Ask most employers which type of resume they like to see and you’ll get a lot of them telling you they prefer to see a chronological resume format. Do you know why?

The chronological resume is the preferred type because it shows how your career history has progressed from the beginning to present day. Employers want to be able to quickly see how many jobs you’ve had, as well as your tenure at each company. Employers want stable employees-after all, they are investing in you.

If a stable work history is important to the company interviewing you for your next job, then presenting a chronological resume will put you in the running for the position. Hiring managers want to see how you’ve advanced in your career, as well as the new skills acquired and accomplishments achieved in each position to see if your credentials are a good match for their company.

The chronological resume is a great format to use to show promotions and a steady career progression, whether within the same company or a new one. It’s the preferred resume format among the majority of the employers around the world.

Resume distribution is paramount to landing the job you want. If you don’t get your resume out there, then you won’t get hired. It’s that simple.

Here are 5 ways to distribute your resume without having to beat the pavement and hand-carry it to every single potential employer:

1. Networking – Whether networking online or off, one thing rings true: Everyone you know knows someone you don’t. Ask everyone within your circle of friends to carry your resume with them and pass it around when they bump into a potential employer. In fact, you should carry your resume with you too. You never know who you’re going to meet.
2. Job fairs – If you don’t go to job fairs, you should. Job fairs are a one-stop-shopping experience for candidates searching for the perfect job. Always bring plenty of copies of your resume with you to a job fair, as well as your professional references, in the event you are lucky enough to score an on-site interview with a potential employer.
3. Post it online – There are a ton of resume posting websites online. Find a few that target your specific industry as we as some of the more popular sites.
4. Recruiters – Job recruiters specialize in one thing: Matching candidates with employers. Send your resume to a handful of recruiters and see what happens.
5. Targeted database blasting – Another way to distribute your resume is to a targeted list of employers who are actively seeking new recruits. Many professional resume writers have such a list available.

Resume distribution is essential to landing the job you want. Get your resume out there and get it out there fast. The more widely you circulate your skills and experience, the more likely you are to land the job of your dreams.

You’ve likely heard of social media. You probably have a Facebook account and you may even use Twitter on a regular basis. If you’re really social media savvy, then you might have bought into the Pinterest craze as well. But do you know which social media website you should be on if you want to land a professional job that leads to a rewarding career?

If you said LinkedIn, kudos to you. You’re ahead of the game.

LinkedIn is the social media website for professionals. It’s where professionals go to network with each other, discuss business around the water cooler, secure their next position with a new company, and to close sales if they want to do business with other professionals.

Creating your LinkedIn profile is the first step. Your LinkedIn profile is your social media resume. It’s not a traditional resume in the traditional resume format. But it does contain all the same information that a traditional resume contains – or it should.

Your LinkedIn profile should have, at a minimum, the following information:

• Name of present employer and your position/title
• Previous employers and your positions/titles to at least 5-10 years back
• Your contact information
• Links to websites you own,  manage, or contribute to
• Links to online portfolios if you are a creative person
• A well-written summary of your professional experience geared toward the position that you want to obtain
• A list of associations and other organizations you are member of
• Use of keywords that are searchable and that brand you within your niche

This is just a start. Think of your social media profiles as online calling cards. Other professionals will look at your profiles to get a glimpse of who you are and what you have to offer. Make it easy for them.

LinkedIn has become one of the most effective social networking sites for business professionals. Some people have used it to find better jobs within their industry while others do well using it for prospecting. Whether you are actively searching for a new career, or just checking out what opportunities are out there, having a strong LinkedIn profile is a must.

Not sure how to get your LinkedIn profile ready for the job search? Here are some tips to get your started…

 

1. Write a dynamic headline with a summary on your profile. Use your most important keywords in both for search engine optimization purposes, but speak directly to the person you’d most like to connect with. Keep it concise and communicate clearly.
2. Use a professional photo that makes you look serious about doing business. Don’t use a full body shot or a photo that includes other people. Use a great head shot and smile.
3. When you include a link to your website, select the “other” block and use keywords so that you can build better inbound links to your web properties.
4. Include a call to action in your profile. Say something like “to get more prospects for your business in a shorter time, call xxx-xxx-xxxx or message me directly through LinkedIn”.
5. Get rid of LinkedIn’s dynamic URL. They’re ugly and ineffective. Instead, edit the link and use your name.
6. Make sure to complete your education and experience sections. Again, use keywords. Keywords help to ensure that your LinkedIn profile can be found in the search engines.
7. Proofread your profile before saving it. Be sure to correct any spelling and/or punctuation errors. Your profile is a reflection of you, so you want it to look professional. Consider having a friend or colleague look over it before you publish it.
8. Is your profile public? It should be. Making connections with others in your industry is key to staying in touch with job openings, industry trends, etc.
9. Ask people you know and with whom you have done business to “recommend” you. DO NOT blast all of your contacts and ask for a recommendation. Only ask people you know and have done business with.
10. Finally, add a few widgets to your profile. You can add your blog feed, Twitter feed, and other widgets that help flesh out who you are.

