Executive Employment - What Is An Executive Resume And How Is It Different From A Regular Resume?

An executive resume is a resume written for a candidate applying for an executive job/position with a company. For example, CEO, Senior Manager, and VP of Marketing are all executive positions that you would need an executive resume to apply for. These jobs characteristically pay large salaries, require experience, and applicants for them are heavily scrutinized (usually by a group of people).

Comparing the executive resume to a more traditional entry-level resume, there are several differences that are important to note.

The objective of a resume is to persuasively convince the reader to call you for an interview. This is where the main difference between the resumes stems from. It usually takes a longer time to persuasively convince a group of people to call you for an executive interview than it does for a manager at Wall Mart to call you for a sales associate job. That is why an executive resume can generally be longer than a generic resume.

Another difference is that a generic resume uses an objective statement/summary of qualifications, while an executive resume usually has an executive profile.The purpose of an objective statement being to communicate what the candidate wants from the company/what they can offer, and the executive profile to highlight the candidate's most salable skills and knowledge.

The last major difference between a regular resume and an executive one relates to how you state work experience. On a generic resume, work history is generally listed as job descriptions. On an executive resume, the focus is on achievements and work history is based more on what tangible results you achieved for past companies than just where you worked and what you did.

A good way to portray the value you can add is to write a concise, focused paragraph on each company and why they hired you. Following this, write a list of your specific achievements in the positions. Focus on quantifiable measures like specific dollar amounts saved or earned, percents, and time saved.


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We offer lots of information on writing your executive resume, and preparing for/having an executive interview. We also have a list of executive search sites where, once you have a resume, you can apply for thousands of executive jobs FREE.

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