Don’t Give Up The Job Search Just Because The Holidays Are Near

I’ve been talking with job seekers lately who ask whether they should job search right now or wait until after the New Year.

The holidays are upon us and many worry it isn’t a good time.🎅

But–there are many benefits to continuing on with your job search.

🎄 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬. Companies have new budgets in place to entice and hire #candidates. They are still #hiring and actively looking.

🎄 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Your competition is less since many people decide to hold off until the new year. Plus, you will impress companies with your dedication and commitment.

🎄 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. Things are winding down at your company due to the holidays and end of the year, so you have more time to focus on #job search

🎄 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬. People are generally in better moods around the holidays. More time off, seeing family and friends (via remotely this year, unfortunately), shopping, and reflection. It’s a perfect time to reach out and start a #conversation.

I asked career professionals on LinkedIn what their thoughts were on the subject. Read what they have to say:

Hannah Morgan, Job Search Strategist, Career Sherpa: November and December are great months for conversations and you are so right, many companies are either trying to fill roles that are still vacant now or line up candidates to hire Jan. 1. Don’t put on the brakes!

Ed Han, Talent Acquisition Geek, Recruiter: As a corporate recruiter: let me reassure your readers & followers that if the job posting is up, I AM READING APPLICATIONS.
Scheduling interviews may take longer, but if it’s open, that hiring manager has funds earmarked towards that hire and is anxious to use them, because they’ll get asked if they really need the position or not by their boss, or their boss’s boss.

Nicole Reyes, Sn. Technical Recruiter: I’ve noticed that many hiring managers want new hires to start in January of the new year, which means they’re willing to schedule interviews with candidates this time of year. It’s worth your time to search for a position during this period, even if the search is a bit slower because people will be out of the office more with the holidays.

Greg Roche, Career Transition Coach: Take your holiday card list and see who you can connect with in person. Send them a card too, but use this list as a way to get back in touch with people who are important to you, but likely haven’t talked to in a while. This helps you practice connecting and you never know where it might lead Erin.

Andrea Yacub Macek, Top Job Expert to Follow, Career Coach: The best time to network, market, and job search is when you are ready to do so in your season of life. If you need to take a break, do so, and if you want to continue networking or job search, do so; there are always benefits. These are some significant reasons you asked Erin Kennedy to continue instead of stop.

Meg Applegate, Resume Writer, Hinge Resume: The holidays are a great time to check in with your network. Start conversations now, even if after the new year is your goal. You never know what can come of it,

Sarah Johnston, Executive Resume Writer, LinkedIn Branding: Great reminder, Erin Kennedy. Some managers have “use it or lose it” budgets and have positions that need to be filled before the end of the year.

Adrienne Tom, Executive Resume Writer: If a company really needs an employee, it doesn’t matter what time of year it is — they will be looking. Which means, you should be too.

Bottom line: Don’t give up. Keep looking. This is a GREAT time of year to look for a job. 🎄

What Should I Be Adding To My LinkedIn Profile?

Social Marketing/Online Branding

Ever wonder if you are putting the *right* information on your LinkedIn profile?

This is a common question I hear, “I don’t know if this or that should be on there” or “I wasn’t sure so I just downloaded/copy/pasted my whole resume to my profile.”

While you want to establish the information you add is relevant to your brand and impactful, you don’t want it to be a duplicate of your resume. They are meant to complement one another. You want your reader to see a little more of a human side to you as well. Think of the LinkedIn profile as the friendly, humanized version of your resume.

Here are some things to think about when building and adding to your profile:

☑️ Fill out all the sections. Don’t leave anything blank. Fill in the volunteer, certifications, languages, projects, honors, awards. You can add PowerPoints, photos, samples of your work (I have these on my profile) coursework, and things you have done in your career.

☑️ Add a profile photo AND a background cover photo (get rid of that blue LI background!). This makes it uniquely you. I love seeing customized background cover photos on LI profiles. They definitely add personality and/or help brand the client by having a photo of the company, service or product they represent.

