To a certain extent, a resume is a description of the things you’ve done. All the relevant jobs, volunteer positions, and even hobbies get summarized and bullet-pointed in order to prove your qualifications for a particular position.

Seen this way, a resume can be demoralizing. There are gaps. Not enough bullet points. Not enough evidence.

But there’s another way to see it.

Think strategically

Think about the job you’d really love to have. Think about what skills and qualifications you would need in order to land that job.

Leaving aside “going back to school and getting another degree,” what would your resume (not someone else’s, or your resume from a different, parallel life, but YOUR resume) need in order to demonstrate those skills and qualifications?

If you don’t already know how it would need to be different, an informational interview would be invaluable here. A knowledgeable insider would be able to describe all the ways people have come to this job, and thus all the ways you might do it.

And thus you have a plan.

Look for the shortest distance between two points

We academics generally default to “I need another degree” for any job we actually want. That’s because we came up in a system that was all about the right degree for the job.

But the rest of the world mostly doesn’t work that way. They want to see A degree, because it demonstrates things like persistence and the ability to finish tasks. But more than a degree, they want to see evidence that you can do what they need you to do.

That’s where sympathetic friends come in. Buy a bottle or two of wine, open a bag of something snacky, and invite your most inventive, positive, supportive friends over. Share with them what you have and what you need. Then ask for their help in brainstorming all the possible ways you could gain the skills and experience you need to get your foot in the door.

That’s it – your foot in the door. You don’t have to become an expert. You don’t have to experience every aspect of the job. You only need to get enough so that you can argue for your own ability to do this job successfully.

From all of the brainstorming you and your friends come up with, pick the one that takes the least amount of time and energy. For example, when I wanted to leave academia, I figured grant writing might be a good place for me. So I found a local non-profit that wanted to apply for a grant but didn’t have the time to do the work. I volunteered over spring break, write them a grant, and voila! One grant-writing reference and an example I could show prospective employers.

It may be that you’ll eventually need to also take on the next-least-amount of time and energy task. That’s okay. But always start with the shortest distance between you and your goal.

Don’t just describe — plan

As you’re thinking about things you can do, think about how they’ll translate to lines on your resume. Think about the lines you want on your resume. Then find a way to get them.

Your resume can be so much more than a summary. If you choose to use it as such, it’s a strategic document you can use to plan for that future you want to inhabit. And isn’t that more empowering?

Know you’re leaving but not sure how to actually make that happen? I offer two things that might help: a resume and cover letter writing service and a class designed to help you create a successful job search system.

Because we’ve spent so many years inside academia, when we decide it’s time to leave, we often run up against one teensy tiny little problem.

The people we’re applying with have no idea what going to graduate school and getting a PhD entails.

More often than not, they think that you’ve simply been taking classes for the last seven years.

Not even close

It means they don’t know that you’ve designed whole classes.

It means they don’t know that you can speak in front of groups as large as 100 or more.

It means they don’t know that you can facilitate conversations around challenging topics.

It means they don’t know that you can design research projects.

It means they don’t know that you can write – and win – grant proposals.

It means they don’t know that you can sustain multi-year projects.

It means they don’t know that you can solve problems through training programs.

It means they don’t know that you can organize whole conferences.

It means they don’t know that you can communicate in several different registers, as befits the situation.

It means they don’t know that you can problem-solve.

It means they don’t know that you can perform complex research.

That’s your job

They’re never going to know those things unless you tell them, because they can’t read your mind.

But if you can articulate these skills in terms of what they find valuable and important to the work they do every day, they understand what an asset you’d be to the organization.

And that’s the kind of thing that gets you an interview.

Know you’re leaving but not sure how to actually make that happen? I offer two things that might help: a resume and cover letter writing service and a class designed to help you create a successful job search system.

When you’re sitting down to write a resume, it’s hard enough to remember every job you’ve ever worked and everything you did in each one, the better to pick out the relevant information for whatever you’re applying for. But the hardest part – and the most important – is turning those responsibilities into accomplishments.

Responsibilities are not enough

It’s important to start with what you were responsible for. Those job duties are going to give a reader a sense of the scope of your position, and if you’re applying to a company big enough to run resumes through a key word search, those job duties will, properly described, light up with keywords.

But responsibilities alone aren’t going to convince someone to take you to the next stage of the application process, because nothing in a list of responsibilities will tell the reviewer if 1) you actually did what you were supposed to do, and 2) were any good at doing those things.

This is where accomplishments come in

Given all of your responsibilities, what did you get done? Did you streamline the technical process so website downtime dropped 10%? Did you win a $2m grant to research personality type at work? Did you grow the program from 5 minors to 100?

These are the kinds of things that tell a reviewer all about your strengths and skills – both your skills in the hard and your skills in the soft. If you successfully came up with, proposed, funded, and put on a brand new conference that has since become annual, then the reviewer knows you’re a visionary and you can make things happen. They know you can fundraise and make good arguments and coordinate lots of logistics.

And while you can tell them these things outright, it’s always helpful when a reviewer can see how all of your tasks added up to something important. That helps them envision what you might be able to do in this workplace. And that’s the kind of response that gets you an interview.

Working on applying to non-academic jobs? I have resume-writing superpowers that I’d love to use on your behalf.