The Best Resumé Looks Like Leonardo da Vinci’s

By Charlotte Allen

We all know that your resume is often the very first thing to make an impression with a potential employer. But do you know exactly how impactful a resume can be?

Consider research done in 2000 by two University of Toledo psychology students. The researchers showed that any amount of time spent in an interview served only as a means to confirm whatever impression had already been formed. It takes just 30 seconds to make that first impression, and it’s your resume that undoubtedly sets the expectation.

How can you make sure your resume is creating the best first impression possible? Marc Cenedella recommends using the resume of Leonardo da Vinci as a template:

You’ll notice he doesn’t recite past achievements. He doesn’t mention the painting of the altarpiece for the Chapel of St. Bernard; he doesn’t provide a laundry list of past bombs he’s built; he doesn’t cite his prior employment in artist Andrea di Cione’s studio…Instead, he sells his prospective employer on what Leonardo can do for him.

…That’s exactly what your resume needs to do, too. Not the laundry list / standard bio that talks about you, but the marketing piece that talks about the benefits to your future employer and how you fit into his or her needs and desires.

This approach to resume-writing makes a lot of sense when we stop to think about it.

Writing about yourself and your accomplishments is tempting, but if you want to make the best first impression with your resume you’re better off giving details on how you can leverage your past experience in order to meet the needs of the company and provide value above and beyond those needs. The purpose of any job isn’t to impress, it’s to solve needs. Your resume should demonstrate that you are more than capable of filling those needs.

Creating the ideal resume requires researching first: the position, the company it is for, what problems/responsibilities you’ll be tackling in the role.

Giving explicit examples of how you achieved results in the past for similar needs is a good start (it’s the type of stuff Google looks for in a resume), but providing detailed examples of how you can apply the lessons learned from your past experience is what will help potential employers see exactly how valuable you can be for their business. Whether those examples come from work or your hobbies, as long as you can clearly describe how you can add value to the business, you’re bound to make an positive and impactful impression.

Remember: the best resume isn’t one that is about you, it’s about what you can do for the needs of the job.

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