Being stuck without a job for an extended period of time can be stressful. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. If your job search isn’t working out how you would like it to, consider using one of the top resume writing services to get you out of your rut. Not only can they help revamp your resume, but they can also give you some tips on how to approach your job search. In the meantime, here are some of our best new tips to help you with your executive job search this season.
Stay Active
When you’re in the midst of a job search, the last thing you want to do is stop networking or being active on social media. It can be easy to scratch these activities off your list when your job search isn’t going as planned, but that’s actually the worst thing you can do. Take on some volunteer opportunities or a short-term contract opportunity. When writing an effective resume, you want to show you made the effort to plug the holes between your employment.
Expand Your Job Search Criteria
It’s natural to be selective about your employment prospects when you first begin your job search. However, you have to expand your criteria eventually if it’s not working. This could include considering new positions or expanding your location options. Sometimes a big change may be the best thing for your career, especially if you’re in a stall with your search efforts.
Evaluate Your Job Search Strategy
It’s never a good idea to send your resume out to companies in bulk. Instead, focus on improving your c-level personal branding to make employers notice you more. This may include attending more networking events rather than submitting countless resumes. There are many different methods of going about a job search, so evaluate how yours is working and don’t be afraid to change it up.
Remember No Job is Perfect
One of the things top resume writing services will tell you is to always remember you will never find the perfect job. However, it doesn’t mean a particular job couldn’t turn into a perfect one later on. When you understand the perfect job probably won’t be out there on paper, you’ll have a better mindset about your job search.
At Professional Resume Services, we help many executives on a daily basis with their job search strategies. If you need help writing an effective resume or just can’t get out of your job search rut, feel free to contact us at any time.
Are you about to begin your executive job search? Have you been searching for a job recently with no luck? Either way, you need to be careful with the wording in your resume. The best professional resume writers can tell you an extensive list of commonly used words that will make recruiters stop reading.
You may think those words apply to you perfectly, but so do hundreds of other people who send in their resumes to the same place. Here are some of the words you may think are harmless, but can actually drive recruiters away from your resume.
1. Enthusiastic
Every cover letter writing service sees this word come across their desk, and so do recruiters. If you aren’t enthusiastic about the job possibility, why would you be applying? This is just an unnecessary word that should be implied in your writing.
2. Motivated
Sending your resume is a sign of motivation—unless, of course, you choose to submit a terrible resume rather than seek the help of the best professional resume writers. There’s no need to explain why you’re motivated.
3. Creative
Creativity is something everyone thinks they have, but in reality, very few people do. Furthermore, those people likely aren’t searching for jobs. The word “creative” will get overlooked quickly because most people can’t back it up with proof.
4. Experienced
You’re showing your experience on the resume, so you don’t need to reiterate it. The best executive resume format will display your experience in a separate section, which needs no further explanation.
5. Team Player
It’s great to be a team player, but you don’t have to talk about it on your resume. The best professional resume writers will tell you to explain a situation in which you were a team player, but they will never actually write out the words. Everyone writes them, but you shouldn’t.
6. Results-Oriented
This may have looked good on a resume in the past, but not today. Any company hiring an executive expects them to be results-oriented. On the other hand, if you truly are results-oriented, your resume should show it.
7. Determined
This is another word that’s implied just because you submitted the resume. If you’re truly determined to get a job, go to a cover letter writing service to brush up your cover letter and resume. Don’t tell a recruiter you’re determined, because they probably won’t read anymore.
Professional Resume Services has some of the best professional resume writers in the industry to help you eliminate the common, yet unnecessary, words from your resume. Feel free to contact us if you need help tweaking your executive resume to make it more effective.
Thought leadership is one of the best qualities any executive can have. When you are a thought leader, you have innovative ideas that help business move in a positive direction, all while influencing other employees as well. However, there are some myths you need to be aware of when it comes to thought leadership for executives.
1. You Must Be Perfect
No one is perfect, and thought leaders don’t have to be either. Believe it or not, a good quality to improve your c-level personal branding is to admit you need to check resources to get answers to certain questions. Ensuring you’re providing the correct answers is much more important and enhances your credibility more than giving an incorrect answer immediately.
2. Relationships Aren’t as Important as Productivity
A true thought leader places a high importance on building relationships. It will be evident to professional executive resume writers if you are a self-centered leader or if you are focused on building relationships as you become successful. Employers want to hire executives who build quality relationships as well.
3. Each of Your Thoughts Must Be Original
Don’t be afraid to give credit where credit is due. Every great thought leader uses ideas from successful people before them and build off of those ideas to make their own. However, if you think every one of your ideas has to be original in order to improve your c-level personal branding, you’re wrong.
