By All Means, Read This at a Glacial Pace
After imagining the fictional resumes of some of our favorite funny guys (Michael Scott and Ross Gellar), we decided to focus on the ultimate boss, one that we all love to hate, and someone many of us identify with on one level or another – Miranda Priestly! This standout character from The Devil Wears Prada (played impeccably by the one and only Meryl Streep) somehow inspired both fear and admiration and hit a little too close to home for our founder, Emily Kapit. Emily’s boss at her first job at an investment bank in New York City bore some eerie similarities to Miranda, minus the flawless personal style. But, we digress.
Since fictional Miranda drew some inspiration from the very real Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine) we mixed elements from both Miranda and Anna’s careers into this creatively-licensed resume. However, the quotes featured on the resume are 100% Miranda – who can forget her cold-as-ice “that’s all” when dismissing her minions, er, employees.
At ReFresh Your Step, we like to offer our clients modernized resumes with a touch of color – professional, sleek, and sophisticated. We took a similar approach for Miranda. Knowing her polished and clean aesthetic, we assumed she would eschew a graphic-heavy, super-modern resume and favor an updated classic. We chose the perfect hue of cerulean blue as an homage to her terrifying explanation of color trends to a newly-hired and unenlightened Andy.
You’ll notice that the branding elements identify Miranda as not just an editor, but a senior executive right from the beginning. Her hallmark “truth is, there’s no one who can do what I do”, sets a tone of decisiveness, authority, and expertise that continues throughout the document. The professional profile gives a high-level view of her skills, with some humor woven in. We would rather not describe any of our clients as “universally loved and feared” but, hey, if the shoe fits, right? At ReFresh Your Step, we pride ourselves on our wordsmithing abilities, and we think “Reputation for building resilience and grit among staff by expecting 24/7 availability, mind-reading abilities, and minimal personal commitments” takes “super-scary boss” to the next level. The following core competencies highlight Miranda’s areas of expertise and are easy to read at a glance.
At the executive level, clients like Miranda can benefit from including a graphical timeline on their resume. This achievement snapshot shows Miranda’s impressive trajectory at Runway Magazine / Elias-Clark Publications and highlights her notable accomplishments. The subtle graphical element also helps to break up the text a bit and draws the reader’s eye to these important details.
In the Professional Experience section, we featured Miranda’s achievements in each role, while also emphasizing her significant upward trajectory. A client like Miranda could certainly benefit from our Kapitalize Process. Working in the same high-level job for several years can make it difficult for clients to take a step back and truly assess their accomplishments. By partnering with ReFresh Your Step, Miranda could view her achievements from a different and more objective lens, which can even have the pleasant side effect of making her more accountable to herself and her team. Trust us – we’ve seen it happen!
Stay tuned for resumes that explore the professional backgrounds of our favorite fictional characters. Who will we get the ReFresh Your Step treatment next? Hint: we solemnly swear that we are up to no good…but are still having so much fun writing these resumes!