Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
Imagine if you will, your resume is finished, looking as if it were written on parchment paper in gold leaf, and I tell you to take it, roll it up, put it into an old wine bottle and toss it into the sea. Maybe some of you would expect that from me, but more to the point, resumes alone are about as likely to be found by that one special person as that wine bottle bobbing around the surf.
Self-marketing tip: In poor marketing, actions are put into place without any thought about goals and strategy. In average marketing, generic actions are put into place as a one-size-fits all solution. In good marketing, no actions take place before you have a goal and a strategy. So before we get that resume “finished” you need to know what jobs you want (your goal) and how best to get them (your strategy). (See my previous article on what goes into a resume).
Let’s suppose you want to become a financial analyst. You have a resume ready and maybe it’s tremendously impressive but even within industries, hiring trends tend to change with the wind and what was in demand last year might already be SO last year. So do your research and be current.
To have your resume become known to the search engines that employers use and more importantly to make sure that when it is found it hits all the right “keys” and gets you an interview you will need to insert certain key words, which are simply words that the industry has deemed important and that allow your resume to be seen as “sufficiently qualified”. To find keywords go to www.indeed.com again and take a look at your competition. See words that are used over and over and how they are used.
Many keywords come in one of a few categories:
Job titles
Names of industry-specific tools or knowledge
Special industry descriptors or value items
Names of software or hardware that one needs training to utilize
Special certifications that are a pre-requisite
To show you an easy example if I were to make a bartending resume some keywords I might use would be: “wine knowledge,” “customer service,” and “T.I.P.S. Certification.”
The next thing to pay close attention to is the conversion of your past experience descriptions into strong verb terms and then if possible, quantifying it. Once again I say this with the caveat that it never implies anything untrue. By this I simply mean taking a term like “Helped customer sales for four months” and changing it to a phrase like: “Drove sales and customer service issues to an 8% increase in first quarter.” Make the verb important, at least as important as you were to the process. One thing I notice is that people tend to under-sell themselves and often have no idea that they are doing so. If you were part of a team that helped increase sales, then say it. If you can put a number on it, then do so, just make sure that you can also discuss it in an interview and that you haven’t misled anyone.
OK, great. Take a deep breath; this stuff is hard. Give yourself some credit. If you want to have a little fun with it, then visit www.rezscore.com a site that uses metrics measuring such things as keywords and gives you an assessment of the quality of your resume. Just promise me you won’t take it too seriously?
Jason Veduccio is a hard-working entrepreneur following his dreams, and he wants you to dream, too. Drawing on his experiences working with companies on marketing, technology, hiring, and workplace issues, his regular column will demystify the job search process and identify strategies for moving up the corporate ladder. Founder of In1Concepts, Jason also knows the ins and outs of launching a new business. He welcomes your questions and can be reached at jason@in1concepts.com.
If I asked for everyone reading this article to email me a resume, I imagine I would be fairly impressed with many of them. So why do we need to have a pow-wow about resumes you ask? Because therein lies the problem! With so many good ones out there, how does yours stand out from the pack and get you that interview?
Good question.
Now for those of you who are running your own business or considering it, you probably think you’re off the hook when it comes to resumes. The truth is that in some instances people do go without using them, but I can tell you for certain that most everyone has one, even if it’s on their backup hard drive in the garage. Why? Because simply the act of making one makes you think, truly think, about YOU Inc. and what you bring to any business situation and, if one is ever requested, even by investors, you cannot just whip one up in an hour.
Let’s go over some of the basics. Resumes can have many components but let’s start with the core four:
1) Contact Information – Your name, address, phone numbers and email address belong at the top. Make sure spelling is accurate and of course use a professional email! (See my previous story).
2) A Summary of Objective – Depending on the industry, this section is your first chance to actually SPEAK, so choose every word carefully. Write this and then re-write it and then re-write it again. Show it to someone you trust without your resume attached and see how it reads. It should get a point across without sounding arrogant.
3) Work Experience – So much info, so little time! Again every word counts. We will talk about keywords and positive active verbs in a bit, but for now, just make sure you have a list of all experiences, dates, and supervisors.
4) Education & Training – Always necessary, and yet another chance to shine. Not necessarily proud of your academic life? No problem! You can make up for it in other ways – just don’t lie!
There are obviously more parts to a great resume. With every industry demanding different requisites it would be impossible to detail them all here but a little research can help you find out. First off, try perusing www.indeed.com under the “Find Resumes” section. It’s a great site and we will use it again later in your search. Another place to see some sample resumes is a site by Susan Ireland at www.susanireland.com. I don’t know Susan but she is a one-woman resume machine and she has some good resources on her site.
A lot of people ask me about lying on their resumes. I know this needs to be addressed but I don’t want to sound like it’s coming from a moral point of view because this is, after all, your business. I tell my clients who ask me if they should fudge that faux-promotion at their old firm to bump up their credentials, that it just isn’t worth it. If your company grossed $499M under your supervision and you want to round it up to $500M that’s not going to send off any alarms, but if you willingly deceive people you will probably eventually get caught, and if you were in the running for a job and get caught, you won’t be in the running for long. With resumes being sent around in emails people do check on what you say. So my advice is—stick to the truth.
On the other hand you should choose your words carefully and strategically so that you communicate yourself in the best way possible and make even your most ordinary experiences sound like amazing adventures. If you do that, even without a ton of experience or an Ivy League diploma, you too can get ahead.
Jason Veduccio is a hard-working entrepreneur following his dreams, and he wants you to dream, too. Drawing on his experiences working with companies on marketing, technology, hiring, and workplace issues, his regular column will demystify the job search process and identify strategies for moving up the corporate ladder. Founder of In1Concepts, Jason also knows the ins and outs of launching a new business. He welcomes your questions and can be reached at jason@in1concepts.com.
