How To Write a Resume That Shows Your Ability to Solve Problems

Sometimes it feels that your resume is supposed to introduce you to a company that will solve all of your problems. When you’re hired, you will be able to pay your bills, work in an environment you enjoy and take another step in the right direction toward creating the career of your dreams.

Yes, it’s true that if you’re hired with a company, it could very well solve your problems. However, before all of that happens, you need to prove that you can solve the company’s problems. It’s your job to convince the employer that when you’re hired, you can fill any void that needs filling. How can you do that? By writing a real problem-solving resume.

Conduct Your Research

Creating a problem-solving resume requires conducting a good amount of research on the company you’re applying with. Think about it; in order to prove that you’re the person who can come in and solve the company’s problems, you need to find out what the problems are.

There are a few ways that you can do this. First, you can look at the job posting that the company creating to determine exactly what is needed for the position. Obviously one problem is that the company is missing a worker and needs to fill this spot with someone who can accomplish XYZ goals, so you want make sure you can fulfill those goals.

Finding the company's mission statement on its website is also a good idea. This gives you an idea of the organizational atmosphere so that you can determine how you fit into it. Finally, check out any of the press releases that the company had issued, as they're a great source of information on the business; they're also usually on the official website of a company.

Add Skills-Specific Summary

After you’ve determined just what the company needs, it’s time to show that you can be a problem-solving employee. To get a good start, try making a skills-specific summary of yourself and placing it directly under your objective.

This type of summary allows you to show off your best skills. However, it’s important to not just throw anything in this section. Instead, you want to use the information that you’ve researched to show that your skills and accomplishments are already so closely matched to what the company needs that they truly would be foolish to hire someone else.

The skills-specific summary that you create could work well as a short two-to-three sentence paragraph or a series of bullet points. However you feel you can best get the point across that you can come in and solve problems for the company is the best way.

Remember, any time you're applying for a position, your first priority should be to let the prospective employer know what you can do for them. By writing a problem solving resume, you're showing a company exactly what your value is, and you'll greatly shorten the length of your job search in the process.