Respect your Resume Equity
June 17, 2011For those who are looking for a new role, or better, the lucky few who may at times experience multiple employment offers when transitioning to a new opportunity, a key aspect of your career decision should be ‘how does it affect my long term ‘resume’ (or ‘career’) equity? Simply put, resume equity is the ‘value add’ or overall impression given when a potential employer reviews your resume in the future.
Many Supply professionals have experienced temporary set backs or difficulties, especially as employers tried to cope with the recent recession. Small employment ‘gaps’ in your resume due to unemployment or a FEW short term or contract roles are understandable, but resume equity is more than that. It’s the overall impression that one receives when reading your resume and you should consider this, the next time you’re weighing a career move.
Does your resume show an overall strategic path and growth amongst your employers? Have you selected employers which complimented your career aspirations and could provide you with the knowledge, support and eventual experience to take you to the next level in your career – after of course, you’ve provided them with the requisite hard work, dedication, and professionalism toward both your job function and your employer?
We recently counseled a candidate who was in such a situation with two competing offers. One was from a small family run organization that was offering moderately more salary and the other from a much larger firm. Both positions looked well suited and attractive to the candidate; but it wasn’t until you ‘scratched the surface’ and conducted an in-depth analysis weighing the ‘pros and cons,’ that you noticed a huge difference as far as career equity. (No different really than doing a thorough cost/benefit or risk mitigation analysis for your Supply job. Why is it that you do this level of analysis every day for your employer, yet leave it solely to ‘gut feel’ when it involves your personal employment and overall career ?)
Upon researching deeper we advised our candidate that we found offer one was from a small family run employer – 125 employees, that had been in business 12 years, possibly foreign owned, 3 locations (one Canada, one U.S. and one abroad), VERY limited information available on revenue, structure, products, funding, etc. Offer two was from a large, Canadian owned and managed firm, 3,000 employees, 15+ locations across Canada, voted one of Canada’s best managed companies (10 years straight), platinum award winner, with many prestigious projects, which had just acquired a new firm, which expanded their technology and offerings into both LEED and leading edge solar applications. Ample information was available on the organization, including 200 employees with 10 – 25 years tenure, 40 between 26 and 44 years, and 1 with over 45 years experience.
Regardless of a higher initial salary, which firm and offer do you think would offer more stability, potential advancement opportunities, credibility, AND resume equity?
