Focus on skills, not titles

Q: My experience in helping a very large mortgage company owned by a large financial institution that received a bailout gave me extensive crisis management, negotiating and liquidity management skills. However, I'm finding it difficult to translate that into experience that would be valued by a normal company not in crisis. How can I simplify what I can bring to the table?

A: Crisis management is a form of management. It suggests urgency. Drop the phrase from your vocabulary when you apply to companies that may not be in emergency mode.

Think about the skills behind what you did, rather than the dire circumstances under which you used them. Develop a list of those skills, such as project management, employee management, negotiation, communication and financial management.

After each skill, record accomplishments in each of your jobs that demonstrate your use of it. Go back and make certain you suggested responsiveness to situations, not urgency. Identify which points will appeal to potential employers. Delete the rest as irrelevant.

The information you've gathered will serve you well in networking, telephoning, interviewing and writing. Turn it into the meat of your resume.

DELETIONS

Q: I see some jobs that I'm overqualified for. I have a bachelor's and the jobs call for a high school education. In those cases, may I "dumb-down," modifying my resume so that I only show a high school diploma?

A: "Dumb-down" means simplify, not mislead. You may simplify information by omitting numbers, dollar signs and accomplishments that might suggest you're overqualified. However, omitting a degree would misrepresent you. How would you feel if a company did a background check, discovered your degree and refused to hire you for lying? Instead, de-emphasize the degree by leaving out the specific field and moving it way down the page.

Employers typically state a minimum educational requirement. Many companies, concluding that they might get more education than required and more skills with them for the same amount of money, consider people whose education might seem to overqualify them. Also, companies often consider growth potential in their applicants, because the job they're filling might be dynamic and fluid.

Do be certain you ask about that in the interview, because sometimes companies want only a specific job function from a job seeker.

(Dr. Mildred Culp welcomes your questions at culp@workwise.net. © 2011 Passage Media. The opinions are solely those of the writer.)