Jennifer Anthony's Blog

Keeping Your Resume Manageable and Avoiding Clutter

January 25, 2010 Comments off

By Heather Eagar

When you begin to look for a new job, it’s imperative to update your resume with exciting and valid new information. Most likely you were able to gain a great deal of experience in your latest position, so you should have plenty to add to your resume.

There’s a problem, though; with all of the new data that you’ve added in, your resume is too cluttered and unreadable. So now, your job is to declutter it before sending it out to be considered. Here are some tips to help you clean it up…

Rethink Your Career Goal

One way to clean up your resume is to rethink exactly what it is you’re looking for in your career. Regardless of how good you were at your last job, you may feel inclined to look for something that doesn’t resemble your old position in the slightest. You may feel ready to shift gears a bit.

Or you may want to remain in the same area, but with a more specific focus. Whatever your goal may be, it’s important to define it and use it to guide you through the rest of the resume. You can get quite an edge in your job search by developing your focus a little–this will allow you to see what your potential employers see, and you’ll be much better equipped to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

Clean Up Your Employment History / Work Experience

Another important step in decluttering your resume is to clean up your work history. There are a couple of ways that you could approach this step in your process. If you worked at your last employer for over 20 years, you could keep the job information but adjust what details you share.

On the other hand, if you’ve had a number of employers, you not only will want to rethink what details should be included under each position, but also rethink which positions should be included. Much of this will be determined by the job you’re applying for. Try to find details in your job history that match up with what your potential new employer is looking for. That could mean that you might eliminate some details from each job, or eliminate some jobs if they’re not relevant.

What Would You Want to See (if You Were an Employer)

One great way to eliminate unnecessary information from your resume is to take the position of an employer as you read it. Think about what you would look for if someone was coming to work for you. You might look for keywords rather than reading the entire resume, particularly busy. You might also look for technology that you wouldn’t have to train them on, as well as any awards that show just how extraordinary they really are. As you’re writing your resume, it’s good to think in terms of what an employer may want to know about you.

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By taking the steps necessary to declutter your resume, you could give yourself career direction and ensure that you present the best resume possible for position you’re applying for.
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Categories: career advice, resume creation, resume tips, resume writing Tags: Heather Eagar, resume, resume clutter

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out in a Crowded Job Market – Part 2 of 2

January 20, 2010 Comments off

By Ilona Vanderwoude

In part 1 of “How to make your resume stand out in a crowded job market,” I talked about the resume itself and the 3 key components your resume needs to capture a decision maker’s attention.

Just to recap, these 3 factors were… making sure your resume:

1 – Is branded
2 – Is focused
3 – Provides proof of your brand and statements by using quantifiable achievements and context.

In part 2 of this article, we’re going to look at ways to actually get your resume into the hands of hiring managers.

After all, you could have put together a highly powerful resume, but if you use ineffective job search methods, it simply won’t get noticed. Job searching has undergone some drastic “nip and tuck” the past few years. It’s not just the economy that makes for a more competitive landscape. These days, your resume may not be the first thing a company sees from you. With the proliferation of social and business networking sites, it may be your online profile(s).

So you need to know how to craft your resume, but you also need to know how to market it, and market yourself. In the end, isn’t it about companies showing an interest in you, whether it’s through your resume or another medium? The majority of employers will Google you during the hiring process. They may even find you online to begin with, or be referred to you by someone who’s seen your profile online.

The good news is that you can be in the driver’s seat by going after the hidden job market and using social networking. You definitely don’t want to passively apply to positions you see posted online. This has an average 2% “success” rate. To be truly successful in today’s competitive job market, you need to use a combination of offline and online networking. It’s still great to network in person and sometimes sending a hard copy of your resume will make you stand out in a time where email has become the norm. (Gen Y: that’s what those little square pieces of paper – stamps – are for.)

All kidding aside, whatever you do, you always want to establish a connection or even a relationship. Even if it’s through one of your contacts. If you can have your resume handed over to a decision maker by a key contact within your target company; great! That would be ideal. When going the online route, the emphasis should be on positioning yourself as an expert in your field vs. asking your network for a job. Social networking is perfect for this! You do this by commenting on other people’s blogs that are relevant to your field, by having your own blog and web site – yes, a web site! – and by answering questions online, engaging in groups discussions, and posting articles about your expertise.

You also want to identify hiring managers – not HR! – at the companies you’re interested in online so you can approach and target them with your messages. After a while, you’ll be seen as an expert and a resource. Next, people may even approach you and refer you without you having to ask because you’ve created relationships within your network and provided value to others. It’s crucial to avoid the mistake of asking people in your network for a job. It’s needy and most people don’t have jobs to hand out. This means: end of conversation. It’s perfectly fine to ask for leads for informational interviews though.

With these strategies, you can work the hidden job market more easily as well. What this means is that you are going to find out about a company’s hiring needs well before they’re ever advertized or posted. But beware…when profiling yourself online, you need to know your own brand. Otherwise, you won’t stand out or you may even send out the wrong message about yourself.

For tips on how to brand yourself, please refer back to part 1 of this article.

Combining the strategies from part 1 and part 2 will give you a very big competitive edge.

Readers, I’d love to hear your experiences with these strategies. Have you been able to carve out a niche for yourself online? Have you found a great way to get noticed? Which aspects of the job search do you find most challenging?