☑️ Write a headliner that sizzles. Instead of “Account Executive”, write “Account Executive specializing in the development of groundbreaking sales and service strategies internationally”. Add a little zing to it. Get your reader interested. Some even call the headliner “prime real estate” meaning it’s a great place to add keywords and branding that help direct LinkedIn’s algorithms to your profile. Get as clear and focused as you can. Add buzzwords if you know what they are. Not sure? Find jobs that interest you and notice the same words listed over and over? Add them. Don’t neglect this section.

☑️ Create an About section that speaks to the reader. That section used to be more formal and many people wrote theirs like a biography–3rd person, boring, etc. These days, it’s all about the conversation. Get them interested in what you have to say. Write in first person. It’s OK to be a little more human here. People expect it—and love it. The About section should be engaging, interesting, and conversational. Think of it as if you are speaking to someone at a networking event. How would you speak? What would you say? You’d keep it professional but interesting, right? You want to tell a story about why you do this type of work and what makes it interesting. Be enthusiastic.

☑️ Add Content! Make sure to add descriptions of what you do at your job. Add your daily responsibilities as well as your accomplishments. This is where I see clients fall short. They add their company and job title but nothing else. LinkedIn rewards content. While you don’t want to copy and paste chunks from your resume, you also don’t want to leave critical information out. Rewrite those areas but make sure to add content to your roles. What were you most proud of accomplishing? What projects have you worked on that added value? What is interesting about where you work?
You can also add numbers and percentages. If you are hesitant about sharing exact figures, you can say, “increased revenue 87% in two years”. Adding numbers adds to your credibility and gives the reader a glimpse of what you have done.

☑️ Get a recommendation. A recommendation or two on your profile livens it up and gives you more credibility. What good do thousands of connections do for you if you don’t have one recommendation? It might feel awkward, but once you’ve asked it’s done and guess what? You’ll most likely get that recommendation!

☑️ Create an endorsements section. Complete the skills and endorsements section and pin the top 3 that related to your job hunt. Again, these are key with algorithms and recruiter searches as well.

When all of this is done, remember the key to a strong LinkedIn profile is engagement. The more you use LinkedIn, the more it rewards you by showing your profile in recruiter searches. Reach out, plan on getting on LinkedIn 10-15 minutes every other day and watch it go to work for you.

Is Your Executive Resume Interesting?

Resume WritingResumes

It happened…the call about the executive job of your dreams opening up just came through via your contact, and the HR Director wants to see your resume. You might be ready to take the next step in your career, but is your resume ready for an executive-level position? Submitting a bland, non-focused resume with boring content will do nothing but get you taken off of the “call for an interview” list.

Moving on from a middle management position to the c-suite is not for the faint of heart, and your resume needs to show that you have the experience, skills, ROI, and drive to do the job, and do it well. Writing your resume is not just including your career history and where you received your degree, it’s more about creating a document that tells the complete story of who you are, what you have achieved, how you achieved it, and the value you will provide at the next level…in a creative and exciting manner. Below are 5 quick tips that will help you to ensure that your updated resume effectively states “I’m ready for the c-suite and you need to hire me”…

Your format matters – People judge books by their covers! Start with an eye-catching format. While you don’t need to put so much color on your resume that it looks like the 4^th of July blew up on your piece of paper, a pop of color will appeal to the reader and help your document to stand out right from the get-go. A font style that is clean and business-like is just as important. Fancy scripts may look pretty, but they are difficult to read and you don’t want people having to work hard to read your text (and believe me, if they have to work hard, they aren’t going to read much past your name).

An exciting executive summary is a must – create a strong career summary that communicates what you have done in your career and the value you can provide at the next level. Include position and industry-specific keywords (not buzzwords…there is a difference!) that match your target position.

Highlight your biggest achievements – include a “Career Highlights” section to give a brief synopsis of your biggest accomplishments if you want. Hint: quantifiable achievements speak the loudest and make a stronger impact than just a bullet list of text. Graphs and charts tell a quick story as well!

