What makes a résumé work for a senior role?
A senior résumé works when it reads as evidence rather than description. Each role should show scope, the decisions you owned, and outcomes with numbers attached. Tailor a version to each posting using that posting's own language, and lead with the accomplishments the role is actually judged on.
For candidates
Your résumé is a marketing document, not a job history
A hiring committee is not reading to understand your past. They are reading to predict your next twelve months. Every line should answer 'why should we hire you for this job' rather than 'what were you responsible for'.
One résumé per posting
Strong candidates keep several variations, each tailored to a specific employer and role. The reordering matters more than the rewriting: put the experience that maps to the posting in the first third of page one.
What to include on every line
- Scope: portfolio size, budget, headcount, asset class, geography.
- Decision: what you personally owned, not what your team was near.
- Outcome: a number, a percentage, a timeline, or a named result.
- Context: why the outcome was difficult, in one clause.
Two pages is not a rule
Length follows relevance. A twenty-year career can justify three pages when every page earns its place; an early-career résumé padded to two pages costs credibility. Cut anything that does not support the role you are chasing.
The parts candidates most often get wrong
- Adjectives with no evidence behind them — 'strategic', 'results-driven', 'dynamic'.
- Unexplained gaps or short tenures left for the committee to interpret.
- A summary paragraph written for no particular role.
- Formatting that machine screening cannot parse cleanly.