CIO — Carlton Lassiter began looking for a new job five months ago, after being passed over for a director of strategic planning position with his current employer. Lassiter, who asked CIO.com to use a pseudonym to keep his job search a secret from his employer, currently serves as an enterprise architect with an energy company. His long-term career goal is to become a CIO. He saw the director of strategic planning post as a stepping stone to a CIO position.

Lassiter says his co-workers were mystified when he was overlooked for the strategy job. They asked him why he didn't get it. He thought his résumé was largely to blame, along with his age: He's on the cusp of turning 32.

Lassiter believes he has what it takes to move from enterprise architect to a director- or executive-level position in IT. For one, in his current role, he works hand-in-hand with the CIO on matters of IT strategy. In addition, he built a multi-million dollar IT consulting company with global operations. The experience afforded him, among other things, the opportunity to build relationships with C-level executives across a variety of industries.

Lassiter says he's applied for four positions since starting his job search: one as a chief innovation officer, another as a chief information officer, and two as IT directors where he would have been the top IT leader inside those organizations.

He scored an interview for the chief innovation officer position, but because it required relocating, it didn't work out. He received the following canned response when he sent his résumé for the other three positions: "Thank you for your submission. We're pursuing other candidates who we feel are more qualified."

If those employers had taken the time to speak with Lassiter, they might have realized that he was indeed qualified. Unfortunately, Lassiter suspects his résumé just didn't succeed in giving hiring managers that impression. Lassiter needed a résumé makeover.

CIO — Carlton Lassiter began looking for a new job five months ago, after being passed over for a director of strategic planning position with his current employer. Lassiter, who asked CIO.com to use a pseudonym to keep his job search a secret from his employer, currently serves as an enterprise architect with an energy company. His long-term career goal is to become a CIO. He saw the director of strategic planning post as a stepping stone to a CIO position.

Lassiter says his co-workers were mystified when he was overlooked for the strategy job. They asked him why he didn't get it. He thought his résumé was largely to blame, along with his age: He's on the cusp of turning 32.

Lassiter believes he has what it takes to move from enterprise architect to a director- or executive-level position in IT. For one, in his current role, he works hand-in-hand with the CIO on matters of IT strategy. In addition, he built a multi-million dollar IT consulting company with global operations. The experience afforded him, among other things, the opportunity to build relationships with C-level executives across a variety of industries.

Lassiter says he's applied for four positions since starting his job search: one as a chief innovation officer, another as a chief information officer, and two as IT directors where he would have been the top IT leader inside those organizations.

He scored an interview for the chief innovation officer position, but because it required relocating, it didn't work out. He received the following canned response when he sent his résumé for the other three positions: "Thank you for your submission. We're pursuing other candidates who we feel are more qualified."

If those employers had taken the time to speak with Lassiter, they might have realized that he was indeed qualified. Unfortunately, Lassiter suspects his résumé just didn't succeed in giving hiring managers that impression. Lassiter needed a résumé makeover.

Enter Professional Résumé Writer Nimish Thakkar

Nimish Thakkar, a certified career management coach and résumé writer, agreed to overhaul Lassiter's résumé. Thakkar has written 10,000 résumés during the 12 years he has worked as a professional résumé writer, and his résumé writing service, ResumeCorner.com, attracts a substantial number of IT professionals. He says 40 percent of his clients work in IT. In addition to his résumé writing experience, Thakkar holds Master of Science and MBA degrees from St. John's University in New York City.

The Problems with Lassiter's Résumé

Thakkar concurs that Lassiter's résumé was a problem: It simply didn't do justice to his professional experience and leadership abilities. Thakkar identified two major issues with Lassiter's résumé:

1. It didn't give readers the big picture. Thakkar says he couldn't figure out what Lassiter was all about professionally within 30 seconds of scanning his résumé. It was crowded with information, and it didn't make clear Lassiter's career goal. Nor did it express the type of job Lassiter is seeking and best suited for.

2. It didn't brand Lassiter as an executive. Nothing on Lassiter's résumé suggested that he was a senior level candidate. In fact, the format and language Lassiter used suggested the opposite. "His wording was very generic and didn't give the impression that he was targeting high-level jobs," says Thakkar.

See Lassiter's résumé before the makeover