Trish’s Jobsearch Tips

What does your resume say about you?

Does it say you’re a professional in your field, or does it say you forgot to spell check it?

There seems to be no set format’s, it depends on who you talk to what they want to see, 1 page or 2 page resume. Or the new school of thought is this is your chance to shine and it should be an advertisement of your skills, so showcase them splurge and even go up to 3 pages. If this is going to be your first job, then include your school, clubs, activities, or volunteer position. But if you have been in the workforce for 1 year or more you should drop the school activities and club information. If there are gaps on your resume be prepared to explain why they are there. Today we don’t have to run out and pay a printer to print our resumes, we can do this ourselves. But we do need to be sure to have someone else assist in editing.

Which ever format you choose there are several serious do’s and don’t we should all follow.

Do’s and Don’ts of Resume writing.

Do’s

• Always spell check your resume-not once but twice then give it to someone else to review and assist in editing. Even if you spell checked the resume, the word program is not going to pick up misused word that is spelled correctly or typo that is spelled correctly(it recognizes it as valid word)

• Keep to the truth- don’t embellish your skill’s , be honest since they will find out, and it could be cause for them to let you go. However if you worked on excel spreadsheets, and you created complex graphs and charts- this should qualify you as an expert. Be sure to include this as skill for example: Created/Implemented complex reports, graphs and charts using-Microsoft Excel 2007( or 2003 ) etc.

• Write your own advertising-create a section that advertises your major accomplishments, for example if you help your company save 1,000’s of dollars in creating a new process, than get the numbers, $, % etc how you assisted in this endeavor.

• List your skills-don’t forget to list your skills not matter how trivial, if you adapt to change easily, than your are flexible, if you come to work every day then your are loyal and dedicated etc. Don’t forget to include all the software and hardware you are familiar with i.e computer, scanner or cash register, calculator etc.

• Awards-list your awards, if they were received at the last job, or recognition from professional group.

• Internal Training-don’t forget to include any internal training you received at your last position.

Don’ts

• Include photos, video or gimmicks- leave the gimmicks for YouTube, unless a employer is requesting these type of formats forget it, its not going to get your resume further to the top or recognized as being unique.

• Include every mondane detail of your job-keep it to simple phrases or bullets, be descriptive, be brief and to the point

• Include the date you graduated high school or college- unless you just graduated leave this information blank-( age discrimination etc)

• Leave gaps between jobs-but don’t lie-again this can be checked could be cause to let you go. So they way to get around this if you had a small gap just put the month and year you worked for the employer, if it is longer than a month or two you could just put the years, but this could be cause for dialog (beware).

• Include your hobbies, sports etc (unless you just graduated this should be left off -save it for your Myspace, Facebook entries not for your resume) If you don’t have a lot of experience keep it simple. A one page resume is okay.

• Forget to spell check and spellcheck it again!!! Give to a friend and have them check it again. I recently read somewhere if you read it backwards it will help you see the grammatic errors as well.

Well the weekend was hectic , Saturday we had a tag sale in front of the house, and  sold a few big items so it turned out to be worth my time. Weather was sunny, and beautiful, I even got a little sun burned!

Today received a few more nibbles, waiting on a couple of call backs to schedule interviews. I figure I will follow up with them at the end of the week if I don’t hear back from them. I just don’t want to appear to anxious or aggressive.  So don’t panic if they say they are going to call back they usually will. The recruiters are very busy and they get 100’s of resumes every day so it is easy to forget who they owe a call back to.

Well I guess I will close

Talk again tomorrow

Trish

Using Google as a tool for research.

• Research any company that contacts you regarding an interview. Why? So you will be prepared and ready when you meet them for your interview. You must be informed about the company, many companies today share much of there information on their websites, you can find out if they are a formal company or more informal, lifestyle, values are some of the information you can glean from checking out their site.

• Google your former employers, co-workers etc. so you can link with them for your Network. LinkedIn lets you send a email directly instead of sending it from your own email. You can ask them for a recommendation as well. You can also ask them if there are any positions available within the firm.

• Google your self to see how high you come on the page. The higher you are on the page, the easier it is for someone else to find you. (just a reminder if it is a Facebook or MYspace entry you want to correct this as soon as possible) Have their been any press releases with your name included? Even if it’s not business related it’s okay. You may find yourself more than once, this is good. Usually the average person has about 3 entries. The more entries the better. (but most of us aren’t Paris Hilton or Brittney Spears so we won’t have 1000’s)

Well today was a research day, I spent the day researching several things.

Today I spent the afternoon researching and reading, about the company where I have my interview. To become familiar with their products and services. As well as the type of firm they are, looked up their competitors and their press releases. I plan to be prepared for my interview, I will be interviewing them as well, is this a company I want to work for? (More about this next week when I cover resumes and interviewing.)

