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?

Many people look forward to catching up on reading over the summer. Light novels and other diversions are popular.

But if you’re in a job search, or think you’re headed there, summer is a great time to strategize your search, do some career planning, and actually get a foothold and gain some traction.

Your target companies may be hiring this summer . . . and they may be looking for candidates like you.

To entice you to buy and read my ebook this summer — and learn some basics on how to navigate the complex world of today’s executive job search — I’ve reduced the price.  Read about and purchase my ebook here.

The ebook will help you pull together all the pieces:

• Targeting
• Branding
• Career Communications — executive resume, biography, and other career documents
• Storytelling
• Online Identity
• Online Reputation Management
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Social Media
• Networking
• Interviewing

Along with taking a little time to recharge from your job search efforts, devote some of your reading time this summer to accelerating your search by learning how to better manage it.

Happy reading! Happy summer!

Related posts:

Chapter 1 of My Ebook: 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search

Why I Wrote My Executive Branding and Job Search Ebook

10 Things I Learned Writing My Ebook

No, it’s not dead, and it’s not likely to disappear entirely.

But it doesn’t look and read the way it did even a few years ago.

Resumes have morphed over time from being a career history document often leading with an objective statement – to a career marketing communication showcasing relevant achievements, branding and metrics, to link good fit with value proposition.

A traditional “paper” resume seems to have less value in job search today. For most job seekers, emailing a digital version of their resume has replaced snail mailing a hard copy.

Video resumes (or video marketing pieces) are becoming more popular, although I hesitate recommending them for everyone. Too many people don’t perform well on camera. A video may work against them and sabotage their chances.

And if you think that the way to land a job in the new world of executive search is to post your resume to lots of job boards, think again. Only an estimated 3-5% of jobs come through job boards . . . probably much fewer for senior and c-level jobs. That was never the best use of a resume.

More often than not today, recruiters and hiring decision makers, who source and assess potential candidates based on their online footprint, will find YOU before you ever locate them and send them your paper or digital resume.

Are you still on the fence about “putting yourself out there” online? Read my post, Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

So, the new resume seems to be your online identity. Or as Dick Bolles, job search pioneer and guru, and author of ‘What Color is Your Parachute?’ recently said, “Your Google results are the new resume.”

Typically your first introduction to hiring professionals will be your LinkedIn profile, which is basically a resume. To create a fully complete, branded LinkedIn profile, you’ll need to do the same kind of work you would have to create a branded resume.

What’s that, you don’t have a LinkedIn profile or never completed the one you started years ago? Then how will they find you? See my LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search.

To make yourself more visible and easier to find, you need to brand and build your online presence while monitoring your online reputation, following these guidelines as you go – Relevance, Quality, Diversity, Volume, Consistency.

But don’t give up on that paper/digital resume yet. You’ll still need it at some point in the hiring process. You may not need it to land an interview, but you should still bring several hard copies when you have an interview, along with other relevant printed materials. This practice may never change. And, once you’re hired, HR is going to need a copy for their files.

Here’s something else to consider.

The old fashioned strategy of mailing a hard copy of your resume with covering letter is a powerful NEW differentiating tactic to capture attention and perhaps an interview, because so few people do it any more.

According to Martin Yate, another job search guru and author of his newest book, Knock ‘em Dead Secrets and Strategies for Success in an Uncertain World:

“Don’t smirk at the idea of traditional mail. We all like a break from the computer screen, so delivering your sales message and resume this way can be very effective. When you do this, note in the cover letter that you sent the resume by e-mail and that this additional approach is because you are really interested in the company and ‘wanted to increase my chances of getting your attention.’ Doing this demonstrates that you are creative and not a technological Neanderthal.”

The fact remains that the kind of information found in a resume will always be job search currency – no matter what form it takes.

People assessing you will always want to know have you’ve added value in the past, indicating how you’ll benefit their company in the future. Career marketing will always be about aligning your qualifications, skills and personal traits with your target employers’ needs.

