A Professional Resume the iTouch Way
"A professional resume needs perform under significant scrutiny by expert recruiters, hiring managers, and the latest ATS 2.0 technology."
Everyone can benefit from a professional resume that showcases their "individuality".
Whether you are a seasoned executive or a fresh graduate, you will benefit from a professional resume that demonstrates your identity, your individuality, and the value add you can bring to an employer.
Your resume needs to shout out “hire mean” and your profile needs to be on point, unique, and offer a real “point of difference”.
The following has been detailed to help you find understand our Professional Resume approach and strategy for building content.
The Secret to a Professional Resume
4 Steps
Step 1: Market Identification
Step2: Competency Based Framework (CBF)
Step 3: STAR + Stength Based Content
Step 4: Advanced ATS 2.0 Strategies
We treat each client as an individual, and every single client will go through a comprehensive engagement that includes understanding their requirements, analysing their experience, providing advice on the market, and delivering the support they need to maximize their return on investment. The following details our work in building a professional resume using the iTouch formula.
Step 1) Market Identification
Clients who know their target market often achieve better results than those who opt for a more liberal or hybrid approach. This is because, once you know your target, the content of a professional resume can be tailored specifically to a market, sector, or position—or ideally, all of the above.
You can then position your profile (brand) as a subject matter expert in your own right. It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned executive or a junior member of the support team; everyone can be positioned as an “individual” who adds value.
If you are unsure about the direction of your resume or career, seek professional advice from one of our resume writers or a recruiter. In some cases, you may even benefit from having multiple resumes to target different parts of the market.
We listen to each of our client’s individual needs.
UNIQUE TO iTOUCH
Step 2) Competency-based framework (CBF)
The use of a competency-based framework (CBF) when preparing to write a resume is essential for underpinning the relevancy of content within both the resume and its intended market. Instead of simply listing job titles, responsibilities, and achievements blindly, integrating a CBF model ensures that the content will both remain relevant to the positions being applied for.
Furthermore, as a competency-based resume will emphasize how your skills and experience match the requirements of the position, you will benefit from a clearly defined structure that instantly resonates with the intended target audience
The focus is on Core, Competencies, Targeted Content, Industry-Specific Achievements + High Impact Statements.
What results do you get from using this framework?
A CV/resume built using a competency-based or behavioural-based framework is one of the most powerful types of CV/resume in the market today! In fact, tests using an independent panel of HR and Senior Recruiters demonstrated that of the 16 CVs/resumes written with a competency framework in place, 14 were rated ‘A’ Grade, and the other 2 were rated ‘B’ Grade. This compared to a sample of 16 CVs/resumes without the framework where only 7 made the ‘A’ Grade, 3 made the ‘B’ Grade, and a worrying 6 were instantly rejected.
Step 3) STAR & Strength Based Content
Once we have identified those competencies, the next stage is to provide proven and demonstrated statements. The best strategy is to use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method to extract qualified statements in intergrate into a Professional Resume. The STAR method ensures that each statement is specific, contextual, and impactful by breaking down the information into four key components:
By applying the STAR method, we need to transform bland and generic statements into powerful, qualified, and value-added information that will set you apart from the competition.
For example, instead of saying “Responsible for team management, a ”STAR-based statement would be:
“Successfully managed a team of 10 developers (Situation). Tasked tasked with improving the team’s productivity (Task), introducing new project management software and streamlining processes (Action), which led to a 20% increase in project completion rate within six months (Result).”
The best professional resumes
Step 4) Advanced ATS 2.0 Strategies
Most jobseekers by now have heard of ATS, or applicant tracking systems. This software has been integrated into recruitment for more than 20 years. However, not many people know that most resumes these days are ATS-friendly, not just professionalism. What many jobseekers don’t realise is that it’s not the ATS itself you need to impress; it is the specific job filtering software within the ATS that you need to beat.
To make things trickier, with the recent rise and integration of AI technology, ATS systems are going through a huge transformation. Jobseekers can no longer get away with keyword stuffing or use software like ChatGPT to write their content. ATS 2.0 incorporates a whole array of tools to scan in and scan out applications.
For example, the latest ATS 2.0 filters can decipher human-written content, seek out value-added statements such as major accomplishments, look for competencies in job descriptions, identify industry matches, and also link back to social media signals.
That’s why we have adopted the very latest ATS 2.0 standards. We ensure your professionalresume passes all filters, clearly demonstrates your value, leverages strength-based content, highlights industry expertise, and also links back to recommendations in LinkedIn profiles.
