So if, for example, the person who will be receiving your resume is
likely to believe that multitasking skills are very desirable in a job can-
didate, and you have demonstrated these skills in a particular job, you
would include the subheading “Multitasking Skills”beneath your list-
ing of this particular job. You could then list several activities or pro-
jects that required multitasking skills.
By making connections very explicit, P.E.A.K.S. resumes leave less
to chance. You might say, isn’t it obvious that a particular job or project
requires certain kinds of skills or knowledge? Maybe to you, but the
person who reads your resume might not make the connection between
what you did and the key P.E.A.K.S. that are being sought in a job can-
didate. Remember, the recipient of your resume is unlikely to spend
more than a few seconds reviewing its contents.
By making very explicit the connections between what you have
done and the key P.E.A.K.S. that are being sought in job candidates,
you do not leave it to the reader’s imagination to determine the possi-
ble relevance of items in your resume to the job under consideration.
For this approach to be successful, of course, you need to have done
some research and have a clear idea as to the desired P.E.A.K.S. for this
particular job.
Extra work is required on your part to categorize key items in your
resume according to P.E.A.K.S. they exemplify, but the effort is worth
it. A properly targeted P.E.A.K.S. resume leaves it less to chance that
the reader will understand why the skills and experiences you listed in
your resume make you a strong candidate for the job under considera-
tion.
P.E.A.K.S. resumes are particularly useful for identifying transfer-
able skills.People who are attempting to make a substantial shift in
the direction of their career are under a particular burden to make the
case that some of the things they learned and achieved in their previ-
ous jobs are relevant to the new field they wish to enter. Adding to this
challenge is the fact that prospective employers often do not know
enough about what was required in a career-switcher’s previous jobs to
quickly understand that these jobs involved important transferable
skills. A P.E.A.K.S. format can highlight useful transferable skills that
a prospective employer might otherwise miss in a more traditional re-
sume.
P.E.A.K.S. resumes are easy to speed-read. Recipients of resumes
typically get annoyed when a resume contains a tangle of information
that is hard to slug through. They want to get the key points quickly so
that they can decide whether or not this person is, in their opinion,
worth talking to.
Because a P.E.A.K.S. resume uses headings that specify the rele-
vance of key items, it’s an “easy read.”The format enables readers to get
the important points quickly. And because a P.E.A.K.S. resume is easy
to digest, its length can be extended to more than one page.
P.E.A.K.S. resumes can be constructed to create openings to show
portfolio items.You can use P.E.A.K.S. headings in your resume to
draw attention to things you have in your portfolio that interviewers
are likely to be interested in learning more about. Using P.E.A.K.S.64 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio