Articles
Purpose of the Resume
Your resume is the single most important tool in your job search campaign, but it is only a tool. A resume never won anyone a job. Its purpose is to gain an interview. As we will discuss later, the interview is the only way the job you seek can be won.
Your resume is a reflection of you. It is important that it creates a good impression and arouses interest on the part of the reader. It must do this in a reading time of less than 30 seconds. Cover letters will receive only about 10 seconds of the reader’s time. It is clear, therefore, that both better be good.
The screening process which most resumes go through generally has three stages. The first stage, a quick scan, identifies the “better” resumes from those which will not be considered further by use of the reader’s persona; “knock out” factors. In the second stage, the reader will review the surviving resumes in greater detail, looking for reasons NOT to include them in the final list of candidates. If your resume makes it to the third stage, you will probably be contacted by the employer.
What then, improves this resume survival process? In the first stage the reader, in addition to skills which clearly fit the search requirements, is looking for a readable format, concise writing skills, organization, and brevity. Anything contrary which catches the reader’s eyes will probably doom the resume. Therefore, the resume must be an example of your best work. No spelling or grammatical errors. Do not depend solely on a spell check option in your software. It will only tell you that you have used a real word, not necessarily the correct word.
Most resume screeners eliminate rather than select resumes in the process of arriving at a final list of candidates. This bias is a natural reaction by those who see many resumes some of which are so poor as to make one wonder why the senders even bothered to submit them. Others are from candidates so clearly unqualified that one might wonder whether they even bothered to learn the requirements of the position. This produces the kind of resume reader’s cynicism which results in the above mentioned bias.
Don’t be discouraged, however. Your job is to overcome these obstacles.
Keep some general guidelines in mind as you generate your resume:
- The resume is your sales brochure, not your autobiography.
- One, possibly 2 pages in length.
- Bullet format, not paragraphs.
- Make your sentences brief and as powerful as possible.
- Begin sentences with an action verb not personal pronouns.
- Should take approximately 30 seconds to scan.
- Maintain a good amount of white space.
- Use quality paper (25% rag bond). White, Ivory, or Gray.
- Don’t get too fancy or elaborate.
- Don’t misspell anything.
Persistence
As you confront the reality of finding a job, you would be well advised to pause a moment and consider the words of Ray Kroc of McDonald’s Corporation:
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
A typical job search consists of a series of “No’s” followed eventually by a “Yes”. – FOR THOSE WHO PERSIST. The biggest obstacle that you face during your campaign may be the temptation to give up the search before you get to the “Yes”. Don’t do it.
Be sure you have chosen reasonable goals. Be systematic in working to attain those goals. Believe in yourself; it will help keep your morale up. Remember to sell your abilities.
Above all, believe that you will find not just a job, but a career, where you can make a useful contribution and be successful-and maybe have a little fun too!!
Don't Wait Until You Graduate
“It’s important, especially in a liberal arts school, to study what you like. You can do whatever you want with a good solid liberal arts degree in almost any field.”
--Ashley Valentine-Derrer
Service. Working with others. Setting goals and communicating them. Listening to others. If you can’t do these thing effectively, then the highest test scores you get in school won’t save you. These are the qualities employers look for much more than grades, yet they cannot be taught in the classroom.
Why Volunteer? The World Needs you. While your life is being improved and affected by others as you go about your day, you are most likely doing something to return the favor. Even as a student, your class attendance, participation and tuition fees go to the enrichment of other people’s lives, like those of your instructors, the staff and other employees of your learning institution. In fact, the presence of a school or college does economic wonders for a community.
Oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills. It is basically the ability to carry out a conversation and convey yourself effectively, especially in some formal setting. This is not a skill that comes easily to most, but with practice it can be developed.
Networking. The aim is to collect other people’s names and get your name out. This objective is important, but is too often overstressed and overrated, because the techniques and steps required to achieve this are easy to explain and simple to follow. Many books and articles vary somewhat in how they recommend going about it, but the bottom line is the same. The goal is to become acquainted and share information with as many people as possible.