A resume may evolve into yet another different looking thing, but the purpose will be the same — to attract attention, generate interest and gain interviews.

Related posts:

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

Executive Brand Resume: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold

C-level Executive Resume Length: One, Two, or Three Pages?

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

photo by jstonkatoy

My client, Bruce Smythe, a pioneering leader in manufacturing revitalization and transformations, is actively seeking a c-level business leadership role with a new company.

Because he’s not in a confidential search, he wanted me to use his real name here. We collaborated on developing his executive brand, resume, biography and LinkedIn profile.

Bruce had already done some branding work and created a tagline that he wanted to continue using – “Innovating and Transforming Companies into Market Leaders”.

He had also updated his resume, but didn’t think the document presented the value he offered well enough, and it didn’t contain a true brand positioning statement.

What stood out most about Bruce was his unwavering success, throughout his career, with companies in distress – exacting operations-wide change fast, and leaving the organization healthy, with manufacturing operations improved by 5 to 10 times and employees with a secure future.

To make his career successes and promise of value to potential employers immediately evident in his resume, I needed to bring forward to the first page his early career contributions – things that would normally fall to the second page – and back them up with his phenomenal metrics.

As you’ll see in his resume, with this strategy, the first page stands on its own, even if people assessing him never go to page two. Page one tells just enough to generate interest in him and compel people to want to learn more. It worked. When Bruce put his resume into circulation, he started getting attention and interviews within a few days.

In working through the branding process, we uncovered the following:

• Top values – Challenge, drive, ingenuity, making a difference, being the best
• Top brand attributes – Fearless, confident, resourceful, passionate
• Top strengths – Seeing the big picture, visioning, innovating, solving problems, creating value

Bruce described what differentiates him from his competitors in the job market:

“There may be better CEOs in healthy companies, but there are very few that can outperform me in a turnaround or restructure that results in a strong market leader – not just a company that is stripped through cost reduction and is ‘still in business’ . . . ALL of my companies have gone on to sustain success and become industry leaders.

My differentiating qualities include knowledge of all business functions at a detailed level and how to optimize them. I have strong marketing and sales skills, and world-class expertise across all aspects of engineering, manufacturing, materials, quality, systems, and especially JIT/Demand Flow Technology/LEAN.”

For his resume, we created the following brand positioning statement to generate chemistry for his personal values, attributes, strengths and drivers:

A fearless change agent fuel-injected with enthusiasm, I envision and execute game-changing turnarounds FAST, get returns NOW and bullet-proof companies against the economic tsunami forces driving today’s highly volatile global marketplace. It is my responsibility to save companies, make them healthy, ignite strong leadership across all levels and enable good people to have a secure future.

For his biography, I slightly adjusted the brand statement, and used it to lead the document. As is always the case, his bio allowed us to better showcase his softer skills and personality, and more deeply express what his brand is all about.

Bruce can be reached at (865) 437 – 9968 or via email at BruceSmythe1@gmail.com.

Related posts:

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand: The Executive Personal Brand Worksheet

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

How to Write a C-level Executive Career Brand Biography

My first encounter with prospective clients is typically through an email with their resume attached. Often, they’ve written their own resume and state upfront that they’re deeply embarrassed by how bad it is.

The majority of them have never needed a resume, as they progressed through their careers to the senior or c-level. They know the value they have to offer, but have no idea how to put that on paper so they’ll get the attention they deserve.

But here they are, suddenly needing a resume, so they scrambled to piece some kind of marketing document together. They were using their home-grown resume, but weren’t getting any action.

I reassure them that they’re not alone. Most people have trouble distancing themselves enough to objectively assess and strategically position themselves. And, because most also don’t understand resume strategy, they don’t know how it should look, what to include, what to exclude and what to highlight.

We discuss how job search has changed in just the past few years, and that these days their resume may not be their first introduction to the people they need to attract.

