Looking for a job is not always fun, and you need a good resume to help you along in the process. Here’s an important question to consider—does your resume give the impression that you are overqualified for the job you want? Or, are you truly overqualified to get the job that your heart desires?
Having too many qualifications for a job can be detrimental to a job seeker looking for either a different type of position, or one considered “lower”. Deciding how to write your resume properly to get the job you want is a necessity. However, there is one other thing to consider when re-writing your resume, be sure to include the important things. Deleting things from your resume can be very detrimental to your job search, even if you feel it will over-qualify you.
Something else to keep in mind about changing your resume around for the one single job that you want is that the company may have other openings. This is an important point to consider—quite often, a resume will be passed around within a company if the job you want is not available. When you suddenly present a resume that is accurate and different from the original, your prospective employer will be put off. So, the problem that presents itself is how to write the resume, still show that you have a lot of qualifications—but scare possible employers away. You are determined to get a job that you really want, but you are overqualified for it. There may be a number of reasons for your decision to “lower yourself”, and this is something to consider when talking to prospective employers. Once your resume has made it into an employer’s hands, and they seem interested, some will be confused. Why would you want a job that is beneath you? Have some valid reasons to back yourself up. Tell them what made you come to this decision. You don’t need to say, “well, I can’t get anything else”, but you could say something like, “Yes, I know I might be a little overqualified, but this type of position has always interested me and I think having these extra skills could really impact the position and what it could do for ABC Co.” etc. Changing industries and jobs may be more difficult to do due to your being over qualified. On the other hand, your willingness to learn something new may make all the difference in the world when the prospective employer considers you for the job. It does not matter if you are overqualified for a job or not—it is still possible to get it.Communicating properly—both verbally and through demonstrating an eagerness to learn and change—will make a huge impression.
The word “resume” gives some people the shivers when they think about having to write one. This reaction is truly not necessary—all it takes to write a resume is a little bit of effort, and some thought. The following are some basic tips on how to write your resume. While the actual writing process takes a lot of thought, planning and strategy, having a “to do” list like this will keep you on track. Knowing what will go into a resume is the most important thing. In other words, your very first step is to plan out what will go into the resume—sort of like the term papers you wrote for school, or a shopping list.
Think about what jobs you have done, the time spans each of them have covered, and the job duties included. Don’t put them in a specific order yet, unless it’s easier for you to work that way.
Begin at the top of the resume, and decide the format that you want to create it in. List your name and contact information first. After that will be the career summary, your job experiences, and follow them up with education/credentials/professional development. Start out writing each job description, in a loose, easy manner. Whether you choose for that to be just a few words for the description, or a list of words done as bullet points, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever works for you is what counts.
Look at the jobs that you have in front of you. Some people prefer to take the paper that they’ve used to jot these descriptions out on, and cut it up to rearrange the jobs into the correct chronological order. Others just use circles and arrows. Once you have decided the order in which you want to put the jobs, look at the descriptions again. Put the words into a coherent, thoughtful description of that particular job. See? You are already writing a quality resume—it’s that easy.
Refining the job descriptions so that they make sense, don’t run on, and will put you into a positive light are the next step. There are some other things to consider now, in addition to the job descriptions. Education is an important thing to list on your resume. With that in mind, list whatever college or technical/trade school experience you may have. Remember to keep it reverse chronological (the preferred choice), listing the most recent position first.
List things like the GPA that you had, any school-related leadership positions you may have had, and extra-curricular activities as well, but ONLY if you are a new grad.
Now, create a career objective or career summary (I always do mine last, after I get a strong familiarity with the client’s history). What do you want to do in your career? What do you want the reader to know about you, your strengths and what you can contribute? You should remain very clear and focused in this area. Think of your brand. Do you have one?
Learning how to write a resume isn’t difficult as long as you devote the time, thought and planning into it.
So many people are put off by the idea of writing a resume, and ignore doing it until the absolute last possible minute, many times when it is too late. Using a resume that is written properly will save you a lot of heartache in the end, though—and is worth the time investment. Taking advantage of keywords to write a resume is an excellent idea, particularly if it is done well.
One of the main reasons keywords is such a hot topic is because of company scanning machines. Employers use scanning machines to search for keywords in a candidates resume that match their requirements, weeding out everyone else whose resumes don’t match that.
In the last decade or so, it has become the norm for resumes to be sent out over the internet through search engines—particularly the job hunting search engines. Employers will take advantage of these particular search engines, and feed in the required information for each job posting, and a set of tags. In other words, the tags are the keywords that they are looking for in resumes. These tags not only help the companies, but they help you by permitting you to select categories that you feel fit your skill level better. By knowing what category you picked the job from—operations, finance, sales and marketing—you can re-word your resume using relevant keywords to fit the job description (posting) you are interested in. So, how do you know what keywords to add in a resume?
Make a rough list of what you need to add to your resume. Consider the jobs that are on your resume already. What things do they have in common? Start to think about what words you could conveniently place to attract prospective employers’ attention throughout your resume—words that are part of your past experiences–and relevant to the next position. Previous experience managing a manufacturing company can be turned into a keyword, or two—manufacturing operations or operations executive. Place the keywords appropriately in your resume. Make the sentence or title that they are in seem natural, yet the placement of the keyword will gain attention, especially in the search engines. Consider a bulleted keyword list under your career summary. Grabbing the attention of human resource managers or the hiring person is easier if you have a keyword list.
Now that you know how keywords work in a resume, take the time to rework your resume. A little bit of extra effort quite often pays off in the long run—especially when you’re looking for the job of your dreams.
What Degrees Earn the Most Return in Terms of Pay?
As students near graduation from college, or are starting back to class, more often than not their thoughts turn financial. Whether they chose a major with an end career in mind or they use their college education as a springboard for new opportunities, all students must consider their return on investment. With the cost of higher education averaging anywhere from $9,000 – $35,000 per year, a lucrative life after graduation is becoming even more important. In a competitive economy, having a profitable degree from a highly sought after field of knowledge could be the key in gaining career success. What degrees bring in the big bucks? We’ve listed some below. All salary information comes from the 2008 NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) salary survey. Engineering Not surprisingly, engineering majors in every category earn an average of $60,000 their first year after college. Chemical engineers are paid the most, working for a variety of companies in different fields including manufacturing, healthcare, and business. Chemical engineers design equipment and develop products. Electrical engineers rank second, with an average starting salary of around $55,000. Electrical engineers focus on the design and implementation of equipment used in all aspects of life- automobiles, aircraft, and electrical utilities. Both of these majors apply to a variety of different fields, contributing to the overall success of their earning potential. Mechanical engineers are a close third, with an average starting salary of $54,000. Mechanical engineers are also employed in a number of different industries ranging from agricultural to business.
Computer Science
As our society becomes more and more reliant on the internet and the advancements in computer related technologies and networks, working knowledge of the systems becomes a valuable tool. Computer science majors make an average of $53,000 their first year out of college. This number does include the entrepreneurs who take their computer science background and apply it to business models, advancing technologies and expanding the horizon of development. Economics
Business markets are highly profitable, and graduates with a thorough knowledge of economics rank high in earnings potential. The average starting salary of a first year economics graduate is around $47,800. Most economics majors work in data research or consulting, and many work for the federal and state governments. Management Information Systems Students with an MIS degree work in all facets of business organization. They analyze businesses and contribute to a more efficient management structure. These graduates typically start in the mid $40,000 range their first year after graduation. Finance and Accounting
Finance and accounting grads have many different options in a plethora of fields. The type of work is varied but always in demand. These positions have very valuable knowledge in intricate areas and generally start at $46,200 their first year out of school. Business Administration and Management This is also a lucrative field, as titans of industry are recognized by the efficacy in business management. This major is consistently one of the most popular, and for good reason- business grads can work almost anywhere! The average starting salary is $43,500 for these students, with a chance to accrue more wealth over the length of their employment term.
Keep in mind that a student’s ultimate return on investment is subjective. Yes, these types of degrees offer access to monetarily profitable careers, but it is also important to consider the subjective and completely independent determination of wealth- something that is measured differently by each person.
Job hunting is not anyone’s favorite thing to do. Neither is writing a resume either, unless you do it for a living. So when you find errors on your resume after you’ve sent it, how important are they? This just happened to a friend of mine. No sooner had her finger hit ‘send’, did she realize there was a typo in the career summary at the top of page 1. Are those mistakes really going to cause you serious problems?
Well, the answer to that is that it depends. There are many different types of errors that you might find on a resume, and while some of them are ridiculous, others are so inconsequential that no one will notice.
For example, formatting errors are more noticeable than anything else, and will leave an impression that the person who is submitting the resume doesn’t know what they’re doing. If the resume wasn’t created by you, it will still be the impression given to the employer. Ensure that your resume is properly formatted. In other words, all the edges match up, because looks do count. Pay attention to whether or not bullet points are used in appropriate places, if you have chosen to use them. Make sure everything is consistent. If you are going to capitalize your job title, make sure ALL job titles are capitalized, etc. How important are errors on a resume? Is your contact info correct? There is a difference between the town names Brookfield and Brookville! Let’s say Person X living at 123 Main in Brookfield lands a job—but their resume says Brookville. When the job offer is mailed to the wrong address and comes back as returned mail, that’s a big problem.
Incorrect information on a resume is also a major resume no-no.Lying about previous experience or schooling is a huge problem. How important are these errors on a resume? More than likely, at some point in time, you will get caught, and your credibility could be ruined. Oh, and you’ll probably be fired, too.
When creating your resume be truthful about where you went to school, what your ranking was, and when you graduated. If you took longer to graduate, you can explain that in an interview. Past experiences are listed on your resume with the most recent on top and a description of what the job was, using as few words as possible. Many people are too wordy, which is a turn-off to employers looking for potential workers. Keep it straightforward and simple. Cut the fluff words and stick to the point. Spelling counts for a lot and the spell-check function on your computer can be a valuable tool. Be aware of how to spell the names of personal references properly. When potential employers call to check the references with these people, they don’t wish to be embarrassed by asking for the wrong person due to the name being misspelled. You should always spell-check and proof your work obsessively, or at least 2-3 times. Beware: spell-check doesn’t catch everything. I used to always automatically type “manger” for “manager”. I don’t know why, but I did. Manger is a word so spell-check never caught it. I did though. Luckily there is a cool tool in MS Word (auto correct options) where you add the words you misspell the most and it will automatically correct them (whew!). Really, how important are errors on a resume? It all depends on the position you are applying for. If you are looking at a small spelling mistake in a sentence, and you are applying at an auto parts store for a cashier position, then it’s probably not a big deal. However, if you are applying as a newspaper editor with that same resume, it is a big deal. In the end, your resume should still be perfect anyway.
How Companies Use Recruiters (and what that means for you!)
Occasionally I get asked about recruiters, if the client should use one, how companies find them, and what recruiters do for companies. So here is a little article on what recruiters are about. Making the best use of recruiters is something that almost all major corporations do now. Taking advantage of someone that is trained to sort through people means less hassle for the company—and why not? Less hassle means fewer headaches for those businesses. Recruiters are people who have been trained specifically to hunt for various corporations to fill empty positions. They place ads in newspapers, online and in magazines to get the attention of any individual that might qualify for a job opening that they might have. Taking the time to find recruiters who know what they are doing is the first important step for a company. Without excellent recruiters, corporations likely will not end up with the type of people that they want working for them.
Finding the best use of recruiters is up to the corporations that employ them, however, companies need to pick and choose where the need is for new hires in particular. In other words, will the corporation be expanding in Asia and the Western United States? If so, recruiters look for individuals who might have the ability to speak Japanese or Chinese, or are bi-lingual/fluent in other languages. Another possibility would be if a company has decided to open a whole different operation. For example, Company A typically has been a restaurant chain. Now Company A wants to start some retail stores, and has the means to do it. Using a business plan, Company A will make the best use of recruiters by sending them out in whatever area it defines to find candidates to interview. Company A will have certain guidelines for the recruiters to go by, but the recruiters will pick the potential candidates.
Once the potential candidates are picked, recruiters will typically thin out the crowd somewhat before sending the candidates in for an interview. Recruiters take the time to sit and talk to each candidate for several minutes and are usually tuned in well enough to people that they can spot instantly who would work for the job, and who wouldn’t.
When you have recruiters who are available, it makes life much easier for the corporation. It is one less step that the Human Resources Department has to be concerned with. When there are so many other things that HR people have to do, using recruiters makes their job easier. For large corporations, making use of recruiters on a regular basis is a great benefit and saves them plenty of money. Smaller corporations on the other hand, may not see a benefit except once in a while—perhaps when searching for a new Chief Executive Officer or other high-ranking position.
So here is your little lesson on how recruiters help companies and what that means for you!
