David Perkins

Chief Executive Officer

Placed this highly positive information first. Stressed performance rather than experience. Eliminated the braggartly "born leader," which testifies against itself. Winner of national recognition for management skills who has turned companies around and consistently increased productivity and business opportunities. Proven performance in marketing, human resources, and budget development, with cross-functional successes in varied industries as well as financial expertise across sectors.

CORE COMPETENCIES INCLUDE Added easy-to-read list of core competencies.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Loosened congested line and made it look snappier. VOCALO, INC.,  San Francisco, California 2000 TO PRESENT

Enhanced this description by starting with the major achievement rather than information repeated from above. Improved the awkward phrasing of this important statistic and moved it up from a bullet to the job achievement summary. President and CEO. Turned around a struggling $450 million business software services firm providing VOIP services and applications. Developed the vision and strategy to target a new market related to the core engineering team's expertise. Surpassed industry expectations for sales growth and more than doubled market share from 5% to 12% in three years.

Added tagline summary of achievements, here and throughout. NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Changed the grammatical error "analyst's" to "analysts'." Cut back projects outside focus area. Sold the underperforming graphics software business to an industry leader for $125 million, exceeding most analysts' expectations. Also sold 25,000 square feet of commercial office space in Southern California.
• Replaced the legalistic "above-mentioned," which even good lawyers avoid, with the more direct "these." Applied resources to key target. Used revenue from these sales to jump-start VOIP product development, hiring top-tier software engineers to build intellectual capital for sustained growth.
• Eliminated a comma splice, a major grammatical error, and moved this secondary fact from the summary down to a bullet. Increased operational efficiency 34 percent. Revamped the marketing department and achieved new business goals utilizing lean principles.
• Rephrased this bullet to parallel the structure of the others. Earned national honor. Helped Vocalo win the Standard Magazine Award as one of the top five best U.S. software firms to work for.

DIGITAL MOAT RESEARCH CORPORATION,  Palo Alto, California 1998 TO 2000

Changed the misspelled "lien" to "line." This error alone could have cost David an interview. Vice President of Product Development. Revived the product line of an Internet security software firm. Reestablished market leadership as head of R&D projects that resulted in 12 significant new patents. Leading a team of design engineers, application developers, and market strategists, identified opportunity to use company's patents in new applications to provide desktop and intranet protection against spyware, viruses, and spam.

NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Headed development of groundbreaking, prize-winning product. Led the team that created the first web-based model for delivery of a self-regenerative virus-destructing network server, from product scoping to implementation, testing, and shipping. It has since become an award-winning application and challenging market leader.
• Devised successful market strategies. Developed effective marketing and communications plans for spin-off companies, leading to new business opportunities and early profitability.
• Spearheaded innovative Internet advertising program.Recruited, hired, and led teams of engineers, designers, artists, and writers to participate in an Internet advertising campaign for a cutting-edge technology tool that included a downloadable software kernel and separate content packages for display on client computers. This project led to two patents, and the product shipped in 2001.

RIPPLEWARE, INC.,  Santa Monica, California 1995 TO 1998

Founder and CEO. Launched and established an independent software company that developed and sold audio, video, and web streaming solutions for a variety of business sectors.

NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Achieved sale of business segment. Sold the web streaming software portion of the firm to NWP Software in 1997. Continued as a consultant to NWP for one year.

Simplified "Educational Background" to "Education." EDUCATION

University of California at Berkeley - Berkeley, California

Masters in Economics

Added an achievement that the applicant overlooked. Stanford University - Palo Alto, California

BS in Computer Science

Honors: Phi Beta Kappa

David Perkins was an astute executive with a luminous record, yet you might not have guessed it from a glance at his resume. He hadn't realized the importance of resumes and had buried his achievements in a stack of gray.

The ho-hum impression begins at the very outset. His summary shines little light on his successes and instead mainly stresses his experience. It doesn't answer the question: Who is David Perkins?

The document is also graphically weak. Few highlights catch the reader's eye and the narrow margins create an airless feel. The resume also overflows awkwardly onto the second page, leaving a strip of text above an unused sea of white.

The effort does have virtues. For instance, it places some emphasis on accomplishment, rather than merely listing duties. It uses bullets and it nowhere deploys the phrase "was responsible for." It avoids the worst mistakes, such as notifying the screener about high school graduation.

But, overall, it makes David Perkins look like a man thwarted by this challenge. A screener might have set the resume aside quickly.

We upgraded his resume to solve these problems and convey a truer picture of him. We clearly expressed key facts at the very top. We rewrote the text to make his accomplishments jump out to a hurried gaze. We redid the layout, to better guide the eye and tell the screener instantly that the applicant is a professional.

We made numerous other improvements. For instance, we caught and fixed several grammatical errors. To see 16 of our changes, mouse over the numbered circles.