Your resume should be like any good marketing plan — designed to sell! It needs to hook potential employers as soon as they see it, so they bypass the discard pile and take a second look. Creating a resume that accomplishes that can’t be done in just a few minutes because there’s much more to it than listing your work history and year of graduation. Try thinking of it as an art form, because it is. Great resumes get a second look and an interview, but bad ones don’t get a second thought.

If you’re serious about scoring as many interviews as you can and for the jobs you really want, then learning how to market yourself with a resume that grabs attention should be one of your top priorities. This is the only way you’ll stand out from the crowd.

Know the Market
Advertising companies do market research before they put together an ad campaign. Why? Because they need to know who they’re selling to and what those people want. The same strategy should apply to your job search. You have to know what jobs are available to know how to market yourself to them. Scour the job boards and classifieds to see what’s out there, and know what kind of job you’re looking for — finding a job can be pretty tough if you have no goals or ideas about what you want to do.

Target Your Resume
Determine which jobs you’re interested in and target your resume to each one. Don’t submit the same version of it for every job you apply for — change words and move things around so your resume uses some of the same lingo as the job descriptions. Use keywords to highlight your experience and accomplishments that best match those sought for each job. Your goal should be to match the content of your resume as much as possible to the qualifications and duties described in each job notice.

Make It Stand Out
A visually appealing and easy-to-read resume gets attention. Skip the fancy fonts, long paragraphs, and flowered stationary. Use as few words as possible and make creative use of white space, bold letters, sectioning, and bullets. A potential employer should be able to scan over your resume quickly to determine if it deserves a longer look. You want them to notice what’s great about your resume, not the color of the paper.

Shift your Priorities
For each job you apply to, shift items around on your resume so that the first thing any potential employer sees is exactly what they’re looking for. If they’re specifically looking for someone who speaks Swahili, put it at or near the beginning of your resume (as long as you actually speak it, of course!) It’s a simple strategy — the things they want go first, the things that are less appealing or less important to the job go last.

Highlight what is Important
Yes, you are multi-talented and of course, your resume needs to sum up your skills and abilities. However, you don’t need to list everything. You just need to let them know what skills you have that are assets for the job.

As far as your education goes, unless you’re right out of school, your degree doesn’t need to be the first thing people see on your resume. If you’ve been working for five years or more, list your education last and focus on your skills and accomplishments. However, if you’re just starting out, it’s perfectly acceptable to list your degrees, as well as your GPA, courses relevant to your job search, and any awards or scholarships you’ve earned.

Any special training you’ve completed should be included, so long as it’s pertinent to the job at hand (so skip the blurb about Clown School if you’re applying for an accounting job).

Share Your Story
Job history is important, but to highlight your experience that best relates to the job, a chronological rundown may not always be the best approach. You may want to consider emphasizing what you know instead of what you’ve done, although in most cases, a job timeline is more than adequate.

Accomplishments you’ve made on the job could be included in your job history, or they could be highlighted separately on your resume, along with off-the-job accomplishments and any special skills you can bring to the table. Decide how you want to emphasize these aspects of yourself so employers will notice what’s most important to them. http://www.careerberg.com

Perfecting your resume can be tough, but it really does help to think of it as a marketing tool. Know your audience and tailor your resume to them each time. If you don’t, you may not appeal to the people who are reading it. With a little time and patience — and perhaps a little extra advice — you can put together a resume that’s sure to get you in the door for an interview. The rest is up to you!

If you find yourself struggling to condense your background skills and work history into a two-page Word document, there are plenty of tips to follow to perfect your resume. Resume writing isn’t a black and white process and at times, the best format to follow is one fine-tuned to fit your personality. Remember, on top of highlighting your greatest accomplishments, there are a few commonalities all resumes should have. http://www.careerberg.com

• Include your email address in your contact information: Many employers don’t have time to give you a ring and prefer jotting you a quick note via email.

• If you do give out an email address, make sure it’s a professional one. Nothing kills your chances of receiving a potential callback more than an email address like ‘abc@aaa.com’

• Always customize your ‘Objective’ or ‘Jobs Applying For,’ especially if this is the only field you change in the document for each position you apply for.

• Try only to include relevant employment skills. For instance, if you’re applying for a position in sales, it’s probably unnecessary to mention your summer camp counseling job you’ve held for the past three summers.

• If you want to include your experience as a camp counselor, try to weed out the skills you acquired, such as ‘Managed kids’ awards ceremony’ or something to that effect.

• Have a few people proofread your resume and do run a spell check.

• Before you go ahead and include references, be sure to check with those individuals, to be sure they even remember you and your work ethic.

• Always include a cover letter with your resume. Even if your future employer doesn’t read it, it shows you made the extra effort.

• Bullet important information and bold each resume header. When we read, we tend to skim, and so does your dream job’s HR recruiter. Make it easy for them to glance over your important information! http://www.careerberg.com

Last but not least, it’s vital to keep your resume to a readable length. No one wants to peruse a novel when they’re wading through a thousand-some resumes.

An objective is a brief statement on the position a candidate seeks. The job objective on a resume provides direction on types of jobs which interest a candidate.

Most resumes contain a job or career objective. A human resource manager may rely on this objective statement to select appropriate resumes, to eliminate irrelevant or unqualified resumes, and to route resumes received to the proper departments.

Components of an Effective Job Objective

A job objective should be direct and to the point. Some objective statements may be written as a sentence, other effective objective statements may simply be phrases with little or no punctuation. This portion of the resume should be tailored to the individual position for which a candidate is applying. If the advertisement or job description has obvious key words, it is useful to include these in the objective.

Examples of effective objective statements include:

• A position in Early Childhood Education utilizing my ten years experience teaching in a Head Start Preschool
• An entry level position in human resources with the opportunity to advance to a human resource generalist
• A position as a Sheriff’s Deputy for the Clarke Township Sheriff’s Office

Things to Avoid in a Job Objective

Do not write a general catch-all statement as an objective. If your job objective contains no usable information, it is better to have no objective statement. Avoid long objective statements, as well. Give the potential employer a concise and direct statement that needs little interpretation. If an employer has to figure out what position interests the applicant, the resume often goes into a file with many other resumes which may or may not be reviewed by the hiring agent.

Examples of poor job objective statements include:

• A position using my skills and abilities to improve the company
• A job leading to a manager position
• Seeking a position using my skills to provide good service and improve the company bottom-line and to grow in my job to a more responsible position

Arguments Against Using an Objective Statement

Some resume professionals now argue that using a job objective on a resume is no longer appropriate. One of the arguments against using a career objective is that job candidates do not provide employer-oriented objectives or provide vague ineffective objectives. Another argument is that the employer has job openings that need to be filled and the company will hire for those positions no matter what the objective states.

The decision to use or not to use an objective statement is very personal. A job seeker must take all these facts into account then decide whether or not an objective will be helpful for her personal job search. If an applicant uses a career or job objective, the job objective should contain useful and targeted information and avoid any generic or vague statements.

In your quest to find the ultimate job you have been told to keep your resume up to date and as interesting as possible, but have you ever been told that there are certain resume phrases to avoid all together? The reason is simple. If you are applying for a job that many others are applying for as well and you use phrases in your resume that are in everyone else’s resume as well, then the chances of you standing out from the crowd and thus becoming the frontrunner for the position you are after are going to be slim to none. http://www.careerberg.com/

With the job market the way it is now and many people vying for the same job, it is more important than ever to make sure that not only is your resume up to date, but original and absent of overused resume phrases. Here are five overused resume phrase to avoid and how to re-word them:

1.Track record of success: Re-word as, ‘Consistently surpassed sales goals each and every year by more than 7 percent.’ Here you are saying the same thing only you are citing a specific example of why you are so successful.

2.Go-to person: Re-word as, ‘Selected by division manager on a consistent basis to head up special assignments.’ Again you are giving specific examples of why you are always the go-to guy instead of just stating that you are.

3.Team Player: Re-word as, ‘Strong commitment to a team environment with the ability to follow leadership directives if necessary.’ This shows that you can contribute, but that you can also follow directions if need be. Don’t use the word team player, unless you are talking about the Yankees.

4.Spoke with customers on a daily basis: Re-word as, ‘Interacted with clientele on a regular basis to create repeat business and referrals.’ You can add a specific number to that if you like but again you are getting a bit more specific. Saying it the first way is like, duh, of course you spoke to customers at your last job, that was your job.

5.Partnered with others: Re-word as, ‘Ability to work with a multitude of other from various departments in order to collaborate and implement new sales strategies and techniques.’ This shows that you not only play nice with others, but that you can be productive while doing so.

