Writing a resume can be overwhelming, but you don’t have to let it get to you. There are many different types of resumes and many ways to write them, but here are some tips that will help get you started so you can have an amazing resume with less stress and frustration.
Focus on your strengths:People are not perfect. They have flaws, but potential employers know that. They are not looking for your flaws. They are looking for your strengths and the skills that make you stand out. Don’t make things harder on yourself. Take the things you are the best at and put a lot of focus on those things when writing your resume.
Emphasize your achievements: Potential employers not only want to know that you are skilled in an area, but they want to know that you have put that skill to use and it was a positive outcome. They are hiring someone that will help their company succeed, and you need to show them that you have succeeded in the past and have the skills to succeed in the future.
Keep it honest: It seems like a simple enough tip, but it is true. Too often people try to fluff their resumes with skills and experience that are not completely true. This may get you the job if your fake resume is impressive enough, but your employers will find out that you lied eventually and that will cause more problems than your fake resume can help you with. Keep your resume honest and it will pay off in the long run.
Keep these tips in mind as you write your resume and it will be smooth sailing.
When searching through candidates, executive recruiters typically ask three main questions about each candidate:
Can you do the job? This is all about your strengths, skills and experience
Will you love the job? This is all about your motivation and work ethic.
Can we tolerate working with you? This is all about how you will fit with the employees and employers already at the company.
You need to keep these in mind as you are working with the recruiter. Everything you think, do, and say when with the recruiter should be an attempt to answer those questions. You should mention your strengths and skills often, but not to the point that it becomes annoying or obnoxious. You should express how love and enjoyment of the field of work you are applying for and you should be fun, charismatic, and easy to be around. Expressing your skills and your love of the field is an easy enough thing to do, but it will not get you the job. No matter how qualified you are the recruiter will not want to bring you to the employers as an option if you are someone they find difficult to work with. This is why the third question is the one you need to focus on when preparing to meet a recruiter. Make sure to smile and try not be too uptight. I know that you are going to be nervous, but don’t let the recruiter know that. Let them think you are professional, but also laid back and easy to be around. Confident, even if you have to fake it. Show them that you can get the job done, but you can also be the kind of person they want to have lunch with because they enjoy your company. If you can do that, then you will impress the recruiter and will have a step above the other candidates, which will hopefully lead to you getting the job.
Online Branding: Why You Should Do It Before You Need It
Nowadays, the most successful marketing campaigns are those that extend beyond traditional forms of marketing (print, radio, even TV) and into internet and online marketing and branding. The same is true about personal branding. In order to have the most successful marketing of yourself, you need to focus a lot on branding yourself online. And you need to make sure that your “campaign” is up and running long before you are ever contacted for a job. Having an established online profile of yourself before you need it will not only ease the stress of creating a phenomenal online branding for yourself, but will also show potential employers that you are at the top of your game and a step above other potential candidates. If the idea of branding yourself online is stressful or overwhelming, then just start small. Start with a LinkedIn profile. This will give you the perfect start to branding yourself online. It is simple and professional and is the networking that most businesses use.
On your profile, make sure to include these things in order to ensure the most effective branding:
Show your expertise as much as possible
Publicize your successes and achievements
Make sure you are easy for potential employers to contact (phone number, email, other forms of communication)
These things are easy to do and they will make your profile, and thus yourself, look impressive and professional. Of course none of this will do you any good if it is not established on your personal branding sites before you look for a job or are contacted about a job. It is easy enough to do so why not jump the gun and be one step ahead of your competition?
When you are out searching for a job it is very likely that you will never even see your potential employers, let alone meet them, until you get an interview.You will be giving your professional resume and applications to receptionists and other employees.
While you want to provide an image of who you are, you do not want to look unprofessional. You may feel like a fun and whimsical font is a better representation of your personality. That’s fine for informal or recreational documents, but not for your professional resume. Your font should serve two purposes: it should make your resume look professional and it should be easy to read. Using a font that does this will bring your resume–and your image–up a notch.
You may also want to avoid clip art or picture images in your resume. I once received a resume to critique that had dollar signs ($) where all the ‘S’s were and little clip art images of dollar bills throughout the document. While I got the meaning (the client was in finance), it was very distracting and, okay, very tacky-looking. Keep it clean, crisp and concise. Try not to write a resume novel. Your potential employers are reading through stacks of resumes and they want to be able to look and see immediately what makes one candidate better than another. Keeping it to a couple of pages will help keep the hiring manager from either rolling their eyes at your resume, or falling asleep.
