Career Hub

Match.com and Your Resume

My friend who uses Match.com has met several people who are a good match for her age, interests, politics, and education level and one person in particular who has become a really close friend. It makes sense - it's why so many people worldwide use the site. Then why is it that people are still indiscriminately sending resumes in to jobs that bear little resemblance to the jobs they have listed on their resume? It just makes things harder for the truly qualified.

One of the reasons that companies and recruiters are turning away from paying to post jobs on the big job boards is that they get so many irrelevant resumes! Even if you are a serious candidate and provide a close match with the advertised job, you will have a hard time penetrating the jungle of thousands of "unmatched" resumes. (That's why you need to network.)

If you are on Match.com and want to meet people who are pacifists like you or left-leaning liberals, you can expect not to be matched up with hawks and right-leaning Republicans. Right? So what does that mean about how you write your resume? You want your resume to provide a "close match" with the advertised position.

First, the keywords. Make sure that the keywords you find in the job posting can be found on your resume, even if you have to make a "Skills" list at the end of your resume to contain all of them.

Second, your industry. Apply to jobs that are in the same industry that you have experience in. With the intense competition for jobs, you are less likely to be considered for a job outside your industry experience. That means that if you truly want to switch industries, don't count on applicant tracking technology such is as used on the job boards and corporate sites to come up with your resume. Instead, power up your networking to give you a chance to get in front of a hiring authority and make a pitch about the transferability of your skills. 

Third, your job title. If you have held the same title as the job you are applying for in the same industry, you will be providing a close match. If you are seeking to take your career to the next level (going from Director to Senior Director or Senior Director to VP, for instance), you will fare better if you mention the higher-level title in your profile by saying something like, "Poised to assume a VP-level position" or "Targeting VP positions." That's to get the keyword in there, but also to let the reader know that you are ready to move up. Your resume will be more credible, then, if you can demonstrate you've used the skills required in the higher-level position, such as including examples of your contributions to strategic planning if you want an executive-level job. 

Fourth, your skills. Make your resume sound familiar to the reader who has posted the ad. You want to provide a comfort level for the reader by using the skills that they are seeking. 

Fifth, your results. The hiring authority can usually afford - given the large number of applicants - to be picky and interview people whose dynamic accomplishments are highlighted in their resumes. So knock their socks off!

Getting a job is all about providing that close match to a position an organization is seeking to fill. As we've talked about before, networking is your best bet for getting a job - by a long shot. Fortunately, networking will most likely provide you with an opportunity to tailor your resume to a job opening. Count on needing to tweak your resume towards that open position. 

So go for it - get a great date, um, job!

Is the Resume Dead?

This post by Michael at Human Race Horses makes an argument that I hear often. In these days of social media and web-based job search, can a resume really do the job? Michael thinks not:

Another personal reason for wanting to kill my resume is that in looking at this little historical snapshot from so long ago - slightly over two years - it is is really shocking to realize that it does nothing to communicate anything at all about me that I would want to put out if I were job searching. It doesn't effectively reflect: * extensive skills in social media * knowledge and expertise of Hr and how it applies to today's work environment * research skills, especially deep skills on the net * networking * blogging, writing and thought leadership

He wonders then whether he shouldn't scrap his resume in favor of online profiles where he can better communicate these skills. But this is the part of the 'resume is dead' argument that I don't understand.

People say to me all the time "I can't capture who I am in a resume" and I always ask them the same question: Why not? Is it because words are just not adequate to describe the wonder that is you? Unlikely!

More likely it's because you are being limited by what you imagine a resume should be. If you step outside the box (sorry for the cliche!) a little, you might see lots of ways to convey who you are and what you have to offer a company.

For example, Michael could begin with a summary that outlines the skills he mentioned above, complete with links where appropriate, but then he could go on to provide evidence of these skills through action-oriented achievement stories and even by quoting testimonials from LinkedIn, or thank you letters from blog readers, or by listing training he's completed or e-books he's written, or by numerous other means to show that he is indeed a thought leader in his field.

If his resume were to do all that, it would generate phone calls and interviews.

As for the web profiles, it doesn't have to be either/or. I like to end my client's resumes with a section called 'on the web' or 'learn more' where I list their career-related web profiles and/or blogs. It can also be effective to add the statement 'feel free to google my name for more information' to either your resume or cover letter - nothing conveys more confidence than telling people to go look you up.

