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#CareerAdvice : #ResumeWriting – How To Write A #Resume That Gets You a #JobInterview .

With the average job receiving 250 applicants, building a standout résumé matters, especially if you have some rocky patches to explain, like job gaps or career shifts.

In my time as a career coach, I have been sent hundreds of résumés that are in dire need of help. Like so many people, a recent client, Sarah, came to me struggling to find a new job after having been laid off a few months prior. She sat down already feeling defeated, “I just don’t know how to get myself into another role…who would want to hire someone who has job gaps and was laid off?”

Everyone has a story for their career setbacks and I wanted to understand hers. Sure, Sarah’s job history was a little spotty, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a hard working and dedicated employee. Turns out, her layoff story was telling: after the company laid of 70% of their staff, she was one of the last they let go. Why? Because she was an incredible, hardworking hire. This meant helping her craft a résumé that stands out in the pile, and even more importantly, an elevator pitch so that she’s memorable to the interviewer.

Here are three ways to make your résumé showcase your strengths and help you stand out. 

1. Focus less on what you’ve done and more on what you want to highlight.

Your résumé is all about showing where you’ve been as it relates to where you’re headed. This means taking the thread of your past and relating it to your future. Sure, you can list out your past jobs and roles, but cater your résumé to highlight skills and job experiences that relate to where you’re going even more so than where you’ve been. This is especially important if you are looking to make a career transition into a field you might not have direct experience in.

Look at the job you are applying for and focus on the responsibilities it lists that you have experience in, whether direct or indirect. Don’t leave off the skill section of the resume, you can really capitalize on this to outline what skills your current position requires that translate into the new role.

Under each job, focus primarily on the responsibilities that relate to your past, and apply also to the job announcement–ideally tasks you want to do more of. Be sure that your first bullet under each job is always your best bullet. This means it’s high impact, quantitative and results driven.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. Don’t neglect the power of soft skills.

The value of soft skills is on the rise in the job market. By 2020, it is estimated that skills such as problem-solving and communication will increase the perceived value of employers by over one third. Why? Because robots are taking over the workforce. But they cannot compete fully with a human being in their soft skills.

Use your résumé language as a means to describe a soft skill the hiring manager is looking for. You can use facts or stats from your job history to show, not tell, what your communication and management skills have done. Weave together your soft skills of customer service, collaboration or public speaking into the outcome these skills have formed.

3. Showcase your achievements.

Roles are often either task oriented or results oriented. Resist the desire to simply outline the day to day tasks completed in your job history. When I reviewed Sarah’s résumé further, she had only included a bulleted list of job duties performed each day (project management, product research and market testing). Although it is great to showcase what you can do, hiring managers are looking to see what the results you provided the company. That means getting out of tasks and into results.

Don’t be shy with quantifying your results to the best of your ability.

In fact, Sarah’s work for the company resulted in saving $1M in revenue. This should’ve been a major highlight on her résumé as it showcased her ability to complete tasks and make a positive impact.

Sarah did some major revamping considering these tips and was able to get in the door for multiple interviews. She used her résumé as a talking tool within the interview and was able to illustrate what she could bring to the team to lock down not one, but two job offers.

If you are on the job market or considering a new opportunity, review your résumé to be sure it is a positive representation of you. Don’t let this single piece of paper make or break your next career move!

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

I’m a career coach who helps job seekers via online programs and one-on-one coaching in finding their purpose, landing more job offers and launching their dream business…

Forbes.com | June 27, 2019

#CareerAdvice : #ResumeMistakes -4 #Resume ‘Tricks’ that are Actually Traps. Great One(1) Min Read!

There is a lot of content out there that will claim to solve your résumé woes. The truth is, there is no quick fix for a résumé in need, and you should steer clear of anyone who claims otherwise. With an average of 250 applications received per open role, hiring managers have seen countless résumés and have a keen eye for the sneaky secrets applicants may use to try to slide through.

If you’re thinking of trying one of these résumé tricks, you may want to think again.

VISUAL DISTRACTIONS

While a strong template can definitely grab attention and help you stand out, be very discerning when it comes to visual elements that “pop.” This goes for loud colors, graphics, and charts. Unless you are in a field like graphic design, subtlety will be the name of the game. And remember, elaborate formatting can often render your résumé unreadable by applicant tracking systems.

It should also be noted that including a headshot on your résumé is a practice of the past. Doing so can open the door to many types of discrimination, and employers may reject your CV immediately just to prevent potential accusations.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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KEYWORD OVERLOAD

Adding a keyword section to highlight your specific skill set is a great way to ensure that your résumé will make it past an ATS; it can also make sure that a hiring manager can easily locate the required skills for the role on your CV. A bad idea, however, is adding a keyword section so expansive that it attempts to veil a thin work history. Hiring managers can see through this easily. After all, it doesn’t matter how many keywords and proficiencies you include in your résumé if you don’t have the accomplishments (with evidence) to back them up.