4. You Must Control a Conversation
The role of a thought leader is to present new ideas in creative and innovative ways. That doesn’t necessarily mean each idea presented is the best right away. Any time a conversation comes up about an idea you have, listen to the feedback instead of shutting the person down right away. You shouldn’t try to spark a debate or control the conversation. The top resume services suggest getting feedback from as many sources as possible before developing your idea and putting it on paper.
5. Once You Have a Great Thought, You’re Done
Thoughts without actions are useless. All professional executive resume writers want to know is what actions you took to get a certain result. You can’t put a thought on a resume because employers won’t know what result happened from the thought. Put your thought into motion to have the best results as a thought leader.
At Professional Resume Services, we believe thought leadership is one of the best ways to improve your c-level personal branding. If you need help determining whether you display the right thought leadership qualities, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
Many people include thought leadership as an attribute on their executive resume, but employers will quickly expose them if it’s not true. Any executive who embraces thought leadership will show evident qualities in their work habits, thoughts and other skills. If you believe you have these characteristics, the best executive resume writing services can help you incorporate them into your resume to help you get noticed. Here are some ways thought leadership can be tied to your c-level job search.
Thought Leadership is Creative Innovation
It’s important to understand thought leadership has nothing to do with experience, expertise or knowledge in any subject area. Instead, it’s how you look at different facts and come up with innovative ideas. This could be from a product or productivity standpoint, or it could simply be leading people. The creativity is exactly what executive resume services want to see from c-level executives, since it will be much easier to craft a solid resume and lead to a potentially great job.
How Thought Leadership Applies to Executives
Since c-level executives are seen as leaders in an organization, thought leadership applies to them more than most other employees. As a thought leader, you have to get ideas from different sources, gather all the facts, think about them creatively and come up with innovative ideas for applying them to the marketplace.
When a leader of an organization possesses these qualities, they will be looked upon much differently and will have higher chances of success in the executive position. It’s important to also note these qualities don’t come overnight, and some executives don’t spend nearly as much time as they should practicing thought leadership. However, with a little drive and determination, the best executives can acquire the skill.
Connecting Your Job Search With Thought Leadership
Even the best executive resume writer will need some examples of times when you displayed thought leadership. If you have multiple examples, they can be incorporated creatively in your resume where they will get the attention of a potential recruiter. The hiring manager will undoubtedly ask you about your thought leadership skills in an interview, so be prepared to go in depth about your experience and how it helped your previous company succeed.
Professional Resume Services is one of the best executive resume writing services for people displaying different levels of thought leadership. We enjoy working with these executives, so feel free to contact us at any time if you need help connecting your job search with your thought leadership skills.
Executives commonly make the mistake of not updating their resume until they are in need of a job. However, the one certain thing about job security is the uncertainty of it. You could have a job one day and get laid off the next due to a number of circumstances. That just means you need to always have your resume ready to go so you aren’t scrambling if you do happen to lose your job suddenly. Here are some of the tips cover letter writing services will give you when revamping your resume.
Make Your Resume Searchable Online
Depending on the last time you went through a job search, employers may have still been going through physical copies of resumes. In today’s digital age, the best executive resume format is one that has searchable characteristics online. An HR manager spends an average of six seconds on any given resume, so if yours isn’t formatted for online viewing, it will quickly be passed over without even getting a chance.
Update Social Media Profiles While You’re At It
Speaking of online searchability, you need to clean up and update any social media profiles you have. Social media platforms like LinkedIn give you a great outlet to expand on your executive resume, but it’s different than the best executive resume format. Still, many employers see social media profiles as being an extension of your resume, so you can’t just focus solely on your one-page resume when you’re revamping it.
Add New Experiences and Keywords
Finally, if you’ve been at the same job for six months or longer, chances are you’ve gained some new experiences along the way. Be sure to remove any old or irrelevant experience and replace it with new experience. Don’t forget about updating your executive resume bio as well, since some things could have changed since the last time you updated your resume.
Cover letter writing services also suggest incorporating more keywords, since employers will search for those words. This may not have been important the last time you submitted a resume anywhere, but it is today.
Professional Resume Services is the industry leader in helping executives revamp their resumes for their upcoming job search. Whether you’re currently looking for a job or just haven’t updated your executive resume in a while, feel free to contact us at any time.
Spring is the most popular time of the year to get some cleaning done in and around the house. But it’s also a great time to clean up your executive resume! This is one of the busiest times of year for professional executive resume writers, so if you plan on using a resume service to clean up the cobwebs for your resume, now’s the time to make an appointment. However, if you want to learn how to tidy up your executive resume on your own, here are a few tips to consider.
