Give prominence to what you accomplish beyond the job description (JD) by documenting your experience in what we called a resume. A resume is essentially a marketing document - a short summary of your achievements in your working life, giving prominence to those skills, knowledge, and events that will appeal to your next potential employer (head of the next UNICEF department for example). A well-written resume should demonstrate:
- A degree of progression; an increasing level of experience or responsibility and/or the gaining of a wider set of skills.
- A variety of skills used
- One or more achievements.
Resumes are prepared in two ways – one, which flows chronologically, and the other, which brings out your skills and experience more vividly (skills-based resume). The UN Personal History Form (P11) gives a good inventory of your employment and other family details but it fails in not allowing you to highlight the most relevant skills to the role sought. Many good texts exist on resume writing that are worthy of consultation. As long as you work for the UN, you will need to use the personal history form. In addition, you may also want to attach a well-prepared resume of not more than two pages long. If you can get it, all in one page, so much the better, but do not do any minimization by using a small font. Use the standard 10 or 12 pitches and bold format major achievements.
If you want to prepare your resume in a chronological format, that would be fine. Here are a few leads:
· Give a high-level overview of your main role in the current job.
· Bullet points the main tasks and achievements in decreasing order of importance. Listing the strongest ideas first captures attention and gives a sense of the weightings of the different aspects of the job.
· For each employment give the period of employment, role and position of direct reports. When describing what you actual did, use action words.
· Do not fail to include any work that you have done that has benefited the department or organization as a whole, and if it was an improvement or a new initiative. Explain these clearly and in bold format.
· Try to capsule how the work you did benefited the department and the organization. Quantify these if possible (e.g., save xpercentage of budget without sacrificing service delivery and quality, increase in efficiency, etc). For some junior roles, it may be difficult to quantify successes, but still it is better to give the activity (automated procedures, etc).
In general, picture yourself in the position of the head of that department and those in the APC who would review your application. These busy people should be able to quickly glean through your resume and get the relevant information about you in a succinctly described, clear and uncluttered format.
If you are trying to change jobs, like moving from operations to program for instance, then you may want to write a resume in skills format rather than following a chronological pattern. In that case, the chronology should be well documented on the P11 form. Make it a point to update your P11 form when considering a new position.
In the skills-set resume, you may want to group experience under the skills headings. For instance if your experience had spanned both operations and program then you may want to partition these two skills separately. Emphasis though should be given to the skills for which the role is sought. While a program officer with operations skills would be a welcome addition, it would be better to emphasize the programming experience if a switch is to be made from operations to program.
Where there are numerous employers or departments it would be best to describe your experience under type of work rather than under each department (or employer) in order to avoid repetition. For example, if you worked as an operations officer in two offices, listing separately the experience in each of those offices would be needless repetition.
In submitting a resume, a cover letter is a good anchor. In your letter, you should send a clear message (in one or two statements) about what you have to offer to the potential employer (next department in UNICEF or other UN agency). One good way to begin is to identify five to six strengths that you have to offer and from these condense the essence of what you have to contribute.
Honesty is a key. What you put down in your resume (and P11 form) and cover letter should be the truth and nothing but the truth. At the interview, it will be evident if you are not telling the truth. So make written statements that you are confident you can discuss standing on your own two feet without having to refer to notes or other documentation. Remember the advice from Dale Carnegie – “if you have experienced it, you have the right to speak of it.”
If you were to be interviewed for a position, you would want to put your best foot forward by painting the best possible picture of yourself without any false pretence. You would want to mention three or for strengths that you can bring to the new job. Even if the interview does not create an opportunity, you should still bring into the conversation your relevant strengths. Just saying you are a strong candidate will not be enough - always give one or two examples of the past and how you would expect to use these strengths in the future. If there are weaknesses, you may want to disclose them and say what you can do to overcome it (you may have a baby infant at home and may not be able to work late or on weekends). It is better to face any weakness head on. For any interview, you would want to be well prepared. It may be a good idea to then assume what questions may be asked of you and prepare answers for them.
Just as there is no single format for a print advertisement, there is no one correct formulas for a resume that make a prospective supervisor want to meet with you. There are therefore plenty of possibilities to consider in formatting a resume. Dozens of candidates (hundreds in some case) will be using familiar lines to launch their resumes. A couple of folks may even be committed to the classic mistake of labeling the resume with the self-evident phrase “Resume.” Use good stationary. The paper you use need not be expensive, but it should be neat, clean and uncrushed. The paper you use for the resume should be the same paper you use for the cover letter.
Therefore, if you want to move vertically up the ladder or make a horizontal move, the most important thing to remember is to highlight your skills that are relevant for the new job and attach a good resume and cover letter to your P11 Personal History Form. After you have finished your resume, set another hour or so to make sure that the material on your resume tells a dramatic, confident story that is true – and does so in a way that is immediately accessible to the reader.
Sources for this essay: My own personal knowledge and observances plus knowledge acquired from multiple issues of the Harvard Business Review; Wall Street Journal; Business Week; Economist; Financial Management, UK and several leading books on management and human relations.
