Resume Writing With A Powerful Message!

What drives a successful resume that motivates the hiring manager to call you in for an interview? Here's a hint; it's not fancy writing, or the color of the paper or even your education. It's rather simple: it is your achievements. Make it easy for the hiring manager to connect the dots. What you did for your past employers they will easily conclude you will do for them in the future.

Look back in your career, and even at outside activities, (Yes, chairing that committee for the local Chamber of Commerce that attracted over 200 to a tax strategy workshop should be counted.) and list everything you did to solve problems or make things better or to help others resolve challenges.

How many of these achievements have you listed in your resume? And if you've had a recent job interview how many of these accomplishments did you express in a compelling story? If you answered yes you're well on your way to finding the right job. If you say no, or are on the fence, you should put these ideas to work for you to power up your job hunting marketing effort.

Achievement statements are what you can use to power up your resume, effectively relate in a job interview and should be the center piece to all your marketing messages. This is the edge you need to separate yourself from the competition.

Statements that headline your achievements can be effectively used in a variety of situations. The most obvious is your resume, networking, your elevator speech, and in a resume cover letter and in a job interview.

The closer your accomplishments get to the money the more powerful their impact. This is not to say that accomplishments in other areas cannot be effective, you'll just have to be a bit more creative.

In reviewing the list of your accomplishments the method of writing your achievement statement with maximum impact should be as follows:

1. Start with the strongest action verb that you can come up with.

2. What was the accomplishment? Keep it short, if the employer needs more they can ask you in the job interview.

3. What was the impact or results? Make it quantifiable. Numbers sell the accomplishment. Don't know the exact results? Give us your best guess. Remember 19.8% looks better that 20%.

4. Keep at writing the list of achievement statements until you've covered everything. You may have too many to include all of them in your resume, but you'll now have the advantage of tailoring your resume to meet the specific needs of the employer.

You'll now have a list of achievement statements that will portray a strong connection between what you accomplished in the past and what you can achieve in the future. Overall this is the type of compelling demonstration that the prospective employer is searching for. Let you be the one they find, and extend a job offer.

John Groth has changed careers seven times during his working life. Learn more about changing careers, resume and cover letter tips and career planning at http://careersafter50.com/. Discover how others over age 50, built winning career plans and found the right careers by an effective job hunting plan after 50.

Read more ...

Resume Writing: 3 Tips To Improve Your Message!

Resume writing can sometimes be a mystery. A friend tells us about a formatting trick, or you read that someone got a whole series of job interviews by sprinkling the resume with an unusual formatted bullet points. Really, it rarely happens this way.

Yes, jobs are found using these different methods, but the majority are discovered by paying attention to details, and working a well thought out job hunting plan on a daily basis.

Your goal should be to adjust those small details that will improve your resume. By making some minor adjustments to resume details the document becomes more readable and will increase the motivation for the employer to call you.

If you are making any of the following mistakes writing and formatting your resume here are some fixes that will make your resume more readable.

1. Make your resume unique and more readable. If your resume is distinctive you will stand out from the competition. Don't just grab the first MS Word template and start plugging in content. If you do, your resume will look and feel like so many others. This means you've lost the advantage to differentiate yourself from the other candidates.

How your resume looks can sometimes be more important than what it says and how it reads.

2. Be relevant in your resume content. Focus your accomplishments to the last ten to fifteen years. If you've worked more that fifteen years, include that experience in an "Employment Summary," section.

This will give you more room on the resume to add accomplishments that more closely match the needs of the employer. List your accomplishments in the order shown in the job announcement. For example, if the first qualification is cost cutting, your first achievement should tell the employer the results you accomplished cutting costs.

Stay away from copying content from websites or examples in resume writing books. Using this information as a guide is acceptable but copying will ultimately trip you up in a job interview. Moreover, your resume will show a number of writing styles, another dead giveaway that the information is not authentic.

3. A quick positive scan of your resume will sell the message. In formatting your resume be light on responsibilities and long on accomplishments. Short sentences in focused paragraphs combined with bullet pointed statements marking achievements will increase readability.

Clip your completed resume to a wall and stand six or so feet away. What do you see? Is it balanced? Are the appropriate headings highlighted? Can you count the bullet points? Make changes to adjust the balance and improve the readability of your resume.

Your job search revolves around your resume. You should have enough information to tailor-make each resume to fit as closely as possible the needs of the prospective employer. In effective job hunting a generic resume will always be out shown by a distinctive tailor-made document. Add a great layout, and an emphasized list of accomplishments and you've got a winning combination.

