The Resume.Com Guide to Writing Unbeatable Resumes (2 page)

sales, 20–21, 199

Public Relations

entry level, 157

experienced, 159

midlevel, 158

Real estate

entry level, 160

manager, 162

midlevel, 160

sales, 160–161

Retail management, 145–147

Sales, 10–11.
See also
Marketing

entry level, 160, 163

experienced, 165–166

manager, 165–166

midlevel, 161, 164

pharmaceutical, 20–21, 199

real estate, 160–161

Software engineer, 32–33

Teaching

entry level, 167

experienced, 169

midlevel, 168

Telecommunications

entry level, 170

experienced, 171

midlevel, 171

Whether you’ve been in the workforce for 20 years or are applying for your first job, a powerful resume will set you apart from the competition and introduce your name with the air of professionalism employers crave. Your resume is your handshake, your agent, and your marketing department rolled into one, and this vital document is an indispensable asset that will expedite your job search and make a prospective employer pick up the phone.

The cornerstone of a winning job search is a great resume, and the Certified Professional Resume Writers and Editors at Resume.com have created this book to help you understand what does and doesn’t work in today’s job market. Our proven techniques and industry secrets will help ensure that your next job search will be a fruitful one. Resume.com has written thousands of effective resumes for job applicants in every industry, and we know exactly what employers look for—from creating a marketing strategy to applying for the position, following up, interviewing, and ultimately accepting a new position.

Our diverse network of professional resume writers has a fluent understanding of what makes a resume work. This book will walk you step by step through our methodology, teaching you how to create a professionally written resume that will give you the competitive advantage you need in a crowded job market.

We’ll also explore the fundamental changes that have taken place in the hiring process over the last five years as a result of innovations in technology and the ways those changes probably will affect your job search. In today’s market one job opening can attract a thousand resumes, and only the best will stand out. Resume.com has built its reputation by making sure that professionals find success every step of the way. Writing your own resume can be difficult and frustrating, but we’ll show you the formats and requirements that our network of Certified Professional Resume Writers and career consultants have used to turn job seekers from every industry into career professionals.

From choosing the format that is best for you to giving you industry secrets, this is the most comprehensive resource for resume writing available today. Our resume writers and career consultants have worked closely with thousands of job seekers around the world, collecting valuable insider information to demonstrate what hirers are looking for and how this information can work for you.

Resume.com is a career-services company with over 100 resume writers and career consultants nationwide. With our fingers directly on the pulse of the job market, we are dedicated to providing the highest quality of service to all job applicants looking for the best source of career advice. Resume.com has been an industry leader since its founding in March 2000, and its blue-chip partners include the
New York Times
and Yahoo!, two of the most recognized and respected sources of industry news in the world. Resume.com has appeared on CNN and in numerous profiles in the
New York Times
, the
Los Angeles Times
, and the
Miami Herald
.

The goal of Resume.com is to arm you with every competitive advantage available. This book will guide you through every phase of your job search—what we call the four steps:
career planning, resume writing, marketing,
and
interviewing
. If you already know what you want to do, you’ve already completed your preplanning. If you do not, jump to Appendix B, where you’ll find helpful worksheets that will organize your interests and experience and help you determine the direction in which you want to go.

The majority of this book is focused on helping you create your own professional resume, Step 2 of the process. In addition, we’ll show you how hirers will review your resume, when and how you should follow up after submitting a resume, and every step necessary to get effective responses from employers, including the
cover letter, resume
, and
follow-up letter
.

Once you’ve completed this step, review Chapter 9 to get the inside scoop on marketing yourself by using mass marketing methods such as Internet job boards, associations, newspapers, and more. This is Step 3.

The purpose of a resume is to get interviews, which is Step 4 in the job search process. Writing your resume will prepare you to organize your thoughts and remind you of your responsibilities and accomplishments. To help you navigate Step 4 of your job search, we’ve included detailed instructions on how to develop a
list of references, letter of recommendation
, and a postinterview
thank you letter
.

Unlike other books on the market, this book gives you the opportunity to speak with a career specialist. A career consultation with a Resume.com career specialist is available to you at www.resume.com to ensure that you receive the support and career advice you need every step of the way.

The Resume.com Guide to Writing Unbeatable Resumes

Whether you’re applying for your first position or are a senior executive with over 20 years of experience, your resume consists of more than a list of your previous jobs, your name, and your phone number. A good resume is your handshake and a promise of the professionalism that you’ll bring to a new job. Understanding how a potential employer will judge your resume is an important element of the job search, and exploiting this knowledge to your advantage can result in greater success in less time.

