Hello World! I’m
sorry for taking the last week off! I
got really sick the week of the fourth and got way behind. To be honest it just took all of my creative
juices out of me. But, I’m back and I’ve
got tons of new ideas and thoughts about job hunting and career
development. Things are still going
great for the Thompson family – we’ve been really busy with swimming lessons,
vacation bible school, family visits and the like. The Fourth was great too!
Moving on to today’s topic.
There has been a lot of chatter out there about how social networking
has created an environment where you don’t really need a resume. CNN’s article about this can be found here:
If you read the article you will find out a ton of cool
things that people are doing. They are
using Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other tools to promote themselves. They even interviewed some really
“progressive” managers that now get all of their resumes through email. My God!
The world sure is a changing!
OK – so the article really isn’t that bad. There are some really great ideas in there
and I am most definitely an advocate of marketing yourself through social
media. However, it gives the impression
that somehow this will replace the resume.
I argue that if you want to replace your resume you are doing yourself a
disservice. Instead of replacing, you
should be looking to enhance your resume through a social media presence.
Ultimately, you need a resume. Otherwise you run the risk of looking like
someone that doesn’t like to follow social rules. Honestly, when someone becomes adamant about
not putting one together I start to wonder what other social rules they don’t
like to follow because the rules don’t apply to you. Like it or not it is a statement about you
and how you behave. Assuming that you
are going to build a resume I’ve put together five resume tips that you need to
know about how to enhance, build and create a winning resume:
1. Follow the rules
There are some unwritten rules out there about resumes that
you need to know. They won’t always
disqualify you from the job. But they
will make you look silly. Keep in mind
that you shouldn’t:
- Fax your resume – EVER – unless specifically asked to – this makes you look technologically illiterate
- Use first person in your resume (no I, me, my, mine)
- Have spelling or grammar errors – you run the risk of looking stupid or sloppy (bonus tip: spell check doesn’t pick up everything)
- Include the phone number you want to be called on – no reason to give your home phone number if you want called on your cell
- Get a professional email address for your search – onehotmomma69@gmail.com is awesome for your friends – choose something for free at Gmail like scottthompson61@gmail.com
- Ditch the objective – if you are sending your resume it is pretty self explanatory that you are seeking a job in the stated field – it’s a waste of space
- Cover letters are required but rarely read. Keep it brief and to the point. Find other ways to share your information.
- Don’t put your picture on it – besides being kind of creepy it makes HR people uncomfortable as it can open up discrimination liabilities
- Don’t share personal information, especially hobbies – nobody cares
2. Keep your resume brief and to the point
The old rule was that your resume should only be one
page. People were zealous about
this. The rule has been relaxed and
people have gone way overboard. I agree
that a resume doesn’t have to fit on the confines of one printed page. The reason conventional wisdom once said this
is because a resume is meant to be scanned for information to create interest
in you. In the old days of horse drawn
carriages, fax machines and phones with cords you ran the risk of a hiring
manager missing important information because he or she didn’t go to the second
page. The scroll button on a mouse has
mitigated this risk. However, this
doesn’t give you license to write the great American resume… novel.
Your resume is essentially an advertisement to make the
hiring manager want to interview you and learn more about you. When writing your resume keep the words to a
minimum, use bullet points and use your valuable space to highlight your
successes. Other important information
to include are specific job duties that
are marketable and specific industry knowledge.
For example, I work in insurance.
I see many people that list their job duties but fail to mention what
industries they work with and what size of accounts they work with. This is much more valuable than information
you can assume based on a job title.
3. Enhance your Resume through Social Media
So you can’t add all of your information on your
resume. How do you promote yourself
better and make sure someone can find more?
It’s pretty easy! Put it on the
internet. The internet is an incredibly
powerful tool that allows for you to share awesome pictures of cats but it also
allows you to put important information about you out there that someone can
look for. Here is what you can do:
- Make your LinkedIn profile as extensive as possible – this is where you can put every piece of information you this is possibly relevant
- Clean up your Facebook and make sure your privacy settings are set appropriately.
- Create a twitter account and tweet about your industry
- Write a blog about your industry
Once you have started build up this information you can
mention it in the email sending your resume.
Say something like:
“Please find my
attached resume. If you would like
additional information about me please feel free to check out my LinkedIn
profile at xxx and my blog at xxx.”
4. Keep your resume bland from a formatting
perspective
Here is what should stick out about your resume – You and
your accomplishments! I’ve seen many
people try to do cutesy things like add pictures, change the font to some fancy
cursive script, used multiple font colors.
There is really only one excuse to have your resume like this. You can be very creative if the job is
looking for those skills. So if you are
in advertising, marketing and graphic design please disregard everything I just
said. If you aren’t then you need to
focus on promoting the skills that are necessary for the job and not how pretty
you can make something look.
5. Bring a copy of your resume to the interview
This one is really important. Don’t assume that the person that read your
resume is the person that is interviewing you.
In fact – assume that they know nothing about you. The people that interview you work their job
full time and are probably working extra to cover for the position that they
are trying to hire for. They have most
likely glanced at your resume and may not have remembered to bring it with
them. Keep this in mind and do the
following:
- Bring a copy for them – offer it to them after you sit down
- Assume that they know nothing about the resume – if they ask a question and the answer is on the resume answer it – don’t tell them that it is on the resume
- Offer to email them a copy after the interview – say “Can I send this to you electronically so you don’t have to hold on the hard copy?”
That’s what I’ve got for today!!! Let me know your thoughts and comments and
I’ll have more next week!!! As always
please feel free to email me at sthompson@insurance-csg.com.
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