Building Powerful Documents that Reflect Market Knowledge

By Lynda Reeves.

As a competent resume strategist, you know the large role that skills and expertise play in your client’s ability to gain employment. In fact, you are probably imparting lots of information about your client’s competencies in his resume and career portfolio. This approach will help others learn something about him, but will the professional portfolio reflect your client’s market knowledge effectively?

By gathering and documenting market knowledge, you can express how your client will fulfil the needs of his next job, company, and industry. If you want to create documents that are meaningful to your client’s next employer, you need to first answer “YES” to these questions:

• Do you fully understand the specific companies your client is targeting?
• Can you articulate the challenges and opportunities related to the position targeted?
• Are you aware of current trends in your client’s industry?

Market knowledge is broad and all-encompassing. Certainly, knowledge about the current state of the industry, company, and job is relevant. However, being aware of future developments such as company objectives, evolving job responsibilities, and market trends is just as important.

There are innumerable ways to gather and present the facts you need to demonstrate your client’s market knowledge. It does not matter if you are doing the research or your client is. Either way, you need to know what type of information you require and where to gather it. The more data you can access, the better. Current industry information can be pulled from company websites, surveys, industry publications, and through association and leadership surveys. The government – both federal and provincial – offers statistics on occupations, job classifications, and industries as well as notes on those that are doing the most hiring.

Regardless of who does the research for the resume and other material, it is imperative that you represent your client’s market knowledge authentically. Everything you include in the documents must be well understood by your client, and be true to what he knows about his targeted market.

Once you have collected information, you should showcase it in diverse ways. Ensure that all documents in the portfolio are strengthened by the research. Furthermore, be sure that your client is equally adepts at articulating the key components related to his industry, company, and role.

Market Knowledge in Career Documents

When you understand your client’s offerings and how they relate to the targeted roles’ requirements, you will be able to include powerful examples that demonstrate market knowledge. The resume and cover letter will become more relevant to readers when you feature such examples. In both documents, be sure to include reinforcing statements that show breadth and depth of that. You may find it worthwhile to add a bulleted section with key terms, data, and examples and mention how well dedicated your client is to staying current and well informed.

Be sure to include market knowledge in your client’s professional biography – the formal portfolio version and the LinkedIn summary. Mention your client’s talent for keeping abreast of industry changes. Offer nuggets that talk about the measures that your client has implemented that keep organizations in the forefront.

When you add distinctive elements to visual presentations that reflect market knowledge, you increase the likelihood that the viewer will be intrigued to learn more. With a powerful PowerPoint show, in less than ten minutes, you can give busy hiring executives a good idea of how well in tune your client is with their needs.

Your best recruiting letters will be those that demonstrate the knowledge your client has about the market segments. Ensure that each recruitment firm being addressed specializes in the targeted industry sectors. Then, identify the names of organizations that these recruiters support. Customize each letter to capture the highlights of your client’s knowledge and address items that will make him someone they will want to meet.

The thank-you letter, business case, and any other documents your client chooses to send after the first contact are excellent places to reiterate market knowledge and expertise. Address new things your client has uncovered since the previous communication, interview or networking meeting. As an attachment to a follow-up letter, consider including one or more future-focused item that adds value.

When you are establishing your client’s online networking presence, research keywords used by recruiters and hiring managers in the industry, and inject those within the material. This will not only show that your client understands the segment, but will also increase the likelihood of others finding him when they do their searches.

Gathering market knowledge should be a vital and ongoing part of your client’s job quest. Advise your client to use what was learned in meetings.

An indirect – but important – way to use market knowledge is for your client to share key pieces of information with the referees on his professional reference list. These people need to be well informed – not only about the role he is targeting, but also his understanding of what his target market needs.

Keeping current will allow your client to add a component that many of his competitors will overlook. The more advanced and up-to-date the portfolio information, the greater the documents will portray what your client has to offer for job opportunities and networking situations. When you help your client understand the advantages of – and strategically applying – market knowledge, you will help him to secure a distinctive edge.

Lynda Margaret’s talent for strategic resume writing, career consulting, and editing is impeccable. Her work is highly regarded by resume writers and career practitioners. She is a published writer – featured in National media – and has been a contributor, editor, and proofreader for various career-focused newsletters and books. Now an advisory board member of Career Professionals of Canada, Lynda is ghost writer and professional proofreader for diverse career-focused individuals and organizations. Those interested in retaining her services may contact her directly at: addedvalueresumes@rogers.com.