LENGTH

This failed résumé trick is especially relevant for mid- and senior-level professionals. If your strategy is to wow hiring managers with your full career history, you may want to rethink your approach. One of the most common résumé mistakes job seekers make is believing that length denotes ability. However, while you may have over 20 years of experience, a hiring manager is not going to be interested in the day-to-day responsibilities of your entry-level role.

The appropriate length of your résumé is dependent on where you are in your career, but the standard is two pages. Overall, being brief and selective about the experience you include will ensure readability and demonstrate that you know what accomplishments are most important for the role you’re applying to.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Any personal information aside from your contact information (read: email, phone number, LinkedIn URL, and city and state of residence) has no place on a modern résumé. Details about interests and hobbies, family life, or colorful jokes will not entertain or delight a hiring manager, nor will these elements provide a better understanding of your personality in a way that is valuable to the hiring process. Venturing into the area of creative writing can be risky and, if at all, should be contained to a cover letter.

This article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission.

FastCompany.com | June 21, 2019 | BY RACHEL FLETCHER—GLASSDOOR

#CareerAdvice : #ResumeWriting – Stop Wasting Your Time on These 3 #Resume Tips…If you Want a Stellar Resume, but Don’t want to Waste Time with Unnecessary Tweaks, Read On.

Writing a resume can be a lot of work. Not only do you have to condense the entirety of your career and knowledge into just one page of paper — you have to customize it for the position and company you’re applying to, proofread it and revise it until it’s perfect (your resume is, after all, the most important document of your job search). All of this can add up to a significant amount of time, and seriously slow down your job search.

Remember: Recruiters only spend about six to seven seconds reading resumes, so by trimming the fat, you’ll make sure they see only the most important content, making you that much more likely to move onto the next round.

While there are no shortcuts to a great resume, there are a few pieces of “common knowledge” based largely on outdated truths or misconceptions that you can throw out the window, thus saving yourself valuable time. Thankfully, Glassdoor & Grammarly’s Ultimate Guide to Resumes is here to help you work smarter, not harder. If you want a stellar resume, but don’t want to waste time with unnecessary tweaks, read on.

Bad Tip #1: Include an Objective Statement

You might have been told early on in your career that all resumes should contain an objective statement: a brief sentence that explains what your goal is (such as “To secure a marketing internship”). But over the years, objective statements have largely fallen out of favor. Why? Well, for one, they’re pretty redundant. If you’re submitting an application for a marketing intern position, of course your goal would be to secure a marketing internship — stating that on your resume is just a waste of space.

But for another reason, objective statements are very self-serving. When skimming through resumes, recruiters and hiring managers are looking for what they want, not what you want. That’s not to say they don’t care at all about what candidates are looking for — this will be top-of-mind once they’re ready to extend an offer — but before they can begin to think about meeting your wants and needs, they need to first determine that you have the skills and experience necessary to succeed in the role.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Instead of an objective, include a professional summary: “a brief, one- to three-sentence section featured prominently on your resume that succinctly describes who you are, what you do and why you’re perfect for the job,” the guide recommends. For a particularly compelling professional summary, avoid generic descriptors like “hard-working” and “self-motivated,” and cite concrete metrics that demonstrate your impact. If you’ve worked for a particularly impressive company, you might also want to name-drop them.

In the end, your professional summary might look something like this: “ROI-driven marketing professional who is equal parts creative and analytical. Experienced in Marketo, Google Analytics and driving 27 percent year-over-year traffic growth.”

Bad Tip #2: Make Your Resume a Work of Modern Art

You might have seen some resume templates on Etsy or Pinterest that look like they could hang on the walls of a museum, but unless you’re applying to a design position, they probably won’t get you very far. In general, recruiters and hiring managers care far more about substance than flash. After all, it’s the content of your resume that’s going to demonstrate whether or not you’re the right fit for the role, not the design.

The visual aspect of your resume isn’t completely unimportant, though. While you don’t want to go overboard with creating a complex design, you do want to make sure that your resume is clean and easy-to-read. A few tips:

  • Choose a simple font
  • Add sufficient space in the margins and in between your different sections
  • Avoid cramming too much information into one space
  • If you want to add a touch of creative flair, incorporate some color into the theme — avoid anything too visually busy like patterns or images

Need some inspiration? Check out these free templates.

Bad Tip #3. Pad Your Resume With Unnecessary Extras

If you’ve ever come up short when writing an essay with a strict word count, you know how tempting it can be to fill it out with fluff — suddenly, phrases like “My name is Emily” become “The given name that my mother and father chose to bestow upon me as an infant was Emily.”

Some people feel tempted to do the same in their resumes. But rather than dragging out sentences for as long as possible, they add unnecessary, unimpressive or exaggerated skills and experiences.

“Only include the skills that truly make an impact — not ones that are basic requirements (Microsoft Word, email) or irrelevant to the job you’re applying to,” Glassdoor’s guide recommends. Similarly, don’t feel like you have to include every job you’ve ever held in your work experiences section, especially if you’ve had a particularly long and illustrious career, or if you’ve switched industries entirely. Instead, narrow in on the requirements that are specifically called out in the job description.

Glassdoor.com |  |