3 Important Factors In Your Executive Resume

Executive Resumes

3 important factors in your executive resume
When was the last time you carefully assessed your executive resume? Perhaps you should take a look at your resume, and see if it is “on target” for the 3 important factors that every “executive” resume has:

  1. Your executive resume is your image. Impressions are formed, wrongly or rightly, about your professionalism, abilities, and more. Everything plays into “image”, much of it subconsciously. The color of the paper, choice of font, style and standard of writing, organization of information, and more, form a picture of who you are as a prospective employee.
  2. Your executive resume is your calling cardThis is how a prospective employer refreshes their memory about the facts concerning you and your potential for their organization. This is how that prospective employer has the information needed to contact you when they want to call you in for an interview. Everything on your executive resume should be accurate, up to date, and easy to find.
  3. Your executive resume is your responsibility. Even if you hire a professional resume service, yours is the final say in the finished product that is distributed. The level of professionalism and polish of the executive resume reflect the candidate for the top jobs. That candidate — YOU — are assumed to have approved every detail of your resume.

Because these important factors are a reality in every resume, it is highly important that your executive resume is “on target” as reaching the goal of a professional executive standard. Executive positions do require a higher standard of resume, one that is worth the higher compensation such positions are paid. It is your responsibility to make sure that the “image” and “calling card” in your resume meet these higher standards.

Surprising Ways Family And Career Overlap

Work/Family Balance

surprising ways family and career overlap
Have you ever considered the ways your work comes home — and your home comes to work? One writer recently shared her thoughts in this article titled, “4 Things Business Taught Me About Parenting — and Vice Versa” and I am sure, if you thought about it, you could come up with more things you have learned as you balance career and family.
The reality is that we aren’t compartmentalized into two separate persons who are exclusively at home or exclusively at work. If you are having problems at home, it is easy to bring that stress into the workplace, and the same tendency applies from work to home. But there are good things that overlap, too!

  • “Treat others the way you’d like to be treated” is a basic childhood lesson that never stops being the right thing to do.
  • “Be responsible for your behavior” applies pretty much everywhere I can think of.
  • “Apologize when you are wrong” gets everybody on the same side, and the same team, and frees you to deal with the problem.
  • “Time out” gives a chance to regroup and respond instead of react. You don’t put a co-worker in the corner, but you could suggest a break and set up a meeting to discuss solutions.
  • “Nap time/Snack time” acknowledges the physical limitations of a child. But grownups, too, have physical limitations and repeatedly working through lunch or excessive overtime will reveal that fact.
  • “Respect each other’s boundaries and differences” goes past teaching kids to get along and into the working world with people from many backgrounds and perspectives.
  • “Do your chores”, or your to-do list, because sometimes you just have to get it done regardless of how you feel about it.

What are some things you have learned from work and applied to home, or vice-versa? I’d love to hear from you!
 
 

Don't Kill Your Career: Attitudes Change Your Workplace

Career & Workplace

don't kill your career: attitudes change your workplace
Your attitude at work can change your career in ways you may not expect. Just as workplace gossip is seen as a problem, so are rudeness and apathy. These attitudes may not be overtly hostile, but they cause damage all the same and can stop your career in its tracks.
Call centers train their workers to smile when they speak on the phone to customers. This is because a smile is heard in the voice even when you can’t see the speaker and will influence the hearer. If something so simple as a smile will change the way you are heard on the phone, imagine how much your attitude changes the way you interact with your co-workers and customers!
Gossip is a trap many fall into because it is so easy to talk about other people. The long-term effects of gossip are seen with strife in the workplace, time-wasting, and the gossip being considered untrustworthy. Don’t listen to gossip and don’t pass it on.
Rudeness will cause folks to back away and go somewhere else. Why be treated like that when it is easy to find an alternative? There are many reasons given as an excuse for rudeness, and not one of them changes the initial reaction. You may win someone back by apologizing, but it’s better to avoid the problem by thinking about how your attitudes and actions affect other people. Treat others kindly, just like you’d like them to treat you.
Apathy is like quicksand. The longer you sit in it, the harder it is to get out. If you feel like what you are doing every day is worth little, then apathy sets in quickly. No matter where you are in life, apathy changes the way you see your life and the way you interact with others. A wise man once noted that investing in something makes it precious to you. Start putting effort into a task or a person and that task or person becomes important.
My earlier example of the smile over the phone left out one important factor: that smile did not have to be “felt” by the smiler in order to be heard by the caller. Your voice changes when your lips are shaped into a smile. In the same way, your attitudes are not at the mercy of your feelings at the moment. Choose to have a good attitude and see how your workplace changes around you and your career opportunities open up.