How to Resuscitate Latent Details to Write an Exhilarating Executive Resume Story

An executive resume story and a picture share integral attributes.

A picture gift I received during last year’s Sisters’ Weekend, reads:

dear
sister,
i love you
more
than you’ll
ever know

But, it wasn’t until the day after our gathering that another layer of the picture revealed itself, embedded in the typewriter keys image:

family

forever

Peeling Back the Layers of Your Executive Resume Story

Similarly, in working with executives, it is not uncommon for my clients, as they dive into their professional resume development worksheets, to see only a single layer of their word story at first glance. The multidimensional subtext materializes only with a second (and often, third or fourth) look.

And, by look, I mean a deeper dive into their career soul, resuscitating latent details of an exhilarating career that ricocheted results to new heights, zooming up sales for their various enterprises. It takes time and introspection to brush off the dusty images long-buried by more recently pressing tasks and initiatives.

It also requires taking intermittent breaks from your resume development project, stepping away occasionally to enable thought simmering. The nuances that brew will help distinguish your story from others who purport similar strategic leadership skills and experiences.

Looking Into Your OWN Mirror for Your Unique Reflection

It also takes prioritizing the unique value of the time, energy and focus you invested in your multi-decade career. Many executives sail past their details and instead choose to mirror their colleagues’ emaciated resume styles that result in boring, flat phrasing.

Rather than stories that stir the reader’s heart or quench readers’ desire for more, the executives write safe, colorless corporate content that drains the resume.

In essence, when they seek to simplify, they gut the context and value of their contributions and leadership initiatives.

While cutting through complexity with clarity is good, it should not be done at the expense of well selected and energetically composed stories. In other words, parse through the complexity, with aplomb. Smart readers want to read smart and lively insights.

Excellent Resume Storytelling: The Process Is Long and Without a Finish Line

Have you ever had a picture taken that you thought: Is that really what I look like? because the angle was unflattering or the lighting was poor or simply, because the setting was unimaginative and lazily composed? Likewise, a resume that is flat or where the angle is wrong, will misrepresent your true and vigorous value.

Business Writer, Wally Bock, gets the complexity of the storytelling craft–that there are no writing shortcuts. He writes: “The journey to excellent writing is long. There’s no finish line. One of the great things about writing is that you never get to the day where you can say, ‘I’ve gotten as good as I can, I can’t get any better.’ You can always get better.”

Moreover, the journey to excellent resume storytelling is long and without a finish line. If you bear this in mind, then you will begin seeing the words on your page as evolving versus finite, the stories unfolding and improving, over time. As your career grows, so does your resume.

And, it can always get better.

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I am a master resume writer with more than 20 years’ experience in the resume writing trenches. No insta-resume service here. I built my story from ground up, living and breathing resumes, full time, self-supporting, and not as a side gig. My clients hire me for the highly consultative, thoughtful approach to resume writing. Contact me at jacqui@careertrend.net to discuss how I can help shape the stories (executive resume, bio, LinkedIn, elevator pitch, etc.) that will accompany you through your next career evolvement.