I’ll give you a hint.

This is NOT the secret:

Writing a resume is easy . . . anyone can do it.

That’s simply not true.

If you’ve ever tried writing your own, you know that it’s really hard to do.

It’s just as hard for us. Even seasoned resume writers with many years’ experience labor over each resume.

It doesn’t get much easier over time to craft resumes that do their job – brand and differentiate our clients to help them gain job interviews.

So much goes into the writing strategy. And each resume has to be tailored to each job seeker’s particular target, situation and career goals.

I know you’ve already scrolled down for this, so here it is. Our best kept secret is . . .

There’s no right or wrong way to write a resume.

One of the variables is who will be reading the resume –  recruiters, HR professionals, top-level management in on the hiring process, Board members . . . the list goes on.

They have different needs and may look for different things in resumes. Resumes may need to be adjusted to appeal to specific kinds of people.

Something often repeated among my colleagues:

If you pass around the same resume to 10 different people, you’ll get 10 different opinions.

That’s the thing with marketing . . . and that’s what a resume is, a marketing document. Different things appeal to different people. You just never know what’s going to hit home with people. Entirely.

But if your resume contains the right information, positions that information in a clear and easily accessible manner, and presents you in the right way, chances are it will do its job.

As long as it’s highly targeted — as it MUST be — a resume can look and read various ways and still work.

The hard part is determining what the “right” information is and strategically positioning it on the page . . . the paper, digital and web page, that is.

This can be hard for you, as a job seeker, to do. You’ve probably only written a handful of resumes for yourself over your career, if that. Many top-level executives have never needed a resume before, or never written one themselves.

So how do you determine what the right information is?

Decide who you are targeting, what those target employers’ needs are, how you can help them meet those needs, and what keywords and phrases their hiring professionals will be searching for when they source talent.

You need to align your good-fit qualities with what those employers are looking for in candidates.

The biggest resume writing mistake job seekers make is NO CLEAR JOB SEARCH TARGETING. That is, not determining at the start of their job search which companies and positions within them are a good mutual fit.

Start there. If you hit all the marks correctly, chances are your resume will hit home, get you the interviews you want, and help you land the gig you want.

Related posts:

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Resume in 10 Steps

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

photo by stevendepolo

For the past several weeks a lovely cardinal has been hanging around one of my office windows, alternately perched on a branch of a nearby shrub and smashing into the window.

He does this for hours at a time, every day.

He could be thinking the window is an open space he can get through or that his reflection is another bird coming at him.

Whatever the reason, he’s getting nowhere. But he keeps banging against that window, day after day.

Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity?

“Doing the same thing over and over again,
and expecting different results.”

Are you one of the many, many executive job seekers locked into a repetitive process that’s not working?

If you have a branded, targeted LinkedIn profile (so you’ll be found in online searches) and resume you’ve been using diligently, and you’ve  been in a proactive job search (I mean, you’re actively and purposefully networking for a new job) for more than let’s say a month, and you’re getting nowhere . . . no interviews . . .

It’s time to revisit your resume because it’s not positioning you as the good-fit candidate you know you are.

Maybe it doesn’t clearly align your expertise and value proposition with the needs and challenges your target companies are facing right now. If so, go back and stress these attributes and qualifications using the relevant keywords and phrases recruiters and hiring professionals will be looking for.

Or maybe you’ve made the biggest resume writing mistake . . . you haven’t done the personal branding and company/industry targeting work you MUST do first, before even attempting to write your resume.

Either way, take another look at your resume. If it’s broke, fix it!

Put yourself in the place of the people who will be assessing you through it (and your LinkedIn profile). Make sure your promise of value hits home with them.

Related posts:

Top 10 Executive Resume Branding Tips

Executive Brand Resume: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold

The Lazy C-level Executive Job Search

photo by hart_curt

(The following is my latest article as the Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org.)

You’re suddenly facing a job search, so you rush right to your resume (if you can find it) to update it. But wait. You may not be ready to tackle your resume yet.

If it’s been several years since you revisited your resume, or if you’re one of those lucky people who never needed a resume, you may not be aware of how much resumes have changed in the past several years.

Before working on your resume, re-think how to update it, so that you’ll create a career marketing document that will optimally do its job – land you interviews.

Have you been paying attention to all the talk these days about personal branding? How your brand should be built around what makes you a good fit for your target employers? How resume branding can help you clearly identify and communicate what differentiates you from your job-seeking competitors?

Most importantly, you may not understand that step one in job search is NOT diving right into writing your resume.

Step one is laying out the groundwork with targeting and branding. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have the information about your target audience and yourself that you’ll need to write a compelling resume.

