Adele Casciaro talks candidly about  how she helps her senior candidates better prepare their credentials

I have built my recruiting career as a specialist in Strategic Sourcing/Procurement & Supply Chain. While I work with candidates and companies in many different industries from Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail to Communications and Financial Services, Public Sector and Manufacturing, my focus (by choice because I love it) has always been extremely narrow because I wanted, like Argentus, to become known as a leader, a knowledge expert in Talent Acquisition in a vertical that in the last few years has come sharply into focus as a high demand skill category –  it’s very HOT both in Contingent Staffing as well as Permanent Placement.  In the last eleven years, I have really worked hard to educate myself through my relationships with my clients and candidates (and there has been a great breadth) to develop a deep understanding of Purchasing/Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain – Planning – Transportation as well as the related Change Management – Process Improvement areas that encompass these initiatives. I have loved learning the intricacies of what makes these business areas so critical to organisations’ efficiencies, competitiveness and improved bottom lines.

I am regularly approached by senior individuals in the US but mainly Canada who want my advice as to how to better package themselves with a view to a possible career search. Or, wanting to reposition themselves because they are NOT getting the traction they had hoped for as they hit the market – their expectations have fallen short in the job hunt.  I am happy to do this because this falls in well  in supporting Argentus candidates in our talent space – and for us this results in goodwill and better referrals.  So for everyone it’s a win –win.

So here’s the really important point I make again and again and again. And I can’t impress upon senior Supply Chain and Procurement experts how important it is to use this piece of advice as if it were written in stone. A resume is NOT a job description!!! Do you know how many times we look at a resume and can see in a flash that it needs to get dusted off and reinvented. It’s a competitive world out there – resumes get scanned in 7 to 10 seconds can you believe it. So it had better be fresh and clear and simple. A good resume is an achievement based summary filled with robust keywords and numbers which lead the reader to where you want them to be and put them in the picture.

Pull out your resume today – is it a quantifiable fact sheet about who you are and what you have done?  It should ooze ROI, metrics, savings etc.  And be able to tell your audience in a snap shot how you can save money and put it back on their bottom line.