The best executive resume writers have seen hundreds of resumes and know exactly what the most common mistakes are. As obvious as some of these mistakes are, it’s easy to make them when you’re focused so much on the details and ensuring you’re making the right impression. This also highlights the importance of working with a reputable professional resume writing service to ensure you give yourself the best chance at writing an effective resume. Here are some of the most common mistakes you need to be aware of and avoid making.
Using Long Sentences And Big Words
No matter how much experience and knowledge you have, your executive resume should use simplistic language that’s easy to read. The hiring manager likely doesn’t have the same knowledge as you, so if they don’t completely understand the big words you’re using, it could put a barrier between the two of you that’s difficult to overcome. Use short sentences and simple words in your resume and save the technical language for the interview when you’re talking to like-minded people.
Not Incorporating Keywords
The best executive resume writers will tell you keywords are more important today than ever before. With companies receiving hundreds of resumes or more on a daily basis, they will often use software to identify specific keywords and help them filter out resumes. Take keywords and phrases from the job description and requirements and use them in your resume when you can.
Being Too Generic
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all resume. Hiring managers will see right through it if you try to submit the same resume to different companies. The key to writing an effective resume is targeting the company your applying to by identifying their needs and demonstrating how you’re a good candidate to solve those needs.
Not Talking About Accomplishments
Executives typically aren’t shy about discussing their accomplishments. However, many of them don’t talk about the achievements in detail. Use numbers and statistics whenever possible to create the most significant impact. If you just say you helped increase business over the course of the year, it’s not going to be as impactful as saying you successfully boosted sales 25% from the previous year.
Failing To Proofread Thoroughly
If nothing else, the best executive resume writers are valuable to catch the minor mistakes that could be detrimental to your chances of landing an interview. Typographical errors demonstrate carelessness and formatting issues show lack of attention to detail. While these may seem minor to you, an employer could see them as you not being serious about getting the job.
Professional Resume Services is a reputable professional resume writing service because we truly care about our clients. We don’t just write resumes. We want to know about your career aspirations, including where you’ve been and what you plan to accomplish. When we know your desires, we can help you craft the perfect resume to land the job of your dreams. Feel free to contact us at any time for help on your resume.
There may come a time in your career when you’re ready for a change. Obvious challenges are present when making a career change, and none are more evident than trying to write resumes that get you hired. Some of your skills may transfer over to your new career, but many of them won’t. Your main goal should be to discuss in your resume which skills you can use from your previous career, as well as why you want to make the career change in the first place. Employers will have plenty of questions for you, but writing an effective resume can answer a few of them. Here are some tips to consider when writing a career changing resume.
Discuss Transferable Skills
Every company wants new employees to have a solid mix of technical skills as well as soft skills. Depending on the nature of your career change, some of your technical skills may not transfer over well. Instead, executive resume writing services may suggest focusing on soft skills like your personality, work ethic, leadership, communication and more. Strong soft skills are transferable to almost any profession, so clearly showing your strongest skills backed by examples will make the most significant impact.
Target The Company
The key to writing an effective resume is targeting the specific company you’re applying for and demonstrating your understanding of their needs. The same is true even if you’re going through a career change. While you may not have the hard skills listed in their job requirements right now, if you have a complete understanding of what the company’s overall needs and goals are, you can shift your resume to target those aspects. Using examples from past experiences to show how you helped previous companies meet their goals will show your track record of success. And when you show an understanding of the company’s goals, they’ll be more impressed that you’ve done your homework and will then know you’re serious about the career change.
Demonstrate Your Passion For The Career Change
Employers today don’t necessarily like taking chances on candidates. They would rather hire someone with the exact experience they desire in their industry. That’s why executive resume writing services will suggest writing your resume to show a clear passion for what you want to accomplish with your career change. Demonstrate how thoroughly you thought the career change through and why the position is exactly what you’re looking for. Employers will look for any reason to not hire a person in your position, but when you show your passion on paper, they’ll be more likely to at least give you the opportunity to interview.
