headings is likely to prompt questions that will give you openings to
show key portfolio items that give tangible evidence that you, indeed,
have these desired P.E.A.K.S.
P.E.A.K.S. resumes get noticed—in a positive way. Using a
P.E.A.K.S. format gives your resume a distinct look that improves the
chances that it will get noticed in a stack of traditional resumes. It’s dif-
ferent, but not in a silly way like, say, using shocking purple paper that
will definitely get noticed but is likely to achieve nothing more than
making the print much harder to read!
The P.E.A.K.S. resume format is distinctly different in a way that
is helpful to the reader. The extra effort you put into highlighting your
P.E.A.K.S. is effort the reader does not have to make to figure out just
what it is you have that might be relevant to the job under considera-
tion.
As we noted at the start of this section, you can certainly use any
resume format you like to pursue jobs. But we do believe that a
P.E.A.K.S. resume format works best in all phases of the job-seeking
process. Our clients and students keep telling us that when they use a
P.E.A.K.S. resume they get more job interviews and during the inter-
view they often get compliments on their resume, such as,“Hey, this is
great! Where did you learn to do this resume?”
In the following sections we will show you how you can create a
P.E.A.K.S. resume that works.CREATING A P.E.A.K.S. MASTER RESUME
The actual resume you use for a particular job should be a succinct syn-
opsis of your experience and education, presented in a format that
highlights the very things that are most likely to receive favorable at-
tention from the people who will be receiving your resume. This would
be your “targeted”resume, and you should expect over the course of
time to target your resume in many different ways, as you take aim at
many different audiences.
One of the problems associated with creating targeted resumes is
that typically you are not given a lot of time to put them together. When
people ask you for a copy of your resume, you don’t want to take a long
time getting it to them, as this might suggest you are not particularly
interested in the opportunity they have in mind for you. You could send
along a copy of an old resume, but this may not include your latest in-
formation, and it’s not likely to be properly targeted for pursuing a new
opportunity.Create a master resume that you can cut and paste. So that you are
always ready to put together a great resume on short notice, it’s ex-
tremely helpful if you can have on file a periodically updated master re-
sume that lists everything you might want to consider when creating a
targeted resume. This master list becomes a resource from which you
can select particular items for inclusion in a resume that is targeted at
obtaining a particular job or work assignment.Chapter 5: Creating Resumes That Work with Your Portfolio 65