Why Shouldn't I Start A Resume Without A Specific Job Goal?

Read more ...

Why Shouldn't I Start A Resume Without A Specific Job Goal?

As a resume writer, I speak to a number of people. Most of them know what kind of job they are seeking. Every so often, however, I encounter someone different. The exchange generally goes like this:

ME: "What job are you seeking?"

CLIENT: "I don't know. At this point, I'll take anything."

ME: "That's not a good way to go about writing a resume. You really need to focus on some kind of job in order to be successful."

CLIENT: "But I don't know what kind of job I want. Can't you just write me a resume anyway?"

If the conversation persists like this, I explain to the client that if they don't know what they want, I can't ethically take money from them, because they're asking me to write a resume that I know will fail. I know this because I know how employers think, and what they want to see in a resume.

There's a fundamental reason why employers don't want to see resumes without clear job goals: If you write a directionless resume, you are asking the employer to tell you what kind of job you should have. That's not up to the employer, that's up to you. An employer reads a resume with just one question in mind: "What's in it for me?" If your resume doesn't answer that question, the employer has a whole stack of resumes stretching halfway to the ceiling, from candidates who will.

That alone is something I believe people forget: competition. When you submit your resume to an employer, you are one of approximately 400 candidates jockeying for a single job. It's hard enough to get the employer to read your resume, even if it's perfect. If you come across as directionless, that employer will toss your resume into the circular file.

"So," you ask, "how do I decide what I want to do before I write my resume?" One method would be to consider the jobs you've had previously and eliminate the ones you wouldn't take again on a bet. Then consider your strengths, the things you've accomplished outside of work, the activities you enjoy doing. Is there some way you could find a job doing one of them? Ask yourself if there's something you love to do so much that you'd do it without pay.

If those methods fail, there are books on the subject, prime among them What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. You won't go wrong with that one. There's also one called I Don't Know What I Want But I Know It's Not This by Julie Jansen. Each of these can be found on Amazon, Barnes&Noble.com, or any other online bookstore. Read them. Learn from them.

Just don't send out an "I'll take anything" resume.

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/.

Read more ...

Job Hunting After Age 50: Start With Writing A Winning Resume!

Start with writing a winning resume and move ahead of the younger competition.

For the after 50 job hunter, they often see desirable jobs going to younger less experienced competitors. Although age-discrimination laws mandate that age cannot be a factor in the hiring decision it's widely understood that it exists.

In almost every job announcement, the desirability of experience is front and center. Talk to hiring managers and experience tends to win out in the selection and hiring process.

You want to write your resume that takes age (as much as possible) out of the hiring equation without conceding your experience. Job hunting over age 50 can be difficult enough so here are some approaches to rewrite and make over your resume to show your relevant experience while downplaying your age.

Eliminate years from your resume: By removing math from your resume you don't give the hiring official an opportunity to add the years after you earned a bachelors degree and come up with an age.

Fifteen or so years of employment are usually more than adequate to highlight your experience. If you have to go back farther you should add a section that might be called "additional qualifications." List your relevant accomplishments, without dates. This should satisfy the employer's requirements.

Underscore your work with new technologies: If in your recent work experience, you worked on a new technology, underscore it at the beginning of your resume. In your summary section of your resume list experience that establishes your work on the latest skills and technologies.

If your career focuses on technology, start your experience section listing specific technologies, the latest systems and software and the application of this advanced expertise.

If you work in a career that has continued to move forward, your expertise in working in the latest technology should give you a competitive edge.

Current development of your skills: Nothing helps to demonstrate your personal up-to-date career development than a section in your resume that lists your efforts to improve your skills. Add a section to your resume listing your current and recent educational efforts. This section will send a strong signal to prospective employers that you are actively keeping your skills current.

Don't restrict your list to formal college level type courses. Self-study, workshops, seminars and in-house training are all fair game. Edit and format the list to focus primarily on the skills required by the employer.

For example, you recently attended a seminar entitled "Project Management Skills." The employer is looking for someone with project management software skills. About 20% of the subject matter at the seminar was on "Project Management Software Skills." Now you know how to list the education.

Social Media Awareness: Add your presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. Your positive presence on Web 2.0 will give hiring managers an additional method to evaluate how current you are with the latest technologies.

Moreover, the effective use of the many job search tools on LinkedIn could open job opportunities for you than were just not available a few years ago.

Job hunting after age 50 could be a long and discouraging journey if you do not take advantage of the many available positive job hunting strategies. However, by stressing what is wanted by the prospective employer you will move ahead of your competition, regardless of your age.

So get in the game, keep a positive attitude, and you'll be have a successful job search after age 50.

Read more ...