Your career history needs to make a big impact in a small amount of time – if you are at an executive-level, it’s pretty safe to say that you have had quite a few years of employment under your belt. Focus on your most recent work experience, and don’t go back more than 15 years into your career history (you can summarize the earlier stuff). A chronological format is the easiest, most clean-cut way to do this. The exception – if your career goals/new job are unrelated to your current job…then you will want to use more of a function format to show that you DO still have the skills and experience for the job you’re trying to land.

Your education information is not as important as your career history – so move it to the end of your resume. Like your career history, degrees received 15+ years ago are probably not going to be as important to the hiring manager as your most recent career experience. Include your degrees and any relevant certifications, but remove the years. The degree is what is important, not when you received it, and announcing “I’m really old…” on your resume is probably not going to win points with the hiring manager. Minimize ageism by eliminating years if they go beyond fifteen. Wow them with your accomplishments and skillset instead.

If you are being recommended for that coveted c-suite position, be sure you have a resume that can back-up up the recommendation. Don’t embarrass yourself (or the friend that recommended you) by submitting a bland resume that does nothing to market you as the ideal candidate for the job. Instead, take the time to update your resume and maximize your chances of being the candidate whose next phone call is “we’d like to offer you the position”!

How Old is Your Executive Resume?

Executive ResumesJob Search

If it’s been a while since you looked for a new job, you likely haven’t updated your resume during that time. Depending on how long it has been, simply making updates to it won’t be sufficient. When writing an effective resume today, you have to take into consideration how it looks digitally as well as on paper. And a lot of the resume writing strategies that applied a decade ago should be avoided now. Recruiters and hiring managers will be able to easily tell if your resume is dated, so here’s how you can rework yours to catch it up with modern times.

Old Resumes Need To Be Reworked Completely

Any professional resume writing service will suggest rewriting your resume completely if it’s close to a decade old. Sometimes it’s best to start with a blank document so you won’t be tempted to operate under the same framework as your old resume. But when you’ve only written a couple of versions of your resume, and none of them have been recent, how do you know where to start? An executive resume writer is a good resource since they are up-to-date on what should and shouldn’t be included.

Resume Writing Strategies To Consider

Old resumes didn’t typically highlight a job applicant’s personal brand. Today, personal branding is essential to include on resumes, since it’s what sets you apart from the rest. It can be difficult to do this if you’ve never done it before, so there’s no harm in working with an executive resume writer for assistance.

Keywords, formatting, hyperlinks and more should also be modernized in your resume. With more employers using applicant tracking systems to help them filter through resumes, it’s essential to include proper keywords and phrases to ensure your resume gets recognized. Targeting is also highly recommended when writing an effective resume. Employers can spot a general resume quickly, so do your research and demonstrate your knowledge about the company and their needs in yours.

Outdated Details Should Be Removed

Details like where you live, professional references, outdated expertise, an objective statement or other personal information don’t belong on resumes anymore. Of course, if a specific employer asks for this information, then you should have it handy and ready to provide it to them. Nothing demonstrates an outdated resume more than including these types of details, which most employers aren’t interested in.

Professional Resume Services takes pride in being a trusted professional resume writing service for numerous executives. Keeping up with the times is difficult today in the fast-paced world we live in. It’s especially difficult to do so if you have held the same job for many years and need to put together a resume quickly. Whether you’re actively looking for a job or if you just want to give your resume a boost, feel free to contact us for a consultation.

Do You Have the Spark to Advance Your Executive Career?

Career & WorkplaceExecutive ResumesProfessional Resumes

We all hit points throughout our career where we hit a stall or things become stale. This could be due to getting comfortable with your current position or simply not knowing what direction you want to go. Using your LinkedIn profile for networking purposes can help you find some direction and potentially lead to other opportunities. It’s natural to hit a stall in your career, but it’s also possible to move forward when you’re ready. If you know you’re ready to advance your executive career, but can’t seem to find a spark to get you going, we’ve got some tips to help you out.

