It is best to have a killer resume on hand at all times. Besides, crafting an impeccable resume will help improve your online presence as well, which is key to attracting potential new employers.

How do you create a professional senior-level resume? Let’s get to it.

As you move up in your tech career, it’s easy to overlook the importance of a resume. However, the more experience you have the more difficult it is to succinctly craft an impressive overview of yourself on paper. Painting a picture of your capabilities in a resume is crucial and here are a few tips on how to write an effective senior-level resume:

1. Identify Dream Employers (and their pain points)

One of the biggest mistakes that senior-level candidates make when writing a resume is keeping it too broad. Your resume should be directed towards a role you’d like to land in instead of a wide audience.

Think through companies you’d be interested in working for and identify some of their problem areas. Then, demonstrate that you have the skills and experience to help alleviate those pain-points.

2. Show the Competition

When you’re contending for high-level positions, it’s okay to show the competition to highlight your strengths. It’s not bad to brag about your achievement. In fact, according to a Forbes article delving into the psychology of great resumes, “by showing your competition, you emphasize how coveted your accomplishments are.” Wondering how you can do it? Here’s an example of how to make an accomplishment stand out with this tactic:

Before: Won the technology mentor award at Hackathon.
After: Won the technology mentor award at Hackathon out of over 500 nominated CTO’s.

This is especially important for achievements or awards that might not be widely known. Recruiters and hiring managers will likely not take the time to Google the award and see the true value. Include the competition to enable them to see the weight that the award holds right on the page. You got it, right? Good! Let’s move on

3. Include your Personality

As someone with multiple years of experience, you’ll likely have great skills and qualities that hiring managers are looking for. So what can differentiate you from other executives or senior-level candidates with the same years of experience as yours? Your personality is the key.

When hiring for senior-level employees, recruiters and hiring managers are looking for someone that is not only qualified but someone who will be a good fit for the company and can potentially lead a team. You see why personality matters?

Make sure that your personality and character come through in your bullet points. Use your voice and add a skill or hobby that reflects something unique about you.

For example, instead of writing ‘sports’ as a hobby, add something more specific Like football. Because as we know it, there are lots of sports out there. Don’t lie about it. Make sure it’s your hobby.

4. It’s Okay to Name Drop

Have you worked with top brands before? Even if it was for free and a very short duration, you need to add it to your resume. Think about your resume as a sales pitch or marketing tool. Associate yourself with big brands, partnerships, deals, etc. In Robert Cialdini’s famous book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he teaches that part of establishing your authority is by showing your connection to people, brands or companies that already have it.

Use all your cards to secure that dream job but ensure the cards exist before you shoot yourself in the foot.

5. Strategize and Organize

The average hiring manager skims through a resume and makes a quick decision to read further or pass. That’s why it’s important to put the most important information first, as the ‘above the fold’ theory applies to resumes too. Dr Cherry Collier, Executive Coach at Personality Matters INC., advises to highlight your leadership ROI:

“Establish how your leadership and management abilities directly contributed to measurable indicators of success: higher conversions, revenue and profits, fewer expenses and faster turnarounds.”

Bolding is another way to make important information stand out. Without going overboard, it’s okay to make bold some of the most important parts to grab their attention and make them want to read more.

Many senior talents are recruited and scouted online before they even have the opportunity to send a resume along. So you might be wondering what’s the point of putting time and effort into making one at this level?

The truth is, you never know when you’ll need to send one to an e-mail or when you’ll need to bring one for an in-person interview.

To conclude, organizing yourself on paper, will make it easier to organize your online presence and create a personal brand that will attract the right opportunities.