I explain that most recruiters and hiring decision-makers source and assess candidates by what they find in online searches of candidates’ names and relevant keywords that lead them to job seekers. These hiring professionals probably know about them well before a resume is exchanged, unless the candidate has little or no online presence and is basically invisible.

I also stress that, since these people search LinkedIn first, before using other search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) when they’re sourcing and vetting candidates, they’d better be there too, with a brand-solid profile.

I tell them that they’ll still need a resume as they’re networking, and at some point in the hiring process. As they pull together information for their resume, they should keep in mind that they’ll need to spread this information out across their other career marketing communications – biography, case studies, other documents, LinkedIn profile and other online branding.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes I see executives make when writing their own resumes:

1. They fail to position themselves as the best hiring choice for their target employers.

What I so often see are resumes with no clear target audience in mind. The mistake they make is trying to cover too many bases, showcasing every area of expertise and highlighting every career accomplishment. Often they end up with a 4 or 5 page “kitchen sink” resume, with way too much unfocused information, that they blindly use for every purpose. A generic resume like this will likely get them nowhere.

Step one, before any writing begins, is identifying your target audience, so you’ll know who you’re writing to, and identifying their needs, so you can align the best you have to offer to solve their problems.

Everything in your resume must powerfully position you as someone who is uniquely qualified to meet their challenges. Irrelevant and extraneous information misuses the limited space available.

Knowing your target companies and their needs will drive what you need to include in your resume. Do some research and gather as much information as possible about your target companies before crafting your resume. This post will help, Executive Job Search: Research Your Target Employers.

2. They don’t understand how personal branding will differentiate them and generate chemistry for them as a good-fit candidate.

Entice readers out of the gate by linking your pivotal leadership strengths and unique value proposition with personal attributes. Breathe life into an otherwise flat document and come alive on the paper, digital and web page.

Give yourself permission to boast about your relevant standout achievements, but back them up with monetized examples (Challenge – Actions – Results success stories) showcasing how you made things happen. Read my post, Storytelling Propels Executive Branding and Job Search.

Give an indication of who you are, in a colloquial way that speaks from your own voice. Generating chemistry is one of the goals you should be striving for when writing compelling career marketing communications. It helps you make an instant connection and lasting impression.

For more on defining your executive brand, see my 10-Step Personal Branding Worksheet.

3. They fail to capture attention above the fold.

You’ve probably heard many times that you only have about 10 seconds to win or lose the reader. That means taking advantage of the real estate at the top of your resume (or in the first screen view of your LinkedIn profile or any web page).

The mistake I see in the “profile” or “summary” section is vague information strung together through a series of keywords, with no specifics and no metrics.

The people assessing you through your resume want to see exactly how your actions have impacted bottom line, and built business and profitability. By all means, use the relevant keywords and phrases your targeted research has uncovered, but also show them the numbers!

See my post, Executive Brand Resume: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold.

4. They sacrifice readability to keep their resume to 2 pages.

The 2-page rule is a good one, but trying to jam in too much information, in a too-tiny font, without enough white space to soothe the eye, can turn readers off before they begin.

Remember that, at the senior and c-level, you should be getting your resume in front of human eyeballs and not just tossed into a database for scanning. Put yourself in the position of the people reading your resume (or LinkedIn profile).

Today’s resume is a sleek, to-the-point, value driven marketing document, impacted by the fact that so many people will be reading it on an iPad, Blackberry or other handheld. Keep the information on track and relevant to your target employers and the kind of position you’re seeking.

Break up densely packed, long paragraphs into shorter ones of only 2 to 4 lines. Use bullet points to keep readers engaged and draw their eyes down the page.

Don’t fret if, after ruthlessly editing, your resume spills over to a third page. It’s okay, as long as you’ve structured the first page to stand on its own, with the following one or two pages there to provide supporting evidence.

See my post, C-level Executive Resume Length: One, Two, or Three Pages?

Related posts:

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

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Brand Resume Sample?

photo by Drew Coffman