Resume Posting: Some Top Tips!

While networking continues to reign as the most productive job-finding strategy, and likely always will, there’s no denying the fact that technology is playing an ever-increasing role in the mix of activities required to land successful employment.  As a result, it can pay dividends to make your resume as “findable” as possible on the Internet — and to post it up on any websites that employers and recruiters appear to be using to hunt for candidates with your particular skills, experience, and qualifications.

This being said, we’d offer the following quick tips on how to optimize this step of your job hunt:

– If you’re going to engage in a substantial amount of Internet resume posting, you might strongly consider creating a new temporary Internet address exclusively for job-hunting purposes, then use this new address on all of your “posted” materials.   This step will help you ward off spam/privacy issues and will ensure your primary e-mail address doesn’t get corrupted with unwanted solicitations.

– If you’ve got the time, make a point to update your resume once per week on each site where you have it posted, even if this only involves changing just one minor word or detail.  This step will ensure that your resume stays at the top of the “virtual pile” since most sites list resumes by chronological posting date — and employers tend to focus primarily on the latest batch of resumes that get listed/updated on each site, since these people usually tend to be the most active, recruitable job seekers.

– Try your best to “think like the employer searching for you” and make sure to pack your on-line resume with all the right buzzwords, keywords, and competencies relevant to your field.  Unless your resume contains the exact language employers are using to search for people in your professional field, you’ll get overlooked, so don’t leave anything to chance or take anything for granted!

– Keep a record of all the sites where you’ve posted your resume and make sure to write down all of the usernames and passwords you’ve created for each site, so you don’t forget them.   If you’re a Career Horizons client, in fact, we’ve already set you up with a convenient way to do this on the “Internet” tab of your Job Search PhD Spreadsheet.  Non-clients can easily set up their own simple system to track this same information, as well, however.

As for which websites are the most effective ones, in terms of resume posting, we’d recommend LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and TheLadders as the most active websites employers seem to be using at the moment to source experienced professional talent.  And in the more traditional job board category, Monster, Hotjobs, and Careerbuilder continue to lead the pack.  The consequence?  Add your resume to all six of these boards and you’ve made yourself extremely “findable” out there by all the right people!

Does Your Resume Have Something to Hide?

While it may be more of an urban legend, as opposed to something that actually happens on a regular basis, one scary story that career counselors tell to their job-seeking candidates, around the campfire, is that employers routinely use the “show comments” feature of Microsoft Word to review the entire history of changes that an individual has made to their resume.

As you can imagine, such comments could easily reveal some unflattering facts about an individual’s background — or expose a candidate’s tendency to edit or spin certain aspects of their work history in an overly-flattering direction.  Did you generously round up some of the dollar figures in your past career accomplishments?  Exaggerate the percentage of money you saved?  Trim out some of your earlier positions?  Switch from months to years on your employment history to hide some work history gaps or obscure the fact that you’re currently unemployed?   With the “show changes” feature turned on, it’s entirely possible that the employer might catch on to some of your resume shenanigans…

And while again, I don’t suspect that this happens all that often in the real world — both due to the technical savvy it would require on the employer’s part, as well as the time it would take for recruiters and hiring managers to perform this step for every resume that comes in — it probably wouldn’t hurt for many candidates to “sanitize” their resumes and other written materials before sending them out.

How to do this?  The easiest way is to click here and download a free “Remove Word Data” tool from Microsoft.  Once you install this program, it will create a new option in the “File” menu of your Word documents that allows you to strip out any hidden formatting or tracked changes.  The annoying part, however, is that it will then turn the document into a “Read-Only Recommended” file by default and pop up a box every time you open that particular file — unless you kill this feature by going into the document’s Options menu, turn off the “Read-Only Recommended” option, and then resave the file under a new name.  All things considered, these steps are possibly more time-consuming than they are worth, but at least you’ve been warned and can act accordingly, if you’re concerned about this issue!

Tips on Writing: Part 2

Now that I’ve set the stage around why I’m on something of a “writing crusade” this month, let’s get down, dirty, and tactical.  Here’s a specific breakdown of some tips and techniques I’ve learned that can help you take your writing/editing skills to the next level:

– Pay attention to the words you tend to overuse and take steps to vigorously guard against them; for example, I know for a fact that I tend to fall back on the words potential, however, virtually, and likely way too much, so now I hunt for these in my written drafts and remove or substitute them with other language, whenever possible

– Don’t put words and phrases in quotes when they are actually now part of the modern lexicon and readily understood by the average reader; one client of mine pointed out my tendency to do this and I now catch myself all the time quoting words like “social networking”, “conventional wisdom”, “status quo”, and “change agent” when it’s not necessary and only interrupts the flow of the sentence

– More white space in documents is almost always better, especially on resumes, so don’t make your margins too small and try to break up any long blocks of text with bullets, border lines, and line breaks; another useful trick is to take your current resume, bump all of the text up a font size, and then go through the process of editing it down until everything fits again; it’s not easy, at first, but the finished result is usually worth it!

– Avoid repeating the same words over and over or using “empty” words that might sound good, but don’t really add any value; the same rule applies when it comes to the content elements you include on your resume; if you’ve already proven you have a certain skill set on one area of your presentation, there’s no need to prove it again in another section, such as in a separate work history listing

– On a related note to the above tip, keep asking yourself whether your resume (or your written materials in general) are dangerously generic or whether they truly set you apart as a unique entity; I recently read an article on corporate branding, in fact, that suggested you should try putting somebody else’s logo on your advertising materials and then seeing if they still make perfect sense; if they do, this means they are too generic, and that you should scrap them; you could apply this same test to your resume, it seems, by putting somebody else’s name at the top of your document; if the majority of the text you’ve included in your resume still seems to work, your piece may not be personal, distinct, or differentiated enough

– If time permits, revisit and revamp your important written materials every day for a entire week before deciding on the final version; it’s amazing how many mistakes and areas of improvement you’ll be able to spot, simply by looking at the document with fresh eyes on several different occasions!