Let Career Detours Be Inspirational

If your career path isn’t headed exactly how you planned it to, don’t get discouraged. Everyone will have detours in their career. Instead of looking at those detours negatively, view them as inspirational and work harder to get back on track. Revisit your executive resume biography as a reminder of where you are now and where you want to be in the future. When your path changes, look for ways to grow from it and make any adjustments you deem necessary.

Always Look For Ways To Grow

One of the biggest sparks executives experience in their career is learning a new skill. Being able to add a new skill to your executive resume biography is motivating, so consider taking an advanced course or work on projects of your own in your free time. The top resume writing services encourage people to step out of their comfort zone occasionally because it will lead to growth no matter what. Learning experiences are valuable for career growth, but you won’t experience any of them if you don’t take the first step forward.

Network With Like-Minded Experts

Networking can lead to many different opportunities and can be a big spark for your career. You don’t even have to attend a networking event with the intention of finding a new job. Simply talking with like-minded experts can give you new ideas on how to approach your career or certain projects to help you move forward. Be sure to have your LinkedIn profile updated, though, since you’ll likely want to reconnect with people you’ve met through the platform.

At Professional Resume Services, nothing is more satisfying to us than seeing executives get exactly what they want in their career. We are considered to be one of the top resume writing services because we have a wide range of expertise designed to help people advance in their careers. We understand everyone goes through a stall in their career, and we are here to help you get out of it when you’re ready. Never hesitate to contact us if you’re ready to spark your career and take it to the next level.

What Does an Expert Executive Resume Writer Offer?

Executive ResumesResume Writing

Anyone can write a resume with basic components in it. However, since many people have this strategy, you’ll have a hard time standing out among the large pool of applicants for any given job. The keys to writing an effective resume today are different than they were several years ago. So if you haven’t been a part of a job search in a while, it may be worth hiring an executive resume writer to fully optimize your resume. The best resume writing service goes beyond simply writing resumes, though. Here are other attributes you should expect from your expert resume writer.

Attention To All Aspects of A Job Search

There are many more aspects of a job search than simply writing a resume and submitting it to the HR manager. The top executive positions aren’t located on online job boards or in classified ads. They are found through networking and other channels that aren’t easily visible. This means you have to utilize social media wisely, especially LinkedIn, attend networking events, create original expert content, enhance your personal brand and more. The best resume writing service will provide you with tips on all of these points so you’re well-rounded in your job search.

Focus On Personal Branding

Personal branding is critical today. Your presence online is often how you’ll be perceived in reality, so be sure to clean up your online brand. If you aren’t sure what your online brand is, then do a Google search for your name and see what comes up. Your expert executive resume writer can help you slowly change your image by providing you with ideas for original articles and engaging with other professionals. The goal is to have your name tied with positive attributes that make you appear as an expert in your industry.

Tailored Strategies Based on Your Skills And Interests

Coming up with a job search strategy is often the most difficult part job seekers struggle with. The best resume writing service will help you develop effective strategies based on where you want to work, the type of work you want to do and your current and future interests. Generic resumes won’t get you very far in the job searching world today, so tailoring your resume to particular companies will demonstrate how valuable you can be to that specific company.

Professional Resume Services offers valuable insights and expertise into the job searching landscape today. If you’re like many executives, you may not have had to search for a new job in a while. Strategies have changed drastically over the years, and our expert team can quickly catch you up to speed and help you out every step of the way. Be sure to contact us if you’re getting ready to begin your job search, or even if you’re already in the middle of it, and we can help you discover the opportunity you desire.

Ongoing Strategies Every Executive Job Seeker Needs to Consider

Executive ResumesJob SearchSocial Marketing/Online Branding

What’s your strategy as an executive job seeker? There’s no right or wrong answer to the question, and sometimes it takes trial and error to truly figure out what the most effective strategy is for you. Even then, adjustments must be made along the way. Simply thinking you can write resumes that get you hired isn’t the best strategy overall today. With the digital age we live in, it requires more work and effort to get recognized. Here are some ongoing strategies you should consider incorporating into your job search regularly.

