ACPE Resume Writing

Landing the job you want isn't easy. It's a frustrating, time-consuming process, and the competition in the marketplace is fierce. What can you do to make yourself stand apart from the competition and stir interest in an employer?

A great resume by itself will not get you a job. The interview is where you get or lose the job, but you have to have a good looking resume to go through the search process. Blindly sending out resumes usually doesn’t get a lot of responses. If you can talk to someone in the organization before you send it, you have a better chance of getting it read.

Being qualified to do the job is vital, but how you present your qualifications is just as crucial. Of course, there are no guarantees, but if you take the time to construct a captivating cover letter and format your resume to reflect your accomplishments in the best light, your chances of being noticed will be maximized.

Barbara J. Linney, MA, uses a step-by-step approach to guide you through writing a powerful resume. Barbara is Vice President of Career Development for the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE). She is known for her work in career counseling, management development, and communications training. Barbara's background includes one-on-one counseling, seminar presentations, published articles, and college-level teaching.

As a member of the ACPE faculty, Barbara and her husband, George E. Linney Jr., MD, FACPE, a physician recruiter for Tyler and Company, co-teach the Career Choices program filmed on the Career Paths CD. They also co-wrote the book, Physician Executives: What, Why, How. Barbara teaches in the Tutorial to become a Certified Physician Executive and in the Conflict and Cooperation course.

Barbara earned her master's degree at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and has completed the course work for her doctorate at the University of South Florida, Tampa.

Resume vs. Curriculum Vitae

A resume is a short, powerful document that showcases your accomplishments—no more than 3 pages. Use numbers wherever possible to quantify your results.

A curriculum vitae, on the other hand, is a long document. It tells all the places you have worked, all your publications, your education, everything you have done. We all need one to keep track of our professional lives, but it is not what you send a potential employer. Believe it or not, people doing the hiring do not want to read all about you. They're busy, lazy, or bored by too much information. If we become the ones doing the hiring, we don't want to read long documents either.

Getting Started

At the top of the first page, type your full name, address, and home and office phone numbers (if it is all right for your office to know you're looking). Include zip code, area code, personal email address; you do not want employers to have to do the work of looking up that information. You provide all the information so they can easily get in touch with you.

Example SHARON A. JOHNSON, M.D.
Business Address
22350 Auburn Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45219
(513) 241-2600 Home Address
10068 Leacrest Road
Cincinatti, Ohio 45215
(513) 771-4820
sjohnson@aol.com

Professional Experience

Next, list all your professional experience. It goes before education because experience is the most important factor in getting a management position. When you choose items from your curriculum vitae, most likely you will have to add information. True, you worked at St. Vincent's Hospital from 2000-2004, but what did you do while you were there? Did you help lower costs in the emergency department? How much?

*Developed four new satellite offices, recruited eight primary care physicians over a two-year period, and reduced length of stay from 320 to 250 days-per-1,000, which has resulted in a first-time operational surplus.*

Calling Attention to Accomplishments

Example of an accomplishment statement
Notice the numbers. People like to know that you have saved an organization money or increased its revenues, and they want to know how much and over what period. Use numbers to prove your general statements whenever you can.

Use strong active voice verbs such as developed, recruited, reduced. An example of active voice is, *John hit the ball.* Passive voice is, *The ball was hit by John.* Stay away from the passive. Just as the name implies, it is not as powerful. When applying for management positions, use phrases such as *led the team that.....* to show that you can manage people. Managers are not supposed to do everything themselves. They are supposed to help others do.

Chronological Format

List your accomplishments in reverse chronological order. For example, your most recent job from 2003 to the present is listed first under professional experience. Then you describe the position you had from 1999 to 2003and so on, heading backward.

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Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs , Health Care Systems, 2003—present Operating budget of $60 million with 1,100 employees. . . . . . . . . .

Vice President of Medical Affairs, St Vincents Hospital 1999-2003 Operating budget of $15 million. Led the reorganization. . . . . . . . . .