I also found one of my former Directors today using Google, she is now a Vice President for a large IT firm. I sent her an email requesting she link in, I also asked her to submit a recommendation as well. I asked if there were any opportunities she knew about that might suit my skills. In addition I also sent my resume so she could see how my skills have improved since we worked together. If she thought there was a position, she would be able to forward it on my behalf. (Networking at it’s best)

Well I think this is enough to ponder for now.

Have a great weekend

Trish

As I said yesterday there are reasons why we need to use Business Networks

You can be Googled by anyone-Do you know what your Google footprint is? Try it, put your name in on the Google search bar. What did you find? Is there an entry for Facebook or My Space or worse yet You tube? This could be a reason why you won’t be contacted by an employer or you could get hired then they find your My Space entries.

So enough about how MySpace so isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, no really here is where you can keep your personal life personal, change your options for only those that have been invited. It will stop the stalkers and the spam mail.

LinkedIn or Kickstart or even Spoke is the way to go.

LinkedIn-Has a great reputation and can actually assist in your search for a job or recommendations for a position. It gives you the opportunity to reach out to former school mates, colleagues or even former employers. It also has a nice job board and great network, it’s free, but you can upgrade.

Kickstart-Is sponsored by Yahoo, It gives you the opportunity to reach out to former school mates, colleagues or even former employers. The network also seems to be quite extensive, seems to be geared more toward the college student though.

Spoke-Is another Network which I found today when I Googled myself, and it suggested I sign up, which I did. Not sure how successful this one is but I will be watching this Network as well. I found many of my former colleagues at MCI were listed there, no one I remember however.

I found this interesting about branding yourself and Google foot print
Reachbranding there is a book as well.

Today was an interesting day, I found almost all of my job leads from LinkedIN, these jobs all seem to be very specific to what I am looking for so I am hopeful that one of these leads will bear some fruit. I have received a few of those dratted rejection letters but not many so that is encouraging.

I also added a few RSS leads to my blog , I plan to add additional information soon. Please join me and comment.

Have a nice day
Trish

Day two-it’s time to get organized.

· Setup professional email address for your resume- there are plenty of free email account for example gmail, yahoo, aim etc. (don’t use your cute email address for your resume or for potential employers to have to send responses to) use if your name is John Smith jsmith @ or JohnSmith @ or John.Smith @ these are best, so just keep it simple-stay away from the cutsie/sexy etc.

· Power think, make a list of the employers you think you might like to work for. Go find their websites, check their internal jobs boards that are not posted on the commercial boards, setup job alert for this company, or companies.

· Create job search alerts on the various web sites

Career builder
Monster
Yahoo
Dice

· Make a space for your self so you can work on your resume, plan(who), schedule (when), interviews(where)

· Plan ahead for the upcoming week

· Make a schedule try and stick to it-allot your self ample time to surf the web for jobs, check email, fax resumes, print resumes, have phone interviews.

· Brush off that old dusty resume, you need to spell check the resume not once but 3 or 4 times, give it to someone else to review for spelling, grammatical problems etc. Update with your last job duties, write and rewrite-take some time to look at the jobs you are trying to land-change the language to match these jobs (don’t lie) If you did excel spreadsheet reporting don’t tell them you used another program. But if you did advanced formulas be sure to include this, I will get into this in greater detail next week when we get into the do’s and don’t for your resume.

If you have a face book or my space account-Run don’t walk to change the settings to personal friends only or by invitation only. I will walk you through setting up an Linked In or Kickoff business networking sites. I will explain about this further, but please trust me this is the most important thing you can do for your self today. Do your self a huge favor don’t wait do it NOW….

Now I had an interesting day, I sent about half of the resumes I did yesterday but got a few nibbles, no interview but responses to my inquires, so all in all productive day. I am still perfecting my resume and setting up network links.

Spent the morning setting up my PDA with all of my tasks(everything, every detail) and then updating it to the days, time, I even included my personal projects to integrate them so I won’t fall behind on them too. It’s hard to stay on task but if you work at it you will find you get more done, then you did before. I feel like I had a very productive day and made some very important contacts for jobs that will make me happy. Now it becomes a bit of waiting game.

Well I am running behind (Task on starting dinner).
That’s part of the bonus I actually have found I have time to make dinner for my family, Homemade Nachos, better and cheaper than going out for Mexican, besides who can afford to go out. I am unemployed, well between my ideal position.

Will get into the My Space and Face book issues more tomorrow, working on getting some of those interesting articles on this.

Have a nice evening talk to you again tomorrow.

Trish