New Year’s Networking

2007 draws quickly to a close.  Keppie Careers hopes that a job search and a new career are in your plans for 2008! 

Many new job seekers or people who haven’t looked for a job in a long time may not know about the “Hidden Job Market.”  Sounds sinister, but all it really means is that most (70 – 80% or more!) of jobs aren’t actually filled with people applying to a job posting or announcement; they are filled via personal connections.

Since 70-80% is a huge number of jobs, it’s a good idea to get on this networking bandwagon!  Networking is a huge topic, and I have tons to say on the subject, but since we are coming up on a holiday, let’s leave it at this:

You will probably be out and about this week celebrating the New Year and potentially meeting new people.  Take the opportunity to think about how you can work your career plans and goals into the festive conversations you’ll have. 

How can you introduce yourself with an eye toward seeing if there is a potential career link with your new acquaintance?  Ask someone about their New Year’s Resolution, and then tell them yours:

You hope to use your skills and experiences in _____________ to move into a position doing ______________.  

If they are interested in your field or know something about it, they may ask you for more details.  Consider pre-planning a  a 30-second infomercial for yourself!   What do you have to offer? 

You never know where you’ll meet the professional connection that will link you to a new opportunity.

Stay tuned for more on the crucial topic of networking!  Happy New Year!

 keppiecareers.com…We advise, encourage, enlighten!

Bragging

When you are writing your resume, don’t be afraid to brag a little bit!  Some may say that there is a fine line between the obnoxious, pretentious job seeker and the applicant who wants to show their stuff.  I think that the difference comes down to proving it!

If you can support accomplishments with cold, hard facts – do it!  Avoid vague, generalized statements touting yourself as a “results oriented achiever” or a “visionary executive” unless you can actually demonstrate that those tags suit you.

Your resume is not a place to be modest.   If you don’t explain to the reader what you have to offer, he or she isn’t going to know, so don’t hold back.  Think about you and what you have to offer.  (Self-assessment is a theme that will run through much advice from Keppie Careers…Take note!)

 Just don’t let your resume drown in unsubstantiated, fuzzy, one-size fits all, over-the-top expressions of grandeur.  Your hiring manager will thank you!

 keppiecareers.com…We advise, encourage, enlighten!

Attractive and Easy to Read Resumes

So, on top of everything else, your resume needs to be attractive and easy to read!  An aesthetically pleasing resume may catch the eye of an overburdened hiring manager and win your resume an extra glance.  When I review resumes, I don’t even bother to read the ones that look disorganized or unprofessional on a first pass. A few tips to consider for a resume that pleases the eye:

Fonts
Since you are likely to e-mail your resume as an attachment at some point in your job search, choose a font that is easy to read and readily available to all computer users.  If you downloaded or purchased optional fonts, it isn’t likely that your reader will be able to view your resume as you designed it.  Stick to fonts such as: Arial, Book Antiqua, Georgia, Garaomond, Tahoma,  Times New Roman and Verdona.  Avoid Courier (looks like you used your grandmother’s typewriter) and all script or decorative fonts.  Fancy fonts are difficult to read quickly.

Keppie Careers suggests 10-pont font because it is large enough to read, but small enough to fit a lot of material on your document.

Bullet Points
Use bullet points instead of dense paragraphs of information to help the reader zero in on what you have to offer.  Keep the bullet points to the point – you don’t want paragraph-style bullets!

White Space
This is a tricky one…Be sure to use white space, but don’t include so much white space that it looks like you don’t have anything to offer!  When your resume is awash in white space, the reader may assume (maybe correctly!) you don’t have much experience.  Don’t fill every nook and cranny with text, but fill your page.  If you have more than one page (this is  topic for another article) be sure that you have enough to fill at least 3/4 of the second page.  Otherwise (again), you risk looking like you don’t have much experience.
 

Format
Consider your audience when you format your resume.  If you are sending it to an artistic crowd, feel free to be more creative with your format.  If you are hoping for a job in an investment bank, stick to conservative formatting.  Your research and conversations with professionals in your field will help inform you.

Name and Contact Information
Okay – I know that you want to stand out and be different, but do everyone a favor and don’t put your name and contact information on the bottom…Everyone who reads it will automatically assume you’ve left off your name!