Before you begin reviewing the step-by-step tips and industry secrets we’ll share with you, it’s important to understand
how
most hiring managers will evaluate your resume.

Practically all hiring managers are overworked and understaffed, and after a job ad is placed on the Internet or in a newspaper, an employer has to review hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes before narrowing the field to a select few. Additionally, openings have to be filled in a timely manner, and although we’d like to believe that every resume will be reviewed carefully, that’s usually far from the case.
Most resumes will be reviewed for only 10 seconds before being eliminated
. Picture a stack of 1500 resumes in front of you and a one-week deadline to get several qualified candidates in the door for an interview and you’ll start to see how ferocious the competition is and how quickly the evaluating takes place.

After the initial round of review and elimination, a hirer usually will spend a few minutes looking over the 10 to 15 resumes that have made the cut. It’s here where the resume has to glow. Correct formatting, spelling, structure, and adherence to the very specific language of resumes are all vital elements that will determine whether your resume will move onto the “call list” or whether you’ll receive a rejection letter or no response at all.

Although there are many factors that will determine your resume’s impact, the most important rule to remember is simply that it’s not just the document an employer is reviewing—it’s you.

A good resume should result in one thing: an interview. In the following pages we’ll show you, step by step, how to get there. Our strategies have turned those precious 10 seconds into interviews for thousands of clients throughout the world.

A lot has changed in the years since a company ran an ad in the Sunday newspaper for a few hundred dollars and received 50 to 100 responses. The advent of the Internet has shifted every stage of the job application and hiring process, from how you’ll write and distribute your resume to the steps you’ll take to research and apply for openings.

Competition among job seekers is at an all-time high, and this is due partly to the ease with which one can apply for a job. A simple click of the button can distribute your resume to a prospective employer (or even hundreds in some cases), and this ease of distribution often creates an overwhelming response to advertised positions.

To combat this overwhelming response, companies have started using technology to their advantage, and some even use special search software that scans and eliminates applicants before a human being has looked at a resume. Although not every company uses this type of software, technology is a primary force in the job application process, and that’s a reality that every job seeker should be aware of. We’ll discuss how to avoid being eliminated from consideration by scanning software in
Chapter 8
, but resume-filtering tools are just one of the many applications that hiring managers use to divide and eliminate applicants solely on the basis of the inadequacy of their resumes.

The resume is no longer a two-dimensional object to only be mailed or handed to an old friend. A twenty-first-century resume is your personal recruiter and perhaps the only marketing tool that you have to ensure that hirers immediately recognize your accomplishments and skills.

Twenty-first-century resumes are by no means identical: They come in many different formats and layouts. However, despite the amazing array of fonts, colors, styles, and options you have to choose from, there is a set of rules and guidelines you should always follow to create your own professional resume.

There are certain key elements that go into every great resume. Although we’ll explore them in greater depth when we review the resume-building process in
Chapter 6
, let’s take a brief look at
the seven rules that should never be violated in writing a resume
.

Although every resume will be different, depending on your unique employment history, level of expertise, and profession, each resume should be organized in a way that creates an optimal synergy between past accomplishments and future career goals.

Following are seven basic steps for building the solid foundation of a great resume.

The main goal of your resume is to create a direct relationship between you and the employer. The easiest way to accomplish this is by always staying in the first person. Although the first person means writing from your point of view (or using the word “I” to begin every sentence), resume writers employ a trick called using the
silent I
. This means that the “I” is always implied in every sentence; it’s just never written on the page. The examples below demonstrate how to use your voice when writing a resume, using the first person but never writing “I.”

An easy way to remember this is to pretend that you’re in an interview but can’t say the word “I.” If during an interview for a management position a potential employer asks you how many people you supervise, you might respond, “I supervise seven sales professionals.” That’s first person, and it’s the correct approach in resume writing. You wouldn’t answer, “He (or She) manages seven sales professionals.” When writing a resume, use the silent “I” to create an instant sense of correlation and responsibility between the applicant and the accomplishment. An employer probably would reject the incorrect examples shown above. Why?

“I” is a word hirers never like to see. Remember that most businesses are teams, and there’s no “I” in “team.” The third example is incorrect because it shifts to the third-person point of view. When the “s” is added to “manage,” the structure shifts the sentence to an action that somebody else is responsible for (
He or she manages 10 sales associates
). Remember: Never use the words “he,” “she,” “our,” and “their” in a resume. (These are those pesky third-person pronouns we all learned and forgot about in high school.)