5 Ways to Improve Management Consultant Resumes

In my last blog post, I touched on the value of having a skills-based resume to highlight your specific skills, talents, abilities and knowledge. Today, I'd like to go into a bit more detail regarding how to construct and improve management consultant resumes. By following these resume tips, you will be able to craft a document that will make you stand out from the competition.

1. The skills-based resume concept may seem unusual, but it's what you need to use.

   Management consultant resumes need to highlight your skills. If your resume presents your skills and abilities as afterthoughts to the chronology of your professional life, you will have a difficult time finding consulting opportunities.
    

2. Don't try to turn your chronological resume into a skills-based document. Start from scratch.

   It might seem easy to play a game of switcheroo with your traditional resume in order to turn it into a skills-based resume. However, doing this will probably lead to frustration. My advice is to take a step back and start over with the document. Take some time to consider your skills and how you will put those front and center. Then you can build the ideal skills-based resume.
    

3. Think of your resume like a cake.

   I have some valuable skills in my toolbox, but cooking is not one of them. When I see a counter full of ingredients for a cake, all I see is flour, eggs, sugar and so on. However, my wife – who is much more skilled at these things – can see a delicious, finished product. When you construct your resume, you want to show yourself off as a finished product, not as a list of ingredients. That's why you want to make sure everything fits together and tells a consistent story about your skills and abilities; not just the three years you spent at Company ABC and the five you spent at Company XYZ.
    

4. Show that you're a denizen of the 21^st century, not the 20^th.

   A lot of the lessons that our teachers and parents drilled into our heads to show us “the right way to do things” are simply quaint relics of another time now. The traditional, chronological resume style is just one example. These resumes were appropriate when you learned about them, but using one today will show that you aren't quite up to speed with how things are done now. By using an innovative resume that puts your skills at the forefront, you will show potential clients that you can offer up-to-date, cutting-edge solutions.
    

5. Think of quality over quantity.

   Some professionals are still adding things like grammar school grades and scouting badges to their resumes. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think you get my point. Do employers really care about the two weeks during which you worked at a bookstore 30 years ago? Probably not. Skip superfluous entries and details, and replace them with content that describes the things that you can do to help companies right now. A one-page document that clearly shows your abilities is much more effective than an encyclopedic report on the many details of your professional life.

Management consultant resumes need to be different from the run-of-the-mill CVs that flood HR inboxes every day. Consulting is all about your skills, abilities and talents, which is why you need to ensure that these elements aren't hidden between the lines. Skills-based resumes might seem strange if you were taught a single style over the course of your whole life and career, but they are becoming the standard across many industries. In fact, the skills-based resume is clearly the best way to showcase what you can do in a simple, one-page document.

If you take this advice into consideration and really spend some time crafting a resume that highlights what you can do and how you can do it, you'll drum up a considerable amount of interest in your consulting talents.

Consulting is a great career choice, but finding your way in can be difficult. That's why Ex3 Matters offers so many ways to help those who are looking for more meaning and responsibility in their careers. Make sure you download our free consulting guides as well as my free eBook, “Experience Matters,” for additional advice and insight.