If you follow these 10 tips to improve your LinkedIn profile you’ll find yourself making more contacts and quite possibly, score your next big career opportunity through LinkedIn.

A lot of people are unemployed these days. But they don’t have to be – not for long. Not if they beat feet and hit the pavement.

Looking for a job is itself hard work. It’s a full-time job just to find a job. You have to find prospective employers, research them, put together a resume and a cover letter, send it off to the decision maker, then wait for them to call and set up an interview. And you should be doing that several times a day.

After that, you go to the interview, spend some time getting to know the interviewer and answering his or her questions, and then wait for a followup. If you do well they’ll call you in for a second interview, or a test, or offer you a job. The entire process can take weeks or months.

But where do you search for jobs? What resources do you use? Here are 5 resources you can use right now to find your next job.

1. The Internet – Search for “job” and your industry, or the title of the position you want to find. Look for companies that are hiring or have posted wanted ads online.
2. LinkedIn – Search the companies on LinkedIn and see if the companies you are interested in are hiring. Or connect with people who work there and ask them about openings.
3. Unemployment Office - Your city should have an unemployment office. This is usually where you go to fill out the paperwork for your unemployment insurance compensation. They also provide job search resources.
4. Executive Recruiters – Often called “headhunters,” their sole job is to find qualified executives and place them with companies that need their skills. They get paid a commission when they find a suitable placement so it doesn’t cost you anything to send them your resume.
5. Online Job Boards – Many of these are industry-specific or cater to a particular profession. But they are valuable resources even if general in nature.

Find more job search resources here.

Your resume objective is the first part of the resume and appears just below your name and address. It’s the first thing – after your cover letter – that a potential employer will read. So you want it to be good.

The purpose of your objective statement and/or career summary is to get your interviewer to read further. After all, if your objective statement doesn’t capture their attention, then nothing else will. You will lose your chance for an interview with that company. So your objective statement should follow these three rules really well.

1. Must be brief. One paragraph max. If you use a bullet list to make your statement, make each bullet single sentences or phrases and do no more than 3-5. Keep it short.
2. Centered on the benefit of the employer in hiring you. Don’t use “I” statements and don’t tell what you want. Present your statement so that the interviewer sees himself or herself benefiting from you working for them.
3. Concise. Make your objective statement express precisely what you hope to achieve.

A good objective statement does all three of these things well. Take a look at some sample resume objective statements to see how others have written theirs. Pay particular attention to the language and the style of each objective statement.

For instance, take a look at Savannah Varner’s entry level resume. See how she starts with a statement that tells specifically what position she is seeking, then follows that up with her strongest skills. A potential employer can see right off the bat what Savannah has to offer.

When you write your resume objective statement, keep these three things in mind: Brevity, Benefits, Conciseness.

When you submit a resume to a potential employer, what do you do to distinguish yourself from the other candidates for the position? Most people use a cover letter although I have seen and heard of applicants attaching a post-it note. That’s a gutsy move. It may not always work, but it has worked in at least one case.

Why did the post-it note work? Because it was different. It was out of the ordinary and attention-grabbing. But it wasn’t the post-it note that sealed the deal. It was what the applicant wrote on the post-it note. The message. The content.

And that’s what I’m going to focus on today. Simply submitting a cover letter with your resume isn’t enough to get you an interview. Your cover letter has to be attention-grabbing. It has to be unique.