In the end, my newfound respect for writing leads me to view it as a skill set quite similar to sculpture, woodworking, or any other creative form of expression.  You start with a blank slate and then keep sanding the piece down, going from rough-grit to fine-grit, until the final product is as good as you can make it.  It takes a lot of patience and discipline, but the results usually speak for themselves!

Tips on Writing: Part 1

Despite being a prolific writer for many years, I’ll confess that the universe seems to have conspired over the past few months to educate me about the true patience, discipline, and craftsmanship required to turn out superior written materials.  This educational process began several months ago with my introduction to a professional writing coach, Lynda McDaniel, who not only shared some great tips on the writing process, in general, but also assured me (and a group of my clients) that even the top writers, journalists, and authors around the country agonize over multiple drafts when putting together their materials.  This reality check was critical, since it dispelled my notion that the craft of writing should be a piece of cake, if you’re good at it, and that there’s something wrong with you if you’re not able to churn out volumes of flawless prose right out of the gate.

This lesson completed, the universe then decided to send an executive client my way who hired me to help update her resume, bio, and cover letters.  Long story short, this client (and you know who you are!) turned out to be the most picky and meticulous individual I’ve ever worked with in terms of the development of her materials, and that’s saying something given my 15 years in the resume-writing and career coaching field!  After each round of work we’d complete on her documents, she’d run the new drafts out to her network to gather input and feedback, then come back armed with a fresh slate of edits, advice, and suggestions.  Nine drafts later and several weeks into the process, we finally seemed to lock down a satisfactory presentation that she was ready to send out to the public at large.  Was I upset by this protracted, time-consuming process?  To be honest, no, not once, because while I teased her a lot about the extra time we were taking, I have to admit that each round of scrutiny we went through did, in fact, make her materials stronger — and ultimately, her continued push-back resulted in the production of documents that weren’t merely good, but possibly even great.

Last but not least, after surviving the above two experiences, the cosmos felt I was ready for my final exam — and was kind enough to grant me the wish I’ve had for years; namely, to get a monthly column published in my favorite local publication, the Puget Sound Business Journal.  Suddenly, my words and career advice would not just be going out to a few hundred individuals, but to over 25,000 local professionals and decision-makers.  Holy stage fright, Batman!  Making matters worse, the columns submitted had to be no longer than 800 words in length, adding a considerable degree of difficulty for somebody not used to writing under length limitations — or deadline pressure.

The moral of this story?  Looking back, all three of these recent experiences combined to provide me with a potent educational cocktail, and with two published columns now under my belt, and a third on its way, I think I’ve learned more about the writing process in the last three months than I have since, well, good old Ms. Campbell in the 3rd Grade.  And while it may not show from this long narrative, I’ve been forced to scrutinize my writing to a far greater degree than ever before — and will now be evangelizing the merits of reworking one’s important written documents 3, 4, or even 5 times before they reach their finished state.  It makes a world of difference, and if you haven’t seriously reviewed your own resume and job search “packaging” for a while, then take it from me — perhaps the time has come for a fresh look!

Cover Letters: Improving Your Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Last but not least in our “Career Tips” section this month, we wanted to make one final recommendation in terms of how to communicate effectively with potential employers.  In those cases throughout the job hunting process (e.g. responding to published ads) that require a cover letter, we wanted to share one approach that you might experiment with to see if it boosts your response rate.

Essentially, what we’ve noticed is that a great many cover letters tend to be excruciatingly long, boring, and built around a laundry list of skills and qualifications that are only loosely relevant to the stated needs of the company doing the hiring.  For whatever reason, many people still approach cover letters as an exercise in quantity, not quality, and a place to rehash all the same old stuff they have on their resume presentation.  In actuality, however, the most important element of a cover letter is thoughtfulness — and showing the employer that you understand their needs and can offer them 4-5 impressive and relevant qualifications that might help you quickly and successfully address the problems they are facing.

If this process is still daunting to you, and you find yourself struggling to crank cover letters out in fairly efficient fashion, you might consider shifting your approach and sending out letters that are only ONE PARAGRAPH LONG and that only focus on a single thought — i.e. one killer credential, idea, or qualification that relates to the employer’s needs and that sets you apart from any other people who are applying.  In practice, this might look something like:

“Dear Hiring Manager: I’m forwarding you my resume in response to the Graphic Designer position you currently have listed on your corporate website.  Long story short, while my resume will certainly walk you through the entire range of relevant skills and qualifications I have to offer in the design field, there’s one unique advantage I believe I could offer to your team, if hired.  Having noticed in the job description that you’re looking for somebody with expert-level skills in the Adobe Design Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop, etc.), I’d call your attention to the fact that I actually worked for Adobe Systems for six years, earlier in my career.  The advantage this gives me?  Not only did I get the chance to learn how to use these tools from the actual developers who built them, but I’ve still got great relationships with former colleagues over there and can therefore get free, fast technical support about any aspects of the software, no matter how complex, should your company need them.  So among the many other elements listed on my resume, this is one qualification I feel really sets me apart from other candidates, and I’d therefore appreciate the opportunity to interview in the near future if you believe there might be a suitable fit!  Thanks for your time and consideration.”

Again, this is just a quick example of this technique in action, but if your cover letters haven’t been producing good results, you might give this tightly-focused approach a try to see if it improves your response rate.  All you need to do is come up with one key skill/idea/qualification that connects your background closely to the company/job at hand — and then go for it!  Given the speed with which employers scan through candidate materials these days, too, this approach will help ensure you catch their attention right out of the gate with your most powerful material…