The key to doing that is to convince recruiters from rival firms that you could be a valuable asset to their team and that they should pay you more money to lure you away from your current employer. This is most often how people advance in their careers.
Companies are more likely to hire externally when they need to fill a leadership role than they are to promote from within. In order to be the candidate who is selected for that more advanced position, you need to demonstrate that you have what it takes to assume the role and drive success.
This means writing a resume that communicates more than just your past work experience and credentials, it must also demonstrate your clear potential for achieving more in the future.
There are clear skillsets that employers look for in leadership candidates, and showcasing this in your resume can be the key to being hired for a higher-paying job. The most sought-after professionals are the ones with a proven ability to understand the challenge of a situation, prepare practical strategies for overcoming these challenges, and execute the solution to deliver a successful result.
Employers will be looking for these qualities in candidates for high-paying roles:
- Optimization
- Strategic thinking
- Taking ownership
- Delivering results
That last one, your established capacity for delivering results, is the most important piece of information that a resume for a higher-paying job must contain. Use numbers to quantify those results wherever possible. For example:
"Exceeded sales quota in my first year."
Does not sound nearly as impressive as:
"Delivered 20% over a $200,000 sales quota in my second quarter in the role."
At this level, your resume should really be all about your accomplishments and stand-out achievements. For more junior roles, your organizational skills, work habits, and diligence in performing your duties can be important. Once you're moving up through the ranks, it is just assumed that you are an organized, diligent, hard worker. So is everyone else you will be competing against for the job.
It is how you bring more to the table than those other similarly qualified candidates that matters. Here are some key situations to look for examples of in your work history that can form the cornerstone of these noteworthy successes.
Optimization
You don't just do things the way they have always been done because that is the way they have always been done, right? That's not how leaders behave. Consider a time when you stepped into a role and saw ways of doing things more effectively. What changes did you make? How did you optimize the process, and what was the result?
Take responsibility
This might be more for the interview for the higher-paying job than for your resume, but it is still important to note. Setbacks can be valuable career assets as well as achievements. Taking ownership of a problem shows character as well as leadership. If you have examples of a project that didn't work out, have that story ready. What were the goals, at what point did you realize that it wouldn’t be successful, and what decisions did you make to optimize the strategy? Everyone has encountered failures at some point in their careers. It is how we deal with them that proves our potential.
Strategize
Strategic thinking is a cornerstone of leadership ability. This is the capacity to observe a situation, see how it could be improved upon, and create an action plan for achieving those improvements. This involves critical thinking – not just doing things the way they have always been done – problem-solving, and advanced planning. It often includes communications and delegation as well, as you obtain buy-in from the team to execute the plan.
Deliver results
This is where it all comes together. Optimizing your work procedures, taking ownership of setbacks, and strategizing for new solutions all culminate in delivering the results of that process. This is what employers want to see and what looks good on a resume: results you delivered.
Candidates for higher-paying jobs don't merely perform functions. They don't just carry out the duties listed in a job description. They lead projects, drive innovation, and solve problems.
So, once you have determined that you want to earn more money and that negotiating for it at your current job [Cross link: How to negotiate pay raise] isn't the optimal solution, it's time to craft that resume that can get you hired for a next-level role. What employers will want to see in candidates for those positions is the ability to get things done, to accomplish results, to achieve successes.
Once you've impressed them with your stellar resume and professional interviewing skills, you are ready to negotiate a higher starting salary.