Always remember that your resume is your one and only tool to sell yourself enough to open the door to your dream job. Once you get the interview it is a different story, but you will never get that interview if you don’t know what resume phrases to avoid using. Put yourself in the interviewer shoes. Would you want to hire someone who stands out from the rest of the resumes and thus looks more like an individual who could possibly lead, or would you want to hire someone who says and acts like everyone else and reminds you of a single sheep in a massive herd? Don’t be a sheep, because sheep are followers and often times get lead to their own slaughter.  http://www.careerberg.com/

http://www.careerberg.com/

Wonder Woman makes it look so easy. She gets up every morning, fights the good fight, calls it a day, and starts the whole process all over again. This is the way most of us begin our workday. We work hard, accomplish lots, and get up in the morning for an encore presentation.

From childhood we were told that if we put 110% into our careers that we will be shoo-ins for promotions and raises. It sounded like an excellent plan and one that you easily bought into—hard work equals a big return on investment. Good deal.

Then one day you walk into your office only to discover that your position has been eliminated. Not through any fault of your own, but because the powers-that-be made an executive decision to reduce costs. At that moment, you quickly realize that not everything comes from hard work, and you are reluctantly thrown into the job search.

The Challenge
No matter how many awards you received and no matter how impressive your career progression, the old adage is true: “You’re only as good as your last sale.” And if you have been unemployed for a while, hiring managers may view your experience as being outdated. To your surprise, a search that you were convinced would take only a few weeks turned into a year-long process.

Since the resume is the first meeting between you and a prospective employer, the way you position your skills is critically important. This is especially true if you want the reader to overlook your unemployment gap and focus their attention on your successes.

If your resume fails to cleverly tackle red flags, the reader will eliminate your candidacy within seconds. With today’s job market, it is rare to find a jobseeker who has a flawless work history, and a traditional resume doesn’t always properly address the immediate concerns jobseekers are facing today.

The Solution
This is the reason why professional resume writers recommend a combination resume for those a) who have been unemployed for over a year who want to deemphasize an unemployment gap and b) those considering a career change who wish to highlight relevant marketable and/or transferable skills.

A combination resume integrates the best features of the functional and chronological resume formats. Similar to the functional resume, the combination resume emphasizes skills; and just like the chronological resume, the combination resume sequentially showcases your professional history.

http://www.careerberg.com/

Anatomy of a Combination Resume
The most basic format for a combination resume includes the following sections: Introduction, Accomplishments, Professional Experience, and Education. Below is a breakdown of each section.

Introduction

The opening of a resume serves as a teaser and is called a Career Summary, Professional Profile, or Summary of Qualifications. Whatever term you decide to use, the end result must sum up your value to the hiring organization. Let’s take a look at an example:

Goal-driven, tenacious sales and management professional demonstrating award-winning sales record in highly competitive industries. Strong leader and team player; excellent motivational skills to build and sustain forward growth momentum while motivating peak individual performance from members. Experience in managing all aspects of sales development cycle, from prospecting and cold calling through detailed presentations and negotiation to closing follow-up activities.

Notice that the example above provides the reader with a checklist of the candidate’s qualifications. From the onset, the reader has a feel for what the candidate can bring to the table.

Accomplishments

Since this section appears immediately after the introduction, it must keep the momentum going. This is your opportunity to showcase the fact that your experience is still relevant, you’re still in the game, and you are a serious candidate. Let’s look at a couple of accomplishment-based statements.

* Ranked consistently in top 5 company-wide for sales production among staff of 600+ brokers, bringing in $3.5 million in gross commissions during tenure.

* Contributed to success of supervised brokers through hands-on training and mentoring; led team that generated $13 million in commissions.

Notice that the statements are specific and target key achievements the candidate is most proud of.

Professional Experience

This section provides a chronological history of your experience along with a brief summation of your responsibilities. Here’s an example of how your professional history can appear.

Vice President, Bay Shore Financial, New York, NY, 2000–2004

Supervised team of 12 brokers in account prospecting and development activities. Conducted in-depth research on stocks and related topics to provide best recommendations for clients. Mentored team members and provided assistance with complex and escalated client issues. Authorized sign-off on large transactions.

Education

The education section can include your college background, technical training, and/or professional development.

Bachelor of Arts, Accounting—LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY, Brooklyn, NY

Best of Both Worlds
A combination resume will allow you to highlight your impressive accomplishments and grab the reader’s interest right at the beginning while also providing the chronological work history employers are looking for. Now get out there and knock that employer’s socks off!

http://www.careerberg.com/

http://www.careerberg.com/

It seems that everyone is an expert when it comes to resume writing. If you show your resume to ten different people, you will get ten totally different opinions. What is a job seeker to do when there are so many conflicting ideas when it comes to resume etiquette? Who should you write the resume for? Computer software? The screener? The recruiter? The decision maker? The answer is yes to all three. Your resume needs to take into consideration the nuances of all potential readers, including computer software.

This is precisely the reason why most jobseekers are confused when it comes to writing their own resumes. Below is a rundown of all resume readers and how to appeal to them.

COMPUTER SCANNING SYSTEM
Most resumes today aren’t read by human eyes, but rather a scanning system. This is how this works: a clerk at the hiring organization receives resumes and their job is to scan them into the computer. When a position becomes available, the clerk goes into the computer system and keys in buzzwords and the resumes that are retrieved by the computer are the candidates that are called in for interviews.

How to appeal to computer software: Your resume should be keyword rich. This will increase the chances your resume will be retrieved.

RECRUITERS
Recruiters search for candidates who meet specific requirements their clients (the hiring organization) set forth. Although the recruiter works for the hiring organization, the reality is that he or she wants to close the deal and will go to bat for you if you meet or exceed the requirements.

The advantage of teaming with a recruiter is that he or she will be able to provide you with insider information. And in some cases, specific interview questions you can expect. This type of information is invaluable.

How to appeal to recruiters: If a recruiter has a specific job for you in mind and makes resume recommendations, then listen to their suggestions. Once a recruiter is satisfied with your resume, they will submit it and act as your voice and job search partner. http://www.careerberg.com/

SCREENERS
A screener is someone who doesn’t have a full understanding of the inner workings of the position. They work from a checklist of requirements that have been provided by the decision maker and the job description at hand. Screeners won’t have much room to negotiate and will only approve you to the next stage if you meet the set criteria by the hiring manager.

How to appeal to screeners: If you know you are going to deal with a screener, study job descriptions and draw parallels from your experience. You must connect all the dots for them since they don’t have the luxury to make assumptions regarding your qualifications.

DECISION MAKERS
Decision makers have the most flexibility when it comes to experience and bending their own rules. This is because they are in control. This is the reason why most career professionals suggest you apply directly to decision makers.

How to appeal to decision makers: Base your resume on accomplishments. Decision makers want to see what you can bring to the table.

Resume writing is much more than being able to put sentences together but it isn’t impossible to incorporate the needs of all readers. In fact, integrating the requirements of all the resume reviewers will make the resume stronger.

http://www.careerberg.com/

http://www.careerberg.com

To get yourself noticed it is important to use a resume format which will best represent you in the jobs market. There are any number of ways of laying out a resume, but these can in fact be reduced to 5 basic examples: chronological resume (traditional approach – superseded by the performance resume), functional resume, performance resume (an updated form of the chronological resume), targeted resume and alternative resume. Each of these formats has its advantages and disadvantages (see below).

In general the performance resume works best for most people, assuming that you are staying in the same field. If this format is unsuitable for you then you could try either the functional or targeted resume formats and see which reads/looks better for you. Even if you create a performance resume for yourself, there are times when a functional/targeted resume may help you secure an interview when a performance resume would fail.

Performance resume

In a performance resume your employment history is shown in reverse chronological order, with your most recent job first. Job titles and company names are strongly emphasized and duties and achievements are described under each job title. You should use a performance resume when you are seeking a job which is directly in line with your past experiences or your last employer was a household name. The only difference between a chronological resume and a performance resume is that the performance resume highlights a list of your major achievements near the start of your resume.

Advantages:

1. If you are planning to stay in the same field/work area.
2. If you want to showoff your promotions.
3. If the name of your last employer is highly prestigious.
4. Most people prefer this format to the other formats listed here because it is easy to see who you have worked for and what you did in each particular job. http://www.careerberg.com

Disadvantages:

1. If you are planning to change career direction.
2. If you have frequently changed employer.
3. If your work history has been patchy in recent years, either through unemployment, redundancy, self-employment, ill health, etc.
4. If you do not have many achievements (you could just leave out the achievements section as in a traditional chronological resume) or your achievements are not in line with what you want to do now – either leave out the achievements section or consider using a functional or targeted resume.

Functional resume

This type of resume highlights the main functions/achievements of your whole career and it can therefore be very useful if you have had a varied career or you are seeking a change of career direction. In this format, job titles and company names are given less dominance or even omitted in some cases.

Advantages:

1. If you want to emphasize abilities and achievements that have not been used in your most recent job(s).
2. If you are changing career direction.
3. If you have had a large number of jobs and you would prefer to describe the experience you have gained in total.
4. If you want to include voluntary/unpaid experience.
5. If your work history has been patchy in recent years, either through unemployment, redundancy, self-employment, ill health, etc.

Disadvantages:

1. If you want to highlight promotions/career growth – you could include this sort of information on the second page of your resume, but it would not be as prominent as on a performance resume.
2. If your most recent employer is highly prestigious, because their name will not be prominently displayed on the first page. You can get round this by putting their name in both the profile and cover letter.
3. If your job has only a limited number of functions.
4. Unusual resume format – may not be liked by everyone.

Targeted resume

This type of resume emphasizes your abilities and achievements which are directly relevant to a specific job target. It is best used when you are planning a change of career direction.

http://www.careerberg.com

Advantages:

1. If you want to emphasize abilities and achievements that have not been used in your most recent job(s).
2. If you are changing career direction.
3. If you have had a large number of jobs and you would prefer to describe the experience you have gained in total.
4. If you want to include voluntary/unpaid experience.
5. If your work history has been patchy in recent years, either through unemployment, redundancy, self-employment, ill health, etc.
6. If you have several completely different job targets and you need a resume for each.

Disadvantages:

1. If you want to highlight promotions/career growth – you could include this sort of information on the second page of your resume, but it would not be as prominent as on a performance resume.
2. If your most recent employer is highly prestigious, because their name will not be prominently displayed on the first page. You can get round this by putting their name in both the profile and cover letter.
3. Unusual resume format – may not be liked by everyone.

Alternative resume

This sort of resume is suitable for creative careers in, for example, writing, public relations and fashion designers. It is not suitable for senior managers/executives who would be better advised to use the performance resume.

Advantages:

1. If the job requires exceptional talent in either the written or visual mediums.
2. If you will be applying directly to the person you will be working for.

Disadvantages:

1. Not to be used if you are seeking a management position.
2. If you are planning to apply through normal channels such as advertised vacancies/the Personnel Department.
3. This resume format may fail utterly if your ideas are not well received by the recipient of your resume.

http://www.careerberg.com

You should gather together all of the information required below. You will probably not use all of this information in your resume but it will provide you with useful reference material when it comes to preparing for interviews.

Personal Details

Your full name, address, home telephone number and cell phone number. You don’t normally need to include your date of birth and marital status on your resume in the USA or Canada (other countries may require this information). Do you have a full driving license? Is it clean? (Only relevant if your job involves driving.)

Education / Qualifications

List your qualifications and education history, for example:

• Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma; 1985; Minors: Chemistry and Mathematics; GPA: 3.0 / 4.0.

If you have a university education you don’t normally need to list which high school you attended (unless you feel that this is relevant to the job you are applying for).

Professional Qualifications

List your professional qualifications, membership of professional associations and professional ID numbers.

If you recently completed a university degree or equivalent, then you may want to list the courses you studied if the subjects you studied was relevant to your target job. http://www.careerberg.com

Training Courses

List any work related training courses which you attended, including company courses and any you attended on your own initiative. If you obtained a qualification on any course please list it. You only need to list the important courses you attended; no one really cares if you went on a time management course as everyone gets sent on these courses!

Work Experience

If you have been working for a number of years you probably do not need to include any part-time jobs, vacation jobs, voluntary work or unpaid work experience. Charity work could be included in your interests. However you might want to include these jobs if they covered a period of unemployment, or a time when you were not working for any other reason, or you feel that some of the experience you gained will be useful in your next job. You should normally concentrate on your two most recent jobs (unless you were only there for a short time), because employers are usually most interested in these.

Start with your most recent or last job and work backwards. For each position (treat internal promotion as a new job and record the dates separately) list your job title (e.g. Manager, Supervisor, etc), the job title of the person you reported to (e.g. Director, Manager, etc) and when you started and finished in each job. Give the name of the company and include a brief description of the service they provide (using the terms they would use to describe themselves). Set out your main responsibilities, achievements, duties, and skills that could be transferred to another employer. Be specific and positive about your skills, e.g. ‘good written skills’ may be a better description of your abilities rather than ‘good communication skills’.

Include your level of responsibility if any, e.g. ‘responsibility for departmental budget of $100K and managed 10 staff’. In particular list any achievements you had in each position, including increases in sales/productivity and cost savings made. Quantify your achievements if possible. ‘Increased sales by $100K’ is more interesting and positive than just saying ‘Increased sales’. You should try to include some achievements such as meeting deadlines, budgets, etc, and any information that may be relevant to your next job.

Major Achievements

When you are listing your achievements in this section, only list 3 to 6 of your most important work achievements; your other achievements can be described under the work experience section. You should only list achievements which are relevant to your next job and indicate how you achieved them.

This section is very important as an employer will only invite you for an interview if they can see a benefit in doing so. Your achievements may sell you to an employer and make them choose you for an interview rather than someone else. For this reason it is vital that you think carefully about your achievements.http://www.careerberg.com

Other Experience

List any computer skills you have, including the make and type of equipment you are familiar with, the software and operating system used, e.g. Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Office XP.

If you have foreign language skills which may be relevant for any jobs which you are applying for, please list them and indicate whether your skills are spoken, written, business or technical. Please also indicate your level of fluency: fluent, good working knowledge, etc. You should only list these skills if they are relevant to the jobs you are applying for as no one really wants to hear about a French language course you did at school a long time ago.

If relevant to your next job please include your typing or shorthand speeds.

Interests / Hobbies

List your interests, hobbies and any sports you play. List any positions of responsibility you hold or have held in any club or organization, and say what your responsibilities and achievements were.

References

You do not normally need to list referees on a resume, but it is a good idea to think about whom you could ask now.

Summary

List your major skills, strengths, personal qualities and achievements. Be specific, e.g. good team player, excellent written skills, versatile, able to motivate others, etc. Look at your staff appraisals or at your references.

First impressions

First impressions matter; if your resume does not attract the reader’s attention in the first 20-30 seconds then your chances of obtaining an interview are greatly reduced. An employer may have a hundred or more resumes to look through and probably only a couple of hours in which to make their selection. So put your work experience at the start of your resume, not personal or educational details, unless you have only just left education. http://www.careerberg.com

What an employer really wants to know is why they should invite you for an interview. For this reason a short summary of your capabilities and/or a list of your major achievements can often be a good idea. This should make an employer want to invite you for an interview – but please be careful that you do not oversell yourself.

Poor visual layout

The visual layout of your resume is very important. Even though the wording you use may be correct, if people cannot find the information they want quickly they will move on to someone else’s resume. You should use plenty of ‘white’ space in your resume and appropriate headings and section breaks.

Always use a word-processor/DTP package. Never use a typewriter as you will look old fashioned and out of date. Use good quality paper, preferably 100gram for both your resume and cover letter.

Length of resume

It is usually best to try and keep your resume to two pages, unless someone specifically asks you for a longer resume. If you cannot keep your resume to this length then you probably have not understood an employer’s requirements. Employers do not want to know your whole life history – just enough to decide whether they should interview you or not. http://www.careerberg.com

http://www.careerberg.com

OK, you’re graduating from college soon. Time to give your resume and cover letter a checkup to ensure they are as powerful as they can be. Powerful new grad resumes and cover letters have several things in common, so you can kill a number of birds with one stone with this checkup.

1. Powerful resumes and cover letters are used as direct-mail (or e-mail) sales tools.

It’s important to remember the purpose of a resume and cover letter. They don’t have to perform the task of getting you a job since very few people are hired sight unseen. All they have to do is get you an interview. So the primary mission of a resume and cover letter is arouse the reader’s interest and sell yourself enough so that you get asked to meet with the employer.

The lesson here is to keep your documents concise and to the point. You don’t have to include everything about yourself, and you should not include anything that’s not relevant. You don’t have write your autobiography. Now, granted, some college students have the opposite problem. Instead of limiting the information they list on their resumes, they worry about not having enough. Others are tempted to list every class they’ve taken, every award, and every extracurricular activity. Many of these items may be worthy resume components, but for every item you’re considering inserting into your resume, ask yourself, is it relevant to the kind of job I’m seeking?

Course work usually isn’t necessary unless it’s unusual or you have very little else to list in your resume. Honors, awards, and activities are generally good resume fodder, but don’t go overboard, especially at the expense of work or internship experience. I knew one new grad who had an impressive list of honors and awards. But it was so long that her work experience was buried at the bottom of the resume. Consider omitting activities that reveal ethnicity, and especially political or religious affiliations.

Let go of high-school activities and honors unless they are truly exceptional or demonstrate an early interest in your chosen career. Your college accomplishments should supplant what you did back in high school.

2. Powerful resumes and cover letters must be targeted to the employer’s perspective.

When constructing your resume and cover letter, put yourself in the mind-set of the employer. Ask not what the employer can do for you but what you can do for the employer. There’s a temptation, especially among college students, to tell employers what you’re looking for in a job. We frequently see that tendency in Objective statements. The old chestnut about “Seeking challenging position with growth potential,” is so overused that it is meaningless to employers.

Employers want to know what you can do for them, how you will benefit their companies, how you will impact their bottom lines. While they’re not totally oblivious to your career hopes and dreams, your aspirations are not their primary concern.

3. Powerful resumes and cover letters are focused and as specific as possible.

The sad truth is that resumes and cover letters are read for between 2.5 and 20 seconds. So you have only the briefest moment to catch the employer’s interest. The employer wants to know as quickly as possible: What do you want to do and what are you good at? He or she doesn’t have time to wade through lots of text to find out.

So how can you sharpen the focus of your resume and cover letter?http://www.careerberg.com

• Consider an Objective Statement  to sharpen a resume’s focus. The objective statement can be as simple and straightforward as the title of the position you’re applying for, which can be adjusted for every job you apply for. Or you can embellish the Objective statement with language telling how you’ll benefit the employer. Something like:

Objective: To contribute strong ________ skills and experience to your firm in a _________ capacity.

In this day of being able to manage our own computer files, you could have several versions of your resume that are exactly the same except for the objective. A specific objective is always better than a vague or general one.

• Include a Professional Profile. A profile section, also known as a “Summary of Qualifications,” can help sharpen your resume’s focus by presenting 4-5 bullet points that encapsulate your best qualifications and selling points. It’s often a good idea to list relevant computer and foreign-language skills in this section instead of burying them at the bottom of your resume, as many job-seekers do.

• Tailor cover letters to specific jobs. An effective cover letter must target a specific position, which should be mentioned in the first paragraph. Don’t list several possible positions or say that you’re willing to consider any position. If you do, the employer will see you as unfocused or even desperate.

• Also consider specific tailoring for resumes. According to a new study by Career Masters Institute, employers want resumes to show a clear match between the applicant and a particular job’s requirements. A “general” resume that is not focused on a specific job’s requirements is seen as not competitive. Now it may not be realistic or practical to change your resume for every job you apply for, but you can change certain elements, such as the aforementioned Objective statement and the Professional Profile section. Another alternative is to have more than one version of your resume. Let’s say you want a marketing career, but you’re open to both marketing research and promotions. You could craft a version of your resume for each niche.

• Consider adding a graphic. This suggestion is pretty radical, and it’s not for everyone, but a very small, tasteful graphic on your resume and/or cover letter could sharpen your focus. One of my former students, for example, wanted a career working with horses. She placed a tiny horse graphic at the top of her resume. Her career focus was instantly apparent. Another student pursuing a law career used a tasteful scales of justice graphic; another interested in international business had a small world map graphic.

4. Powerful resumes and cover letters make the most of your college experience.

Too many college students miss the opportunity to exploit valuable experience on their resumes and cover letter because they overlook unpaid experience. Experience is experience. It doesn’t have to be paid. Anything you’ve done that has enabled you to develop skills that are relevant to the kind of job you seek is worth consideration for resume and cover letter mention. That’s especially true if you don’t have much paid experience. The key, as noted in #1, is relevance. Consider the following in evaluating what experience and skills you’ve gained that are relevant to what you want to do when you graduate:

• Internships
• Summer Jobs
• Campus jobs (work-study)
• Sports
• Entrepreneurial/self-employed jobs
• Temporary work
• Volunteer work: school, church, club, not-for-profit organizations
• Research papers/projects
• Campus activity positions
• Fraternity/sorority/social club positions
• Extracurricular or sports leadership positions

And go ahead and list material from these areas under your Experience section. Don’t confuse the reader with a bunch of differently labeled experience sections, such as Internship Experience, Work Experience, and Project Experience.

5. Powerful resumes and cover letters portray your skills as transferable and applicable to what you want to do.

You may think what you’ve done is not relevant to your future career, but you can probably spin the experience so that it demonstrates the transferable and applicable skills that most employers want:

• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Communications
• Interpersonal
• Computer

The value of transferable skills is a major reason I urge students to list sports in the Experience sections of their resumes — because athletics so often provide the teamwork, leadership experience, and competitive drive that employers seek.

6. Powerful resumes and cover letters focus on ACCOMPLISHMENTS, NOT job duties and responsibilities.

In the recent study by Career Masters Institute, content elements that propelled employers to immediately discard resumes included a focus on duties instead of accomplishments, while documented achievements were highly ranked among content elements that employers look for.

Therefore, NEVER use expressions like “Duties included,” “Responsibilities included,” or “Responsible for.” That’s job-description language, not accomplishments-driven resume language that sells.

Instead, emphasize the special things you did to set yourself apart and do the job better than anyone else.