Here are 10 tips to build an interview-generating, brand-reinforcing resume:

INFORMATION-MINING

1. Targeting

Before you can define your brand and create content for your resume, you need to know who you’re targeting . . . who will be reading your resume. You’ll need to decide what kind of job you’ll be seeking, compile a list of companies you want to work for, research their current challenges and needs, and determine how you can help them meet those challenges.

Doing this will help you align everything in your resume with what your target employers will be looking for in candidates. Industry and company research, and the information you’ll find in job descriptions, will help you identify required qualifications and those all-important relevant keywords that need to be in your resume. A Google search of your target companies, the companies’ websites and Indeed.com are good resources. And check out Job-Hunt’s Company Research articles.  

2. Personal Branding and Value Proposition

Branding is no longer optional. Your competitors could well be using this method to differentiate themselves. You need to brand yourself and the unique value you offer, just to keep pace with them.

My 10-step Personal Branding Worksheet will help you uncover and communicate the combination of attributes, passions, strengths and qualifications that differentiate you from them.

As you’re building your brand, create a vibrant brand positioning statement for your resume.

3. Write Down Your Career Success Stories

Instead of merely listing a string of relevant keyword phrases in your resume, back them up by providing specific examples of your achievements and how they impacted the company – saved them money, made them money, improved processes, improved customer satisfaction, etc. Show them the numbers! Think of the best contributions you’ve made to your employers, in terms of highest value to them.

My article on Challenge – Action – Results (C-A-Rs) stories will help. 

WRITING YOUR RESUME

4. Skip the Objective Statement

Employers don’t care that you want a “challenging position to advance my career”. They want to know what you’ll do for them and whether you’ll be a good hiring choice. Objective statements waste valuable space and prime real estate on the page.

5. Real Estate and Strategic Positioning

 Busy HR people and other hiring decision makers typically allow only 10-15 seconds to scan a resume and decide whether you’re a person they want to interview.

Their eyes will go right to the top third or half of page one first, and may go no further. You need to capture their attention and hold it by encapsulating the best you have to offer in that spot on the page.

Suggestions for branding “above the fold”:

 Lead with a hard-hitting personal brand statement that includes your most important relevant keywords and describes your ROI (Return on Investment) value to your target employers.

• Add a powerful quote from a recent performance review or someone you work with.
• Include 3 or 4 short value-driven bulleted statements with numbers.

6. Readability, Formatting and Length

Avoid densely packed, hard-to-read information. Remember that, when you email your digital resume, the reader could open up and view your document on their PDA . . . that’s a very small screen. Shorter chunks of information are easier to read – on your digital or paper resume – and will draw the reader’s eye to continue down the page.

Keep the formatting attractive, consistent, and clean. Don’t use more than 2 different fonts (one for headings, another for content), and don’t choose frilly, unprofessional fonts. Use graphic lines sparingly and avoid underlining text.

As far as length, recent grads or those with only a few years’ experience should be able to keep it to one page. Executives and more experienced job seekers should try not to go over 2 pages.

Remember that a resume is a career marketing communication, not a career history. It needs to incorporate just enough compelling information to generate interest in you. Everything in your resume must be there for a reason. Nothing should be arbitrary. Pare down your content ruthlessly!

7. Typos and Grammar

It should go without saying that typos and errors in grammar are the kiss of death. They may also convey misinformation. Proofread several times and have someone else do it, too. Don’t rely on spellcheck. Make sure your contact information is correct.

8. Overused “Resume-Speak”

You’re not like everyone else. Your resume shouldn’t read like everyone else who’s competing for the same jobs. You’ve done the branding work, so you know what differentiates you. Make that come across in your resume. Keep the content interesting and don’t fall back on dull phrases that don’t differentiate you, such as results-oriented, visionary leader, excellent communication skills, proven track record of success, etc.

9. Passive Verbs

 Avoid the anemic, boring phrase “responsible for”. Show your vitality with robust action verbs, identify your personal brand attributes, and explain your niche expertise with relevant key words. Use strong words like advanced, drove, spearheaded, accelerated, optimized, streamlined, leveraged, etc.

10. Repetitive Job Descriptions

Don’t waste precious space in the “Professional Experience” section reiterating obvious responsibilities. Readers will already know the basic duties for your jobs. Reinforce your brand by highlighting your relevant keyword phrases linked to specific examples of the value you offered your past employers.

Bottom Line:

Yes, all of this takes a lot of time. But the work you do, and the content you create, defining your personal brand and developing your resume (and biography and other career documents) around it forms the foundation for all your personal marketing materials, online and offline, and offers many benefits:

• Energizes you with what differentiates your value proposition to your target employers.
• Helps you know how to tell your network how they can help you achieve your career goals.
• Prepares you to speak confidently and knowledgeably about the value you offer.
• Provides a wealth of on-brand information to re-purpose for each of your online profiles and any web pages you create.
• Prepares you to network and interview well.

