CIO Resume Makeover: Before-and-After Editions

CIO — James Jordan had been trying to fund his own healthcare technology company with the profits from his independent IT consulting business for 15 months when he concluded that the embattled healthcare industry was just not ready for his software product and that it was time to start a job search.

Jordan initially developed the application, now a health management portal, for his then 12-year-old daughter, Courtney, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was just a peanut at three years old. Jordan was frustrated by the tools available to Courtney; nothing made it easy for her to track her blood sugar levels or the amount of carbohydrates and Insulin she was taking.

The portal Jordan created helps diabetics like Courtney and patients with other chronic illnesses to monitor and manage their conditions and connect with caregivers, insurance providers, suppliers and other patients through a set of interactive online tools and dashboards. Patients can upload data to the portal using any of their medical devices.

Jordan was successful in piloting the portal at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana, where his daughter is a patient. Jordan says using the portal helped reduce Courtney's A1C level, a measure of her average blood sugar level, by 1.5 points over the course of a year. Healthcare practitioners consider such a dramatic decrease to be a huge success. Jordan says the portal also saved the state of Indiana $1,400 by reducing his daughter's need for medical supplies and doctor visits, and it saved his family $250 in insurance co-payments.

Jordan talked with more than 125 large healthcare organizations about his portal. He says they saw its promise, but they couldn't commit to deploying it because they were consumed with complying with the nation's new healthcare laws.

So in March he decided, with his wife's encouragement, to find a CIO job.

Jordan dusted off his old résumé and updated it with his experience at S5Health, his startup. He then cast his résumé out for various CIO jobs; in three months only one employer took his bait. He needed a résumé makeover.

CIO — James Jordan had been trying to fund his own healthcare technology company with the profits from his independent IT consulting business for 15 months when he concluded that the embattled healthcare industry was just not ready for his software product and that it was time to start a job search.

Jordan initially developed the application, now a health management portal, for his then 12-year-old daughter, Courtney, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was just a peanut at three years old. Jordan was frustrated by the tools available to Courtney; nothing made it easy for her to track her blood sugar levels or the amount of carbohydrates and Insulin she was taking.

The portal Jordan created helps diabetics like Courtney and patients with other chronic illnesses to monitor and manage their conditions and connect with caregivers, insurance providers, suppliers and other patients through a set of interactive online tools and dashboards. Patients can upload data to the portal using any of their medical devices.

Jordan was successful in piloting the portal at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana, where his daughter is a patient. Jordan says using the portal helped reduce Courtney's A1C level, a measure of her average blood sugar level, by 1.5 points over the course of a year. Healthcare practitioners consider such a dramatic decrease to be a huge success. Jordan says the portal also saved the state of Indiana $1,400 by reducing his daughter's need for medical supplies and doctor visits, and it saved his family $250 in insurance co-payments.

Jordan talked with more than 125 large healthcare organizations about his portal. He says they saw its promise, but they couldn't commit to deploying it because they were consumed with complying with the nation's new healthcare laws.

So in March he decided, with his wife's encouragement, to find a CIO job.

Jordan dusted off his old résumé and updated it with his experience at S5Health, his startup. He then cast his résumé out for various CIO jobs; in three months only one employer took his bait. He needed a résumé makeover.

Enter TheLadders

Job search Website TheLadders offered to critique and rewrite a CIO.com reader's résumé. CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson asked readers to submit their résumés for consideration through her Career Connection blog. Submissions poured in, and with TheLadders' assistance, Levinson selected Jordan's résumé because it represented many of the challenges CIOs and IT professionals face when writing their résumés.

The Résumé Critique

Within five days of receiving Jordan's résumé, Caitlin Adriance, an executive résumé analyst and certified professional résumé writer with TheLadders, turned around a thorough critique of Jordan's résumé. Her big-picture assessment: Jordan's résumé didn't provide hiring managers with relevant information about his qualifications, and thus, was selling him short.

"Your résumé simply does not reflect your professional caliber," Adriance wrote to Jordan in a private message via TheLadders' Website. "You have an excellent background...you have the qualifications...but you are just not making that first impression count. Frankly, the résumé positions you for a lower-level job and salary than you desire—or deserve."

Adriance, who estimates she has reviewed more than 20,000 résumés in her career, identified the following eight aspects of Jordan's résumé that needed improvement.