If you are thinking and turning in your mind of an attractive way to present the information in your resume, and then discuss it in a job interview, the XYZ formula will be of great help to you.
Many times, those who seek to have their job opportunity doubt about how to express the achievements based on their experience, and for this reason, there are hundreds of formulas and schemes that help to prepare a neat and professional resume that you can easily find on the Internet.
But in the XYZ case, it’s a model that has been discussed specifically by executive teams tasked with recruiting for Google around the world.
Today it is not enough to show only a sequence of data, titles and experiences, but, fundamentally, to demonstrate specific skills and how what you have done has served the company.
The XYZ formula step by step
Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of people operations at Google, said that, in the end, any job interview comes down to perceptions of the recruiter; and that very special attention is paid to what the person has done, how that impacted the company, and how they achieved it.
The formula XYZ means: “I have achieved [X] measured by [Y]making [Z]”.
Let’s see it in detail:
X it represents what the person concretely achieved in their day-to-day work.
Y it is the way to measure the impact of what you achieved, and how that positively impacted the company.
z it represents how he did it, the actions, skills and resources he used.
In this way, each applicant synthetically explains the implicit challenge, the achievement they obtained, how it resulted in the concrete, and what was specifically done to achieve it.
It is a complete formula, where you will not only perceive the technical knowledge of the task or role, but also the soft skills and the “Power Skills”, person empowerment competencies. In addition, the XYZ approach reinforces achievements, expressed in qualitative (X) and quantitative (Y) form.
XYZ under the microscope: this is how you can achieve it
Google Recruiters recommend that people always focus on their accomplishments, the measurable and tangible results, and the influence they had on the ultimate impact of their role.
So that you can see more clearly the application of XYZ in a resume, here is an example taken from YouTube videos where company officials explain it:
- “Leadership Member of the Society of Tomorrow organization”: acceptable description.
- Better would be to say: “one of the 240 high-performance talents selected for this 12-month professional development program.”
- And even better: “selected as one of 240 national participants for this 12-month professional development program for high-achieving talent, based on leadership potential and academic achievement.”
Do you perceive the differences?
6 seconds: is the average reading of a resume
Whoever recruits personnel spends an average of six seconds looking at a resume in arduous selection processes.
That is why it is essential that you realize how important it is how you structure the information and how to demonstrate your achievements and skills at the service of employment: this is the central nucleus that will stand out the most.
In addition, it must be considered that in many companies an automatic Artificial Intelligence system is used to make a first, second and even third filter of the applications received. If you want to pass them, you need to show in a different way who you are and why they should hire you.
This includes taking care of your social networks, which are another important monitor for talent specialists, since there is a lot of information about our way of being that we let glimpse in the profiles we have. It is called a “social resume”.
For this reason, more than ever, it is necessary to reformulate the styles of resumes that are merely illustrative, to focus on what does add value to the employer, and not thinking exclusively from your logic.
Daniel Colombo Facilitator and Executive Master Coach specialized in senior management, professionals and teams; mentor and professional communicator; international speaker; author of 31 books. LinkedIn Top Voice Latin America. ICF certified; Certified Coach and Member of the John Maxwell Team.