Professional Resume Services knows how difficult it is to change careers. However, when you put forth the effort to write resumes that get you hired, the result is well worth the time and energy. Your resume always needs to be perfect regardless of the situation, and everything is magnified when you’re changing careers. Writing a career changing resume is tricky, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you need help getting started.
Everyone has their own opinions about what part of a resume is the most important. The truth is you don’t really know which part is most important, since every hiring manager is different when it comes to what they prefer to see. One component the top resume writing services always recommends polishing is the executive resume summary. This is your chance to make an impact on the reader and set the tone for the rest of the resume. Here are some tips to consider incorporating into yours.
Show Some of Your Personality
Your executive resume writer will suggest incorporating some personality into your writing so the summary doesn’t sound generic and dull. But of course, you don’t want to be too casual either. Being natural in how you write and giving a little insight into how you approach work every day could be impactful.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is by offering your approach and belief of the ideal workplace culture. If your personality is to create a positive environment in the office, then don’t be afraid to make this statement in your summary. An office culture is a critical component of a successful business, so if you have the ability to enhance it, it will add another reason why the hiring manager wants to interview you.
Briefly Mention Your Past Work Results
Select the best quantifiable results and mention it in your resume summary. These results can be from teamwork or individual achievements. The best resume writing service can help you with the wording of your summary to make it impactful, but there’s usually never any harm in talking a little about your success. Just make sure these results are relatable in some way to the employer you’re targeting so they will see the results as transferrable.
Talk About Any Recognition You’ve Received
Internal or external recognition is also something an executive resume writer will suggest incorporating. You could mention a quarterly award you won, a speaking engagement you were honored to have, an article you had published or anything else. These types of recognition are direct results of your hard work, so a potential employer usually likes seeing it on your resume summary.
Professional Resume Services is honored to be recognized as one of the top resume writing services. We take great pride in helping executives transform their cover letters, resumes, summaries and helping them with anything else related to their job search. We are always willing and ready to help you in any area you need, so feel free to reach out to us at any time to start the conversation.
Many professionals get caught up in trying to make their hard skills and expertise sound good, and forget to highlight the soft skills they have. When you’re talking about high-level executive positions, every candidate will have similar hard skills on their resumes and cover letters. What can distinguish you more than anything are the soft skills you possess, since those are unique to every individual. Here are some tips for demonstrating these soft skills in an interview, even when you aren’t specifically asked about them.
Important Soft Skills That Translate To Any Job
The most important soft skills an executive resume service suggests highlighting include:
Of course, there are plenty other skills you could have, but these are some of the main ones that translate to any given job. Some of these skills may not fit naturally into your resume, but you can include them in your LinkedIn profile and you definitely need to mention them in your interview.
Demonstrate How Your Soft Skills Have Worked Previously
You’re going to be asked mostly about your knowledge and expertise in an interview. But if you really think about it, you likely used a mix of your soft skills in order to earn the knowledge you have today. Consider a particular aspect of a previous job you were an expert at. You may have become an expert at it because of repetition, but you also likely had to use critical thinking, innovative thinking, problem solving and more to achieve the result. Demonstrating these soft skills allows an interviewer to really see how your mind works, which is extremely beneficial when the outcome of the project you’re describing was successful.
Relate Soft Skills To The Job Description
Every good executive resume service will tell you to tie your soft skills in with the job description when writing a resume. It’s also important to remember the aspects of the job description when talking about your soft skills in the interview as well. You can talk specifically about a project at your previous job, but be clear about how your skills can translate to the job you’re interviewing for. Don’t make the interviewer try to piece this together themselves, since they could miss out on a key point you’re trying to make.
Professional Resume Services does more than simply write resumes and cover letters for executives. From the moment you reach out to us, we will help you throughout your job search, all the way until you land the job you’ve always desired. Whether you need help optimizing your LinkedIn profile, tweaking your resume or knowing how to answer interview questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at any time for guidance.