I'm not defending the resume because I make my living writing resumes - after all, if resumes go away, I'll probably make my living writing web profiles instead. I'm just not sure that the answer to an outdated style of resume writing is to blow up the entire concept of resumes. At least, not yet.

Cross-posted on Blue Sky Blog

How to Write a Great Resume - Free Online Course

I don't usually write blog posts touting things I've done, but I'm pretty proud of my new website, which is a free membership site for anyone struggling to craft a compelling resume. 

The site can be found at smartsearchsystem.com.

There you'll find resume writing and job search lessons, a gallery of resume samples and a discussion forum. Lessons are applicable to people at all levels, from entry-level to executive, and are available to read online, listen to as MP3s, or download as PDFs to read offline.

Learn more or sign-up here. 

And if you do become a member, we'd love your help in getting our discussion forum started. The site has been buzzing since our soft launch just a few days ago, and we are signing up new members every day, but very few people are comfortable jumping in to an empty forum. If you're not the shy type, how about helping us get the conversation started over there? (For the first few months, I'll be hanging out on the forum answering resume and job search questions, and as the site grows, we'll invite more experts to participate).

Look forward to seeing you at Smart Search!

Give What You Want

“What goes around, comes around”
“We reap what we sow”

Do you often hear people quoting such cliches?

The thing with some cliches is there is often some truth in them. The truth in these ones lies in the notion that you should give what you yourself want - and when you do that, the thing you want most shows up.

So what is it you most want right now?

Want more money?
- Give what you can by means of a donation or assistance to someone else
- Help someone else with their investments or money making ideas

Want more time?
- Give some of your time to others
- Share some time management or productivity tips with someone else

Want more contacts?
- Connect others to people in your network

Want more clients?
- Help others find clients by sharing contacts, referrals and advice 

Want a new job?
- Provide some kind of employment to someone: a student intern, a book keeper, a cleaner. It can be paid, barter or unpaid 

Want better career opportunities?
- Help create opportunities for others

Want some help with your job search or career?
- Go help someone who needs help with looking for a new job

Want a better resume?
- Help someone improve their resume

Want better relationships with your colleagues?
- Go help a friend or colleague improve their professional relations

Want to do more meaningful work?
- Help someone else find meaning in their work

Want a better boss?
- Start being a better leader to your own team. If you don't lead a team, become a better leader to stakeholders, your community, your kids, or  even your cleaner / maid

Want to have more fun at work?
- Make work more interesting and fun for your team and the people around you

Want to be inspired?
- Go and inspire someone else. Your team, your colleagues, your kids

Want to feel good about yourself?
- Go give someone else a lift and help them feel better about themselves

Want to be valued and respected?
- Start valuing and respecting others more
- Better still, start valuing & respecting yourself more and others will follow

When you do this, a few things happen:

1. You learn more about how to get the thing you want. I learn just as much about managing careers by writing these articles as the readers - it forces me to organise my thoughts and ideas which helps me too.

2.You immediately feel good about yourself. Giving and helping others gives most people a natural high - which helps you in moving forward with your own goals

3.You strengthen your bonds with other people. Stronger relationships make you much stronger and more effective

4. The thing you most want starts to show up - and just like a boomerang, very often from a completely unexpected direction

It may seem completely counter-intuitive to give away the thing you most want - but it works.

Give it a go....

By Sital Ruparelia

Does Your Resume File Name Waste a Self-Marketing Opportunity?

How much thought did you put into naming the resume file that you send out to prospective employers and recruiters? Does the file name clearly indicate who you are? Does it go a bit further and tell the recipient what you do? Or is it labeled something like "resume.doc," "myresume.doc," or another name that could apply to virtually any one of thousands of applicants?

A press release on PRWEB (www.prweb.com) highlights conclusions from a "Resume Filename Best Practices Report" recently released by Palladian International. While the report found that 92% of resume files had at least some indication of the sender's name, only 58% included both the first and last name. A large proportion of resumes contained information of no use to a hiring manager or recruiter, such as version numbers and dates.

The report advises that your first and last name always be included in the file name. It is also a good idea to include a word or short keyword phrase that describes your main skill set or industry (for example, CFO, Marketing Executive, etc.). It is important to keep the keyword phrase fairly short, so as not to create an unwieldy file name that extends beyond fields in a database or beyond the edge of the reader's window or screen (such as on a Blackberry). A further recommendation is to separate words with hyphens for readability. I have found that underscores (_) also work well for this purpose.

