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Welcome and Best Wishes in Your
Online Job Search!
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD,
"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and
a future." Jeremiah 29:11
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RESUMES
Some Helpful Hints
KEY TO THE RESUME
• The key to an effective resume is to keep it simple, to-the point, and
brief.
• Make every word mean something! If you put yourself in the
employer’s position, he/she will want to thin out the stack of resumes .
To strengthen your chances of getting into the preferred stack, do a
resume that will be appreciated with fewer unnecessary words.
FORMAT
• The only ESSENTIALS are experience and education. Perhaps a third may
be special skills such as: Languages specials equipment knowledge, i.e.
computer equipment, software skills etc.
• Do not use summaries. Employers want to identify where and when you
did specific things, so list them under the proper time and place on the
resume. Summaries usually repeat what is detailed later so are merely
repetition. If not, they are merely confusion.
• The employer wants specific facts about the scope of your
responsibility. What is/was the size of your company? What is/was your
product or service? To what markets was it sold?
DATES
• Dates are generally one of the first items for which employers look.
Therefore, put them in the easiest to check; under the work experience in
the format in the left hand margin.
• There are TWO advantages to using the months as well as the years of
employment. First, months add immediate credibility, not covering any gaps
in employment. If you use years only, you leave open the question as to
what else is being left out of the document. When you use years and not
months, it is entirely too vague. For example, “2000 to present,
(2002)"can be 13 months or 36 months. If it was a promotion you are
describing by date, you may have robbed yourself of a great deal of time
and experience without defining the month in which you received it.
RESPONSIBILITY
• If you manage others, it is important to how many and what they do.
For example, “District Manager. Supervise 10 Territory Managers, 8
Customer Service and 6 Warehouse Personnel.” What is the size of your
district, branch or company?
• Do/did you have profit and loss responsibility?
• Paint the correct picture on your resume with specifics but without
descriptions that are taken for granted (common job descriptions). Your
resume should demonstrate that you and your team have increased market
share, profits, sales or saved your company X amount of $, the actual
results say it all. So, be specific in the increases that you or your team
added to the bottom line of your company, no matter what category or in
what manner those additions were attained.
BULLETS
• Your accomplishments should be prevalent on the page to the person who
scans the resume. The best to accomplish this is to use bullets, i.e.,
dots, dashes, asterisks. You only have to indent 1-2 spaces.
• Prioritize your bullets in significance and make them one to two line
statements. Examples: *1994, #1 Sales Rep of 8 in District, Top 5%
Nationally. * Originated an order processing system saving 1 man hour per
order. * Introduced a new market idea increasing sales by 30% of a total
of $855,000,
• Without stating the original dollars or benchmark numbers, you will
not give an adequate picture and nor give credence to your contribution to
the company. Percentages alone can be foolers and hide insignificant
numbers. Use them if the numbers are small but the contribution was real
and meaningful.
DO’S AND DON’TS
• It is generally not wise to let someone else write your resume.
Misrepresentations can cost you a job now or (worse) later when it is
discovered.
• Remember to look at your resume from the employer’s point of view.
So, be as specific as possible as often as possible. Mysteries are a
handicap.
• Objectives on a resume can, and eliminate you. They are usually too
far reaching or too unrealistic for your experience. Or, they are not
applicable to their current needs, identify with the wrong product or
market. More often than not, they are reasons for elimination than
inclusion in the interview selection process.
• Account for ALL of your time since school, even if you have to do so
with one liners stating dates, company, city, state and title.
• The all important one page resume of the past is just that; past. Try
to keep it to as few pages as possible and, really not over 3 unless you
have been published or are applying for a government or academic position.
• Always keep your resume current. You never know when your dream job
will appear.
• Do not use colored paper. Stick with black ink on a premium quality of
white paper and always bring several copies with you to an interview, even
if you are interviewing only one person. Some prefer a bound brag book but
it does tend to lead a hiring manager to flip through the book regardless
of what you are presenting. A new manila folder with accolades loosely
kept allows you to keep his/her attention on what you are saying during
the interview. You can leave a bound version for later review.
• Decide on a format for your resume after your text is prepared.
Don’t try to make your information fit into someone else’s structure
• Don’t overdo bold or italic type. Excessive use of either defeats
the purpose of these enhancements. If half of the page is bold type,
nothing will stand out.
• Use nothing smaller than a 10-point type. Also, use a high quality
printer
• Everything you have heard about “white space” on a resume is
true”. Don’t clutter your resume.
• Your resume dos not need to be your interview, it needs to be the tool
to get you to the interviewer’s door where you can then take the ball
and run with it
Please don’t hesitate to ask questions of any of us and we will do our
best to answer them or direct you to a resource to find the answer. Good
luck!
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E-mail: info@jobsupportministry.com
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