What is she talking about!?  I didn't serve in the military.  Why do I need a "battlefield bullet" all of a sudden to land a job!?

That's it gentlefolk... She's run out of good things to tell us!

Hear me out first.  Then thank me later.  A battlefield bullet is not about military experience.  And no, a battlefield bullet is not some fancy aircraft graphic bullet you use on your resumé either.

It is a simple learnable strategy that gets your foot in the door to talk with managers who will appreciate that you can speak their language.

The strategy is not some secret, and it's not even new.  I simply call it this because of its concept as a flyover.

This article examines battlefield bullets, and how it details your experience on your resumé in a way that gets the employer visualizing you in their job already.

But before we get into it, know that if you are pointing the employer to the battlefield bullets on your resumé during an interview, they might shoot you the same quizzical expression you shot this article at the beginning of your read.  "Battlefield bullet" is not an industry term.  It is a Tiffany term.  You can say "overview bullet" instead.  As you read on, you will see exactly why I use the term "battlefield bullet".

What is a battlefield bullet?

Military personnel or retirees and war gamers may grasp this concept more quickly, but you don't have to be either to understand where this strategy is coming from and to use it to your advantage.

A battlefield bullet, simply put, is an overview bullet that is the first bullet you use to detail an experience entry.  It’s what the manager would see you doing if they fly over you on the job.

That’s where the flyover visualization comes in.  They get an “over” view.  

Allow me a geek moment.  If you've ever seen Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, it expands on the adventures the Jedi and clones had together, when the Jedi served as generals to the clone forces.  Imagine if you're a clone trooper and you need to get a new general up to speed.  That Jedi would be interested in the battlefield bullet.  How does that fit with the employer?

The employer, the manager who has your resumé in hand, is the one you're bringing up to speed with an overview of your contributions as it fits their needs. 

Overview... doesn't that sound like a job summary then? Many employers in the U.S. may expect a job summary, but resumé experts now advise job seekers to be careful with job summaries or avoid using them altogether.

Job summaries are paragraphs written under an experience entry heading (with the heading being the job title, employer, and time frame) that give an overview of your position.  However, since it is in a paragraph format, it is tempting to populate it with lines that go on and on, chewing up crucial real estate on your two-page resumé and wearying the eyes of the employer!  The battlefield bullet cuts this down to size.  And it’s quick, as it’s a flyover.

In contrast to many U.S. employers, many Canadian employers don’t expect to see job summaries and job seekers often make the mistake of diving straight down into nitty-gritty detail right in the first bullet.  It's like whiplash for the employer!  The battlefield bullet avoids this whiplash and transitions the employer more seamlessly from the heading of that experience entry to its denser details. 

But how do battlefield bullets get the employer to think about you in their job?  Let's start with how battlefield bullets make your resumé more appealing for employers to read in the first place.

Nine times out of ten, your resumé, after it passes the ATS (applicant tracking software) employers use to screen job seekers' applications, lands in front of a manager, e.g., a hiring manager or a department manager.  And what do they do with your resumé?  They skim.

You do this too.  When was the last time you read every word on the description of the make and model of a car you were interested in buying, or a dog toy on Amazon when you were comparing it to others for your friendly Fido?  A resumé is an object that reflects a person.  And employers skim it to understand whether or not they should invest time to test out a fit between this person and their organization.

Battlefield bullets help the employer to better skim your resumé, instead of getting slowed down by floods of detail.

And next, the battlefield bullet speaks the language of managers.  It is a more "bottom-line" statement, showing how you contribute to the employer's bottom line.  You can use keywords that are important to them, and show them that you understand the impact of your work. 

Employers will therefore grasp an understanding of how your past jobs contributed to each organization.  But jobs are not jobs without people.  And this is where the battlefield bullet differs from the job summary, in not just its format (a bullet versus a paragraph) but in its content as well.

A job summary describes a job, whereas a battlefield bullet describes you, at a glimpse, on that job.  It is a single line or two of why you were needed in the grand scheme of the organization's operations.

Since you do your job a little bit differently from the next person with the same job title, your battlefield bullet will showcase that. 

And it's no doubt that you're good at what you do.  But sometimes when you launch into detail right away, it can give the manager whiplash when they're trying to get to know you.  Being detail-oriented is a blessing and a curse, a blessing for producing high-quality work, and a curse if you don't zoom back out to the bigger picture every now and again.  Using battlefield bullets will help you do that. 

How to write battlefield bullets

It's in the name, "battlefield".

If a manager is flying over and sees you in action in the field (on your job), what you describe in the battlefield bullet is what they will see.

A battlefield bullet gets a manager to visualize you in that job and, in turn, influences them to visualize you in their job.  It is that powerful.

