When you are looking for a job, there are different types of ads to which you will respond. Some will be Craigslist style where you send your resume to a recruiter via a randomized email address. Others will be ads with an Apply button that you click. This button may take you to a company or recruiting agency website where you will be prompted to set up an account. However you apply, most resumes are parsed into an applicant tracking system. The resume is parsed by extracting certain information such as name, contact information, work history and education, and this information is used to populate the fields of your applicant tracking system record. The good thing about submitting your resume this way is that you do not have to fill in long, repetitious forms for each position with information that is already on your resume. The bad thing about parsing resumes is that in order for the applicant tracking system to parse your resume correctly, your resume needs to be very plain in format and text.

Diacritics, such as those accent marks found over the e’s in the word “resume” may cause your resume to be parsed incorrectly. Common parsing mistakes include your name ending up in the incorrect fields, one phone number that is parsed into several different phone number fields, incomplete address and missing work history dates. Incorrect information in these fields may mean that your resume does not come up in a candidate search run by a hiring manager.

Improve your chances to be called for an interview by casting a critical eye over your resume. A plainer resume format that should parse easily uses bold and plain text only. We create “ASCII” or .txt (plain) versions of your resume for just this reason– applying online and working with recruiters. Leave out the unusual diacritics and the ampersand (&). An ampersand will cause havoc when a resume is parsed. Clearly demarcate resume sections by adding a couple of line spaces between each section. If you are uploading a resume to a company’s applicant tracking system, you may have to fill out some fields by hand, while others are populated by the system. Check all fields for accuracy before you hit Send.

The plan used to be that if you did not know what you wanted to do after graduating from college, then you could temp for awhile. You could try on different jobs and figure out what you liked without making a commitment. It could take you a few weeks or a few months, and all the while you would be earning some money.

That plan or blueprint has changed in these times of recession. More and more, the jobs offered out there are listed as “temp, ongoing” or “temp to perm.” Employers are trying out the candidates that they choose to hire without investing a great amount of money in terms of pay or time in terms of training. If it works out, you may be hired from a temp position into a permanent one. However, this means you have to be willing to take a gamble: low pay and no benefits now for higher pay and benefits later. You also need to hit the ground running. Offices are running very lean these days, with a few people doing a lot. People who temp or do contract work often feel as if they keep having to “start all over again,” paying their dues to get into a better-paying position.

How you perform your job is important. It can be tough in a temp position because the permanent people may feel like there is no justification in investing time to help you learn the ropes. It is also difficult to live on a low salary while trying to figure out how to pay for basic things such as health insurance and health care. However, if you want to be considered for a higher-paying, more permanent position, you have to do the job well.

This is a situation where a strong resume can help you. A resume not only gets you an interview. It can also help you negotiate your way into a more permanent position. Combine a strong job performance with a resume that illustrates that you have the education and skills to perform a higher level, permanent position. Watch for on-the-job information that you can use to make you a compelling choice. You may have skills on your resume that you are not using in your temp position now; however, you need to highlight those skills that make you a valuable asset to the company, so valuable that they will want to keep you on permanently.

Resume distribution is one of the most important aspects of your job search. Whether you are an executive looking for a 6-figure income opportunity or an entry level employee looking for your next leg up, you will need to present a professional resume and a part of that presentation is distributing your resume to the right people. So who are the right people?

6 Places You Should Distribute Your Executive Resume

Executive job seekers have more options available to them in terms of resume distribution. That’s partly by design and partly just the way it is. Nevertheless, it would behoove you to take advantage of every avenue of distribution at your disposal. The more places you distribute your resume, the more likely you are to land a job.

1. Executive Recruiters – This is an obvious one and is a good place to start. Send out your resume to a full list of recruitment agencies and increase your opportunities.
2. Venture Capital Firms – Many VC funders seek talent because they want their ventures to succeed. Having the right person in the right position can go a long way to success.
3. Private Equity Firms – Private equity firms are always hiring. We’ll find the right ones for your resume.
4. Professional Associations – You should also send your executive resume to professional associations that consist of other members of your profession. Many of the members are also hiring managers.
5. Your Website/Blog – Many executives these days have their own website blog. That’s the perfect place for your resume.
6. Online Job Banks – There are several job banks online where you can submit your executive resume so that it can be seen by hiring managers browsing the listings– and I’m not talking about Monster.com or Careerbuilder. Try Execunet.com or Bluesteps.com.

These are just 6 places to distribute your executive resume. I’m sure you can come up with some of your own. The important thing is to get your resume out there.

It is very easy to think that, when you have sent out hundreds of resumes, those resumes disappear into thin air. However, if you post your resume online or email it in response to a job ad, your resume usually gets stored in a database. This database could be a job aggregator like Career Builder, or it could be an applicant tracking system for a company or staffing agency. Just because you do not get a response to your job application, it does not mean that nothing is done with your resume.

What is does mean is that you want to be careful who gets access to your resume and the information on it. Many people eagerly post their resumes on a job aggregator only to be contacted for jobs they do not want, such as franchise opportunities or life insurances sales or other jobs that require you to put thousands of dollars down to get started. One thing that smart job seekers do is to create an email separate from your personal ones for just this purpose, that way your personal email won’t be bombarded with annoying spam mail. If the company is interested in you, they will email you. However, be sure that you regularly check both your email inbox and spam for messages from potential employers.

Putting your resume on LinkedIn is also another way for your resume to ‘live on’. As LinkedIn can be used as an online version of your resume, it will still be working for you even when you aren’t in an active job search (as long as you keep up with your profile and don’t ignore it).

It’s important to remember that once your resume is ‘out there’ in cyberspace either on a job board or LI, it will stay there until you remove it. Be strategic about where you put your resume and you will have better results.

 

Running a business entails making a business plan before you start the business and following up on that plan once the business is up and running. You should treat your career the same way. Do not wait for your employer to offer you opportunities to develop your skill sets. Even if you do have a job right now, you should continue to network. Find out what is happening in your career field, who is hiring, who is firing. You should know the career trends so you are the one who decides when you make your next career move, not your employer.

The days of the company taking care of your career development are long over. While you do not have to become a business entrepreneur, you have to be an entrepreneur when it comes to your own career.

Think about how you come across professionally on your resume, in correspondence and on the telephone. What type of professional do you want to be? How are you going to brand and market yourself? Your brand is your reputation or how people see you professionally. You may never need an executive bio, but it is a good exercise to write one anyways because it helps organize your thoughts on who you are professionally and how your career development has progressed.