It Takes More Than Price and Skills to Get Noticed

I recently received the following comment to one of my blog posts that I'd like to share with you:

"...If you want a position all you need to do is price yourself correctly and have the core skill sets. The reader's [sic] of the resume are intelligent people. They can see beyond a spacing error. I believe the less you tell them the better. Make it short."

Other than the writer's misunderstanding of a correct expression of a common plural, this post is full of errors. I wonder how well her strategy is working for her.

If only it was so simple as to "price yourself correctly and just have the core skill sets"! Unfortunately for us all, you can be the cheapest candidate around, with every skill set known to Man, but if your resume doesn't reflect those qualities correctly, you might as well be shouting from a bell buoy in the middle of the ocean, for all the good it will do you. That's what this blog post the reader protested is all about. You need to know the right way to get that across to a reader who has at least 400 other resumes demanding his or her attention. You also need to get your resume through the resume-reading software most companies are using today. Those items on that list, the industry-specific language, the keywords, the design and writing that engage the reader at the outset and keep the reader engaged throughout; all those items are crucial to the success of a resume.

And that's where a professional resume writer comes in. Anonymous Reader, do you know how to write a C-A-R statement? Do you know why such a statement is important? A professional does, and will utilize those statements and more to demonstrate your VALUE to the potential employer.

"The reader's [sic] of the resume are intelligent people... I believe the less you tell them the better." Where did you get these ideas? And how is that strategy working for you? How many interviews have you won with your "less is better" notion? How are employers supposed to know about the day you saved a $100,000 account by correcting the billing error that nearly made the account-holder choose a competitor if you don't tell them about it?

"Make it short," indeed. And spend a long, long time clinging to your buoy out on that cold, dark ocean.

Jack Mulcahy has written hundreds of resumes for people from all walks of life. Each resume he writes shows the unique selling proposition so necessary to market the job seeker. To learn more about Jack and how he can work to help your resume gain interviews, visit his website at http://www.resumesbyjack.com/.