The Proposal Resume vs the Job Resume

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I've had this conversation with an HR person - when they were hiring a procurement manager, the resumes were first screened for 'key words' being risk management and contract management, etc. However, when I looked at resumes screened out, someone was proving they created a risk matrix, and negotiated multi-million dollar service contracts. So in fact they demonstrated their competency but didn't use the buzz-words.

When resumes are reviewed in a proposal process, the evaluators are NOT looking for buzzwords, they are looking to verify the team has the expertise and experience to do the service the company says they can do. A resume should verify years and level of experience in the field requested in the Request for Proposals.

Sadly, I find too many great people send in the wrong version of their resume. When hiring procurement specialists, people were screened out due to lack of 'buzz words' (so we stopped using the HR screeners and did it ourselves!)...but in evaluating proposals, we see so many people putting in a generic buzzword resume with no real 'meat' to it.

My advice - have one resume for the job hunt and a completely different resume when responding to a Request for Proposals. Do not just add your staff 'job-hunt'/buzzword resumes into a proposal document. It looks more cohesive if all your team resumes have the same look/format/features and each demonstrates skills, competencies, expertise in the subject area required - just like you have to do in the proposal document itself!