Dear Sam: After 10 years in inside sales, my employer went out of business. Unfortunately, more recent positions I have held have been short-term as I jumped at the first thing I could find. I now know this was not the wisest decision and it makes me look like a “job hopper.” I have more than 20 years of sales experience, and have won many awards, but apparently all the “attaboys” don’t mean very much as I am not getting any callbacks for interviews. — Brian
Dear Brian: Your awards, sales contributions, and track record of surpassing performance targets position you as a top sales recruit. The issue is not your record of results, rather the way you have presented them on your resume. I find your resume exceptionally difficult to read with a confusing blend of formatting, headings, and spacing. While I know your recent history shows a little more movement than we would like, I believe once you address resume formatting and content issues, your last five or so years of experience will appear much stronger.
I mentioned the formatting confusion above and touched on the need for content revisions. Do you know your resume contains almost 950 words but only about 10% of those words relate to ways you contributed value and earned those “attaboys!” You may think you are focusing on your accomplishments but you are really doing anything but. This is what you need to address in order to “show” your value to potential employers and overcome the potential disqualifier of being seen as a job hopper.
Lastly, your resume is filling three pages which contributes to the appearance of “a lot of jobs.” Once you address the content and formatting I would encourage you to attempt a two-page presentation of your candidacy. I believe this will provide a cleaner picture of your background, while making you really focus on the highlights of each position versus the mundane day-to-day duties. Best of luck to you.
