4 Words Your Supply Chain Resume Needs

PurchTips - Edition # 243 November 15, 2011

By Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2

Does Your Supply Chain Resume Emphasize Results?

In PurchTips edition #240, I shared examples of supply chain resume excerpts that listed responsibilities and then illustrated how emphasizing results was more effective. Just because you were responsible for something doesn't mean you were successful at it.

A good supply chain resume documents success. Here are more examples of how you can convert responsibilities into results on your supply chain resume.

"Managed a 12-employee supply chain team" is a responsibility. "Increased the supply chain team's productivity by 15%" is a result showing success.

"Was responsible for customer satisfaction levels" is a responsibility. "Improved customer satisfaction from a 3.1/5 average to a 4.3/5 average" is a result.

Responsibility: "Transformed purchase-to-pay process." Result: "Reduced average invoice backlog by 20 days through transforming the purchase-to-pay process."

Responsibility: "Negotiated contracts for commodity purchases." Result: "Saved the company $13 million through negotiation of commodity purchase contracts."

There are four key words I used in these examples: increased, improved, reduced, and saved. These results-oriented words should be the focus of your supply chain resume. Use them often because they indicate what you achieved, not merely what tasks were assigned to you.

I'll close this edition with a list of more examples of "responsibility-not-result" words. Scour your resume and see if you can replace sentences using these words with sentences that leverage the power of "saved," "increased," "reduced," or "improved." Here's the list?

Administered, assigned, assisted, awarded, bought, completed, consulted, coordinated, developed, implemented, led, managed, negotiated, procured, purchased, served, sourced, supervised, supported, transformed, traveled, worked.

This list isn't exhaustive, but I hope you understand the idea enough to "improve" your supply chain resume!

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