Related posts:

The Biggest Executive Resume Writing Mistake

The Future of the Executive Resume According to Martin Yate

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

Despite the impact of the digital age on executive job search, career professionals will tell you that a targeted, value proposition-driven resume is still one of the most critical elements in any successful search.

The resume is NOT dead. You still need to have one.

But the Internet, social media and the new world of work have had a major impact on executive resume content and formatting. No longer merely a career history outlining jobs, responsibilities and achievements, these days a resume is a career marketing document that positions you as a good-fit candidate for your target employers.

Pull together a branded resume with content and format designed to resonate with your target employers, and you up the odds that you’ll generate interest and get interviews.

A great resume is also the foundation for an interview-generating LinkedIn profile, and other online profiles and personal marketing materials.

But do you know how to pull all the pieces together to create your branded, value prop-driven resume? Most job seekers don’t know enough about today’s strategic resume writing to best position themselves to land.

I can help. And here’s where I discuss what my new CMRW credential is all about.

Awarded by Career Directors International (CDI), the Certified Master Resume Writer is the careers industry’s oldest master-level resume credential and the only one endorsed by a professional association.

Only the 17th person worldwide to have earned this distinguished credential, I join a select group of elite resume writers who have proven themselves by submitting a portfolio of work that has been judged by a panel of CMRW peers. Professionals who themselves are Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) Award Winners and worldwide leaders of the industry.

The portfolio submitted must stand out for its innovation, for advanced formatting that grasps the attention of the reader, and for superior command of the language that makes every bullet point an unfolding story.

Are you thinking you may need help with your executive resume? Review my contact page  and get in touch with me to discuss whether we may be a good fit to work together.

Related posts:

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

The Biggest Executive Resume Writing Mistake

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Resume Sample?

So you’re suddenly in an executive job search or planning one – by choice or by circumstance.

Things look different out there than they did the last time you were seeking a new opportunity, don’t they?

If you’re just starting out or, if your job search is lumbering on and you’re getting few or no interviews or action, you may not know how to job search well.

Or you may be lazy – thinking that if you put out a few feelers and get your updated resume onto plenty of job boards, you can sit back and wait for interviews to roll in. That makes you a passive or REACTIVE job seeker, instead of the PROACTIVE one you need to be.

Or you may be misinformed – putting most of your efforts into job search strategies that yield the lowest return on your time invested. You’re ready to put in the time and do whatever is necessary, but you don’t really know what you’re doing.

You’re a lazy, or misinformed, job seeker if you:

1. Skip over step one – identifying the kind of job you want, targeting the companies that will be a mutual good fit, and researching their current challenges to find out how you can help them solve their problems.

2. Run straight for your old resume (if you can find it) and update it – without first defining your executive brand, and creating content designed to market your ROI and resonate with your target employers.

3. Focus most of your time on job boards – the “monsters” and smaller niche boards. You think that job search in the digital age means hitting the job boards hard because that’s where all the job are. You don’t understand that most jobs are found by penetrating the “hidden” job market.

4. Fear having an online presence and putting yourself “out there” with social networking and social media. You don’t understand that executive recruiters and the hiring decision makers at your target companies are on LinkedIn and other social networks. If they’re hanging out there looking for candidates like you, you should be, too.

Get started with LinkedIn. If you do nothing else with social media, you need to be there, leveraging all that this social network has to offer, just to keep pace with your job-seeking competitors. See my LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search.

5. Neglected your network while you had a job because you didn’t think you needed them any more. Now that you’re looking again, you don’t have the time or inclination to re-connect. It’s too much work! You don’t understand that the way to get at those hidden jobs – where most opportunities lie – is through purposeful networking.

6. Haven’t researched what executive job search is all about today, so you can prepare and do all the back end work, before jumping in.

Are you a lazy or misinformed job seeker?

To get all the inside skinny on landing an executive job in today’s job market, see my post Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit.

Related posts:

Bullet-Proof Your Executive Career in the New World of Work

5 Key Elements of a Strong Online Personal Brand

Social Media ROI: Is It Worth the Time?

photo by suvodeb

You sit down to put your resume together and ponder what should go in, and what should NOT go in.

You want to make an excellent first impression. You want your email inbox to be flooded with requests for interviews.

You may think one of these resume mistakes is the worst thing you can do:

• Wrong formatting
• Leading with a self-serving objective statement
• Employment gaps that send up red flags
• Too many pages

While these (and others) may all be bloopers that can sabotage your chances, the biggest mistake any executive job seeker can make with their resume – or LinkedIn profile, other online profiles, or any career marketing materials – is:

NO CLEAR CAREER TARGETING

That is, not determining at the start of your job search which companies and positions within them are a good mutual fit.