Throughout your career, you are definitely going to encounter a situation where you feel entitled to a salary raisebut have not been offered one. Learning how and when to ask for a raise is the first towards taking control of one’s future and career. Unfortunately in these tough economic times, raises are not always freely given, in fact sometimes we feel like we are fighting for it. Capitalizing on successes and highlighting your ability to make a difference can often be parlayed in to raises. The trick is to know when to strike. First, decide just when to ask for a raise. This can be tricky. Many employees opt to only ask for a raise on a yearly basis, but it is possible and sometimes even suggested, to ask for raises on a more frequent basis. When trying to determine the best time to ask for a raise, consider the following:
Is your employer financially secure? Even if your company announce it’s earnings from the rooftop, it is generally possible to determine if they are secure or experiencing cash flow difficulties. Obviously asking for a raise when a company is strapped for cash is not a great idea.
Has your employer recently won new business, reached a sales goal or other milestone? If so, it is often best to ask for a raise as soon as possible – especially if you contributed to the success.
Have you recently done something to change your company in a positive way? Finishing a large project, winning a new client or developing a helpful program for the company can make you shine and is the best way to successfully ask for a raise.
Once you have determined the perfect time to ask for a raise, you next need to learn how to do so in an appropriate manner that is professional but also persuasive (minus the chocolates and sucking up). Remember to keep all communications regarding your request positive, and be prepared for a ‘no’ or an offer that is less than you expected.
When asking for a raise, remember that your best weapon is your record of successful accomplishments. Properly documenting and presenting them is critical towards a successful request. Carefully and concisely outlining your accomplishments as well as your growth is the first step towards asking for a raise. Finally, always remember that professionalism is key. Because of this, it is vital that an employee not ignore the management structure of their organization. Every employee should first approach their manager or supervisor with their salary raise increase request. Jumping ahead is little more than stepping on the toes of the manager and will likely not result in a raise.
If you are not satisfied with cost of living or non-existent raises, don’t be afraid to approach your manager about your needs. An employee who recognizes their strengths and contributions and is willing to learn and grow is an asset to any organization – raises simply make sense. Find the best time to present your request and documentation and you will likely see your salary increase.
How To Let Go of an Employee Who Has Become Your Friend
Problems arise when you have to decide how to let go of an employee who has become your friend. This is not a pretty situation by any means, because it may end up costing you a friendship that you would like to keep. If you are in a management or leadership position, there will come a time when you will have to let go of an employee who has become your friend. And it stinks… no getting around it. You will have to develop a thick ‘outer shell’ for the experience, which you may not like. However, by using some guidelines, the process will hopefully be easier on you—and possibly the employee as well. With a little luck, you may be able to save the friendship. Take the employee/friend off into a room where you cannot be interrupted, and stay calm. Offer a drink (preferably alcoholic, but since you are at work, you probably shouldn’t), and sit down. Do not take a drink for yourself—your hands will be occupied, but the drink will give them something to occupy their hands.
Explain that the two of you need to have a talk, and bring out any documentation, such as performance reviews, that you may have to back you up. When the friend/employee hears the words “we need to have a talk,” be prepared for them to automatically become defensive.
In my opinion, workplace relationships should consist of regular reviews—whether they are quarterly, annually or based on a different time period, it doesn’t matter. Using these reviews as a method to help back you up when having to let your friend go makes the process easier—you have documentation. Reviews are summaries of an employee’s performance, and if done properly, will help you when if it is time to let go of the employee/friend. Pay increases, behavior issues, as well as timeliness, and a variety of other things.
When it comes time to actually let go of an employee who has become a friend from their job, you will have to have a good reason why. Don’t come up with an excuse—be truthful.
If there are too many employees on the payroll, and your friend happens to be one of the newest ones, and budget cuts are happening, it’s just a fact of life. They must go. Serious behavior issues are a simple (but uncomfortable) reason to get rid of your friend. For example, has it been proven that this person sexually harassed another employee? That can bring on a lawsuit that you don’t want, so be careful.
Be fair though, and listen to the employee/friend’s objections. If they offer a solution to the situation that you had not considered, tell them you will take it under advisement. Then think about it for a specific amount of time. If it still doesn’t work for you, the firing stands.
During the process of letting the employee go, above all stay calm. Don’t yell, but be firm and truthful. Make sure that you empathize with them. Letting go of an employee that has become your friend is not easy, but sometimes necessary.
