Burnout is a real thing executives face when they are going through a job search. Depending on how long you’ve been unemployed, the signs of frustration and depression may be visible to recruiters when you meet with them. You have to understand an executive job search takes time, so looking at examples of cover letters for resumes can give you some pointers on what to do while you’re looking. But what else can you do to prevent burnout? Here are some great tips to consider.
Seek Advice
If you think your resume may be the reason why you aren’t getting interviews, then seek the expertise of executive resume services for advice. You could also get feedback from former colleagues or mentors to see what you could change about your approach. If nothing else, the positive comments you receive from them will keep your spirits up as you keep plugging away.
Make Adjustments
Many executives go insane thinking the same approach will eventually work. That’s a perfect recipe for burnout. When writing an executive bio, think of new things to write about yourself. Talk more about experiences that changed your perspective on the industry or anything else that really made an impact on you. When you talk about your passions, your energy will naturally rise.
Take a Break
Sometimes you just have to take a step back and put the job search on hold. But only consider doing this for a day or two to refresh yourself. You may choose to spend a day solely researching cover letters for resumes, just to get new and creative ideas. A quick refresher can give you a boost of energy to keep you going.
Appreciate Small Victories
Don’t look at an interview without a job offer as a failure. Instead, look at it as a compliment that the company was impressed enough with you to grant you an interview. There were likely dozens of other candidates applying for the same position, but they chose to learn more about you. These small victories can keep you going.
Professional Resume Services can help executives when writing an executive bio or just need a little boost of energy to keep the job search going. We are here to help you at any stage of your job search, so feel free to reach out to us at any time, even if you just need support.
Any executive knows you can’t reach a goal you don’t set. This is why most of the successful executives have clear goals and paths to reach those goals. You can spend hours trying to write resumes that get you hired, but if your goals don’t align with your experience, then it’s time to re-evaluate your circumstances.
An executive job search can take a toll on you after a while, but when you take these five goal suggestions to heart, you may find you’re able to expedite the process a little more.
1. Become More Diversified
Companies today want to hire executives who can wear many hats and wear them all well. You may have extensive experience in one particular area, but consider diversifying your knowledge and experiences to get recognized more easily. The best resume writing service always suggests diversifying your skills as much as possible to help you land the job you desire.
2. Increase Your Networking Efforts
There’s never a bad time to expand your network. You can network with people online or in person at different events, so there’s no excuse not to grow your network this year. Networking is also one of the best ways to improve your c-level personal branding, since potential employers can put a face to a name on a resume.
3. Provide Mentorship
If you have many years of experience as an executive, you should consider mentoring an up-and-coming executive. Not only will this looking impressive when writing resumes that get you hired, but you also may learn a thing or two by teaching someone else. Helping others is one of the best ways to advance in a career, and it’s also one of the best ways to land an executive position.
4. Enroll in a Continuing Education Program
Some executives think they know everything about their industry, but there are always new things you can learn. The best resume writing service sometimes suggests continuing your education to fill in gaps between employment. Not only will you learn some new things, but you’ll also show your ambition when submitting your resume to potential employers.
5. Re-evaluate Your Goals
One of your goals should also be to re-evaluate your existing goals. Circumstances may change, or you may have set goals too aggressively or conservatively. Whatever the situation is, it’s always a positive to re-evaluate your goals to ensure you stay on the right path in your executive job search.
Professional Resume Services wants to help you find the executive job you desire as quickly as possible. Writing resumes that get you hired is only one part of the equation. Feel free to contact us to inquire about other goals you could set for yourself.
Going through a job search affects your family indirectly more than you think. As much as the search takes a toll on your own mental and physical state, you still have to find a balance with your family. You may have gone from working 8-12 hour days and never being at home to always being at home searching for a job. The best professional resume writers see this happen all the time with executives and different professionals, so there are some things you can do to help ease the transition. Here are some ways you can tend to your family and your job search without either one suffering.
1. Establish a New Routine
Sometimes you don’t realize how routine your life is until the routine gets disrupted. When you go from being employed to unemployed, you have to adjust your routine accordingly. You may now be the one to drop off and pick up the kids from school, cook dinners or do other household chores. The best way to start establishing a new routine is accepting that you have to change.
2. Set Goals
Set both family goals and job search goals at some point. One goal could be writing a couple resumes and cover letters each night after dinner. Another goal could be determining when the best time is for you to land a new job. There’s a chance you don’t have to rush as much as you thought when you consider the family duties you have to take care of.
3. Get Your Family Involved in Your Job Search
Be transparent with your family, including kids who are old enough to understand what’s going on. Let them know as much as you can what all goes into personal branding for senior level managers. It will require some time away from the home to network, meet with potential employers or even take classes. When your family is on the same page with your goals, it will be easier for you to go about your job search.
4. Split Up Family Responsibilities
Instead of stressing about doing all the family responsibilities yourself, get the rest of the family involved in them. This will give you some time to dedicate to writing resumes and cover letters, but you can also have some family time as well.
Professional Resume Services has the best professional resume writers to help you craft the perfect resume so you don’t have to spend as much time on your own. Having a family while searching for a job is stressful, so feel free to contact us if we can help in any way with your resume.