Resumes That Work to Market You So Employers Will Start Calling

Most job seekers find writing their resumes and cover letters the most difficult part of job searching. However, resumes and cover letters play the most critical role in job searching process. As a career counselor, I find it devastating to see how people cannot find a better job or remain underpaid as they are not able to write better self-promotional pieces. Most people, even managers and executives, writes resumes that sounds more like a job description and which tends to fail in today's job market.

What the hiring managers say?

According to Tom Wemerskirchen, HR Manager at Mustang Manufacturing, most resume fails as they are too general. This sends out a message about the job applicant that they are willing to take any job, and are not hired.

Kir Beyer, an HR Director, also points out similar faults in the resumes. According to him, most job seekers do not tailor the resume according to the specific job position. They send out their resume without having the jobs in their minds, and not knowing what they are looking for, which let them disregard them as potential candidates.

A CEO of a company, Doug Allen, points out that targeted resumes are required which matches the employer's needs. At the same time, it should show off the skills of the individuals, how they are used, and what achieved. This is the only way to impress the potential employers.

Creative solutions to the Best Resumes

? Mention all innovations, improvements, and cost savings (if any): These will show how active you are on the job and produce the desired results. It is important to begin every sentence with an action verb, such as directed, created, established, and produced. Make sure you make your accomplished specific, noteworthy, and easily understood. Do not exaggerate or misstate the truth.

? Use "Summary of Qualification": A summary of qualifications that you can bring to the job should always be included. This section can be used illustrate powerfully your top selling points in 5 to 6 sentences. The focus of this section should be to tell the prospective employers about your experience level, key talents, best results, as well as what exactly it is that you want to do. A targeted resumes outlining the actions which you have done and how you got the results are important. Specific skills and experience which your potential employers would be interested in should be pointed out.

? Make it easy to gather information from your resume: Your resumes should be concise and clear. Your resume should be of one to two pages long with small number of words to make the point. Lengthy descriptions should be eliminated along with non-related information, which do not give strength to your performance in the job position you are applying for. The stress should be on the last five to seven years of work. The formatting should be simple with enough white space on the pages. Fonts should be the ones used commonly, such as Times Roman or Arial fonts with 12 point size. More important points should be put in bullets to put more emphasis on them.

? Do not lie on your resume: It is extremely important that you do not lie or exaggerate the truth in your resume. It can lead to embarrassing situation and also get you fired if you got the job. Hence, only tell the truth which you can substantiate as well.

Bryan Goldberg is a professional writer who has helped numerous applicants with their resumes, CVs and cover letters.He is a regular contributor to online article directories for instructional articles about resume, CV and cover letter writing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bryan_W_Goldberg

Read more ...

How to Start Your Perfect Resume

Starting is the easy bit. How is it going to end is what matters. Have you ever considered the situation from the employer's point of view?

There is a myth out there in job hunters land that all you have to do to get that dream job of yours is to sprinkle a bit of resume magic on your application and you will be called for an interview the next day.

Just compare it to a dating site for a moment. You have precious little idea who else is out there applying for the same job and what sort of relevant skills they have. You know it is so easy to apply for a job online now. Just hit the send button and your resume lands in someone's inbox out there.

If there is so much competition on the candidates' side guess what the employer is going to do? Raise the bar so high that only a manageable number of people will be called for an interview.

The stark consequence for you mere mortal is this: unless your application is a perfect match for the job description outlined in the advertisement you do not stand a chance. So here is the paradigm shift to dispel that resume myth once and for all: You have to work hard to line-up your experience and work history to fit the must-have requirement for the position.

We have moved from perfect resume to perfect match. Welcome to the real cyber age world of online recruitment. So before you hit the send button there is quite a bit of work to do on your part. The reason you can't reuse the same so-called perfect resume of yours is that the goal post shifts from one job vacancy to the next.

Because of the financial downturn and the resulting vast supply of job hunters, employers can afford to be very picky as to who they might hire. They have spent a fair bit of time designing their ad. (For them it also doubles as a public relations exercise "Did you notice so-and-so is hiring right now?")

How would you rate 200 resumes crashing in your inbox as to their relevance to the position advertised? That's right: whoever fails to deliver on the must-have features for the position will be discarded. Hopefully we want to trim it down to a manageable shortlist of 10 to be called for an interview. That's a mere 5% of folks. That means 95% of job hunters are wasting their time aiming at everything in sight but never getting their foot in the door because they don't even match what is being asked.

Do not despair. Smart job seekers are using an online tool to roll out a perfect match to the position they are going after. It's called Resume Digest

Also you might want to check Test Metrics an online service to prepare yourself for aptitude, knowledge and IQ tests which you are sure to encounter before or during the interview.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bruno_Deshayes

Read more ...