Client Brief Page 1

Professional Resume Writing Questionnaire

Please Complete To The Best of Your Ability:

Name: ______Email Address: ______

Cell Phone:______Home Phone:______Work Phone:______

Address:______City, State, and ZIP: ______

Education Information:

Institution / Organization: / Country:
Program / Field of Study: / Degree Attained:
City: / Completion Date:
State / Province:
Description:
What courses, activities, areas of interest did you enjoy the most?

What is your equivalent level of education?

No High School Diploma / Associate Degree/Certificate (approx. 2 years)
Vocational/Technical Training / Bachelor's Degree (approx. 4 years)
High School Diploma/GED / Master's Degree (Bachelors + approx. 2 years)
Doctorate Degree (Masters + 2-4 years)

Employment Information:

How many years of overall work experience do you have?

1-5 Years / 11-15 Years / 21-25 Years / 31 Years +
6-10 Years / 16-20 Years / 26-30 Years

How many years of professional experience relevant to your highest level position do you have?

(For example:If you have 30 years of professional experience, but only 8 years of experience as a CFO, you would select “6-10 Years” below)

1-5 Years / 11-15 Years / 21-25 Years / 31 Years +
6-10 Years / 16-20 Years / 26-30 Years

Given no limitations, what would your ideal job be?

Briefly describe/identify the industry, occupation title & work environment.

Identify Your Skills Using Action Words

The action words below identify yourSoft Skills. They help you to accomplish work-related tasks, but they differ in that they are more related to inter-personal skills, experience and leadership capabilities.

HIGHLIGHT THE ONES THAT STAND OUT IN RELATION TO YOU.

Create your final list below comprised of soft skills from previous professional contributions or soft skills that are in current market demand. This will allow you and your PDS Certified Resume Writer to understand the skills you use every day to accomplish tasks, manage people and complete projects. These Soft Skills will become a reference tool and professional vocabulary to help in the development of your marketing collateral.

People Management Skills
Administered / Analyzed / Streamlined / Produced
Attained / Chaired / Consolidated / Reviewed
Contracted / Coordinated / Delegated / Strengthened
Developed / Directed / Evaluated / Executed
Advised / Communicated / Coordinated / Recommended
Improved / Increased / Coached / Stimulated
Led / Launched / Organized / Supervised
Encouraged / Planned / Prioritized / Assigned
Spearheaded / Unified / Reorganized / Designed
Clarified / Familiarized / Assessed / Assisted
Coached / Counseled / Delivered / Referred
Demonstrated / Diagnosed / Educated / Guided
Exhibited / Expedited / Facilitated / Transformed
Facilitated / Guided / Informed / Persuaded
Instructed / Achieved / Expanded / Succeeded
Project Management Skills
Administered / Allocated / Collaborated / Budgeted
Approved / Arranged / Developed / Compiled
Classified / Corresponded / Drafted / Programmed
Computed / Critiqued / Exhibited / Designed
Conducted / Converted / Examined / Executed
Delivered / Delivered / Formulated / Engineered
Directed / Diagnosed / Identified / Generated
Implemented / Evaluated / Managed / Inspected
Interpreted / Forecasted / Negotiated / Maintained
Operated / Innovated / Purchased / Organized
Provided / Investigated / Reviewed / Operated
Researched / Marketed / Reconciled / Prepared
Resolved / Organized / Systemized / Recruited
Streamlined / Planned / Upgraded / Repaired

Which of these SOFT SKILLS above describe YOU best?

(Choose 5 – 10 from each HIGHLITED Category Above)

Personal Soft Skills

Stories of Specific Accomplishments:

For EACH identified Soft Skill (ABOVE), define aninstance where you used the action word professionally to affect change.

1)What was the Situation or Problem?

2)What Action was taken personally to resolve the Situation or Problem?

3)What was the Result or Outcome?

EXAMPLE:Developed computerized medical billing systems which aided the billing processes to insurance clearinghouses as well as giving more complete reporting capabilities for fact finding. RESULT: Organization increased knowledge on total productivity within the office as well as hospital settings with regards to billing operations in total.

