Prospective clients often call me to get their résumés redone in a presentable form. They generally begin the call with their question, Can you improve my résumé? They are surprised when I tell them that if they want their résumé redone they are better off seeing a résumé writer. They are surprised when I tell them that I can help to improve their career, instead!

So, how do you break the cycle of getting into the same jobs over and over again because you are stuck in your job and are not able to improve your career? You must begin with a résumé that tells a different story than the one that often reads like a laundry-list of job requirements written in the past tense. A typical bullet in such a résumé can read: Managed a variety of projects with cross-functional teams and delivered each on time and on budget (one item from their job description: “Organize and manage a diversity of projects working with cross-functional teams.”). It is no wonder, then, that with such a résumé the next job you land is a ditto of the previous, in an endless cycle of such jobs, until you do them for so long that the interviewer says, You are too experienced or senior for this role (translation: we cannot afford you any more.)!

So, how do you break this cycle of landing the same or similar jobs that do not ratchet-up your career and does not give you the ammunition to move up in your career? Here are some tips on how to break this cycle:

1. Make an audit of your workload and see what you can do to show leadership in your role and to tell your leadership story in a way that showcases how you work differently. No matter how stultifying your job is there is always a better or more exciting way of doing it, adding more value to it, and delivering better or more than what is typically obvious. Then use this achievement to tell your story in your résumé on how you initiated something novel to add more value and spice to an otherwise mundane job.

2. Do not just limit the scope of what needs to be done to the work assigned to you by some bureaucrat. Look at it from the view of the customer or someone higher in the food chain, who can benefit from your work and see what you can do better to make them experience a better outcome (better customer experience).

3. Keep your eyes and ears open to where the problems lie in the workflow and talk to those who feel stuck in their tasks. Explore ways to make that workflow better and offer your perspective as an “outsider” to make things better. Not only will that person or team thank you for your input, but now you have something to write about it in your résumé bullet (“uncovered that the chronic delays in getting the structural analysis done before a design was finalized was that too many people in the team were repeating the same tasks without adding value. Working with the Lead Engineer streamlined the analysis and cut the time in half, making all subsequent analyses on time.”)

4. Do not merely limit the scope of what your task is to your own output, but to what impact it has in your business, customer, or the market. For example, if you helped the project team deliver your product one month ahead of schedule, do not just say, Delivered a critical project one month ahead of schedule. Instead, say, “Despite many obstacles found ways to complete the project one month ahead of schedule. After the product was released its early market entry helped the company double its profits because of the first-mover advantage, helping it build momentum that prevented competitors from winning early marketshare.”

5. Instead of touting your great communication, or team-building skills (many project management jobs require these) by merely stating them as, Excellent communicator and team builder, write a short narrative of how you influenced someone unwilling to provide you the needed resources and got them or write about how a globally dispersed team on different time zones and schedules came together under your leadership even when the project was falling apart.
To break through an endless cycle of ‘sameness’ of jobs you must change your message. Unless you change your message you are not going to breakthrough to change your career. So, the next time you are tempted to write a résumé that reads like a job description written in the past tense, think again and spice it up with real stories of your leadership and see the difference it makes in how you land your next job!

Good luck!