Want your CV to shine? Aditya Sharma is on hand to help you revolutionise your L&D resume.

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Many firms have started to invest in learning and development programmes that can enhance the ambition of the workers and fuel their productivity. For this, L&D professionals are needed.

To bag your dream L&D job, you need to know L&D like the back of your hand. But in addition to this, you also need a great L&D CV to get shortlisted.

This article seeks to bridge the gap between you and your dream L&D job in the form of five easy to follow tips.

1. Choose the correct format

Your seniority level and the professional situation you are in demands that you formulate your L&D CV accordingly. This is why choosing the right format is important. 

Avoid a simple summarising of your day-to-day roles and responsibilities. What really matters is what you did with your L&D skills

Given below are three resume formats you can choose from based on your career stage and situation:

• Reverse chronological: If you have no career gaps and you have significant years of work experience, then use this format to draft your L&D resume. 
• Functional: This focuses on the skills rather than the timeline of your work experience. If you are someone who frequently switches from one job to the next or in need of covering up a career gap in your resume, then use this format. 
• Combination: In this format, both your skills and professional experience are given equal importance. Opt for this resume format if you are a fresher with nothing much to put on your resume.

2. Perfect the ‘professional experience’ section

Where you worked, and in what capacity you have worked, does not make for a good enough professional experience section. 

Any recruiter evaluating your CV knows for a fact that you are lingual in L&D. This is why you should avoid a simple summarising of your day-to-day roles and responsibilities.

For instance, what really matters is what you did with your L&D skills. Were you able to drive results? Did your expertise help in the overall growth of the company? Did it positively impact your department? 

Focus on answering these questions in this section to show your relevance and suitability for the target job. To accomplish this, highlight the results of your contributions and work responsibilities.

Here’s an example on how to list your work experience details:

• Led 5+ performance support programs to bolster overall team productivity by 30%.
• Executed engagement programmes leading to a 50% improvement in employee engagement.
• Refashioned 10+ eLearning courses for sales professionals to improve sales generation by 50%.

3. Write the profile title correctly

An important element of your L&D resume is your profile title. You need to correctly write your profile title as any modification will come across as a deliberate attempt by you to be considered qualified for a job that you are not eligible for. 

For example, if your job title is “L&D specialist”, your profile title should also read “L&D specialist”.

4. Single out your L&D skills under a distinct ‘key skills’ section 

Your L&D skills need to be the first thing that a recruiter sees while evaluating your resume because this is a yardstick against which your suitability for a given role will be evaluated. It needs to stand out.

To make this happen, all you have to do is make a distinct ‘key skills’ section to single out your core L&D skills. Additionally, if you have worked on tools, group them under a technical skills section.

5. Write an impeccable summary

Most professionals tend to believe that a resume summary is simply an account of your roles and responsibilities. While it is not completely wrong, a summary is bigger than that.

The goal of your summary is to get you shortlisted. So you should focus on highlighting aspects of your work that show promising signs of competence and the ability to drive results.

Here’s an example of a perfectly composed summary for an L&D profile:

“Five-plus years’ experienced senior Learning and Development Specialist with extensive expertise in domains encompassing the retail, finance and marketing industries.

Highly proficient in leading department training programmes and proving performance support for eLearning development.

Highly proficient in conceptualising and formulating learning programmes and engagement activities to improve the performance, process and overall employment engagement.”

About the author

Aditya Sharma is co-founder of Hiration