The One Question Every Resume Bullet Should Answer

There is one question that separates a resume bullet that works from one that does not. That question is: so what?

Most resume bullets describe an action. They tell the reader what you did, what you were responsible for, what you worked on. What they rarely do is answer the question that every hiring manager is silently asking while they read: so what does that mean for me and my organization?

The answer to that question is where your value lives. It is the result that followed your action. It is the problem that got solved, the time that got saved, the risk that got mitigated, the system that got built and is still running two years later. It is the thing that changed because you were there.

Engineers are trained to go deep on the work itself. Articulating the downstream impact of that work is a different skill entirely, and most people have never had to develop it because their reputation inside an organization carried them. When you step outside that organization and into a job search, your reputation does not travel with you. Your resume does. And if your resume cannot answer the so what question on its own, you are leaving the most important part of your story untold.

Go through your resume right now and read each bullet with that question in mind. If you cannot answer it, the bullet is not finished yet.

If you want help finishing it, that is exactly what a Strategic Career Diagnostic Session is designed to do. Book your session here

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