Following is a sample structure for an effective file name:
FirstName-LastName-Resume-KeywordPhrase.doc

With regard to file format, MS Word is virtually universally accepted. However, if you have Office 2007, it is advisable to convert your file from its default ".docx" format to Word 2003/97 ".doc" format. The new ".docx" format is not readable by earlier versions of Word without installation of a conversion pack. Since there are many recruiters and companies that do not yet have Office 2007 and also do not have the conversion pack installed on their systems, sending the file in Word 2003/97 format avoids the risk that your file will be unretrievable and (horrors) possibly discarded.

***

Posted by Laurie Smith at Creative Keystrokes

FedEx Office / Kinko's prints resumes for FREE

Earlier this week, FedEx Office (formerly known as Kinko's) extended a helping hand to job seekers: free resume printing at any of the 1,600+ stores FedEx Office stores across the United States.

Read on!

The Importance of Being Personal

I just posted a small web design job on getafreelancer.com. Not surprisingly, given the state of the economy, we have been inundated with responses - far more than we got the last time I posted something like this.

I just spent an hour skimming through them and of the 30 bids I reviewed, only one was in any way personalized. Only one person showed any signs of having read my brief and looked at the attached files. I’m looking for a design only (no coding) and I specifically said this in my posting. Yet several people have sent me links to look at their previous coding projects.

The others have sent me links to work samples that bear no relation to what I’m looking for. Their emails to me include things like “we have 5 years of experience coding large scale websites.” Great! If I ever need to code a large website, I’ll know just who to call! But right now, I need a web designer to create a Photoshop file for me - JUST LIKE I DESCRIBED IN MY AD!

This is exactly what it’s like to wade through job applications. It’s almost always as though no one even read your ad. You search and search for that resume or cover letter or e-mail introduction that screams “I know just what you need and I can help” but you rarely see it. That’s where you can set yourself apart.

Please, please, please make sure your cover letter or email introduction specifically addresses the needs of the employer and edit your resume to address the requirements in the job posting. If they say ‘experience in new channel development’ is the most important requirement for a sales person, make sure your 5 years of doing that is highly visible. You can guess which designer I’m hiring.

Cross-posted on my Blue Sky Resumes blog

7 Tips for Transforming Your Resume

Last night, I appeared on Roxanne Ravenel's radio show to talk about how you can make big changes to the impact your resume has on employers. Here's the interview. (To listen in iTunes, just click the iTunes link at the bottom of the player).



Cross-posted at Blue Sky Resumes Blog

Are you a Kate or a Katie?

How knowing your personality can help you find your next great job.

This guest post was written by Tim Tyrell-Smith, whose blog Spin Strategy is always filled with interesting and useful advice for job seekers and those looking to advance their careers. Thanks Tim!

During a drive to San Diego a few weeks back, I heard an interesting question on a radio station. The question from the DJ was:

Are you a Kate or a Katie?

The question came at the end of a segment so I didn't hear the original context.  Normally that would be frustrating for me.  In this case, however, it was such an interesting question that I let it go. 

The implication, regardless of how it was framed, is that being a Kate or a Katie suggests something about you.  That you and your supposed opposite are truly two different peas in the same pod.

Now we should probably step back a bit and remember that we don't name ourselves.  Our parents do.  And that name is usually chosen for you well in advance of your birth.  But, as with all kids, your unique personality defines your working name throughout your life.  

So when you arrived in this world, your parents lovingly placed the name Katherine on your birth certificate.  A few weeks, months or years later you became someone else by being you.  The inescapable you.  The way you smiled, played with your toys and played with others.  Did you play quietly by yourself or did you dance around, always needing a partner?  And then one day, Mom and Dad stopped calling you Katherine and began using a form of what you would eventually be called.  Kate or Katie.

Does this work for guys?  Absolutely.  Andrew vs. Andy.  Mike vs. Michael.  I don't see a big difference here.

As the segment ended on the radio, I started to think about practical uses for the question in job search.  Here are a few:

1. The dynamic of an interview and how, at times, we can be matched up with people who are just our opposite.  Kate meets Katie.  Or Katherine meets Andy.

2. How and when to let your personality come out within your resume or cover letter.  Also a question: If you are a Katie, why do you use Katherine on your resume?

