The tech recruiting environment is very different than it was just 6 months ago. Successful job seekers are those who not only understand that, but take action to change how they go about hunting for a new role.

It’s so easy to take your resume for granted, but in this environment, we want to see results. Every CEO seems to be talking about ‘efficiency’, that translates into high performing employees.

I reviewed a resume the other day, three or four bullets were about managing a small team of 6. That’s not all that interesting any more. Did you hire and fire? Did you improve the team’s productivity by x%, reduce the defect rate by y%? Simply conducting 1:1s and staff meetings isn’t going to make you attractive to prospective employers.

If you are an individual contributor, we’d like to see very concrete deliverables, numbers, percentages, hard facts in your resume. “Managed the channel” isn’t compelling. “Improved margins by 3% in an 8 month period” is far better.

Here’s the deal–if you have spent months seeking a job, applying to 50 or more postings, and you are not getting traction, it’s time to do something different.

If you are open to a tech lead job but your resume reads Director or worse, VP, you’d be well served to articulate your interest in other roles and revise that resume. Sure, you’ll give up leverage, but if things are not progressing in your job search, you very well may need to take a step down. The issue will be convincing an employer that you really want that job, that you are not taking it until a better offer comes up. There’s nothing worse than hiring someone who just stays for a cup of coffee.

That’s where storytelling, communication come in, fundamentals of marketing.

I’m seeing far too many rote resumes, some slopped together in a panic, others just uninspiring boiler plate summaries that probably worked well last year but this is a new environment.

Try some A|B testing again taking a page out of marketing. Create different resumes and see if you get better traction. Obviously you have to be honest and accurate but there’s actually a lot to play with when you create resumes.

We’re looking for passion—you have to articulate why moving to pharma from enterprise software, for example, is what you really want to do. Again, it’s a narrative.

We’re looking for results—outcomes that impacted the bottom line so to speak, rarely looking for people who simply ‘tended the garden’ or maintained the status quo. Think in terms of your value proposition to a prospective employer.