The employment landscape for executive and director-level careers in premium and luxury brands is changing like never before. Last April, over 650,000 retail workers quit their jobs. Empowered by a growing job market, workers are trading up for roles in the luxury brand space.
The allure of benefits in luxury retail careers – greater compensation, more room for growth, and an engaging, creative work environment – are all factors that are driving competition for these roles.
If you’re looking to break into a career with a premium or luxury brand, you’ll need a resume that gives you the edge over other candidates. As the first thing hiring authorities will see, a winning resume could help you get a foot in the door and make an impression during an interview.
We’ve put together this list of tips that will help you create exactly what premium and luxury companies are looking for. With these simple edits to a resume, you will stand out in a competitive field of applicants.
Compile Your Greatest Hits
This is perhaps the most useful tool to help you avoid piecing together a bland resume.
When summarizing your previous roles, avoid writing something akin to a job description. Taking the time to write a creative and in-depth summary of your achievements is your chance to show your industry prowess.
Instead of writing a robotic, by-the-numbers list of your various experiences, focus on:
- Executive-level changes you implemented
- How your leadership helped your former employer to either run more efficiently, profitably, or to get more leads
- New processes which you either created single handedly or were critical in creating
- How you solved your former employer’s problems
Treating a resume like it’s your list of greatest hits while clearly conveying how your unique skill set can help solve your prospective employer’s problems will thrill potential premium and luxury brand employers at the prospect of hiring you!
Quantifying Your Accomplishments
The more specific you can be in your resume about your accomplishments, the better.
Keep in mind, hiring managers are experts when it comes to detecting a hollow list of “accomplishments.” For example, adding “Sent emails and answered phone calls” is not an accomplishment you would want to include.
In the same way, when you’re too vague about your past performance, it doesn’t paint a positive picture.
Candidates who quantify their successes will have much more luck during their job hunts. Doing so provides proof and meaning when explaining the value you can bring to a premium or luxury retailer.
Here are the factors in play when you quantify your accomplishments on a resume:
- Cite percentages and dollar increases to which you contributed
- Discuss how many marketing campaigns you’ve overseen or the number of people you’ve managed
- Refer to the total scope of your previous roles
- Bring up key initiatives in which you played a critical role
- Speak to specific actions you took to support your company’s main objectives and highlight the results
Lastly, stick to 3 accomplishments per company – you don’t want to go over the top.
Use An Eye-Catching Template, But Keep It Simple
As per Wordstream, many leading candidates now are using a striking resume template. And while the visual layout of your resume is important to consider, don’t go overboard. A professional resume should be balanced, with content that is easily parsed for valuable information.
Most resumes will be scanned into a database to ensure the candidate is sent to the right hiring authority. So resumes that are too design-conscious are a challenge to digitally scan with accuracy.
That said, choosing a layout that is simple, visually appealing, with black text and clean, sensible fonts is always a plus. Here is a list of the best and worst fonts for your resume.
Always Put Your Resume in PDF Formatting
The universal formatting for resumes is a PDF file, according to Hubspot.
This way, all potential employers can see your resume with its original spacing and fonts since PDF is universal.
Transitioning to PDF is as simple as navigating to “save” on Microsoft Word and saving as a PDF. On iWork Pages, you’ll need “export to” a PDF file, but it’s still straightforward.
Include Relevant Keywords
You may be familiar with search engine optimization (SEO). In the same way Google reads a website searching for SEO keywords and phrases, an applicant tracking system will scan resumes for relevant keywords that help it identify and categorize content to help streamline the recruitment process.
To use the example of a marketing resume, keywords such as, “Creative Campaigns,” “Account Management,” “Creative Director,” are all commonly scanned for executive and management-level marketing resumes.
Keywords specific to your specialty can be used in your bullet points, skill section, or sprinkled throughout your resume in a way that reads naturally and makes sense.
Contact The Bowerman Group For Help
Whether you’re looking for an executive or management-level role with a premium or luxury brand, or you’re a brand seeking out the industry’s top talent, the Bowerman Group can be your ideal partner. Contact us today so we can get started on your recruitment journey.