1. Highlight Only Relevant Skills
Your last resume may have been filled with a lot of different skills in hopes of the relevant one getting recognized. Any executive resume writing service today will tell you to highlight only relevant skills, because hiring managers won’t take the time to read through them all. You’ve got six seconds to impress a recruiter, so make them count.
2. Remove any clichés
Words like “passionate,” “reliable” and “dependable” all may describe you perfectly, but the reality is everyone believes those words describe them as well. Do yourself and your resume a favor and remove these clichés, since they don’t add any value to your executive resume.
3. Update Dates
Depending on your age, you may need to update or remove a significant amount of dates on your executive resume. Dates are good to use to an extent, but if you are attempting to highlight experience from 30 years ago, chances are it won’t help you land your next job.
4. Be More Focused
The best executive resume services want you to target your resume more. The days of creating one general resume to send out to many different companies are over. Companies today want to see a resume tailored to their needs, so you need to comply if you want to have a chance.
5. If All Else Fails, Start from Scratch
Updating an old resume can take more time than just starting over from scratch. Sometimes even the best professional executive resume writers will suggest starting over with a clean slate. This will help clear your mind from all of the older accomplishments and experiences and allow you to focus on the more current experiences you can remember.
Professional Resume Services exists to help executives like you clean up their resumes for the next career opportunity. When you’re ready to do some spring cleaning on your executive resume, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
If you ask various people about the value of networking events, the vast majority will likely say they are very valuable. However, some people don’t even know why they are valuable. As an executive, your time is limited, so you don’t have any to waste by going to networking events that don’t provide any value to you. Of course, once you have your resume polished up by a top rated resume writing service, you’ll likely want to give it out to everyone. Here are some tips to help you make your networking efforts worth the time.
Budget a Certain Amount of Time for Networking
Time is money, and you don’t want to waste either. Since some networking events can be hit or miss, it’s best to set aside a certain amount of time each week or month for networking purposes. That way, if one event turns about to be a complete waste of time, at least the time was accounted for. However, any event is still a success if you’re able to hand out your executive resume cover letter to a couple people.
Ask Colleagues About Certain Events Before Attending
Another great way to make sure a networking event is worth your time is to ask a colleague who has been there before about it. They can go into detail about what the event has to offer so you can determine whether it’s worth your time. If you determine it’s not worth it, your time would be much better spent brushing up your resume with some of the best professional resume writing services.
Change Your Networking Strategy
You may be stuck attending a particular networking event yielding no results for you. No matter how much you like the people or the venue, it may be time to change your strategy to align more with your professional goals. As an executive, a networking event should be an extension of your career, rather than a time waster.
Some people change their strategies by attending morning events rather than evening events. You could also switch from a larger event to a smaller event. Whatever isn’t helping to move your career in a positive direction should be reevaluated.
Professional Resume Services is in business to help executives like yourself succeed at networking events. Whether you need to rework your executive resume cover letter, or if you just need other resume advice, feel free to contact us at any time.
One of the biggest questions for many executives is whether it’s worth bothering with referrals when searching for a new job. Some people feel it’s unnecessary, especially if you have a lot of work experience. However, with the importance of networking in today’s business world, referrals ultimately go hand-in-hand. Even executive resume services will tell you to find the best referrals you can and combine them with networking to accelerate your job hunt. Here are answers to the common question of whether referrals are worth it.
The Right Referrals Can Help
You can’t just ask anyone for a referral and expect them to help you get the job. The best cover letter writing service will suggest to reach out to someone you know and trust, like a former boss, co-worker or simply a professional contact who knows you well.
The secret is to not only find referrals you know well, but also find people who have a mutual connection within the industry or company you want to work in. Companies want to hire people who they know or think they know well. Having a mutual connection is the best way to create that spark.
Don’t Focus Solely on the Job With Referrals
If you don’t have any mutual connections off the top of your head, you can use a service like LinkedIn to find them. The best resume writing service can help you locate different leads to get started with the process. You just have to remember these potential connections are people, too, and you won’t seem very approachable if you start talking about yourself right off the bat.
Instead, take a personable approach and give the person compliments on their profile, accomplishments and anything else you see. You’ll likely get a better response as a result and can talk more about achievements and how they got there before talking about yourself.
Talking to a Hiring Manager About a Referral
When you have a solid referral or two, you’ll have to talk to the hiring manager about them. A cover letter writing service can help you say all the right things about your mutual connection in the cover letter, but it’s up to you once you get an interview. Figure out what common traits you share with your mutual connection. If the hiring manager feels like they are hiring someone they know, you’ll be more likely to get the job.
Professional Resume Services has helped executives get the best referrals to expedite their job search. If you’re unsure whether you have the right referrals, or if you need the assistance of executive resume services, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