Always Be Active on LinkedIn

Having a complete LinkedIn profile is great, but being active on the platform is even better. Consider working with a LinkedIn profile writer to get the basics of your profile taken care of. At that point, you can join LinkedIn groups, revisit old connections, post original content, comment on other people’s content and more. The point is the more people who see your name, the more attention you’ll get. Just be sure not to overdo it to the point where people may get tired of hearing from you.

Be Creative And Insightful With Content You Post

Posting original content relevant to your industry is a great strategy for standing out among the competition. While executive resume writer services can help you put together a solid resume, your expertise is required to write original content. You can post these articles on your website or publish them on your LinkedIn profile. The idea is to be creative and insightful with each post so you’ll earn some credibility with each one.

Keep Your Name Relevant With Comments on Posts

Find a good balance between the original articles you post and the comments you make on other posts. When you make engaging comments or ask insightful questions, you could spark a discussion with other readers or the writer themselves. People appreciate comments on their articles and you never know when it could lead to something greater.

Have A Resume Always Prepared

Writing resumes that get you hired today means having various versions of your resume targeted at the companies you’re interested in. Once you’ve researched your targeted companies, consider working with executive resume writer services to have a resume prepared when the opportunity arises. Whether you need to send it to a connection electronically or physically at a networking event, you should always be prepared.

Professional Resume Services enjoys talking with executive job seekers about their strategies. In addition to helping write resumes that get you hired, we can also help you with developing your LinkedIn profile and taking other steps to ensure you’re ready for new opportunities. No matter what stage you’re at in your job search, feel free to contact us at any time for assistance along the way.

4 Branding Tips for Your Executive Resume

Executive ResumesProfessional ResumesSocial Marketing/Online Branding

When writing an effective resume, demonstrating your personal brand is critical. Most executives have similar skills and achievements, so what can set you apart from the rest is the overall value you bring to the table. While your brand is what it is, you can tailor the message in your resume depending on the company you are targeting. This may mean one of your most important achievements at your current company shouldn’t go on your resume when applying for another company if it’s not relevant. Companies today want to know what value you have to offer them specifically and here are some tips to help you show this clearly.

Utilize Keywords Effectively For SEO Purposes

You’ll have a hard time demonstrating your c-level personal branding if you don’t have a keyword-rich resume. SEO is critical in the landscape of job searching today to give your resume, LinkedIn profile or anything else a chance of being discovered. The good news is an executive resume writer can help you incorporate appropriate keywords while also keeping your brand in mind.

Show Some Personality

A quality aspect of c-level personal branding is showing what you’re most passionate about and what you will bring to the table at your targeted company. You can show some personality in your resume without getting personal. For example, when you write about your leadership style and techniques, the reader can get a good idea of the type of person you are and how you work with others. Without this personality, your resume may look the same as the other hundreds of resumes that come across a recruiter’s desk.

Include Metrics When You Can

Another key to writing an effective resume is incorporating metrics, statistics and numbers when they are appropriate and relate to the job you’re applying for. Don’t be shy about talking about these in your resume. Backing up your claims with actual numbers is powerful and can really hit home for a hiring manager when it relates to their company.

Only Show Relevant Information

The biggest mistake an executive resume writer always sees is when someone includes their past achievements that aren’t relevant to the job they’re applying for. Companies aren’t necessarily as concerned with what you’ve done in the past as they are with what you’ll do for them in the future. Don’t rely on the reader to make connections between the two. Your biggest accomplishment at a previous employer may not be beneficial at all to your future employer, so don’t include it if it’s not relevant.

Professional Resume Services believes c-level personal branding is what sets many executives apart from the rest. Executives often believe branding only happens during networking events. While this is true, your brand has to also be evident in your resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and anywhere else. Once a hiring manager can clearly see what your overall brand is, you’ll have a better chance of landing the job. Feel free to contact us at any time if you need assistance with clearly demonstrating your brand on paper.