Education

Education can be listed in the order that it happened. Most of your education was in college and medical school, but people do notice if you have continuing medical education if you are applying for a management position. The important concern for the education section is that you have the entry and completion dates and the degree earned for each item. If it took you six years to finish college because you had to work to earn money, you need to mention that. Otherwise, it might be assumed you had lazy, shiftless tendencies that may reappear in the new organization. Explain gaps of a year or longer, not months.....that's getting too detailed.

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University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, B.A. 1980-1984

University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, M.D. 1984—1988

Residency Program in Pediatrics, Charlottesville Memorial Hospital, 1988—1990, Chief Resident, 1990

What's Next?

What you include after work experience and education will be determined by how much room is left and what kind of position you are applying for. If you are applying for a management position, you would include publications on management topics, not your clinical publications. Many of those doing the hiring will look at a long list of clinical publications and say, *So what--you're not going to be practicing cardiology now.* If you are applying to be dean of a medical school, you can also send your CV with everything. Publications are still the badge of honor in academic circles.

Do include licensure and board certification. Most medical management positions require board certification. People ask, *Why, since I won't be doing internal medicine?* It may be like a dog needing a pedigree to be a show dog, or it may be that other doctors you manage will have passed the boards, and they want to know that you made it through boot camp, too. Fair or not, it most often is a requirement.

You can include honors (Alpha Omega Alpha, Phi Beta Kappa), languages (Spanish is a definite plus in many parts of the country), professional organizations (American College of Physician Executives, American Academy of Pediatrics), or other information that you think is appropriate for the job you're applying for. There is much debate about whether to include birth date. One way or another, they are going to find out how old you are, so you might as well put it in at the end.

Do not include in the resume why you are leaving your present position, your personal opinions (doctors hate to be managed), or salary history. The interview is the place to discuss such things. Don't list your references or say they are available on request. Everyone already knows you will provide references. Also, do not give the names of your references until you have called each of them and asked permission. You want a reference to be prepared to talk about you--not to be caught off guard.

Aesthetics

Once you have collected all the information you need for the resume, you must think about how to dress up the finished product. People do pay attention to the color and bond (thickness) of the paper. Just as you use fine linens on a dining table for important guests, you use fine quality paper to impress your potential employer. Good 24-pound white bond paper with black ink is a good choice. Print on a laser printer. Hiring organizations and recruiters usually ask you to email your resume. You want to do that, but you also need good looking hard copies when you go to the interview or to mail when asked.

Be consistent in your layout. If you put professional experience, education, and other main headings in bold print, make them all the same. Underlining makes it harder to scan the resume so use bold font and capitalization to distinguish your sections. Having enough white space on the page makes the document easier to read. Have top, bottom, and side margins, and put a space between major items.

No typing mistakes! If you have them, people think you don't care enough to send the very best. Even with computer spell checkers, it's almost impossible to catch all the errors yourself. You've been working with the information so long you become blind to errors. Get several other people to proof the resume for you.

The Cover Letter

A resume never leaves home without a cover letter, and every resume sent out has a different cover letter. Otherwise, the person receiving it looks at the resume and thinks, “What's this? Why did I get it? Why should I read another resume?” It gets put in the trash can or conveniently hidden so the recipient will not feel guilty about not reading it.

The cover letter should tell briefly how you learned of the position, why you are sending your resume, and when you will call to see if you can meet with the person. It should be printed on the same paper that the resume is on. The cover letter is the last part in the writing process, but it is not written until you know exactly who will receive the resume. A letter that speaks in generalities looks too much like a form letter and does not impress the recipient.

The Pay-Off

As much trouble as it is to write a resume, you will feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish. You get a concrete look at who you are and what you've done professionally. As you make plans for your future, it is important to examine your present and past to see if the direction you are taking makes sense. In addition to its other contributions, the resume helps develop this perspective.

Job Coaching Services

Take everything you've learned and confidently begin your job search following a strategic plan. Email Barbara Linney at blinney@acpe.org

Introduction