How to Showcase Your Strengths in a Medical Résumé

Understanding how to translate your self-worth into words can be one of the most difficult aspects of the job search. Time and time again, candidates have damaged their chances at securing higher pay ranges simply because they did not possess the abilities to position themselves favorably on paper. While the task is a bit daunting taking advantage of a professionally written résumé can minimize your chances of misrepresentation.

No hiring manager wants to read a boring résumé. For most people, this is obvious, but it is not always obvious in what ways to make the résumé more engaging. Many who employ résumé templates find that their personalities are quickly lost among bland job descriptions and overbulleting. What you, as a jobseeker, must not forget is that maintaining your unique personality is as important as knowing how to translate that personality into more formal terms.

The résumé works in tandem with the interview to determine your salary. Not only will the résumé serve as an introduction and establish first impressions but it also sets the stage for possible interview questions. A poorly organized résumé will mean more left-field questions than you might expect, whereas a clean and concise document that presents your accomplishments clearly, will lessen the trouble a hiring manager takes to find talking points for you. Also, you can redirect uncomfortable questions back to your accomplishments and how you will relate them to the job.

Key to all of this is presenting a confident appearance before, during, and after the interview. While interview coaching is in and of itself a separate topic, you can project this confidence most effectively on paper because it is here first that you will get the hiring manager thinking that you are a more worthwhile candidate.

In short: you must be active. Your duties, accomplishments, overview, and all related sections should insist, without badgering, that you are an intensely qualified candidate (even if you have a spottier background). To accomplish this, you may follow several key ideas:

1. Bring your Language to Life

You may want to take a little time to write down a number of accurate, appropriate, and interesting modifiers to support yourself throughout the résumé. For starters, consider any of the following:

· Dynamic

· Highly adept, Highly skilled, Highly experienced

· Goal-oriented, Solutions-oriented

· Results-driven, Results-focused

· Distinguished

· Creative, Innovative

· Accomplished

· Award-winning

Hopefully you can sense the energy that these power words bring to a statement. Instead of a “Medical professional who has completed numerous procedures,” you could be a “Results-driven medical professional with a proven track record executing medical procedures.” See the difference?

Verbs also are your friends in these situations. You never want to begin a statement with passive voice (i.e. “the table is being leaned on by the man” instead of “the man leans on the table”) or nouns, typically. Words that imply action will cumulatively create a sense of interest within the document. Variety of word choices is also a major factor. If you find yourself running aground for ideas, try out a few of these action verbs:

This is just a partial list. There are hundreds and hundreds of these action verbs, especially when you consider job-specific words.

We’ve all accomplished something in our work history that has set us apart from our coworkers. These experiences, whether they were working extra hours at a medical facility, organizing non-profit events, or simply making sure that the physician had the necessary documentation every time he or she needed it are vital to you standing out as a candidate who not only deserves the job but deserves greater pay.

Drawing upon the action verbs above, you can begin to construct unique statements that will capture your personality and achievements. First and foremost, you do not want to bury these in job descriptions. If you’ve bulleted a majority of your job descriptions, consider, instead, putting these into a paragraph of blocked text so that you can save the bullets for major contributions.

There are many formulas out in the field for how to write accomplishments. CAB, SAR, PAR, CAR, and other acronyms touch upon the three-part rule for creating most accomplishments. The first part is the “cause,” which allows you to state the problem. “Action” follows and is the course you’ve taken to resolve or deal with a particular cause. Finally, “Result” is the end product of what your action has accomplished.

“Hospital was losing employees due to erratic scheduling. Instituted policy that normalized hours. Retained 100% of employees as a result.”

While this is a rather simple approach to an accomplishment statement, it clearly illustrates the kinds of concerns you should have when writing your own. A more advanced version of this statement with power verbs up front is as follows:

“Triggered 100% employee retention after introducing policy that normalized erratic scheduling of hospital employees.”

As you can see, the advanced version integrates the three-part approach into an active statement that immediately demands attention. You want to recreate this effect with all of your accomplishments. Switching up the order of information is acceptable to do this, but just remember that the most active statements begin with verbs.

Let’s face it, employers want you to flatter them, but they want you to do it indirectly. How this is accomplished is through the positioning of statements that reflect what you can do for any particular employer. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself how your job description supports the goals of your prospective employer. To better understand what those goals are, research the employer’s Web site and job postings to gauge a workplace philosophy. Once you’ve determined what values a company holds dear, you can write your background information with these concerns in mind.

The key is to make sure that you are offering enough information in your résumé to support the higher end of the pay spectrum the company has in mind. Professional résumé writers are accustomed to striking this balance, but with careful attention to job postings and active language, you should be able to train yourself to recognize the kinds of details organizations want to see.

Overall, the more sophisticated the résumé, the better your chances are of convincing someone you are worth more to have on hand. You won’t achieve this with ten minutes and a Microsoft Word template. It will take time, but the investment can mean additional tens of thousands of dollars per year.