Hopefully, these simple tips will help you understand why your professional resume is so important to creating your image and they will give you an idea of how to go about creating a professional resume that provides an image that employers want to have working for them.
If you have been job hunting for awhile, landing a job may make you so happy that you do not stop to consider whether this position is exempt or non-exempt. What does that mean? You know from having non-exempt positions on your resume that non-exempt means that you are paid hourly, and you must be paid overtime for hours worked that are more than 40 hours per week. Your manager must acknowledge and pay you for time worked before or after work, lunch hours, on-call hours, and meeting and lectures attended outside of regular work hours. You will get more money if you work overtime hours. All this time tracking is documented on some sort of time card. The down side of non-exempt status is that you rarely get to do the conferences, meetings and lectures outside of regular working hours because you have to be paid one and a half times your regular rate for those hours. Employers do not want to pay out the extra money. Exempt positions are paid on a salary or combined salary and bonus basis. If your position is exempt, you must work however many hours you need to get your job done. And you do not get paid any extra money for working through lunch or going to conferences. You usually do not fill in a time card for an exempt position. Anyone who has taken on the jobs of employees who have been downsized will tell you that working in an exempt position can be tough because you work longer for virtually no more pay to get the work done.
If you have been working and job hunting during the recession, it is likely that your resume has both exempt and non-exempt positions on it. Don’t forget to learn which status your new job has. It is a nasty shock after getting paid extra money for a lot of overtime to move to an exempt position where you may be working just as many hours for no extra pay.
Searching for a job takes a lot of effort.It can also take a lot of time, but it doesn’t have to take over all your time. You can still search for a job and find a job, without losing days at a time if you follow these tips to help you manage your time.
Use efficient methods of job searching: The most efficient job search method is to use the internet. The internet is fast, easy, and in some cases will do the work for you. Sign up for a job hosting site and opt in for email notifications when jobs that fit your profile show up on the site. This will give you time to work on other aspects of the job search like preparing a resume, cover letter, or practicing your interview attitude.
Set aside time that is for only job searching: It is more than likely that if you don’t have a specific time and purpose when you sit down at the computer you will end up doing nothing of value and wasting time. If you have set aside a couple hours for only job searching, then you will stay focused and get better results.
Take breaks: If you don’t take breaks every once in a while during your job search you will lose focus and your searching will be less effective. You will also start to dread the searching and not want to do it the next day or at all. This is not the attitude you want to have when searching for a job.
These tips will help keep you (and your job search) focused and will help you manage your time while searching for a job so you can move on to the next steps and get the job you want.
When you are distributing resumes your ultimate goal is to get the job.A job as a high power executive. In order to get a job you need to get an interview and in order to get an interview your potential employers need to be able to contact you. This is where your executive resume comes in. Your resume needs to have your name, address, email, and phone number at the very top of your resume in the heading. These will be the main forms of communication that an employer will use to contact you. If these are not clear on your resume then you may have lost the job already. Some people leave it off for confidentiality reasons, but I think that could be a mistake. To some recruiters or hiring managers, it seems suspicious. In this day there are some additional ways that an employer can contact you and judge you as an appropriate candidate for the position. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are popular ways for employers to check up on there potential employees. In order to ensure they are really checking up on you and not someone with the same name you should put your profile names in a separate section on your executive resume. If you have a personal website, then put the URL on your resume as well. Make sure your online profiles are cleaned up and professional. Even top executives get turned down due to less than appropriate profile pics or posts. Your executive resume is all your potential employers have and you need to ensure that they are able to get a hold of you. Your executive resume is your calling card and if you do not have the correct information present, then you will lose the job opportunity and you won’t reach that ultimate goal you have been striving for: getting a job that is worthwhile.
One of the most important parts of a job search is knowing what type of job you want to have. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what they want to do or go into. Here are some steps to career assessment that will help you decide what you want and start you on the path to success.
Self Assessment: This step is looking inward and making an inventory of your skills, desires, and interests. This will help you understand what you would enjoy as a career. Some people may be able to decide right then and there what type of job they want to search for, but for most people they need some more help.
Career Testing: There are many test and programs that can give you an idea of what career would be best suited to your interests and skills. You can find these assessments/tests online or sometimes at career centers. This is not likely to give you one exact career path, but it will give you some ideas to move you forward.
Career Counseling: Now once you have finished testing and have some ideas, then you can get some help from a professional that can lead you to your decision of what career path to take. Career counselors are trained to help uncertain job searchers find a path that will lead to a fulfilling and successful career.
Career assessment is a great way to help you discover the best career path and make your job search more focused and therefore more successful.While it is not necessarily helpful for everyone, there is no harm in trying it out.