You can use battlefield bullets to spark curiosity in your resumé to appeal to managers on paper, and you can use them as launchpads for conversation when you meet with them in person for an interview.

Battlefield bullets can sound like bullets that are accomplishment statements, in that they can have qualifiers and quantifiers.  And that's great because managers are interested in both quality and quantity. 

While using qualifiers and quantifiers in your bullets is a good way to paint a picture, you don't always have to use those same colours.  Here is a perspective that might help you know if you're on the right track. 

If you imagine yourself as the manager, the battlefield bullet will be key in considering if a candidate has the qualities to succeed in the position in front of them. 

This kind of internal (or external, you can get creative) roleplay prepares you for the interview, and eventually the job.

Let’s see how it all fits together.  Here are some examples of battlefield bullets that you can chew on.  Notice that the battlefield bullets are the first bullets of each experience entry, and then other bullets would follow to further detail your contributions.  And not everything is about quantity.  Use qualifiers! 

Examples

Example one: Using battlefield bullets in the experience section resumé.

Intended position: IT Programmer at Davisville IT Solutions (York ON)

Resumé excerpt under the experience section:

IT Technician, Alpine Consortium (Toronto ON), Jan 2014 to Sept 2017

• Designed systems in a team of six for over 15 organizations (public schools, big box stores, banks and small businesses) for systems built for 10 to 10,000 users.
• [Accomplishment statement]
• [Accomplishment statement.]

Intended position: Restaurant Shift Manager at The Cheesecake Factory (Jersey City, NJ)

Resumé excerpt under the experience section:

Partner, Jamaican Jerk (Queens NY), Jan 2020 to Feb 2022

• Established a restaurant in a co-partnership and managed evening staff to produce 500 to 1500 orders per day in dine-in, takeout and delivery.
• [Accomplishment statement.]
• [Accomplishment statement.]

Intended position: Corrections Officer Trainee at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women (Bedford Hills NY)

Resumé excerpt under the experience section:

Attendant, Gas N' Sip (The Bronx NY), June 2016 to April 2017

• Operated the franchise individually and sometimes in small teams of two, often during night shifts.
• [Accomplishment statement.]

Intended position: Systems Inventory Coordinator at Bombardier Aerospace (Mississauga ON)

Resumé excerpt under work experience:

Procurement Officer, Dartmouth Electric (York ON), Jan 2020 to Present (April 2023)

• Procures all of the electrical and mechanical components for the hydraulic machines the firm supplies to the aerospace and automobile industry in the province.
• [Accomplishment statement.]
• [Accomplishment statement.]

Intended position: HSW at Paramed Home Health Care (Vancouver BC)

Resumé excerpt under work experience:

Home Support Worker (HSW), Care Partners (Vancouver BC), Jan 2020 to March 2023

• Served senior citizens and children (ages 3 to 11) in homes, with most families often asking for me by name to return after a service period. 
• [Accomplishment statement.]
• [Accomplishment statement.]

The effect of battlefield bullets

After reading the battlefield bullets in the examples, wouldn't you want to read on?  Are you intrigued about the person enough to call them for an interview?

There you go.  Now go and do yourself and your experience justice by using battlefield bullets in your resumé.

Summary

Here is a recap of how using battlefield bullets on your resumé gets you in position for an interview.

1. Battlefield bullets are overview bullets as the first bullet under each experience entry you detail on your resumé.
2. This is not a job summary but a glimpse of you in action on that job, similar to how a flyover would show someone in action on the battlefield.
3. Since the resumé has limited real-estate of two pages, the battlefield bullet provides a transition between the job heading and the details of the job that is not a paragraph that goes on and on.
4. Battlefield bullets show the employer that you can speak their language, by using keywords that are important to them, in a way that speaks to their bottom line. 
5. They can also be talking points for the interview.

Notes

This article contains no text pictures to ensure that every word can be read aloud by a text-to-speech application. And was tested using Google Chrome’s “Read Aloud” add-on.

Resources

Check out my other articles for help in building your targeted resumé. And if you're looking for a resumé guide to the land that dream job, book me to help. Rates apply.

Bio

Tiffany Persaud is a freelance writer who has written for clients and organizations in Canada and the USA, on topics ranging from books, films and media, to health and employment skills. She has her website (https://tiffany-persaud.writing.io/) where she publishes many pieces just like these each week.

References

Colombia University of Career Education.: "Resumes with Impact: Creating Strong Bullet Points". Colombia University, U.S.A.

< https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/resources/resumes-impact-creating-strong-bullet-points#:~:text=Be%20specific%20about%20what%20you,work%20and%20achievements%20where%20possible. > Accessed on February 23, 2023.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.: “Find A Better Job”.

< https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/course-materials/find-a-better-job > 2016. Accessed on Nov 22, 2022.