3. At networking events, do you let the Katie out or do you wear a Katherine mask because that's what people expect to see at these functions.

4. If you are a Katie and you interview with a Michael (the hiring manager), should you become more Katherine-like to match his style?  What if he was really a Mike (or even a Mikey to his pals) and was just stuck in that "professional interviewer" mindset?

5. If you get an offer based on your skill and experience, how should you weigh any personality differences with your future boss?

Obviously there are a lot of other ways to extend this idea.  My goal here, though, is to get you thinking. Go back and review your materials and your typical style. How do you adapt? 

My opinion?  Be yourself.  You have to allow your true personality an outlet during the job search process.  Your personality does not need to take over the discussion, but it needs a role.  And you need to prepare for interviews and big decisions with an awareness of who you are, how you like to work and what environments allow you to be successful.  

For example, I have a friend who is a very social person.  He likes a lot of banter around the office and opportunities to grab a drink after work.  He accepted a job with a company where everyone showed up at 8:00AM, grabbed a coffee, walked in their office and shut the door.  Why did my friend take this job?  He has always coveted the industry and the role.  When offered the opportunity, he jumped at it.  Had he been a David, this might have been perfect for  him.  But he's a Dave leaning to Davey.

If you are a Kate and you play the role of Katie for a fun, outgoing and very social company, will you fit in long term?  Will you succeed despite the sacrifice of your true self?

So during the entire job search process, try to be aware of who you are.  Find ways, subtle if necessary, to let the real you appear in your resume, elevator speech, business cards and in your direct interactions with real people.  You will be memorable and interesting in a room where many others are wearing a disguise.

Then, when the job offer comes, you can rest easy knowing that they hired you . . . the real Kate (or Katie).

Turn Your Job Search Complaints into Opportunities

I just finished reading Jon Gordon's book The No Complaining Rule. According to Jon, people complain either because they feel fearful and helpless or because it has become a habit. He goes on to state that "Complaining can be a gift if we use it correctly. Once we know what we don't like, we can decide what we do like and act on it. We can use complaining as a catalyst for positive change." There are a lot of things to complain about in a job search. It can be a frustrating process. Here are some common job search complaints and some strategies for implementing The No Complaining Rule to move past them.

My resume isn't working. When job seekers don't get interviews, they often blame the resume. While it's true that an achievement-driven resume helps position job seekers for interviews, the resume is just one piece of the process. If you are complaining about your resume, examine how you are using that resume and change your behavior if necessary. If your primary method of search is posting on job boards and you aren't getting results, start building meaningful connections with the people who can hire you rather than the people who are parsing the resume data. Create a proactive plan to target companies that you would like to work for where you believe there is a good fit and approach them directly, whether they are actively recruiting or not. Every company recruits at some point...build relationships now so you are considered as a candidate when an opportunity presents itself.

No one in my network can help me find a job. Why is that? Have you spent the last 15 years talking to the same 3 colleagues or have you extended your networking efforts to include friends, family, school alumni, past colleagues, members of professional organizations, community service providers, and members of online networking communities? Not everyone can help you in a job search and you need to have a robust network so you are not relying on the same 3 people for introductions.

I interviewed for a position and I haven't heard back about next steps. Take the initiative to follow up on your own. This doesn't mean leaving dozens of voicemail messages or sending multiple emails. Become top of mind by sending a reminder of the value you could bring to the team. This might be a relevant article, information about an industry event, or an acknowledgement of something you read about the company recently.

It takes so long for the companies to make a hiring decision. Get used to it. While we would like to think that we are the #1 priority for hiring authorities, we often aren't. General business issues, workplace snafus, and shifting priorities can all effect when the hiring decision is made. Deal with it by reaching out periodically to communicate that you are aware that they haven't made a decision yet but you continue to remain very interested in the position.

The person who interviewed me doesn't seem to "get" what I do. If your first interview is with a human resources professional, that person may recruit for several functions across the company and not know all the nuts and bolts of what you do. They may still represent a bridge to the next round of interviews, so keep an open mind and a positive demeanor. Generally, HR is looking for cultural fit and your ability to work well in a team, so be sure to have several accomplishment-focused stories to demonstrate these competencies.

What other job search complaints do you have and how can you use complaining as a catalyst for positive change?

Posted by Barbara Safani