John Groth has changed careers seven times during his working life. Learn more about changing careers, resume and cover letter writing and career planning at http://careersafter50.com/. Discover how others over age 50, built winning career plans and found the right careers by effective resume writing after 50.

Read more ...

Resume Writing: 3 Tips To Improve Your Message!

Resume writing can sometimes be a mystery. A friend tells us about a formatting trick, or you read that someone got a whole series of job interviews by sprinkling the resume with an unusual formatted bullet points. Really, it rarely happens this way.

Yes, jobs are found using these different methods, but the majority are discovered by paying attention to details, and working a well thought out job hunting plan on a daily basis.

Your goal should be to adjust those small details that will improve your resume. By making some minor adjustments to resume details the document becomes more readable and will increase the motivation for the employer to call you.

If you are making any of the following mistakes writing and formatting your resume here are some fixes that will make your resume more readable.

1. Make your resume unique and more readable. If your resume is distinctive you will stand out from the competition. Don't just grab the first MS Word template and start plugging in content. If you do, your resume will look and feel like so many others. This means you've lost the advantage to differentiate yourself from the other candidates.

How your resume looks can sometimes be more important than what it says and how it reads.

2. Be relevant in your resume content. Focus your accomplishments to the last ten to fifteen years. If you've worked more that fifteen years, include that experience in an "Employment Summary," section.

This will give you more room on the resume to add accomplishments that more closely match the needs of the employer. List your accomplishments in the order shown in the job announcement. For example, if the first qualification is cost cutting, your first achievement should tell the employer the results you accomplished cutting costs.

Stay away from copying content from websites or examples in resume writing books. Using this information as a guide is acceptable but copying will ultimately trip you up in a job interview. Moreover, your resume will show a number of writing styles, another dead giveaway that the information is not authentic.

3. A quick positive scan of your resume will sell the message. In formatting your resume be light on responsibilities and long on accomplishments. Short sentences in focused paragraphs combined with bullet pointed statements marking achievements will increase readability.

Clip your completed resume to a wall and stand six or so feet away. What do you see? Is it balanced? Are the appropriate headings highlighted? Can you count the bullet points? Make changes to adjust the balance and improve the readability of your resume.

Your job search revolves around your resume. You should have enough information to tailor-make each resume to fit as closely as possible the needs of the prospective employer. In effective job hunting a generic resume will always be out shown by a distinctive tailor-made document. Add a great layout, and an emphasized list of accomplishments and you've got a winning combination.

Read more ...

Resume Writing With A Powerful Message!

What drives a successful resume that motivates the hiring manager to call you in for an interview? Here's a hint; it's not fancy writing, or the color of the paper or even your education. It's rather simple: it is your achievements. Make it easy for the hiring manager to connect the dots. What you did for your past employers they will easily conclude you will do for them in the future.

Look back in your career, and even at outside activities, (Yes, chairing that committee for the local Chamber of Commerce that attracted over 200 to a tax strategy workshop should be counted.) and list everything you did to solve problems or make things better or to help others resolve challenges.

How many of these achievements have you listed in your resume? And if you've had a recent job interview how many of these accomplishments did you express in a compelling story? If you answered yes you're well on your way to finding the right job. If you say no, or are on the fence, you should put these ideas to work for you to power up your job hunting marketing effort.

Achievement statements are what you can use to power up your resume, effectively relate in a job interview and should be the center piece to all your marketing messages. This is the edge you need to separate yourself from the competition.

Statements that headline your achievements can be effectively used in a variety of situations. The most obvious is your resume, networking, your elevator speech, and in a resume cover letter and in a job interview.

The closer your accomplishments get to the money the more powerful their impact. This is not to say that accomplishments in other areas cannot be effective, you'll just have to be a bit more creative.

In reviewing the list of your accomplishments the method of writing your achievement statement with maximum impact should be as follows:

1. Start with the strongest action verb that you can come up with.

2. What was the accomplishment? Keep it short, if the employer needs more they can ask you in the job interview.

3. What was the impact or results? Make it quantifiable. Numbers sell the accomplishment. Don't know the exact results? Give us your best guess. Remember 19.8% looks better that 20%.

4. Keep at writing the list of achievement statements until you've covered everything. You may have too many to include all of them in your resume, but you'll now have the advantage of tailoring your resume to meet the specific needs of the employer.

You'll now have a list of achievement statements that will portray a strong connection between what you accomplished in the past and what you can achieve in the future. Overall this is the type of compelling demonstration that the prospective employer is searching for. Let you be the one they find, and extend a job offer.

Read more ...