Bold
I’ve alluded to this in another article – don’t mis-use or overuse bold!  Bold can help guide the eye from description to description, or it can confuse the eye.  When you read your resume, do the bold words stand out for a good reason?  If not, reformat!

Headings
Your major headings (for example:  Highlights, Accomplishments, Experience, Education) should be well defined and consistently labeled.  (If they are centered, all should be centered…ALL CAPS?  Bolded?  Choose a format that works.  Focus on the reader -what will make it easiest to read?

If you keep these ideas in mind when designing your resume, you’ll be on your way to a “New Career for a New Year!”

_____________________ 

Keppie Careers can help you transform your resume and advise you about your job search!  www.keppiecareers.com

Being Consistent

As you continue to assess your resume in preparation for “A New Career for a New Year,” a word on consistency.  (If you’ve missed previous posts, be sure to scroll down to read up on how to target your resume, and for tips on producing error-free job search documents.)

One of my pet resume peeves is inconsistent formatting.  For example, if you have several short-term positions, you list dates as December 2007, Dec. 2007 and 12/07.  There are many opportunities for your resume to miss the mark on consistency. 

If you are bolding your organization titles, bold ALL of them.  Verbs should be in the past tense unless you currently work at the position.  All of your descriptions should follow the same format.  For example:

Organization Name                                                       Chicago, IL
Job Title                                                                           2002 – present

ALL position descriptions should use the same abbreviated format for states.  Your next job in South Carolina shouldn’t be listed S. Carolina or South Carolina, but as the abbreviated SC.  All future references to “present” in dates should have a lower-case “p.”  (For example, if you list a current organizational affiliation.)

These points may seem insignificant, but wouldn’t it be ironic to be touting your meticulous, detail oriented abilities in your resume, while your resume demonstrates something less than meticulous?

With employers and agencies receiving so many applicants for each position, every little bit helps.  Pay attention to how your resume looks and reads.  Dot your “i”s and cross your “t”s.  At least you’ll know that you weren’t passed over for a silly error.

Stay tuned for more tips for creating attractive and easy-to-read resumes!

Error Free Resumes

In keeping with our theme – A New Career for a New Year – I thought it would be appropriate to point out some potential pitfalls to the error-free resume!

Don’t assume that your spell check is a good editor!  How often are words misspelled only to inadvertently form other words? You don’t want to advertise that you were distinguished as the “best manger of the year.”  (A good example for the holiday season!) 

Be sure to read through your resume, and have a trusted friend review it as well.  You never know when “public” may become indecent, or you’ve used “suing” instead of “using.”  The list goes on and on: their/there, and/an, faculty/facility, board/bored…

A tip to consider:  create an “exclusion dictionary” in your Microsoft Office program.  This personalized dictionary will flag a word as misspelled (such as manger), even though the main dictionary knows it as a proper word.

Stay tuned for more tips on making your resume attractive, consistent and easy to read!

Targeting Your Audience

How can you tell if your resume targets your market?  Read it from the prospective employer’s perspective. 

Ask yourself: 

• Does it speak their language?  Does it echo lingo, jargon and buzz words found in the job description?
• Does it focus on what YOU can do for THEM? 
• Does it emphasize themes and values found on the employer’s website or other written materials?   

If the answers are “no,” it is NOT targeting your market.

What can you do?  At the risk of oversimplifying the issue…

• Incorporate language from the job description and lingo their company favors in your materials.   Take advantage of the fact that job descriptions are lengthy and involved…Someone spent time writing down exactly the skills and experience they seek.  How flattering if you echo their language when you apply!  You’ll look like the perfect candidate. 
• Think about what you have to offer in the way of accomplishments and skills.  Eliminate any language that suggests that they can do something for you.  For example:  “Seeking experience in a fast-paced, high-tech environment.”  No employer wants to hire someone to give them experience!  They want to know what YOU can do for them. 
• Your research (via web information, informational interviews, reading industry publications) should uncover the organization’s culture and values.  Do they emphasize volunteerism?  Are they “green?”  Are their employees chained to their PDAs and work 24/7?   Your materials should incorporate how you fit into their culture.  The point is to help them visualize you fitting into their environment.  If you can paint a picture that helps them see you working for them, you are one step closer to an interview!