Accomplishment/Functional Soft Skill #1:

a. What was the issue or opportunity?

b. What was it costing? What were the consequences?

c. What actions/solutions did you create or recommend?

d. What were the results of your actions?

Accomplishment/Functional Soft Skill #2:

a. What was the issue or opportunity?

b. What was it costing? What were the consequences?

c. What actions/solutions did you create or recommend?

d. What were the results of your actions?

Accomplishment/Functional Soft Skill #3:

a. What was the issue or opportunity?

b. What was it costing? What were the consequences?

c. What actions/solutions did you create or recommend?

d. What were the results of your actions?

Accomplishment/Functional Soft Skill #4:

a. What was the issue or opportunity?

b. What was it costing? What were the consequences?

c. What actions/solutions did you create or recommend?

d. What were the results of your actions?

Identify Your Additional Skills & Experience

Whichdo you possess?

(Expertise Examples: Budget Analysis and Forecasting, Project Management, Team Leader / Builder, ETC.)

(Hard Skill Examples: QuickBooks, Adobe, Publisher, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, ETC.)

Additional Information:

List any Certifications, Awards, Community Service, Languages, Secret Clearancesor Specialties not included above:

Additional Contributions:

Professional Experience

1-Write in your initial Positioning Statement below.

A Positioning Statement replaces the “Objective” in the Resume. The reader knows that you want to work for their company in a specific position – they have fifty other Resumes in front of them stating the same obvious “Objective”. You have more impact with a “Positioning Statement” that shows the unique skills and experience that you can bring to their company. Your Positioning Statement should be tailored for each individual opportunity.

POSITIONING STATEMENT: Utilizesstrong analytical skills and technical knowledge with an emphasis on customer requirements to produce quantitative and actionable results.

Now that you have your Positioning Statement in front of you and fresh in your mind, we want to begin focusing on your professional past.

Recent research has shown the average resume reader will complete their initial scan in less than 20 seconds. No modern working professional has the time to thoroughly scrutinize resumes, they must see what they are looking for immediately or they move on.

Subsequently we are going to write about your professional past using a proven marketing method placing the most pertinent information right at the reader’s fingertips.

This exercise will do two things for us:

Summarize your work experience into quick sound bites
Define what you believe to be the most important pieces of your professional history

As you go through this exercise, focus on your Positioning Statement as defined above. Extract from your professional history those parts that you believe most closely apply to your stated objective.

Move in descending order from your most recent position to your earliest. For each position held you will be creating the components of a brief paragraph outlining what you were in charge of, responsible for, and the tasks you conducted on a daily basis.

You may find it difficult to clarify the difference between what you were in charge of and what you were responsible for. In fact, for some there may be little or no difference at all. For others, they were in charge of budgets, personnel, equipment and other resources, while they were also responsible for delivering reports, generating revenue or filling orders.

Remember to keep your information brief and to the point. Write in terms of size, dollar figure of budgets, numbers of people supervised, amounts of product moved or inventoried, etc. When no hard figure is available write in terms of percentages of time saved, income saved orearned. At this stage of development accuracy is not required; your best guess will suffice for now, as we can always go back and confirm the numbers or percentages later.

Where possible, try to begin your sentences with your identified Soft Skills from your Soft Skills Resolution and Soft Skills Identification assignment. This allows you to relay your unique leadership strengths and style to the consumer.

Example:

Job Title / Company / Dates Employed (month/year to month/year) / Location
Operations Manager / ACME / June / 1978 to July/ 1986 / Atlanta, GA
In charge of:
Analyzing and developing new product lines, developing and implementing new safety procedures and systems in high-risk areas
Responsible for:
Controlling and cutting drilling costs and operations, overseeing compliance of OSHA regulations for over 25 offshore facilities worldwide.
Tasks conducted on a daily basis:
Communicating organizational objectives with Board of Directors for both internal and customer companies as well as with various regulatory and oversight agencies.

* Soft Skills underlined

Generally speaking, growing businesses are bottom line driven;

writing with this in mind is one way to ensure you are writing in your consumer’s language.

For each position held create the components of a brief paragraph outlining what you were in charge of, responsible for, and the tasks you conducted on a daily basis.

Most Recent Position: