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Once you have written your Career Summary (see my blog, “Anatomy of a Resume…getting started”), it is time to present your work history and academic credentials. New college graduates with little or no work experience will want to list formal education next, however, if you are an experienced professional, your formal education should follow your work history. In either case, no dates…it is more information than an employer needs.
When listing work history begin with the most recent employer and work backwards. List the company, position(s), responsibilities and accomplishments. Use the “responsibilities/accomplishments” format for each position held with a specific employer. Responsibilities and accomplishments are not the same thing and both are vital to creating an effective description of your experience.
I hear the question often…”How much experience should I list?” Most companies today consider the past five to ten years of work history when evaluating an applicant. This is a marked change from the past when companies considered much earlier experience. It is really up to you as to how much history you provide, but, remember, too much information can compromise your professional image as seriously as not enough. One exception, you may have to go back further if you worked for one employer for many years.
It is critical to remember, the purpose of a resume is to land the interview. Sometimes providing too much information can be counter productive. Employers know that more experienced people generally cost more plus they may be intimidated by someone who holds more experience than necessary for a given position. So don’t let a door close before you get past square one…again, less is more. Once in the interview you have the chance to distinguish yourself and your capabilities and you are certainly free to discuss earlier experience.
After you have presented your work history and formal education, add any special skills which you know are important to the job and then STOP.
A well written resume should run two pages. You can create a masterpiece of rambling work history, but it is likely to wind up in the reject pile…remember, most employers do not have the time or interest to read pages of text. Decisions on viable candidates are made quickly and are usually based on fairly recent experience.
The good news is that a well written resume can open doors for you … take the time…do it right!
Are you struggling to write or revise your resume? ……… Do you have a resume you are proud of, has it opened doors for you? Talk to me… I can help. Norma Sweeny
A well constructed resume is critical to any successful job search. However, if you are just starting your career or you are in career transition after years of employment, writing a resume can be painful. The good news is there are some simple guidelines to keep in mind that will make this formidable task easier.
Remember, your resume is a marketing tool. Its sole purpose is to help you land the interview. If your resume fails to open doors for you, it is not worth the paper it is printed on.
With this in mind, let’s look at the key parts of a well constructed, chronological resume.
Personal Contact Information, Career Summary, Professional Experience, Formal Education and Special Skills
I will discuss the first two sections, in this blog and will continue to outline the remaining sections in a future blog, “Anatomy of a Resume….the rest of the story”.
Personal Contact Information is the first information on the resume. It should include name, address, home or cell phone and email address. Make sure you can be reached. There is nothing more frustrating to a recruiter, than being unable to reach a candidate because they have provided inadequate or dated contact information. Remember, the more difficult you make it for the recruiter to consider your application, the greater the risk of being relegated to the bottom of the pile. Be sure your email address is “professional”. Humorous or entertaining email addresses are fine for personal use but they do not work on a resume.
Your Career Summary should introduce your professional background. It should consist of a well constructed, brief paragraph that describes who you are, professionally, what organizations you have worked for, key strengths and perhaps most important, how you do your job. This format works for new grads too, speak about your chosen field and some of the strengths you exhibited in school and during your internships which would be valued in the work world.
This paragraph is the “hook”. It must excite the reader to continue reading your resume and it must accomplish this quickly. Remember, recruiters are busy people with hundreds of resumes to read and demanding jobs to fill, you have literally seconds to capture their interest.
Once you have introduced yourself, it is time to provide some history…check out my next blog for some tips on how to present your experience and education.
Does your resume start with an “Objective” or a ” Career Summary”? Which do you think is more effective? I say drop the objective…do you agree? Let’s have a conversation.
Have you ever read something that caused you to say “exactly!”? I had such an experience last week reading a book called “The Intern Files” by a fellow who interned for a talk show in New York. His name is Jamie Fedorko. Being a native New Yorker, he does have a bit of an edge to his writing style, and he does have a tendency to work in some pretty in-your-face humor in kind of a hip, waste-no-words writing style.
Fedorko very thoroughly covers the process: Getting the Internship (Part I), The First Day (Part II), How to be the Perfect Intern (Part III), Social Etiquette at the Office (Part IV) and The Beginning of the End (Part V). Looking at these five titles, these five chunks to the book, does it sound kind of boring? It’s anything but. Fedorko shares an uncommon knowledge of the secrets to successful interning. And he seems to have a lot of articulate friends who share their stories as vignettes with each chapter. In a way this book choreographs a whole panel of internship experts.
You may be surprised by his candor. Interns can get abused if they’re not careful. Being the low person on the totem pole has some uncomfortable moments. He addresses topics that do happen to interns; like getting invited to an after-hours party, and being expected to drink with the boss, or getting hit on by another intern. How do you handle roommates who like to party when you need to be to work in the morning? He’ll cover it and have some experts share their stories.
I’m a fan of this book. The message is so dead on that you cannot consider interning without reading this book. You will learn more in the first chapter than you will glean from a whole class on the topic from a lesser source – it’s that clear and readable and detailed in it’s description of what successful interning is all about.
If you are like the millions of people who use the major internet job boards each day, you probably (hopefully!) have an electronic resume that you submit to prospective employers in the hopes that they will respond enthusiastically with phone calls, interview invitations and employment offers.
Unfortunately, this seldom happens. The reasons are three-fold: 1) Recruiters are busy- as important as this job is to you, it is far from the recruiter’s highest priority and they give each candidate only a passing glance; the onus is on you to grab their attention; 2) The numbers are working against you- the first line of this blog posting reveals the sheer magnitude of internet job board users and it’s not insignificant; throwing your resume in the stack is a lot like playing the lottery- it doesn’t cost a whole lot and your odds of winning are miniscule; and 3) Often, your resume is insufficient- in some cases it may actually be deficient, but I intentionally used the word insufficient, because even a good resume- alone- is usually not enough.
Despite the impersonal nature of modern employment advertisement, you must remember that every single position you come across is posted by, and reports to, an actual human being. This is surprising to some, but you can increase the chances of success considerably by reaching out and making a personal connection.
You have more options than you think. Ask for introductions from family, friends, family friends, colleagues; even service providers (e.g. dentist, doctor, travel agent). Attend charity events, or better yet, volunteer (executives often sit on non-profit boards). Use sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to find others in the organization working in a similar capacity, call and offer to take them out for a cup of coffee to learn more about what their job entails and gather inside information (if you hit it off, ask if they would be willing to speak to the hiring manager on your behalf, or if you can use their name as an employee referral- these often get precedence). Sign up for mentoring programs- many industry associations offer this service to students and young professionals- or seek an informal mentor through peer recommendations. You may be surprised by how willing people are to help you out. After all, they were young and struggling once, too. Figure out the angle that will get you noticed and get you face time with the right individuals, and don’t be afraid to get creative; you stand to lose nothing and have the chance to really make an impression.
If you remember that doing the same thing and expecting different results is a credible definition of insanity, you will push back from the job boards and the comfort of your computer, and take this pro-active approach. It works. It is the sane approach to job search.
I have a young friend whom I’ve known since she was born. I don’t think she’d want me to use her real name, so I’ll call her Jane. She worked hard in school, got a lot of A’s, and earned her way into a prestigious journalism school.
Jane’s college experience was well planned. She obtained a couple of summer internships on her own, one with a bank, one with a large manufacturing company, both in our home town. The College of Journalism experience included three internships, including one at the Washington Post, one in Thailand, and one in Naples, Florida, all three allowing Jane to use her knowledge of the Internet as an intern beat reporter. She started her career at the Las Vegas Sun last June as a beat reporter, responsible for a community-linked blog in a small town outside of Las Vegas.
In early November, Jane experienced first-hand the massive change going on in the newspaper business; her first career upheaval! She found herself looking for a job.
In early December, we talked about what she needed to do to take her next step in her career. She told me she planned to look at Denver, Las Angeles, and Washington D.C. Would she return to the world of journalism? Wasn’t sure yet. She was working on her resume.
During the holidays, in fact December 27th, I saw Jane again. She has a trip planned to D.C. in mid-January; she has two jobs she is planning to apply for in Washington. She presently has no interviews scheduled, no informational meetings planned, and a contact list of two people. She wanted me to look carefully at her resume to perhaps tweak it a bit, so that she could apply for these two jobs. If you were advising Jane, what would you tell her? What should she do to get ready for her D.C. trip? What components of the job search process should she be most concerned about addressing right now?
Do you have a “story” to tell? You likely do. And we do, too.
Welcome to the Interview Doctor blog! What is the Interview Doctor? And what is this Interview Doctor offering that might help you? If you are searching for your first real job, or are a student who wants to prepare for finding interesting work when you graduate from college, or are in a job and think you want to make a change, or are out of work right now, maybe we can help.
My name is Dan Toussant, and I lead this group of corporate recruiters, interviewing skills teachers, career planning coaches, and experienced HR professionals. We offer you an on-line (and one-on-one) coaching service that will guide you in your job search or career search process by helping you see more clearly what you need to do to find a job that you will be happy to get out of bed every morning to do.
There are presently ten “Interview Doctors.” We all will be blogging right here, every day a new post, about the interviewing process, the networking process, how to assess your career plans, the value of experimenting with career options, how to find an internship or a full-time position, what makes a great resume, how to build a personal marketing plan, how to prepare for a job interview, what are strong interviewing skills, how to follow up after an interview, and more.
And we want your comments: ‘How can you say that works?’ ‘How can that happen to me?’ ‘I am really feeling stuck.’ We’ll gladly respond to your job search or career search issues, comments and questions, right here.
We all have a story. Let me kick this off by telling you a wee bit of my story. When I graduated from high school about 1800 years ago, I had no idea what I wanted work-wise. I went to a pretty good college, and for four years I worked pretty hard, had a good time, yet did not create much of a plan for myself for after college. The last couple of years in college my parents started asking me what I wanted to do, and I would say, ‘I want to learn how to read and write.’ That was not even close to a plan, and for four years after graduation, I tended bar, drove truck, substitute taught, sold fire alarms, and wondered, ‘what am I doing now?’
If any of that ‘what am I doing now?’ sounds familiar, what we will offer at the Interview Doctor should cut that four years to maybe four months, and perhaps jump start this “college to a career” process even while you’re still enrolled. Yes, the market is tight right now, yet people are getting hired every day, and most of them have a clear (or clearer than most) idea of what they need and want, and what skills they offer today. They also have learned how to talk about those skills, and how to talk to people. We will teach you those skills right here at the Interview Doctor.
One parting question: what’s your story? What do you want to do? Tell us. Or ask us a career planning question or a job searcher question that you’ve wanted to discuss with somebody. We’ll gladly give you our opinions.
Interview skills to win your next job
The Interview Doctor founders saw a need to prepare people to explain their hopes and desires during interviews.
• Maybe you are a successful business person with an excellent chance to move to the next level, with a little help.
• Maybe you are graduating from college and just beginning your career.
• Maybe your grandson is graduating from college and you want to get him the perfect gift!
Many people in your situation find searching for a job frustrating and intimidating. The interview can be the worst… or it can be the key to your next job!
The Interview Doctor is an investment in your future. Our clients get the jobs they want. Don’t be second choice.
Use our 25+ years of experience to separate yourself from the pack.
So you have been laid off……….now what? We’ve all seen the list….the biggest stresses we can experience in life….loss of a loved one, serious illness….job loss.
The emotional impact of losing a job can be huge. Whether you are just starting your career with your first employer, or you are an experienced professional, you can be laid off and the experience can hit you like a brick wall. The good news is, however, the emotional aftershock can be managed.
How? First, respect your feelings. Give yourself some time to deal with reality. Take care of yourself , rest, spend time to gain support from family and friends. The stress of this experience is significant and usually it starts before you are ever laid off.
Most employees know when their employer is in trouble and when layoffs are likely and people react differently to the trouble signs. Some try to “dodge the bullet” keeping their heads low or even “in the sand”, hoping to stay off the hit list. Some actually start to job search, diverting their negative stress into positive action. The fact is, anyone can be replaced and any job can be eliminated. Companies will make the changes they feel they need to make to survive. So, what can you do to prepare yourself and to insure a positive job search? Here is some of the best advice I have heard.
Whether you are a recent grad, just starting your career, or an accomplished professional, think of yourself as a “contractor”, no matter who you work for. Build the skill sets, knowledge and ability that you need to be successful and bring your “suitcase” full of talent with you to your employers. If you lose your job, pack up your suitcase, stuffed with the new experience you gained, and peddle your talents to your next employer.
The days of twenty years with the same employer are pretty much over. Three to five years with a company is accepted. Things change quickly today. The constant is that we view ourselves as professionals anchored in our chosen careers. This is what makes us valuable. This gives us something uniquely ours that we can market to the next employer, and the next and the next. No one can take this from you.
What have you found to be your greatest challenge in finding work? What are you concerned about most? Let’s talk, I can help you.
