We have all seen him at least once in our lives. There’s a guy like this at every wedding. Fifty-something, probably from the groom’s side of the family. (or at least that is what is going around the reception. He’s dressed head to toe in seersucker like he raided a Nantucket catalog on his way out the door. Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” comes on and he literally leaps towards the dance floor. You just can’t deny the man has moves and he knows it, and somehow the confidence is the real reason you want more and can’t stop looking, and that it's ultimately amazing instead of full-on embarrassment.
That’s how I want the next ready-to-launch client from RPA to be perceived when someone reads their resume.
But more often, it’s that I am looking at a resume; let’s say it's a former VP of Operations. Sharp guy, twenty-two years in manufacturing, big teams, huge budgets; he’s handled problems that would make many quit the role on the spot, a real solution machine. You’d think this would stand out, but when I read the bullets, they all sound the same. “Led a team of 40.” “Managed a $12 million budget.” “Drove operational efficiency.”
This work may have landed an interview four or five years ago, but in today's world, his experience gets washed away in generalities. Leaders need to understand that hiring managers tend to assume that most professionals who make it to the second round can manage when there’s a good plan and that plan is working. But what they need to know these days is what you do when it stops working, or when things change so often that the plan isn’t really a plan anymore.
Can you make a call before you have all the information?
Can you change direction without setting the facility on fire?
Can you bring in new technology without your team quietly assuming they’re being replaced by a robot named Chad? Basically, can you lead when the ground won’t hold still?
Shutdowns, supply chain failures, reorgs, acquisitions, leadership turnover, budget freezes, new “unprecedented circumstances” happening near you now. What needs to be accentuated in your resume are the best moves that got the org or the team through it.
Show the moment you changed direction
Let’s start with “adaptable leader”. Adaptable to what, exactly? Maybe you scrapped a go-to-market plan because a competitor made a move nobody saw coming. You pulled funding from a program you’d personally championed because the numbers just weren’t there anymore, killing your own idea. Maybe a client blew up your timeline and gave you three weeks to rebuild the whole delivery model. What did you see, what did you decide, what did it save or protect or make possible?
I’ll also say this. Changing your mind partway through something in the past is a plus these days. The data shifted, the market shifted, you learned something on a Tuesday that made Monday’s plan look ridiculous. Good leaders notice that and then make a move. That’s it, that’s the whole skill.
Let’s keep going. A decision in operations never stays in operations. It touches finance, sales, customers, your own people, the tech stack, and somehow always Karen in procurement, who will most surely have many questions. So if you restructured the supply chain, what happened to forecasting? What happened to inventory, or cash flow, or how deliveries actually reached the customer? If you changed a comp plan, was retention impacted? If you rolled out a new system, did it just go live quietly, or did it actually change how people made decisions?
That’s systems thinking, and you don’t prove it by putting it under “Core Competencies” like it’s a skill you own. You prove it by showing the ripple, not just the splash.
The people part deserves more than one soft sentence
I know emotional intelligence can feel a little squishy sitting next to P&L ownership and EBITDA growth on a page. But keeping a team together through a reorg isn’t soft at all. Rebuilding trust after a layoff or holding onto your best people while a competitor is actively trying to poach them isn't soft, but rather it is vital right now.
The mistake is writing something like “led with empathy during a period of organizational change,” which sounds nice. What actually happened because you led that way? Did turnover drop? Did engagement scores come back? Did the people you most needed to keep stay? Did your team hit its number while three other departments were falling apart around you?
Put a number next to the human part. “Retained 92 percent of a 75-person team through an acquisition and operating model redesign.” That’s a bullet someone reads twice, because it shows people didn’t stop being people just because the quarter got hard, and your leadership is why it held.
Now the one everyone keeps asking me about. AI.
Here’s what I actually tell people. Nobody’s expecting a 55-year-old CFO to spend her weekends learning Python between Costco runs and laundry. And please don’t put “AI expert” on your resume because you have a ChatGPT and a Claude login.
What people actually expect now is fluency. Do you understand what AI is doing to your function, where it is creating value or risk?
I’ve sat in on interviews where someone gets a plain, direct question about AI in their industry and answers like they skimmed an article at the gate and forgot to board the AI jet. And I’ve watched the opposite happen, where someone who will never touch a line of code talks plainly about what’s actually changing in the economics of their division and how they’re helping their people through it. That’s fluency versus vocabulary, and interviewers love it.
You don’t need a whole section on your resume for this. Honestly, don’t add one unless it’s genuinely central to your work. One real line does it. “Piloted AI-assisted forecasting tools that shortened the monthly close by four days.” Or “introduced generative AI workflows that cut first-draft content time by 40 percent, with review standards built in for accuracy and brand consistency.” That’s it. You noticed something and decided to apply AI to help change it and make it better for the company.
Your experience isn’t the problem
Just like in company and product branding, today’s resume has to tell the story. Get their attention and keep it by delivering an interesting, relevant story. Oh, and please, be authentic.
A resume full of titles, tenure, and team sizes tells a hiring committee what you were trusted with. That still counts, but it’s half the story. A resume with real pivots, ripple effects, human outcomes, and one honest line about AI tells them how you move. That’s what’s getting people hired right now, not the résumé equivalent of a job description.
This is the new norm - constant change and a faster pace. Companies keep reorganizing for reasons that make sense only to the board. Leading people through it isn’t a nice-to-have skill anymore; it's the nucleus of any management job.
Check your primary resume document. Does it show people were better off because you led? Is there at least one honest sign you understand what’s shifting in your world?
If you’re not sure which resume is sitting on your laptop right now, that’s usually the first real Reflection Point in a search. Let’s do a Clarity Call before you submit another application. Schedule here http://reflectionpointadvisors.com/clarity-call?src=newsletter
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