 |
|
The source of the best business, financial and legal news |
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
 | |
| |
 |
Business Informations |
|
|
|
Six of the Best for a Winning Resume
1. Be Complete Make sure that your resume includes EVERYTHING your prospective employer would need to know to be able to offer you an interview. It is NOT unheard of for your carefully-crafted cover letter to be separated from your CV - if your contact details were only on your cover letter, how will they get in touch to arrange the interview? Therefore, make sure that your CV includes AT LEAST the following information: ---> Full contact details ---> The position you are applying for or are interested in ---> Employment history ---> Personal and professional achievements ---> Academic and professional qualifications ---> If not included elsewhere, evidence of your key strengths that will make you an irresistible candidate! And while we're at it, functional resumes are a big NO-NO!! As a professional recruiter, when I see a functional resume, I think "What is this guy (or gal) hiding?". It's like smelling fresh paint on an old car. Just stick with a chronological resume ALL THE TIME and paint any inconsistencies (e.g., career breaks) in as good a light as possible. This will ALWAYS be better than trying to hide it in the first place! 2. Be Relevant Seasoned recruiters are AMAZED by the number of applicants who have clearly not tailored their resume to the job they are applying for. Make sure that you put yourself in THEIR shoes. Think about what they are looking for in your resume. If, for instance, you are applying as a job as an office manager and your experience is in telesales, make sure that you emphasise your team leadership and time management skills. If, however, you were applying for a sales job, then clearly focus on your ability to get leads, convert leads into sales, and sell more products to existing customers. If it doesn't, CHANGE it or DELETE it!! 3. Be Recent As well as being relevant, make sure that your resume content is RECENT. If you are a seasoned manager applying for the position of CEO in a large company, is your experience managing your university's theatre company particularly convincing? On the other hand, if you are a recent graduate, that could be exactly the right thing to put on your resume as it will demonstrate that you have some management experience. Just make sure that you back it up with specific accomplishments in the role!! 4. Be Specific Be as specific as you can on how YOUR performance served the company you were working for. As an illustration, consider these four descriptions of an applicant's experience managing a sales function: ---> Responsible for 50 people in XYZ Corp's sales department. ---> Managed 50 colleagues in XYZ Corp's sales department to increase sales by 100% over 4 years. ---> Led 50 colleagues in XYZ Corp's sales department to increase XYZ's share of the widget market from 15% to 20% over 4 years. ---> Led XYZ Corp's 50 strong sales team to increase XYZ Corp's share of the widget market by radically overhauling the compensation structure, fostering a more collaborative culture within the team and redesigning the customer acquisition process. Now, if I needed to make a decision on which of these resumes would be worthy of an interview, guess which one I would choose... 5. Be Clear Make your resume as clear as you can in five ways: ---> Font: Use an easily-readable font. Verdana is a classic, is easily readable and is easy on the eye. Other favourites are Times New Roman or Georgia. Try to stick to one, or at most two font sizes (nothing less than 8 point and ideally nothing less than 10 point), and do not over-style your text. Italics, bold and underlined words on the same page look clumsy. ---> Format: Make the format of your resume as easy to follow as possible, and consider using horizontal rules across the page to separate sections. ---> Language: Ensure that the description of your experiences and accomplishments is as clear as possible. Test them with your friends. Ask them whether it is possible to make the descriptions clearer or more concise. ---> Consistency: Make sure that you are consistent in every way - this significantly increases readability. For instance, use a consistent date format throughout. If your first position is listed in the order of [date, company, position, achievements] then make sure they are ALL listed like that. When listing your achievements, make sure that they all start with a verb. And make sure that font sizes and styles are consistent for similar words - for instance if your previous employers' names is in bold, then they all should be. ---> Spelling and Grammar: Use your word-processor's spelling and grammar checking facility. A spelling or grammatical error in a resume is quite simply inexcusable and could be enough ON ITS OWN to send your resume to the bin. Once you've checked it on the computer, check it with someone who you trust to pick up any last gremlins in the grammar. 6. Be Brief Ideally, a resume should be just one page, although if you are applying for a job in which the assessor will need significantly greater detail on your past accomplishments, then the resume can spread to two pages. Wrap Up So, now you have a winning resume guide! Go back to your old resume and check it against the six easy steps in the winning resume guide, and make sure your phone is on the hook for when those recruiters call! Jonathan Lewis is the founder and CEO of Careerfriend, a company committed to helping people succeed in their dream careers. His extensive experience of attracting, recruiting, retaining and developing exceptional people in management consulting and investment banking allows him to offer clear, actionable advice which has a great impact on people either looking for new jobs or looking to succeed further in their existing jobs. The Careerfriend website (http://www.careerfriend.com) contains free career advice articles to help people succeed in securing dream careers, from career and employer selection, through resume and cover letter writing, to interviewing, salary negotiation and ongoing career development. Jonathan was educated at Cambridge University, UK and has advised major national and international corporations, both in the public and private sectors, on issues of corporate strategy, corporate organization, labor relations, personnel development