Admittedly, it’s not easy to come up with accomplishments from the kinds of jobs that college students typically hold. But it’s important to:

• Start tracking your accomplishments NOW.
• Start HAVING accomplishments NOW!

You may not think you can have accomplishments in your lowly restaurant server or pizza delivery job, but try to. Ask your boss what you can do to improve. Strive to win any awards (such as Employee of the Month) that your employer offers. Find ways to go above and beyond your job description.http://www.careerberg.com

7. Powerful resumes and cover letters use action verbs and KEYWORDS!

Action verbs in your resume and cover letters increase the strength of your writing and make you sound dynamic to employers.

Almost as important as using action verbs is avoiding weak verbs:

• Do. Try “conduct,” “perform,” or “orchestrate.”
• Forms of the verb “to be.” Instead of “was,” say “served,” “functioned,” “acted.”
• Work. Everyone works. Be more specific. Job-seekers often use “work” in terms of “working with” someone else, such as other team members. In that context, “collaborate(d)” is often a good substitute.
• Received. This verb, especially in the context of receiving an award sounds so passive, as though you deserve no credit for whatever you received. Always say you “earned” an award or honor rather than “received” it.

Threatening to overtake verbs in importance on resumes and cover letters are keywords. Employers are increasingly relying on digitizing job-seeker resumes, placing those resumes in keyword-searchable databases, and using software to search those databases for specific keywords — usually nouns — that relate to job vacancies. Most Fortune 1000 companies, in fact, and many smaller companies now use these technologies. Experts estimate that more than 80 percent of resumes are searched for job-specific keywords.

The bottom line is that if you apply for a job with a company that searches databases for keywords, and your resume doesn’t have the keywords the company seeks for the person who fills that job, you are pretty much dead in the water.

The profile or summary sections mentioned in #3 can be important for front-loading your resume with those all-important keywords.

8. Powerful resumes and cover letters contain NO typos or misspellings.

Remember that it’s not enough to spell-check your documents because you may have used a perfectly spelled word — but it wasn’t the word you wanted. For example, a word frequently seen on resumes and cover letter is “possess,” but some job-seekers accidentally spell it “posses,” which is the plural of “posse.”

Proofread your resume and cover letter. Put them down for a few hours, come back, and proofread again. Then get a friend or family member with a good eye to proof them for you.

9. Powerful resumes and cover letters are reader-friendly.

The Career Masters Institute study ranks easy readability highest of all resume characteristics in terms of first impressions. The employers surveyed ranked use of bullets second highest.

Use the following to make your documents reader-friendly:

• Bullets in resumes (and sometimes in cover letters)
• White space. Make sure your documents have reasonable margins. In my opinion, the default margins in Microsoft Word are wider than they need to be (1.25″ on the left and right and 1″ at the top and bottom). Margins can be as narrow as .75″ if needed. My partner uses the “thumb test.” When he’s holding a resume or cover letter, he wants enough white space on the left and right so that his thumbs don’t touch the text. Of course, he has big thumbs, so 1″ left and right margins suit him better. Also make sure you have a line of space between all the jobs listed on your resume and between all resume sections. For cover letters, equalize the white space at the top and bottom of the letter so that it is centered vertically on the page.
• Type large enough to read (no smaller than 10.5 point).

Now, about the one-page “rule.” Job-seekers, especially new grads, are often cautioned to keep resumes to one page. And it’s good advice. You should keep it to one page if at all possible. But if your experience is exceptional, don’t sacrifice readability just for the sake of keeping the resume to one page. I’ve seen job-seekers use nonexistent margins and tiny type just to squash their resumes onto a single page. At the same time, if your resume spills over to fill just a small part of a second page (less than half the page), it’s probably best to condense to one page by cutting content.

http://www.careerberg.com

10. Powerful resumes and cover letters include every possible way to reach you.

Powerful resumes and cover letters do no good if the employer can’t reach you. Most college students wisely list both their campus and home addresses and phone numbers on their resumes.. Don’t forget your cell phone number, if you have one. In fact, don’t overlook any way an employer could reach you, including fax and pager numbers, if available.

When you’re in job-hunting mode, make sure the outgoing message on your residence-hall answering machine or voice-mail sounds professional. I’ve called many students in their dorms and gotten some pretty outrageous messages that would likely turn off employers.

A good way to ensure you have all relevant contact information on both your resume and cover letter (remember that the two could get separated) is to use the same “letterhead” on both documents, which also makes for an attractive package. It also never hurts to repeat your most important contact information in the last paragraph of your cover letter.