All business, organizations and professions exist for the same reasons: to serve their clients and customers, and to generate profits for those who provide these services or products. They do not exist to employ people, but they will employ as few or as many people as it takes – be it three or three thousand – to achieve those objectives.
According to the United States Department of Commerce, more than 90 percent of the 3.5 million new jobs created each year are in firms of four employees or less. In fact, government data reveals that the fastest job growth occurs within companies of less than twenty employees.
Because of downsizing, multi-functional positions are also becoming the norm in many larger companies as they reduce their staffs. The more roles you can fill, the better. I still sometimes hear the expression: “Pick one thing and do it better than anyone else.” However, doing one thing and one thing alone is becoming less and less appealing to employers in the private, non-profit and public sectors these days.
Structured internships are most often provided by mid-sized to larger companies. Many of these types of intern programs are offered by big-name companies which look good on resumes. So be prepared for competition which rivals that of full-time employment.
According to the National Society for Experiential Education, interning is up nearly 40 percent since the early 1990s. The greatest demand for internships appears to be in many of the emerging fields: the environment, health care, communications and international business.
Another reason why internships are growing is that more people are taking them – and not just college students. As previously mentioned, career changers and displaced professionals are a growing segment of those seeking experiences in different fields, in making new contacts, in gaining new skills and in being able to better evaluate their interests before – and not after – making a commitment.
Consider a Yale University study of its 1953 graduates: All of them were asked if they had a clear, specific set of goals written down with a plan to achieve them. Only 3 percent had. Twenty years later, the researchers followed up on those same graduates and discovered that the 3 percent with written goals were worth more financially than the entire other 97 percent combined.
Self-promotion. You must put yourself out into the world to build experience and relationships and to be in the right place at the right time. Even more, to help yourself professionally you must get the word out about who you are, what you stand for and what you can do for others.
What specific benefits do people or organizations need that you have the capacity to provide, either now or in the future? Based on your own list, do you think employers would want you?
Good news! Many of today’s smaller companies and organizations are being run by people more interested in bottom-line objectives than restrictions, company rules and blanket procedures. Chances are, you can find other, more receptive audiences in small company managers and entrepreneurs. Typically, they aren’t nearly as concerned about your grades as they are about how you can help their companies succeed. If you can promote yourself and your abilities successfully, then you can show them that you have the qualities they want.
What would you rather list on your resume of life: a string of jobs or a track record of accomplishments? There are plenty of challenges and opportunities to accomplish great things all around you. Keep your eyes open. And remember, A job can be taken away from you; an accomplishment cannot.
Have you ever gotten a thank you letter, or a note commending you for a job well done? Keep them! Make plenty of copies, and store them in a safe place. Have you successfully helped create or market a new product or service? Collect samples of the printed materials involved, with documentation of the results. Anything you can show people that reflects contributions on your part should be kept and made pare of your collection. Take the clippings, letters and printed materials and place them in clear plastic sleeves which fit in a small three-ring binder. Don’t use anything flashy or expensive. Just something that documents the contribution you have made to other people’s lives or businesses.
If you have the opportunity to do public relations work or even to do “selling” of some sort for your employer or other volunteer organization, respond to it. We are all selling a product, and ultimately that product is ourselves.
Important strategy. A clear understanding that there are plenty of small steps which you can take today that can have a huge impact on your life tomorrow. Peace of mind in knowing that opportunities for you, in the form of needs, exist everywhere. Reassurance in that networking is not just another game of cold-calling and business card passing, but a process of building relationships.
Earnings are important. But remember, others will not view you in terms of what you will take from the table, but in what you will bring to it. The rewards we earn in life, be they material, emotional or spiritual, are often parallel to the impact we make on the lives of others. Ask yourself the question, “What impact can I have.”
In today’s changing global economy, tomorrow’s leaders and citizens must learn to see themselves not merely in terms of how much they can earn, but in how their talents can be used to benefit others. They must understand that while it is nobody’s obligation to employ them, it is their social responsibility to provide for themselves by providing for their communities, their country and the world.