Resume, LinkedIn, self-promo

Top Resume Mistakes to Avoid (Part 2)

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Oops!In Part 1, I covered the top two mistakes that I see clients make on their resumes.  In this post you’ll learn how to avoid six more resume pitfalls.  Topping off this list:

Your resume places too much focus on responsibilities, not enough on accomplishments

Which phrase do you think is more powerful?

  1. Responsible for running monthly financial reports.
  2. Redesigned monthly financial reporting process, cutting production time from one month to five days.More

Top Resume Mistakes to Avoid (Part 1- the top two)

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Oops!(Update: Part 2 is here) When a potential employer reviews your resume, s/he thinks: a) Can this person help me to do my job? and b) I have about10-30 seconds to scan this resume. Hence, the Golden Rule of resume writing: Your “how I can help you” message needs to jump off the page in the 10-30 seconds it’s being reviewed. You’ll hear many rules (like this one) tossed around by experts. My suggestion from experience and training is to forget all those other rules, and just follow this one rule.  Anything that serves this Golden Rule is good, anything that doesn’t is bad– which brings us to the top two resume mistakes:More

10 Ways to Take Control of Your Job Search

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businesswoman flying take control shutterstock_195916973It can be tempting to attribute a long job search to factors beyond your control. The factors that I hear jobseekers mention include age, experience (i.e. over- or under-qualified), resume gaps, weight, ethnic background, gender, or some other physical feature. While, at times, these factors and biases do cause problems for job-seekers, nine times out of ten I see that the problem is actually in their job-search strategy or execution.

So, here’s a checklist of 10 questions to ask yourself first, before attributing a long search to factors beyond your control. Your answers will help to put you back in the driver’s seat and on the road to the job you want.More

In a Job Search? You Should Be On LinkedIn

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LinkedIn, accessed for free at www.linkedin.com, enables users to keep in touch with and expand their professional network, get introductions to others outside their network, and join groups of professionals organized around industries, professions, and associations.  Recruiters routinely use LinkedIn to scan profiles for viable candidates.

LinkedIn has become essential to conducting an effective, productive job search! I hear from clients almost every day about how they got an interview or informational meeting via LinkedIn.  Below I’ve included a few success stories culled from my clients’ experiences, to help generate ideas on how you can use LinkedIn.  Read More

Work experience too “dated” for your resume? It depends.

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I recently received a couple of questions about the most appropriate resume format, and whether a friend’s comment is true that all experience older than 10 years should be left off the resume.  Here is my response:

1) You need to put your resume in “reverse chronological order”, meaning most recent experience first, because that is what hiring mangers are used to seeing.  Try something different and they will either a) not take the time to figure out your format (given the More

The Importance of Targets in Your Job Search

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I see a lot of new job-hunters who are unfocused about their job targets. They feel that their background allows them to do many things (e.g. I can be a project manager, marketing director, or a corporate trainer). So their whole approach to the search is to position themselves as generally as possible, in the hope that others (recruiters, network contacts, etc.) will decide for them.

This approach doesn’t work for a couple of reasons. First off, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to help you, and that means pitching yourself appropriately for a specific position. Don’t ask them to do the work to translate your varied background into specific targets– do this for them! Second, targeting is all about the benefits that accrue through focus vs. a less successful “scattershot” approach. You increase efficiency and momentum by focusing on a target, because you get to know the players and the issues specific to that target, you learn to speak the “language”, and you essentially become an “insider”. People want to hire insiders!

So what is a target? At the Five O’Clock Club we consider a target to be a combination of three items– 1) Job description/title, 2) Industry or company type, and 3) Geography. By varying any one of these, you change the target. Why? Because changing any one of these parameters will require different knowledge, conversations and positioning. For example, systems development in the Health Care industry vs. the Banking industry means different positioning (and networking), particularly because the business end-users could have very different needs. You want to ensure that your pitch, cover letters, and resume speak the language of the industry you are approaching.

Make sure you are specific with your target description, so that you create the most effective positioning in your resume, cover letters, and pitch. For example “finance, regional banks, NYC metro-area” is not specific enough, but “CFO, regional banks, NYC metro-area” is. Have 3 to 5 targets that you engage one at a time in priority order.

As you build momentum in one target you start to focus on the next. This way, if a target doesn’t work out, your job search is still moving forward because you’ve already started on the next target. If you need help researching targets, check out the industry/company research links on my website, as well as the job descriptions listed in job boards. And then consider setting up informational meetings with people in the targets you are pursuing to further validate the target.

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