Career Tip: Quick Resume Advice

Never lie on your resume.  While you may be desperate to get a specific job, or even any job, a lie can truly come back to haunt you.  First, your experience is good enough if applying for the right jobs.  Second, a lie, even discovered years down the road, can result in immediate dismissal (think of the Yahoo CEO who lied about having a degree on his resume and was ousted from his position within days).  It will never pay to lie, whether discovered immediately in an interview or checking references, or years from now, the damage is done.

Career Tip of the Week

When creating your LinkedIn profile, other social media, blog posts, and on your career documents (resume/cover letter/reference listing), use proper name capitalization.  I often see resumes and LinkedIn profiles with names in all lower case, which can have a negative influence on your job potential.  Showing your understanding of proper capitalization and when it is used, particularly with your own name will help you significantly in making a great first impression on paper or online.  Here is a terrific resource on when, and when not, to capitalize: http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/10-rules-of-capitalization.html 

To your career success!

10 Phrases You Should Never Use in a Resume

A job search is challenging enough, but sometimes we create more problems for ourselves by using outdated language or statements that cause us additional issues.  Here are 10 of those phrases to avoid:

1)     References Available Upon Request

a.       Hiring managers already know this fact.

b.      You are wasting space on your resume.

2)     Excellent Written and Verbal Communication Skills

a.     See it frequently, but this is not the definitive based info hiring managers are looking for on the resume.  Your resume writing itself should show excellent writing skills and the interview, your verbal communication skills.  Use it if you want on the cover letter, with an example  demonstrating your excellent communication skills.

b.      Again, wasting space, this time with a generic statement.

3)    Works Well in High Pressure Situations

a.     This is something everyone deals with today in the business world, so instead of a generic statement like the above, give them an example of a project that got done on time and on budget with a time-compressed schedule, or a client that you helped with a product shipment issue that was going to shut down their factory, but you saved the day.

4)    The words Duties or Responsibilities include…

a.     These are highly overused and you want to get a thesaurus and find other action oriented words to being your resume bullet points.

5)    Gained Expertise

a.     Showing hiring managers how you used the expertise is the important part, not just that you learned it.

6)    Strong Work Ethic

a.       Unfortunately many of the people who say this on their resume don’t have one.  

7)    Meets or Exceed Expectations

a.       Generic statement, instead use a real example of how your met or exceeded a goal.

8)    Highly Qualified

a.     Again, generic statement, give specific examples of how you are qualified from your work experience.

9)    Results-Oriented, Results-Focused, Results anything…

a.     Yes, we have all used this phrase or some incarnation of it in our past resumes, but it is time to put this one to bed and give the hiring manager an actual example of results.

10)  Objective Statement

a.     We have covered this before in another blog post, but I find myself still telling this to jobseekers on a fairly consistent basis.  Don’t use an objective statement, which is about what you want, instead use a job title.  Until the company wants to interview and hire you, they don’t “care” about what you want.  By giving them a (their) job title, this communicates what the resume should cover in regards to “type” of experience.

Whether you call them filler words, general or generic statements, or just fluff, including several of the above phrases in your resume will look less than professional.  You only have a few seconds in the initial review of your resume to get the attention of a Hiring Manager, HR, Recruiter, etc.  The last thing you want to do is alienate them with canned phrases and space wasters.  Give real examples of your work successes with some detail, as this is what anyone who reviews resumes and/or hires employee’s wants to hear – proof you are up to the challenge.  To your job search success!

Get a Different Perspective to Create a Standout Resume

Don’t be afraid to ask past colleagues (be wary of asking current colleagues, of course), family, friends, and those you volunteer with about what you have done in your various jobs (including volunteer work) that might be great to mention on a resume.  What have you been really excited about that you have discussed regarding work?  What projects do they remember you working on specifically?  Do they remember you winning any awards or recognition's?  What about a performance review that was particularly good?  Do they remember you writing any standout documentation (manuals, policies, tips sheets, website verbiage, etc.)?  Do they recall you training others in the workplace or giving presentations at work or in a volunteer capacity?   

It can very difficult for us to see our accomplishments.  Often the things we do daily are some of the most important information to include on a resume, but we just see it as part of our job. Getting another perspective regarding your career and your performance in various jobs can really help bolster the information you can provide on a resume.  To your job search success!  

Resume Tip: Action Verbs

Using action verbs on a resume should be something most people have learned by now, but I still see many resumes without these important, accomplishment oriented words.  Instead of saying "duties included" or "responsibilities were" to start bullets points on your resume, try using various forms of manage, create, implement, communicate, research, analyze, organize, coordinate, market, and coach.  In showing a potential employer that you actually did the task, not just talking about the task in general, you give them the vision of you having that real-life, on-the-job experience.  Be careful not to reuse these action verbs repeatedly; which means you will want to get out that old thesaurus or use the one in Microsoft Word to help you choose the right synonyms to develop a document full of diverse actions verbs.  If all else fails, go to Google and type in "action verbs" and you will see many lists for use by jobseekers writing resumes.  To your job search success!  

Career Tip

Always bring a fresh copy of your resume and cover letter to an interview, and be sure it is the version you sent to that particular company.  In fact, I always recommend that candidates find out how many people will be interviewing them and bring at least that many copies, if not a couple of extra in case additional interviewers are invited.  Providing a nice clean copy of your resume and cover letter to the interviewers not only ensures they have the "pretty" version instead of one from the Applicant Tracking System, but shows your level of preparation.  To your job search and interview success!

Colored Fonts and Resumes – That’s a Big NO!

From critiquing resumes brought to me by students seeking jobs after graduation or during the summer, to fielding applications in the past, I am surprised at how many job seekers use colored fonts in their resumes.  Sometimes it’s because they don’t know how to reverse the blue color in a web address (put the cursor at the end of the web address and hit the backspace key), but at least this one I understand.  More often than not, it’s purely an issue of neglecting to change the printer cartridge or selecting black in your print choices. When color shows up on a printed resume the reader immediately has less respect for the document.  Perhaps it shouldn't be that way, but presentation is everything.  Always print your resume text in black to ensure you showcase a professional document and present yourself in the best possible light.  To your job search success!

September is Update Your Resume Month

On an annual basis Career Directors International runs a September Campaign to “Update Your Resume.”  In this day of job uncertainty and workers constantly moving or being moved between positions, it is highly recommended all employed individuals keep their resume updated.  From company mergers and acquisitions, to layoffs and dismissals, you never know when your job could be changed or even disappear, and having a resume ready to go at a moment’s notice could pay huge dividends.  Far from just being for a negative reason, you want to keep your resume updated for potential promotion opportunities, that recruiter that might call or email you out of the blue, or for an annual performance review to “remind” your boss of your many contributions throughout the year. To your career success!

Career Tip

Keep track of your accomplishments at work on a regular basis.  From being part of a project team to saving the company money, anything you do to make a difference for the organization should be written down and saved.  Now, during performance reviews you have a list of achievements to review with your supervisor, and lots of information to choose from for a resume update.  I recommend having a file just for career accomplishments at your home where you can easily find the information.  Whether you track it month-to-month or year-to-year you will have a comprehensive account of your work success. 

Quick Resume Tip

Never lie on your resume.  While you may be desperate to get a specific job, or even any job, a lie can truly come back to haunt you.  First, your experience is good enough if applying for the right jobs.  Second, a lie, even discovered years down the road, can result in immediate dismissal (think of the Yahoo CEO who lied about having a degree on his resume and was ousted from his position within days).  It will never pay to lie, whether discovered immediately in an interview or checking references, or years from now, the damage is done.