Six Sigma Resume Writing

What is Six Sigma Resume Writing?

Converting simple resume writing into Six Sigma Resume writing can help you position competitively. It is more of a mindset. You don’t need to apply all the Six Sigma tools & techniques. You just need to stick to the fact that it should be defects-free (typos & grammar) as well as it should be effective enough to impress and make other understand easily what is the essence of your work life story and what makes you unique and specialized in a certain field or domain.

I will share some simple tips at a strategic level about the Six Sigma resume writing to help you start your six sigma resume writing process to maintain the highest quality. Although the concept of Six Sigma may feel overwhelming and technical, but fear not, I will be using a few of the overarching techniques of Six Sigma in our resume writing technique. 

First of all, Six Sigma is all about the mindset first that you want to improve something, and literally it can be anything. It provides the famous DMAIC or DMADV methodology which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control; or Define, Measure, Analyze, Design & Verify. Armed with this equation, perhaps you can improve anything in life. I am using the philosophy of Six Sigma in business, career and personal life.

General Resume Writing Tips, First

How Many Pages

First, in my opinion, with 25+ years of experience, one-page resume criteria given by many experts is just a myth. Don't follow the rules blindly.

The main purpose of any good resume is to sell and market yourself effectively whether it is one page, two-pages, or even 3-pages. 

I have personally experienced an HR committee reading my whole long CV (sometimes 3–4 pages long) with delight and asked a lot of questions from the things mentioned in it.

Inner & Outer Resume Beauty

Furthermore, it is important that at a strategic level you should take good care of the inner and outer beauty of your resume.

The inner beauty is about what and how you write in it and the outer beauty is about how you format it to please the eyes and make a difference. Strangely, the first look is always on the outer beauty of the resume, whether lousy or impressive, it matters. Just like the cover of the book (you read the book later)

A good resume should immediately provide the reader who you are and what expertise you thrive in.

Resume Headline

It is better to use a headline on the top of your resume “CRM Professional”, “Operations Support Professional”, “Certified Accountant” Certified Six Sigma Black Belt Practitioner” …. I hope, you get the idea.

Work Synopsis

Use the brief synopsis paragraph to give the overview story of your professional career in a box below the Job purpose or Headline.

Resume Body - Action Verbs

Write in the resume body about your wok history in an elegant manner with strong action verbs. (Develop, implemented, modified, achieved, transformed, trained, facilitated …)

Educational Qualifications

If you have more rich experience, then write your educational qualifications at the last. If you are fresh, then you can shift it to the above.

Six Sigma Resume Writing Process

Considering the nature of our Six Sigma Resume writing project, we will typically select the DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify) methodology.

Define

Define the objective of the job – Whether applying for the CRM Manager, PR Manager, Graphic Designer, Civil Engineer or IT Manager in a specific company…

Measure

Check out the available job description including the eligibility requirements (age, qualification and years of relevant experience) at the company website or where it was posted first.

Now take inventory of your work experience, qualifications and credentials.

Match & Measure if it makes you eligible, so that you can move forward.

Analyze

Now analyze your work story and find out the impactful items and achievements from your data, e.g. you implemented system, you changed the process, you met the sales targets, you exceeded the sales target, you achieved the ISO certification, you achieved the Quality awards, you developed the new processes etc. (you get the idea)

Analyze and decide whether you need a brief one-pager resume or your skills and experiences require more room or pages to accommodate. 

Find out the suitable resume templates with formatting rules. (margins, fonts, spacing, headlines, sub headings etc.)

Determine whether you need a chronological resume or a functional resume.

Design

Design and write a new resume which should be customized according to the job requirements. (it should not be ‘one-size-fits-all’ resume)

Now start Six Sigma resume writing simply by putting the available work inventory sequence in a systematic manner.

Now armed with the available job knowledge, Job Description, and your own work inventory, you will start writing your resume keeping a tight focus on what the job demands. 

Actual Writing Begins…

In all, there should be three versions (2 drafts + final version).

Draft-1: You will write your first resume draft which should list all your best experiences and skills matching the job which they would want it.

Dreaft-2: You will review and edit (add or subtract) wherever necessary.

Final Version: After that, you will do the final proof reading and format setting with some polishing and shining. Now your resume is ready.

The three typical writing versions i.e. draft 1, draft 2, final version should provide the finished output.

Verify 

Your customized resume is now ready. In this stage, verify that it is precisely laser targeted for the job you are pitching for.

Now detach yourself for some time from your writing and read your own resume as you are an HR Manager and ask a question, ‘will you like to hire the candidate for the job advertised?’ If your own answer is ‘Yes’ you have nailed it. If you think there is still room, go back to the Analyze and Design stages.

Summing Up

As you may see that Six Sigma provides you with the systematic structure of doing things and adopting a mindset that things can be further improved upon and there is always a room for improvement. 

Applying Six Sigma may become a very detailed science when you want to improve any business process in a company. There, you may need many statistical tools to aid you to do it. But in many other areas of our life, we may only need the Six Sigma mindset and the basic methodology to put things into one structure and improve it.

With Six Sigma skills, I have innovatively started using Six Sigma in all domains of life. Six Sigma is just an improvement science and interestingly it can help you make a difference in all spheres of life, of course, Six Sigma resume writing is one of those. 

You can also checkout another good article on resume writing

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