Expedite Your Job Search With A Dollar-driven Executive Resume

Readying your resume for an executive job search? You might find that the traditional resume components--career titles, management assignments, projects, and education--aren't enough anymore.

Now more than ever, companies have intensified their focus on one area of your performance: money. Employer want leaders who can make, save, and control it, all in order to fight the economic downturn.

If you're an executive in the midst of a job hunt, you'll find that a dollar-driven resume will make a distinct difference in the way your achievements are perceived, and the positions for which you'll be considered.

Netting more attention from companies eager to benefit from your expertise isn't as hard as it might seem. After all, most leaders can point to the effect of their work on revenue, profit, and cost.

The trick is in sharpening your resume so that it clearly demonstrates your impact to the bottom line.

Here are 3 simple ways to mine your career accomplishments for dollar signs and add the results to your executive resume:

1 - Include Revenue and Profit Figures.

Nothing will gain attention faster in a tight economy than telling an employer how much money you'll make for them. Many companies justify executive pay precisely on the ROI that they expect you to deliver.

Depending upon your industry or profession, revenue figures can be challenging to produce. Sales leaders, for example, can easily list the amount of revenue generated from their efforts.

Other executives, however, may need to look at the revenue they've created in a different way. For example, if you've spearheaded a corporate expansion, consider adding the amount of strategic profit the company expects to reap from this effort (even at a later date) by referring to it as a projected figure.

Perhaps you've been pulled into a steering committee or asked to analyze a crucial business process. If you can determine the amount of revenue the company can generate with these efforts, be sure to add it to your resume.

If you've produced revenue in any capacity where the amount has varied over time, then focus mainly on the peak amount generated, as this figure will show the strength of the results you can attain.

Don't forget that you can also point to the achievements of your team as an indicator of profit generation.

If you've coached and developed sales teams that generate significant profit increases over that of peers in other divisions, use these dollar figures to speak volumes about your leadership abilities.

2 - Gather Data on Cost Savings.

One of the most straightforward ways to demonstrate your worth, cost reductions are a valuable way to call attention to your ability to widen profit margins.

Employers are always interested in those who can generate additional profitability--especially when it means they don't have to produce more revenue.

Even if you're in a role that doesn't traditionally focus on cost--say, Information Technology--it still makes sense to note where and when you've been able to renegotiate contracts or add efficiencies that reduced expenses.

If you constantly monitoring the bottom line in your department, here's where you can use this tendency to your advantage. Consistent cost savings that add up over time are worth mentioning on an executive resume, especially if you can convert them to annual or year-over-year savings figures for increased impact.

When mining your career history for cost savings, don't forget to look at systems that you created. You may be able to ferret out information on how a new process or procedure trimmed more costs over time.

3 - Demonstrate Your Financial Authority.

The depth of your executive experience is a key factor in the decisions that hiring authorities will make about your background. Employers tend to reason that, if you've held a certain level of authority in the past, then you can be trusted to handle duties of equal or greater size in the future.

The most easily defined monetary measures of this type of responsibility are budgets. The size of a budget often dictates the relative importance of a business unit to the company.

When you've taken on the task of budget administration, you are also demonstrating your value as an astute financial steward. In other words, including a sizeable budget figure on your resume will tell an employer a lot about your executive abilities.

Another area to be assessed is the size or budget allotment for any projects or special initiatives, in addition to a company's routine operating expenditures.

If you've led a large-scale, global effort for your employer, chances are that the budget was of the same proportion. Noting this budget figure in your executive resume gives you an edge over candidates who have yet to control a project of this magnitude.

In summary, the dollar-driven resume is one of the best tools available to an executive or manager seeking a new role in today's competitive market.

Adding dollar figures to your resume not only helps to verify your strongest skills, but also shows employers the ROI they can expect when selecting you to fill a prominent leadership role.