3 Tips for Developing the Perfect Executive Resume Title

You’ve made it. All your hard work has paid off, and you’re officially The Big Cheese. Now it’s time to go out and find a great job that bears both the responsibilities and rewards of being a top executive. The trouble is, depending on which company is advertising a job, you may be applying to be CEO, Director, or President. How should you title your resume in order to be picked up by recruiters and hiring managers? Target a specific sector If your job search is aimed at leading a certain size company in a particular industry, it will be fairly easy for you to determine an appropriate title for your resume. One tactic is to copy the search words you use to look for jobs appropriate for your experience. For instance, if you are looking for Vice President positions that require an M.B.A., your title might be “Senior Vice President” and you would include M.B.A. after your name, as in “John Doe, M.B.A./ Senior Vice President”. Know your industry The issue of titles is a good one to talk over with a recruiter or any inside contacts you have with a company. If you can’t find an actual person to ask about how your experience corresponds to a particular company’s titles, spend some time on LinkedIn looking at the current management of your target companies. What are the titles of executives who have experience equivalent to yours? Casting a wide net For many senior executives, the experience you’ve gathered throughout your career prepares you to do any number of things: operations management, strategic planning, or even consulting. If you’re open to many possibilities in your next career move, you may want to try another tack and utilize multiple potential titles across the top of your resume. For example, your title might be “COO/CFO/Director of Administration”. This will allow your resume to match up with keyword searches for numerous positions. We often write about the need to customize each resume that you submit for the particular position you’re targeting. It’s okay (and preferable!) to have numerous versions of your resume with different target titles on each one. A little bit of research is all it takes to label your executive resume appropriately.