DIY: First Draft
Building Your First Draft
Before you begin building the first foundational draft out of your resume and resume worksheet, let's review a few key principles for Feng Shui Resume Writing that diverges from the old way of doing things:
Throw out the old rules and let the format simply hold space for holistic story telling. | Long standing resume rules tie back to times of paper resumes and industrialization, prior to electronic resumes and online job applications that accompany more modern times. As a Feng Shui Resume Writer, you will are working with a format that empowers you to focus your reader's attention in a way that is satisfying and easeful. |
Story Mindset | Feng Shui Resume holders are story tellers. There is an art to this writing. We start off at a mechanical level (which involves simply importing the worksheet data and submitted resume text into the format) and then with each draft we clarify, lift, shape, and celebrate the our stories. |
Bye Bye "1 Page Rule" | The one page rule again is tied to the days of paper resumes. This is insufficient for conveying a person's developing story. The Feng Shui Resume incorporates a one page executive summary that satisifies the busy/distracted hiring manager on top of back pages that provide detail as needed. |
Introducing First Person | LinkedIn opened the door to first person voice when it comes to sharing one's professional summary. It's time to show up this way in the resume, which we do in the Summary paragraph only – leaving the rest to objective voice. |
Full Story (beyond 10 yr limit) | As writer, you will want to include all of your positions in the first draft and then shape from there (summarizing that which does not materially support the story theme) until you have a coherent story. Throw out any rules that tie back to fear of ageism. Proudly share your emerging or vast experience and how it contributes to the whole of our world. |
Clean Format | The Feng Shui Resume format has been designed for ease of viewing. Too much fancy formatting can distract. Each Feng Shui Resume, however, may be customized by selecting a color theme for the top bar which synchs with your personal style and your LinkedIn profile header. |
Drop the Jargon | The Feng Shui Resume is not a puff piece. It's not a sales job. It's not a grift. Fluff, jargon and the like is out and meaningful language is in! |
Okay – time to build your first draft!!
The first step is to simply copy and paste your current resume and worksheet info into the Feng Shui Resume template – each bit into its proper place. This is a very mechanical process and requires little to no editing work yet (other than fixing sentence structure, as needed.) This first draft should contain all of the content provided (even if it feels too long). You want to start with everything and from there shape, paring down as needed, to best tell the story.
Feng Shui Resume Graphic & Style Guide
You should have already down loaded and saved the Feng Shui resume Graphic and Style Guide. This is a very helpful guide for building your resume. As you build, have this handy and follow the prompts.
TIPS:
When loading yout copy from your original resume and worksheet, don't worry yet about separating content out between role summary and impacts. Simply load it in the way it has been presented (ie, all bullet points) to start. Once the content is loaded into the Feng Shui Template, you will be able to see clearly what content goes where.
A note on "impacts". This generally fits for roles where there is some aspect of leadership and/or power to initiate change. You can include "impacts" for other roles as well where you see it is warranted. Often a resume is a mixture of roles with varying degrees of agency. This is for you to determine, based on the nature of your work.
If you have several roles under one single employer, you will want to list the employer only once and then include the various roles under that single employer. An example of this is shown in my resume (under Providian).
Include all content, even if it feels like overload. Most likey, roles beyond twenty years will be merely listed. But, to start, we gather it all.
Feng Shui Resume First Draft
Below is a 5 minute training video that I provide to resume writers taking the Feng Shui Writing Certification course. This is provided as it gives you a glimpse into the process of construction.