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.
I wanted to tell you about one of our partners that offers one of my new favorite tools. If you haven’t heard of Jobscan yet, you are missing out on one of the best job search and interview tools out there.
The premise behind Jobscan is that they provide an analysis of how well your resume will meet the needs of a particular job based on the keywords needed for the ATS (applicant tracking systems). So in other words, they research the job description and then match your resume against it to see if you have the correct keywords needed for that job on your resume.
The resume match rate is a score from of 0 to 100%. Jobscan recommends a match rate of 80%. Your match is based on four items: 1- Hard skills, 2- Education level, 3- Soft skills, 4- One-word keywords.
When you scan your resume focus on matching hard skills as they have more of an impact on your match rate. Hiring managers and recruiters search for hard skills, i.e. “Sarbanes Oxley”, more often than soft skills like “detail-oriented” (you all know how I feel about that term anyway…just DON’T!). If you haven’t met the 80%, there are drop down menus that will assist you in keywords that might help you match up. You will get more measurable results if you can offer a longer job description (versus a few words).
To me, this concept is brilliant. Tailor your resume for each description based on the keywords. While your resume writer will be able to tailor it to several jobs, you can easily tweak your resume by adding keywords here and there to make it a perfect fit for the job you want.
If you haven’t had your resume written by a professional, you may want to consider it. We know what keywords need to be used in order for your resume to be parsed by an ATS. To be sure, give Jobscan a try and see how your keywords match up to job descriptions you are looking at. If you are below 80%, give us a call. We can help.
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.
An executive job search is often an arduous journey, which can take up to several months to complete. However, like any journey, you’ll reach your destination when you have a clear plan for how you’re going to get there. Crafting an action plan for your executive job search may seem tedious, but it’s necessary in order to expedite the process. If you don’t know where to begin, professional resume writing services can help get you on the right track. You can also check out our four tips below for developing your action plan.
1. Know Your Target
If you don’t have a specific target, you have nothing to shoot for. Identify not only the industries you’re interested in, but also the companies or people involved in those industries. The key to writing resumes that get you hired is targeting them toward certain people or companies. Be specific, but realistic, when it comes to identifying your target. Consider the industry, the company, the culture, location and even the salary you desire to help you narrow down your options.
2. Make Your Message Consistent
Some people tend to forget that they’re selling themselves when they’re on an executive job search. Your message about yourself and what you want to accomplish should be consistent across the board. If it’s not, you will eventually be exposed and could damage your reputation. Any of the best professional resume writing services can help you create a consistent message for your professional brand.
3. Determine Your Search Strategy
In general, there are search strategies that work and some that don’t. Of course, everyone can be successful in their own way, but it may not be the easiest way. Networking is the best way to search for an executive job, even if it’s not one of your strong suits. You could also call or visit different companies in person, search for recruiters on LinkedIn or other websites, or post your executive resume on different job boards. Networking and targeting individuals or companies usually yield the best results, but you may have to find your perfect mix through trial and error.
4. Track Your Progress
Whether you’re creating your action plan or putting it into place, tracking your progress is helpful. Checking off different boxes from your plan will give you some added self-confidence to help you continue pushing forward. Just remember the target you identified earlier so you can know what you’re aiming for.
At Professional Resume Services, we take pride in our ability to help executives with their job search, even if it just means putting together the best executive resume format. If you need assistance with your action plan for your executive job search, feel free to contact us at any time.
Coming up with a marketing plan at the beginning a job search can sound a little intimidating, even for professionals and executives. It sounds like it would involve an extensive process that would take a lot of time away from the search itself.
However, any top rated resume writing services will tell you not to underestimate the value of a job search marketing plan. It’s much better to learn and understand today’s job search techniques before you get started, rather than just trying different things until something works. Here are the important concepts of a job search marketing plan.
Know How to Distinguish Yourself
If you’re going to advertise yourself, you need to know what different companies and recruiters are looking for. Any executive knows the importance of c-level personal branding, so you need to know how to brand yourself to fit the current market. How you portrayed yourself a decade ago is likely much different in today’s job market. Figuring out what characteristics leads to a successful job search is the first part of developing a good marketing plan.
Figure Out What Your Job Search Will Entail
When writing a professional resume, it’s better to be specific and target certain companies or industries rather than being too general. This just means you need to do a little homework upfront before you even start crafting your resume. You may need to do some online research, attend networking events or even visit some companies to get more information. Come up with a plan of what you’re willing to do and what you need to do based on your resources.
Develop a Plan and Stick With it
When you come up with a plan, you need to stick with it. Your plan is obviously to succeed, so adjustments may need to be made along the way in order to achieve your goals. To improve your c-level personal branding, this could mean attending one networking event each week. It could also mean you need to send out one resume to a different company every day after you’ve done your research on them. Set aside time every day to work on the plan you set in place and stick with it religiously.
Professional Resume Services is one of the top rated resume writing services to help you develop a job search marketing plan. If you need any assistance with creating your perfect plan, feel free to contact us at any step along the way.