With that in mind, here are 4 essential characteristics of a good cover letter:

1. Personal, yet professional – Your resume is where you list your professional qualifications for the position to which you are applying. In your cover letter, you can get a little more personal. Not too personal, but let your personality shine through.
2. Fill the holes in your resume – No resume is perfect. A potential employer will have questions. Your cover letter should briefly cover any glaring holes in your resume. Explain them in such a way that it makes sense to the interviewer so that she picks up the phone and calls you in for the interview.
3. Introduces you to your employer – The interviewer will read your cover letter before he reads your resume. That’s your first opportunity to catch his attention. Make a big splash. If your resume does its job, the interviewer will move quickly to the resume.
4. Shows your interest in the position – A resume might be good for several jobs you want to apply for. A cover letter will apply only to one job. It should be customized for the position to which you are applying. Let the interviewer know you are really interested in that position.

A good cover letter gets your foot in the door. The resume keeps that door open. After an interviewer has read them both, he should call you in for an interview. If that happens, you know they’ve done a good job.

In this day and age when employers can go online and find out virtually anything about you, it’s imperative that you think of yourself as more than just a job seeker. You might have to think of yourself as a brand and do some online reputation management.

Google – the largest search engine in the world – recently announced that they are changing the way search works. They’re calling their new product Search plus Your World.

Essentially, what it boils down to is that Google is rolling its search service into its social service, Google+, and creating a personalized experience for every searcher. Now, what’s that got to with your reputation? Everything!

By setting yourself up with a Google+ profile, you can virtually brand yourself online, which could give you a leg up on your job seeking competition. With a Google+ profile that is linked to your personal website, a Facebook page, an active LinkedIn presence, and a Twitter account, you can stretch your fingers and your mind out globally and become a personal brand. How you manage that could be the difference between a job or the unemployment line.

Furthermore, it could make a difference in your salary.

Employers today are looking for people who are Web savvy. If you understand current technology well enough to be a user, then you could be setting yourself up for the future, which is always a good thing.

Online branding is as important today for job seekers as it is for the companies who will be hiring them. Manage your online reputation and you’ll have a rewarding career.

(thanks to coolinfographics.com for use of the sample)

Thanks to a reader for mentioning the 5th type of resume. A new type of resume has become popular just in the last couple of years. It's called an infographic resume.

An infographic is an online visual representation of an idea. It can be a large visual representation that forces the viewer to use the scroll bar to see the entire graphic or it can be a smaller graphic that encompasses a single screen. Either way, it's an effective way to deliver a resume for many people today - especially graphic designers and web developers.

In simple terms, an infographic resume takes your text-based resume and converts it to graphics so that potential employers can see your experience and work history at a glance.

There are no hard-and-fast rules for creating an infographic resume. If you want to see a sample, click here.

That said, there are some rules that you do need to follow when creating your infographic resume:

1. Keep it relevant. Only add information to your infographic resume that is relevant to the job you are seeking.
2. Put the most important information at the top.
3. Keep it sectional for easy reference (though the sections can be side-by-side or top-to-bottom, or both.
4. You can still use text, but make it attractive and visual.
5. Highlight your most important skills.
6. Use color to your advantage.
7. Use links for your contact information - website, e-mail, social media accounts, and even Skype if you have it.

Like a text resume, potential employers should be able to get a glance at who you are with your infographic resume. Its purpose is to get you the interview. After that, getting the job is up to you.

 

When it comes to writing resumes, you’ll have to decide before you start writing just what type of resume you want to have. There are 4 popular types of resumes and each one fulfills a specific function quite well.

1. Chronological Resume – Perhaps the most popular resume type because it lists your work history at the top in reverse chronological order. Employers like it because they can see your work history at a glance. If you have a stable work history, then this is a great type of resume for finding your next employer.
2. Functional Resume – The functional resume focuses on skills and experience. If you have large gaps in your work history, then the functional resume can be your friend. However, many employers/recruiters don’t like these types as they seem to be “hiding” something. Make sure you clearly list your positions and responsibilities to avoid this misconception.
3. Combination (Hybrid) Resume – The combination, or hybrid, resume is more flexible. Your skills and experience are listed first, but you also include your work history below that so that employers can see it at a glance.
4. Targeted Resume – When you are applying for a job and want to highlight the skills and experience that are relevant to that job, a targeted resume might be your best bet.

Each of these 4 types of resumes have their places. People from all different careers and management levels use each one. But another type of resume has become popular in recent years. A mini-resume is not as extensive as a full resume. It can often be presented on a postcard and gives a brief summary of your career highlights. It works as a networking tool and allows you to get your foot in the door where you can get your full resume into a hiring manager’s hands.