4 min read

Your Entrepreneurial Resume

As entrepreneur you are a driven person who have worn a variety of hats to lead your business to success. Spending the time focusing on growing the business typically means that there was no time to track all of the things you did to make it happen..

But entrepreneurs do what needs to be done, right?

Now, we understand that having a resume is not exactly on our priority list because we simply believe that we "don't need it".. but wait.. YES, WE DO need it. Think of it as a written and well organized record of all your achievements, we all agree that it was not easy to be where we are now so it is a great idea to have a resume.. for personal motivation, to have it handy whenever a new venture with partners comes along [they will be thrilled to see what you have done of course] and just in case you want to apply for a job in the future, who knows!!

We thought this is a super important topic to talk about so we reached out to an El Pasoan expert: Alexine Garcia, who made us the honor to explain a little more the importance of having a well organized entrepreneurial resume!! Enjoy the summary..

5 Things to include on your Entrepreneurial Resume

1. Achievements

Include Numbers. Remove ambiguity by including numbers to help illustrate the size of your accomplishment. Incorporate the problem, your action, and the result.

All your achievements are relevant. Be proud, make sure to highlight your achievements in a way that draws the attention of a recruiter or hiring manager. This will help you improve your writing skills and just the dynamic of thinking of everything you have done will boost your creativity!

2. Versatility

Your roles.. as entrepreneur you are most likely to be in charge of literally everything form finances to business image design at least for the first months of your project. Think of the specific departments/areas where you can accommodate all those roles! This could include human resources, sales, marketing, accounting, supervising, design, and general operations.

Skills. All of the things that entrepreneurs do requires certain substantive, industry, and soft skills. Incorporate these on your resume to illustrate your versatility. The reader of your resume should immediately know what makes you different from another person.

Think of your summary section as your elevator pitch and use it to sell the reader on how you are different.

Small business owners wear many hats to make their business work. This means that entrepreneurs are highly versatile and skilled communicators.

This versatility can make them a great catch, but many entrepreneurs struggle to capture all of the things they did to grow the business on their resume. This is why you should start now!!

3. Management Style

Numbers matter. Incorporate an achievement on your resume specifically identifying the number of direct reports you managed and any indirect reports. Also make sure to include budgets or targets where it helps illustrate your accomplishment.

Responsibilities. Where you an individual contributor as well? Or, were you more of a coach that provided training and mentoring to your team?

Board of Directors. Did you report to one? Did you have any responsibility in managing the board? This information can be incredibly helpful when showing it to possible partners or employers.. Definitely include the details of all your board experience - even if that experience was as an adviser for another company or as a volunteer for a non-profit.

Entrepreneurs lead companies of all sizes. Your resume should explain what type of manager you are while illustrating the scope of your management experience.

4. Focus

Multiple resumes. Many executives have more than one resume to make it easier to highlight different skills to support their wide search. Not sure if you should have more than 1 resume? Categorize your achievements, when you are done it will be easier for you to decide if having more than one is a good idea!.

Adding a few strategic headers to your achievements or skills to help group/organize them in a way that easily conveys your skills. This could be words focused on the function (i.e. operations, human resources, accounting, design, etc.). Or, it could be using headers to break out your experience, board experience, or other categories of information that would help to draw attention to your unique message.

Illustrate your vision. Include examples of how you defined a vision in your past projects and used that vision to align the resources to fit the overall objectives.

This will help you and the reader understand who you are as a leader while also appreciating the fact that you can also keep a handle on the daily details.

Wearing many hats can also mean that entrepreneurs do not have a depth of expertise in a specific area. Beat that unfavorable appearance by focusing your resume on what you do best and incorporating details on how you bring a clear vision.

5. Relationships

How many contacts you have on your business desk? How many networking events have you been at? On how many collaborative projects have you been part of? Names matter almost as much as numbers on the entrepreneurs resume. This could be the specific client name or the industry/size of the organization.