MORE RESOURCES:
careers employment - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Find A Telecommute Job The answer may be easier than you think, but there's a catch.The truth is that you find a telecommute job just like you find any other job- with research, persistence and a bit of job search savvy. 2 Job-Search Success Stories Here are two success stories from my readers who found great new jobs last week. As you read each story, ask yourself, "How could I apply this to my job hunt?"1) Job-search goal cards workHere's a story sent in by Fred, from Chanhassen, Minn. Layoff Survival Guide - Do You Have The Career Management Horsepower It Will Take To Survive? In a recent survey of over 662 career seekers, some disturbing trends identified that MOST career seekers don't have a clue what career management skills they have or what those skills are! As a result, it will be difficult for these career seekers to succeed.In fact, only 71% of the respondents recognized they had any career management skills at all! That's why they are particularly vulnerable to future layoffsBefore skipping to the answers, try your hand at identifying YOUR career management skills. Stepping Stone Jobs What we name something matters.It sets a tone that alters our attitude. Job Hunting Tips: Containing Anxiety It hangs from the ceiling above your bed while you toss through the night hours. It waits inside the door of every employment office you enter. 5 Steps to a New Job The economy is picking up, budgets are new, positions are open and companies are hiring. Now is the time to rev up your job search efforts. From The WorkWise Collection: Ten Ways to Win the Job Search Mind Game Are you one of the thousands of job seekers who question their sanity, marketability, and capacity to make smart decisions-just because you've lost your job? Are you wondering how to overcome these psychological challenges, rebuild your self-confidence, increase your marketability, and regain your sense of sanity?In today's competitive job market you need more than a killer rsum and great interviewing skills to survive. Twenty-first-century job seekers must be able to deal with ambiguity, maintain a winner's mindset, demonstrate customer focus, and have a blow-your-socks-off rsum and excellent interviewing skills. The Network Within When you hear the word "networking", what comes to your mind first?You probably think about going to a job fair or asking all of your friends, family members and acquaintances for jobs.But if you are currently employed, you might very well have easy access to one of the best networks you can have. How To Deal With A Difficult Boss Most people at some point in their lives have to deal with a difficult boss. Difficult supervisors vary in personality from being a little pushy or rude, all the way to being downright abusive. How to Prepare for A Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal should be treated as an ongoing developmental process rather than a formal once-a-year review. It should be closely monitored by both employee and reviewer to ensure that targets are being achieved. Job Search Blurts I coined this word to draw attention to the nervous and apprehensive way of saying something in the job search that makes you feel like a buffoon. A "blurt" is a catchy way of saying: Gaffe. Working with Recruiters: 5 Critical Words for Candidates As professional recruiters working both retained and contingency search assignments, we spend a significant part of our effort preparing both the candidate and the client employer for prospective interviews. Preparing each side to meet and interact removes much of the predisposed tension that is inherent to the interview process on both sides. The Musketeer Approach Stories of intrigue, treachery, politics, lies, double crosses, and power struggles fill the history books, much like they fill today's headlines. In the world of the 17th century musketeer, life depended on who you could trust. How to Survive in Business Long Enough to Win As a former human resources professional it has always intrigued me as to why people were more 'successful' than others. By 'successful' we are referring to an innate ability of some people to set and achieve worthwhile challenges for themselves. Preparing For Your Job Interview: What You Need To Know To Be Successful In the limited time an interviewer has with you, their mission is to know you and assess your worth, especially in relationship to the other candidates interviewed. Asking you questions is the way they accomplish that mission. Sample Cover Letters ... The Hidden Pitfalls You can benefit from sample cover letters as they can help you learn about the constructs of a high quality cover letter.However, there are some dangers in doing this . Wake Up and Learn Something New The US Government has just released last month's job creation figures. It was the lowest number in two years. The Six Figure Job Search Before we start discussing how to search for a six figure salary job, let's set a goal. The goal I suggest is to double your income every five years. Telecommuting Cover Letters Question: How do I market myself online?Answer: With a stellar cover letter and resume.Okay, so let's get into the meat of this. Useless Resume Objectives What's wrong with an objective on a resume? The problem with objectives on resumes is that a typical objective is self-centered and self-serving; therefore, it is useless. Instead of an objective, use a power statement.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