One of the questions every interviewer will ask their interviewee revolves around their short-term and long-term goals, even if you state this information in your executive resume biography. But even when you know the question is coming, it’s still sometimes difficult to clearly communicate what your goals actually are. Your interviewer is likely looking for some key points in your answer, such as your intentions, commitment and ambition level. Their reason with asking the question is to determine whether you are the right fit for the goals they have planned for you. Here are some tips for answering this common question.
Tell The Interviewer Your Current Situation
You may have heard before that you have to remember where you’ve been to know where you want to go. The top resume writing services always recommend being as genuine as possible in an interview setting, even if you’re not necessarily where you want to be in your career. But instead of making it sound negative, reinforce the fact that you know what you’ve done in the past isn’t satisfactory and you’re looking for more growth as a professional.
Explain How You’re Working To Reach Your Goals
It’s easy to talk about wanting to advance in your career, but it’s another thing to do the work to prove it. Your executive resume biography may indicate some of this, but tell your interviewer what you’re doing right now to help you reach your short-term and long-term goals. This could be getting more education, certifications, working on side projects and more. Having your goals tied to actions will demonstrate how serious you are about reaching them.
Tie Your Answer To The Job Description
You have to also remember to consider the job description when answering the question, like you do when writing a professional resume. Talking about your personal goals is a breeze, but it means nothing unless the interviewer knows how they relate to the job opening. To do this, look through the job description and find some of the important responsibilities required. Then think about the skills you bring to the table to be able to handle those responsibilities now and in the future. If you don’t quite have all of the skills for the highest levels of responsibility right now, you can talk about how those skills are in your long-term plans and how you’re working toward achieving them.
A Little Uncertainty Is Acceptable
Being honest is always the best way to answer an interview question. If you’re uncertain about any aspect of your goals, including what they are or how you’ll get there, don’t just make up an answer that sounds good. You should have at least a general idea of some short-term goals you have, so as long as you can communicate those clearly, the interviewer likely won’t penalize you if they are on track with what they are looking for.
Professional Resume Services is one of the top resume writing services for many reasons. We focus on much more than simply writing resumes. We want to coach and guide you through every aspect of the job search process as much as we can. And because of this, we will take the time to understand your specific goals to better prepare you for interview questions along the way. Feel free to reach out to us at any time for some guidance with your job search.
Believe it or not, it’s more common for people to have employment gaps on their resume and LinkedIn profile today than ever before. There are plenty of reasons for this as well. You may have taken time off to raise a family and are now ready to re-enter the workforce, had a change of heart about your career and took time to gain education and experience in other areas or for a different reason. If you’re in a situation where you have a glaring employment gap, not all is lost. Here are some things you can do to address these gaps and still find the job you desire.
Never Lie About Employment Gaps
Employers don’t necessarily like to see employment gaps on a resume, but the nature in which you address them can make the perception better or worse. Regardless of the reason for the time difference between jobs, you always have to be honest when asked a question about it. A potential employer will see right through you if you fabricate a story about the gap, and it could cost you the job. The best thing to do is be honest and talk about the learning experiences you had and how you’re a better employee because of it.
Try To Fill Those Gaps If Possible
An executive resume writer can make employment gaps less obvious on your resume without hiding them, but you shouldn’t rely on that. Instead, when you’re faced with an unemployment situation, make the most of it so you can easily justify the gap when the time comes. Consider taking online classes or certification courses, find temporary or volunteer work or do some freelance projects on your own. Your executive resume writer may not necessarily include these actions on your resume, but the potential employer will appreciate the fact you were working on your skills while unemployed.
Make Quality Connections And Demonstrate Your Expertise
Not having a job is a perfect opportunity to take the time to network and make quality professional connections. You never know when an opportunity will arise from talking to new people, so brush up your LinkedIn profile and start becoming more active. Networking both through LinkedIn and in person can be valuable. You have a great chance to demonstrate your expertise by producing valuable content and sharing it with like-minded individuals. Many times when your personal brand is obvious and a positive one, employers will brush off any potential issues regarding gaps in employment.
