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How to tailor your resume for a Account Executive role

A screener on an Account Executive posting forecasts your resume the way they forecast pipeline: quota size, attainment by year, deal size, self-sourced percentage. Tailoring means showing attainment year over year. That match, more than any other line on the page, decides whether this resume gets a second look.

Four moves for this posting
  1. Show attainment year by year, matching the quota scale the posting implies; one great year could be territory luck, and a streak reads as skill instead.
  2. State deal shape, average contract value, cycle length, matching the segment the posting names; selling small deals and selling large ones are plainly different jobs.
  3. Claim your self-sourced pipeline percentage above closed-won totals alone; AEs who generate their own opportunities are worth more than ones who wait for a handoff.
  4. Match your segment, enterprise, mid-market, small business, to the posting's exact wording; segment mismatch is an easy but common reason this resume gets passed over.
The fact behind this

Recruiters spend about 7 seconds on a first resume scan. (Ladders eye-tracking study)

Before you tailor anything

Start with the version a recruiter opens right now, then make these moves against it.

See what the first 7 seconds of your resume say, free

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