Resume Help Blog

Archive for the ‘How To’ Category

Too many candidates mistakenly believe that being called in for an interview is being guaranteed a position — nothing could be further from the truth.

You might be the last person on a short list of candidates. Your skills, knowledge, and abilities are good, but perhaps not a perfect match for the company. However, the hiring manager is interested enough to meet with you and allow you to sell yourself to the company.

How do you do that? Preparation – preparation – preparation.

1. Know how to dress. If you’re not familiar with the company culture, visit its website or offices during work hours to see how staff dress. No matter how casual they may be, the key is for you to look professional—you’re not on staff yet.
2. Do extensive research about the company. Know what they’re about. Nothing’s worse for a hiring manager than to interview someone who hasn’t a clue what their company offers.
3. Compose a list of questions about the company that indicates your interest in its products and services the position itself and the company and department culture.
4. Prepare a list of answers to the most frequently asked interview questions. For example: Where do you see yourself five years from now?
5. Practice, practice, practice. Make certain your voice and body language don’t give away your anxiety.
6. Calculate travel time. Know how long it will take to get to your interview so you arrive on time.

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Your Resume is the one step in your job search over which you have total control. It is your personal career marketing document. Based upon the strength of that one or two pages of information, you will either be selected for an interview from among potentially hundreds of other candidates – or passed over.

The Resumes Function

The purpose of a Resume is not to get a job! Its purpose is to get an interview. And the competition is stiff, get used to it.

Put yourself in a Human Resource Director’s shoes. The morning’s mail has just arrived and a stack of 100 or 200 Resumes have been dropped on your desk. Your first goal is going to be narrowing down that stack to perhaps 10 or 20 candidates. So the first function a Resume serves is to eliminate most candidates from consideration.

Job recruiters spend approximately 15 seconds looking at each Resume. In that short time, they make a decision to place you in the “yes” pile or in the “no” pile. Is this fair, I don’t know but that’s the real world. Your job is to make your resume “stand out” from all the rest. If you have never written a resume before then it probably is a good idea to get professional help. Isn’t that expensive? You have already spent approximately $40 – $60,000 getting the college education you need but that is only the beginning. Now it’s time to go into the real world and going it alone isn’t the best idea.

Remember, this entire process happens solely on the strength of your Resume.

Should You Write Your Own Resume?

Probably not- unless you are a skilled professional writer who can also honestly look at your own strengths and weaknesses objectively. While there are dozens of “do-it-yourself” Resume books on the market, the truth is that if you do your own Resume, it is being prepared by an amateur.

Does it make sense to spend four years and $40,000 to earn a college degree and then market that investment to employers with a do-it-yourself Resume? Or to have solid credentials and a salary level of $30,000, $60,000 or $100,000… and use a less than professional Resume to represent you?

Think of a company like Coca-Cola. The executives who work for Coca-Cola probably know that product better than anyone else. Yet Coca-Cola uses a professional advertising agency to create the messages that are designed to sell us on buying Coca-Cola.

The Professional Resume Writer

Hiring a professional resume writer serves the same purpose in selling you to a potential employer as Coca-Cola’s advertising agency in selling their products to consumers. You’re getting the benefit of an expert who writes resumes every day and who knows how to present a client’s background and credentials to best advantage.

For example, there are three standard Resume formats: The Chronological, Functional and Modified (which is a combination of Chronological and Functional). Deciding which format will best present your career history is a critical strategic decision before the first word is ever written on paper.

Most job candidates also fall into one of three categories that are detrimental to the success of a do-it-yourself Resume:

1. Those who are reluctant to “brag” about their past accomplishments and successes and tend to underplay the specific information an employer wants to see in the Resume. Sometimes a candidate simply doesn’t realize how important some detail of his/her past performance would be to a future employer.

2. Sometimes the candidate says too much. Even though the candidate would be perfectly qualified for the available position, she/he can appear to be over-qualified, or a threat to the hiring manager, or too narrowly focused in one aspect of the job instead of being a generalist.

3. Finally, there may be some aspect of a candidate’s past that can be difficult to present on the Resume: frequent job changes, a long period of unemployment, lack of a college degree normally required for a particular position or the lack of any actual work experience in this particular field (career change, graduating students, military personnel returning to civilian job market), etc.

A professional Resume writer is an objective third party with the expertise to draw out relevant information from your work history, tone down the extent of your achievements, if necessary, and provide strategies for overcoming any difficult or negative aspects in your job search. If you need help contact one of our professional resume writers today!

About the Author: Frank Fox is the founder and Executive Director of the Professional Association of Resume Writers in St. Petersburg, Florida. www.parw.com

Each type of interview has its pitfalls. Here’s what to avoid:

Phone Interviews:

1. Always, if possible, provide a land-line phone for the interviewer to reach you. Cell phone connections hiss, crackle, cut out, and may disconnect the interviewer. If a hiring manager gets dead air, they may not call back.
2. Make certain background noise is kept to a minimum. No TV noise, screeching kids and barking dogs.
3. If you’re snacking on taco chips when the phone rings, swallow quickly and don’t take another bite until the interview is over.
4. Keep a glass of water handy should your throat tickle during the interview.
5. Don’t smoke or chew gum — the noises can be heard on the other end of the line.
6. Never, ever, answer call waiting during a phone interview. Give the hiring authority your complete attention — if you don’t, you won’t move deeper into the process.

Lunch Interviews:

1. Never order the most expensive item on the menu
2. Never drink alcohol
3. Don’t order ‘challenging’ food — short ribs, greasy sandwiches, and lobster come to mind
4. Don’t criticize the quality of the food or the service
5. Don’t ask for a ‘doggy bag’

Panel Interviews:

1. Don’t focus on one panel member to the exclusion of all the others
2. Don’t forget to greet each panel member individually
3. Don’t forget to glance at each panel member while answering a question, after you’ve directed your opening remarks to the individual who posed the question
4. Don’t forget to send thank you notes to each panel member

If your resume needs help and about 95% do, and you need professional help then go for the best. I had an uncle who sold Cadillac’s and his favorite saying was “it only costs a little more to go first class” and he was absolutely right. It can make the difference in getting the position or not! Resume Edge is one of the best companies in the world for resume help. Contact them today!