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Ilona (“rhymes with Fiona”) Vanderwoude is a nationally published resume expert and New York City’s only Master Resume Writer (1 of only 28 worldwide). Her specialty is working with multi-talented professionals who simply can’t pick one passion or career.

As a Career Designer, she guides her clients in crafting unusual life and career plans, helps them fit a million passions into one lifetime, and provides the tactical support to actually make it happen.

Please visit http://www.CareerBranches.com to claim your 3 free gifts and connect with her on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ilonavanderwoude

Categories: career advice, economy, job search, recession, resume creation, resume tips, resume writing Tags: Ilona Vanderwoude, resume, resume tips, resume writing

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out in a Crowded Job Market – Part 1 of 2

January 19, 2010 Comments off

By Ilona Vanderwoude

Whether you’re actively looking for a new job or getting yourself ready just in case, you wonder how to get your resume noticed in today’s competitive environment. So how do you stand out in a sea of competition – often equally qualified?

The answer is two-fold:

- By knowing the 3 must-haves to include in your resume
- By using the right job search strategies

In part 1 of this article, I’ll discuss the 3 must-haves for your resume.

First of all, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to resumes as much of the strategy depends on the person and the situation. But we do know there are certain things that always work. Start by putting yourself in the shoes of a hiring person or recruiter. They see resumes all day long. Therefore, they simply won’t sit there and read your 5-page essay-style resume. Nor will they try to piece things together and figure out how your interesting and diverse background might fit with their organization. You need to make this clear to them.

Typically, they’ll spend about 10 seconds to see what jumps out at them – specifically: who you are, what you do, where your expertise lies, and what you can do for them. In other words: what solution do you bring to their problem?

So here are my 3 must-haves that will help your resume get noticed among your competition:

1 – Your resume needs to be branded.

What do we mean by that?

A personal brand is a differentiated promise of value. It’s about what’s unique about you which has a bottom-line impact for an organization. When your resume is branded, it clarifies why YOU should be hired over anyone else with the same background, with the same type of responsibilities, and even similar achievements. Often, it’s about HOW you get results. Employers want to know how you do something differently.

A personal brand is organic and authentic. It’s really about who you are and your core skill set, and then distilled into the one, overriding factor that would make you irresistible to employers. It is also something that you would absolutely love doing. The challenge is in identifying and leveraging it so people see it even more clearly.

How you can do this: It is not always easy to figure out your personal brand by yourself as you’re too close to the source. You can get started by asking yourself – and those around you – what it is you consistently do really well, that you love doing, and that is of value to the kind of employer you want to work for. It could be several things. It could be work-task related, or it could be more of a personality thing. Or both. Once you find your brand, you want to turn into a branding statement of 1-2 sentences max. This goes in the top third of your resume.

And remember this: Companies will interview you for the money or the bottom-line part of your brand. But they will hire you for the chemistry part. However, without the money part, you don’t get
through the door in the first place.

2 – Your resume needs to be focused.

Trying to keep your options open on your resume almost always backfires. Again, remember hiring folks take mere seconds to scan your resume. However, don’t use the hopelessly outdated “objective” as your resume should focus on what you can do for the employer vs. what you want from them. Objectives typically read something like this: “Challenging position where I can use my skills and experience and have room for growth.” These are meaningless statements and could apply to anyone from a janitor to a CFO. So we want to create a clear focus to make it instantly clear who you are and what you do.

How you can do this: If you’re staying in the same field, simply bold your title (or variation thereof) at the top of your resume. “Global Marketing Specialist,” “Senior Finance Director,” “Executive Assistant,” “Health Care Administrator.”

Or: Global Marketing Specialist with 15 years’ experience in consumer industries.

If you want to pursue different types of positions in different industries, make sure to tweak your resume so you have multiple versions. Just remember that an unfocused resume is an ineffective resume. It may feel counter-intuitive to you if you’re not sure what you want to do or if you want to keep your options open, but focusing your resume is vital.

3 – Show proof of your statements.

In other words: back up your brand and brand statement with specifics.

How you can do this: In your resume’s top section, create a summary of a few lines max – don’t go overboard – and weave in either quantifiable achievements or mention one or two representative successes that show some context (where you did this and with whom). This part is often called the summary, or profile. It doesn’t matter what you call it, and you certainly don’t need to label it on your resume. People will get what it’s about. Stay away from flowery fluff such as “goal-oriented people person with track record of building relationships…” This is too vague and makes it look like everyone else’s resume. These statements used to work, but they don’t anymore. Next, make sure to quantify your achievements throughout your resume when describing your achievements. Provide some context for them by comparing your accomplishments to industry or company averages, or to those of your peers or your predecessor. This way, your resume does not read like a job description. Instead, it will give readers a very clear picture of what unique things you have done and what sets you apart from John Doe with a similar background.

As a parting thought: Always make sure that everything on your resume is there for a reason and is relevant to your target. Your resume need not be all-inclusive. Anything that’s not relevant distracts from your core message.

There you have it! With these tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating a resume that will get you noticed in any economy, no matter how crowded the market place!

Keep an eye out for part 2 of this article: how to pick the most effective job search strategies to make sure your resume actually gets into the hands of the right people!

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