Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer relied on refernece checks to uncover a condidate's past success.
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, wants to know what you have accomplished in your career.
“The best predictor of future success is past success,” Ballmer told the New York Sunday Times for the Sunday Business section’s May 17 “Corner Office” Q&A. “It’s not 100 percent, but it’s a reasonable predictor.”
To get the data, he said he relies on reference checks to find out what a candidate brought to the table in previous jobs. What was the previous employer’s ROI?
For an external candidate, what I’ve found is that reference checks are super-important. I didn’t used to believe so much in reference checks. You can always get somebody to say something nice about you. But the truth is, if you ask enough questions and you ask around, you can really get a profile of who’s accomplished various things and who hasn’t.
Ballmer speaks to the accepted axiom of career advice today – your title and duties matter less than what you did with them. He didn’t specifically address what he looks for in a resume, but it’s safe to say that any candidate for who Steve Ballmer is checking references had sent him an impressive resume.
Like Ballmer’s reference checks, a resume, today, should be replete with examples of past success and metrics to support the candidates ROI for past employers, not a list of duties and responsibilities.
(For more on reference checks read How Steve Ballmer Sizes Up Job Candidates (eWEEK).
(Steve Ballmer courtesy of Microsoft PressPass)
For more on explaining accomplishments in a Resume:
- Bush v. Clinton: Why Your Resume isn’t A List of Duties and Responsibilities
- Resume Metrics: Make it Count
- Resume Accomplishments: It’s All Relative
- More than an MBA Resume
- Resume Summary: Beat the Career Stack
Ballmer has it right!