big trouble for misrepresenting yourself intentionally or accidentally.
4. Listing Activities, Not Achievements
A common marketing resume mistake at all levels is focusing too much on what you were doing in previous jobs and not enough on the outcome of your efforts.
In marketing, ROI is king. Tie your past success as much as possible to measurable metrics that demonstrably contributed to positive results.
Instead of sharing that you “managed a team,” show how much you improved its productivity or reduced its mistakes. Instead of listing the campaigns you worked on, show how your contributions increased response rates or conversions. If you’re wary of sharing an employer’s exact results, you can still express improvements in terms of percentage increases. Update your resume regularly to make sure you keep adding your most impressive accomplishment while they’re fresh in your mind.