Know Yourself to Sell Your Skills

If you were hired to sell something, an HDTV, for example, do you think that you would sell very many if you couldn’t describe what makes that particular TV special or useful?  The customer doesn’t want to spend a lot of money without knowing what she is going to get in return.  If you couldn’t quickly convince the client that YOUR TV offered the most features and the clearest picture,  customers would nod and smile at you as they moved on to see what the next guy offered.

You see where I’m going with this?  In a job search, you are selling yourself!  If you don’t know what you have to offer, what makes you special and unique, you aren’t going to get very far. 

To write a strong, active resume (your job search calling card),  you need to evaluate your skills and make a connection to the employer’s needs.  See my article, “Connect the Dots Resume Writing” for more about this important topic.

You’re thinking that you don’t have any skills?  Many of my clients underestimate what they have to offer an employer.  I once worked with a woman who spoke several languages fluently, but didn’t think it was worth writing on her resume (which targeted an international position).  She believed that “everyone” was multi-lingual.  As a result, the hiring manager may assume that she was unqualified for the job.

Don’t underestimate what you have to offer!  Spend some time thinking about your qualifications.   Review a skills list  to get you thinking.  List every word that describes you.  Think in terms of what makes you distinctive.  Think about how you would sell yourself…

keppiecareers.com…We advise, encourage, enlighten!

Answers to questions about the job search!

Keppie Careers strives to provide a toolbox of practical tips, useful advice, support and encouragement for job seekers.

We offer confidence, clarity and career search know-how! Read more about our career coaching and resume writing services on our website: keppiecareers.com.

Feel free to post a question about your job search here. We plan to respond in one business day!

keppiecareers.com…We encourage, enlighten and empower job seekers for success!

Assess Your Resume

Evaluating your resume is an important step if you are thinking of a new career for the new year! This article is reprinted from keppiecareers.com. 

Does your resume represent the best you have to offer?  When you read it, are you proud to say that it represents you? Does your resume need a make-over?  Review your resume with these tips in mind…

** Does your resume target your audience? **
Every job and each employer seeks a slightly different applicant.  Unless you are applying for the same exact job over and over again, you should not be sending the identical resume for every position.  Research your target organizations.  Use their buzzwords and lingo in your application materials.  (You can easily tweak a well written resume to appeal to different audiences, so don’t feel that you need to completely rewrite your resume for each new job.)

** Is your resume attractive, consistent, error-free and easy to read? **
Don’t underestimate how important it is to have a clear, error-free, visually impressive resume.  Does your resume look crowded with thick text blocks that may be difficult to scan?  Are you making strong use of bold to enhance your document, or are you overdoing it?  Did you use a resume template from your word processing software?  (Don’t!)  Since readers likely give your resume a 20-second glance, visual appeal is important.  If the reader notices careless spelling errors, it is not likely that you will land an interview.

** Do you DEMONSTRATE what you have to offer? **
Is your resume a laundry list of jobs you held, or does it engage the reader and demonstrate your skills and achievements?  You should quantify your value using percentages, numbers and specifics.  Your resume should highlight the positive impact that you had in previous jobs.  You want to convince the reader that you could do the same for them! If your resume is TARGETED, ATTRACTIVE and DEMONSTRATES what you have to offer, it will be more than a TAD above the rest!  Keppie Careers can help you with a resume that is a head above the rest! 

A New Career for a New Year!

A new year is a great opportunity to reevaluate your career goals and decide if 2008 is the year that you’ll (finally) focus on finding a new job or career.

Is this your year?  Do any of these bullet points sound familiar?

• You dread going to work.  Thinking about your job gives you a twitch, or that familiar stress feeling in your neck.
• You aren’t being paid what you are worth.  You need to make more money to support your lifestyle or family.
• You have always dreamed (or at least thought about) a career in a different industry or setting.
• Your work consumes you.  You are working so many hours that you don’t have time for anything else in your life, and you want more.
• Your job is  having a negative impact on your health.

If any of these describe your situation, now is the time to plan for a move.  Although a job hunt may sound like a lot of work, with the right tools and attitude, you can successfully transition to a new job or career.  Stay tuned for more about how to get started!