Think about it. The purpose of a resume is to qualify you as a potential candidate – both in personal character and in skill sets – and to make people reading about you feel compelled to want to meet you and learn more.

Recruiters and hiring decision makers assessing you through your resume (or LinkedIn profile, etc.) don’t have time to sift through irrelevant information. They need to quickly and clearly see your ROI value to their company.

How can you write about what makes you a good fit for a company, if you haven’t chosen target companies, don’t know what challenges they’re facing right now, and can’t align your qualifications with their pressing needs?

And how can you define your executive brand if you don’t know your target audience? You won’t be able to create brand messaging that will resonate with anyone.

Your resume needs to speak to and market your promise of value to specific employers, so that they can picture you there, positively impacting the company. You may need to tweak your resume to customize it for each company.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Compile a list of 15-20 (or so) target companies.
• Research each company and your industry.
• Look for well-written job descriptions (even if the geographical location isn’t right for you) that look like a good fit. They will be loaded with the relevant keywords that need to be in your resume, and will outline required qualifications and skill sets.
• Make a list of the keywords, areas of expertise, qualifications and skill sets that crop up consistently in your research.
• Write down specific examples, with metrics, of contributions and accomplishments you made in the past in those areas, to demonstrate your ROI value.

If you don’t do these things, you’ll end up with a generic resume, trying to cover too many bases, and not hitting home with anyone.

Know where you’re headed so you can focus the entire resume in one direction. Make it very clear that you’re the right person, in every respect, for the job you’re targeting. If you’re not really a good fit, and you know it, then you’re probably wasting everyone’s time.

Related posts:

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

Is the Executive Resume Dead or Dying?

Resume and Brand Story for President-CEO-COO Manufacturing Turnarounds

10 Brand-Diluting Phrases That Can Ruin Your Executive Resume

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Resume Sample?

photo by Drew Coffman

Last week, I posted the first part of a Q & A I had with my friend and colleague, Martin Yate (@KnockemDead on Twitter), job search expert and renowned writer of the Knock ‘em Dead series of career and job search books.

In that post, he answered my questions about the top two biggest mistakes he’s seen executives make with their job search efforts, how they should approach hiring managers, and what executive job search will look like in 10 years.

In his latest book, Knock ‘em Dead: Secrets & Strategies for Success in an Uncertain World, which I was thrilled to contribute to, Martin reveals how to take control of your job search, career, and life.

Here’s his take on the future of the executive resume:

Is the traditional paper/digital resume dead? Is it no longer a critical component in one’s job search toolkit?

There is nothing I like about the traditional paper/digital resume — they are hell to write and once they’re written you know that no one is rushing into the office looking forward to an exciting day of resume reading.

Nevertheless, I don’t think the resume is dead or dying or that it will be replaced by streamed video resumes, personally branded websites or anything else in the near future. The traditional paper/digital resume continues to evolve and is not in danger of imminent demise.

Technology constantly makes new tools and services possible and these tools often get applied to the world of resumes. Any new approach that renders the paper/digital resume obsolete must do so by improved speed and performance in the evaluation of the customer, and it must be affordable by the vast majority of job seekers. That hasn’t happened yet and I don’t see the applied technology that will bring it to pass anytime soon.

What I do see are technology applications that make greater depth of evaluation possible. Yes, a personal website that brands you is a plus, assuming you can afford it and have something worth branding. And yes a streamed video resume can also be a plus, again assuming you can afford it, and that you are telegenic and natural in front of a camera, something very few people are.

These and other approaches like them are genuinely exciting new tools. Well kinda new, video resumes were first promoted as the next big thing twenty-eight years ago in 1983. But given the customers’ needs — for a tired and distracted recruiter or hiring manager, who just wants the facts and wants them fast — the paper/digital resume is tough to beat.

For you, a properly crafted resume is both the process and the tool with which, as a professional, you first succinctly define who you are and what you can deliver to an employer. On the other side of the desk, recruiters and hiring managers:

• Use that paper or digital resume as a time saving device to get a fast (5-45 second) take on a candidate; fast and accurate enough to rule you in or out of consideration.
• Use it to prepare for and refer to during an interview.
• Use it in reviewing final candidates at decision time.

In fact, the recruiters I know, and I know a thousand or more, all prefer the paper/digital resume. They also appreciate the enriched resume that has links to your social networking profile, personal website or video resume. Such links give recruiters and hiring managers an option for deeper investigation … once you have been evaluated as worthwhile from your paper/digital resume.

The new tools are here to stay and will continue to evolve, and money and time allowing can be valuable additions to your arsenal, when they are properly focused and expressed. In the meantime, no one is going to rule you out of consideration for a job because all you have is a kickass, easy and fast to read paper or digital resume.

Related posts:

My own take on the future of the executive resume, Is the Executive Resume Dead or Dying?

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Resume Sample?