Professional Resume Services is more than just a professional resume writing service. We have some of the best writers who can make your resume look perfect, but we also want to help you in other aspects of your job search. This includes enhancing your LinkedIn profile, providing networking tips and much more. Be sure to reach out to us if you ever have any questions or concerns about your current or future career situation.
When you’re hard at work trying to find a new job, you may think the best thing you can do is to send your resume to as many employers as possible. The reality is this could actually be hurting your chances of getting a call back, especially if your resume isn’t in the best possible shape. Simply putting it in the best executive resume format isn’t going to get you any interest from employers, since it has to stand out in other ways as well. So if you’ve sent out multiple resumes with nothing to show for it, here are some things to consider changing on your resume.
Your Resume Isn’t Optimized For ATS
Companies today can receive dozens of resumes each day for any given job posting. This is why many of these companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to help them filter through them all and only present them with the ones that match the most keywords. You may be the best candidate for a particular job, but if your resume isn’t optimized for ATS, you’ll never be discovered. Having a completely ATS-optimized resume isn’t particularly easy, so working with professional resume writing services may be the best option for you.
Your Resume Isn’t Targeted
Sending out generic resumes to dozens of companies never worked in the past, and it especially won’t work in today’s job searching climate. Companies want to know what you bring to the table specifically for them, and want to get the sense you truly want to work for them. The professional resume writing services you work with will suggest researching companies of interest to identify their needs, challenges, culture and how you can enhance or fit into them. You’ll be much more likely to get a response from an employer when they can clearly see you’ve done your homework on them.
You Don’t Differentiate Yourself
The majority of resumes look the same. The best executive resume format is one that’s clean and concise and differentiates your skills. This is where your c-level personal branding enters the picture. Your executive resume needs to list your hard skills, but also demonstrate some of your personality and provide an insight as to who you really are. You’ve worked hard on your c-level personal branding, so use it to your advantage to differentiate yourself from your competition.
Professional Resume Services is widely known as one of the top professional resume writing services for executives. We take great pride and interest in helping our clients maximize their job search, while minimizing the amount of time they have to spend on their actual resume. Many times all it takes is minor adjustments to make a major impact, so contact us today for a review of your resume and to get our expert recommendations to boost your job searching efforts.
Not too many people looking for a new job have success with blindly sending out their resume to various companies. Companies can receive hundreds of applicants to any given job posting every single day, so they won’t waste their time reading a generic resume. When writing a professional resume today, targeting the specific company you’re submitting your resume to will help yours stand out. A hiring manager will notice and appreciate the homework you’ve done on the company, and they’ll take a closer look at the value you bring to the table. Here are other ways your research of companies will pay off in your job search.
Tap Into The Hidden Job Market
When you have a list of a few companies you’d consider working for, do as much research on them as you possibly can before writing a professional resume. The hidden job market simply means jobs aren’t posted online or anywhere else. Candidates may find out about these jobs at networking events or through other connections. Once you’ve researched the companies of interest, tap into this hidden job market by reaching out to current employees to understand what challenges they face and what value you bring to the table.
Identify The Company’s Challenges
One key to writing resumes that get you hired is identifying the company’s specific challenges, so you can offer a solution. You have to include your hard skills on your resume, but incorporating soft skills is equally as important. The unique aspect about executive resume writing is every word has to offer value to the employer. You have to be able to demonstrate how well you would fit in with the culture, as well as how you can handle day-to-day tasks.
Differentiate Yourself By Offering Unique Value
Any executive resume writing expert will stress the importance of differentiating yourself. One of the best ways to do so is by talking to other higher-level employees at the specific companies you’re targeting. Take note of what they say works well in their organization, as well as what they are working on to improve. Incorporate a mix of those points when writing a professional resume will help yours stand out among the rest.
Professional Resume Services is here to point you in the right direction when it comes to executive resume writing. We take the time to ensure every word on your resume matters, and will go to great lengths to help your resume stand out. If you’re in need of help getting started with researching companies, writing your resume, preparing for an interview or any other step in the job search process, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time.
