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innovation

Highlight Innovation on Your Resume

Among the skills that companies cherish these days is the ability to innovate. Most of us are innovators on some level, but we may not recognize our own abilities. We downplay the contribution we make with suggestions or actions that improve our own or others’ work. Yet, any fresh idea that creates a more efficient, cost-effective, easier, or collaborative workplace is an innovation.Here are a few keywords and key phrases that will help you write about your contribution as the innovation that it truly is:

  • Initiated [a program, process, collaboration, or event]
  • Re-organized [a team, documents, business unit]
  • Wrote [a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), the first user manual, a new brochure]
  • Opened up [a new market, a new facility]
  • Created [a technique, a campaign, a way to…]
  • Recognized [an opportunity to…]
  • Introduced [Lean manufacturing, for example]
  • Predicted [a consumer trend]
  • Developed [a product, a relationship, a new source for…]

Innovation takes many forms. Lean manufacturing, for example, has been around for years. But if you are the first to introduce it to your company, then you are an innovator. Your company may have been selling the same product for decades; but if you are the one who opened up a new revenue stream, you are an innovator.

Maybe all your innovations have been directed toward making your own work more efficient. Someone once said that if necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the father. Many creations have their start in someone wanting an easier life; never downplay an innovation because of its roots.

Finally, many innovations build on the work of others. When you modify an existing product, re-organize an existing team, or develop an existing relationship to make it more profitable, you are innovating. No one else saw or grabbed that opportunity. You did.

At Robin’s Resumes®, we appreciate innovation and know howto write about it. Contact us today.

Identify Your Soft Skills on Your Resume

Recently, several managers were asked what one attribute they would look for in a job candidate, any position, any industry. The responses included innovation, commitment, leadership, teamwork, intelligence and organizational “fit.” Industry knowledge and skills were important but most managers concentrated on what are known as “soft skills.” Managers and business owners know it is much easier to teach someone the information and skills they need for a job than to teach them, for example, how to get along with coworkers.

Candidates who understand that fact often fill their resume with phrases like “innovative and intelligent professional”; “able to work independently or as part of a team”; and “committed to the organization’s growth.”

But I urge my clients to move beyond a bare statement to prove they have the qualities that company’s want.

How do you prove all those soft skills—innovation, commitment, leadership and so on—in a resume? You give examples. You provide testimonials. You state the problem and how you responded to it:

  • “Worked closely with representatives from Marketing, Sales and Finance Departments to identify ten potential cost-savings measures.”
  • “Found an Internet provider to develop the company website.”
  • “Identified service issues, revamped the company’s customer complaint procedure and raised customer satisfaction rates from 85% to 98%.”

When you cooperate on a project with several departments, when you independently locate a new vendor, when you calm an angry customer, when you establish a procedure where none existed before, when you train other employees, when you volunteer to serve a local nonprofit—you demonstrate soft skills that any company would prize.

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