Branding Your Resume For Intelligence - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Branding Your Resume For Intelligence - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career You know that youre smarter than the average bear, but how can you give your resume reader that first impression? Most job seekers try to do this directly, using adjectives that say Im smart!. Since most of us have average intelligence, few employers believe direct statements everyone feels theyre smart, while many candidates have an inflated self-view of their intelligence. Think about it, when youre in a group of people, how do you feel about the person who constantly tries to prove that shes the smartest? Do you view that person as full of intelligence or BS? So if your intelligence is something you want employers to see, how can you tell them about it, so theyll see your intellect? Here are 5 Ways To Brand Your Resume For Intelligence: Value: Its one thing to solve problems, but its even more powerful when you can demonstrate the value your intelligence has brought to past employers. While its nice to talk about a brilliant project you completed, its far more powerful to include how important that project was for your employer. Employers recognize a huge difference between someone who can apply this intelligence for commercial results vs someone who isnt able to translate intelligence to uses that businesses value. Value ends up being one of the biggest roadblocks keeping academics from business opportunities. Accomplishments: There are times when examples of intelligence just cant be monetized. In most cases, I recommend that non-monetizable accomplishments are left off your resume. However, if youre trying to demonstrate intelligence, you may want to include a couple of examples that havent turned into monetized results that you can identify. Vocabulary: The words you choose can help employers recognize intelligence. If you write at a 6th grade reading level (like I do), youll have a tough time making your readers recognize above average intelligence by using average vocabulary. But be careful you want to make sure the vocabulary you choose is in the proper context, so you dont end up sounding like Al Sharpton or Dubbya. Grammar and Spelling: Its a shame I have to say this. I see so many resumes destined for the trash can because of grammatical or spelling errors. Some of these errors are obvious, while others less so. Understand Needs: One of the best ways to give an employer the first impression that youre intelligent is by giving a hiring manager the impression that youve read his/her mind. Of course youre not a mind reader, but you can still give a first impression that youve read the hiring managers mind by correctly anticipating the hiring managers needs. Odds are low that you can guess what her needs are. Research and superior information helps you look like a mind reader. By gaining information thats superior to your competition, you dramatically increase the odds that youll correctly anticipate needs. You wont find superior information on Google, the companys website nor from the job description this is all public information and wont give you an advantage over other candidates. You gain superior information from within the target company, from current employees. Branding for intelligence requires much more than just saying Look at me Im smart! Dont make the mistake that education alone brands you as intelligent. Just because youve graduated from a good school doesnt mean that an employer will assume intelligence youve got to demonstrate value and accomplishments, expressed with intelligent grammar, spelling and vocabulary to back up your education. Dont we all know book smart, street dumb idiots who graduated from top institutions? For most employers, where you earned your degree and/or GPA wont matter most hiring managers are more interested in the value youve provided for past employers and that youve solved similar problems to the hiring managers priorities. Still others may look negatively on a degree from a premier school some employers assume candidates from top schools are just overpriced. However, a Harvard degree or straight A average may help with some employers, especially for rookies searching for their first job out of college. There are a number of ways that candidates can effectively brand themselves as intelligent. Which ones do you use? Author: Phil Rosenberg is President of http://www.reCareered.com, a leading job search information website and gives complimentary job search webinars at http://ResumeWebinar.com. Phil also runs the Career Central group, one of Linkedin’s largest groups for job seekers and has built one of the 20 largest personal networks on Linkedin globally.