Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How to Present Career Longevity on a Resume

Today's post is another question from a DailyWorth.com reader:

“I am 57 years old, and I'm concerned that my resume goes back too far and may be too long. When the high-tech company I worked for went under, I returned to school, got a master's degree in education and began teaching. I worked in the inner city for 10 years and finally burned out and left two years ago. Since then I have been working part-time in grant-funded positions, but want to go back to full-time work. How can I frame my varied experience on a resume and showcase my skills so it’s obvious that I will bring value to a new employer?”

Great question, and the first thing to understand is that you aren’t creating one resume, but many resumes. Especially if you are applying for jobs that involve different types of roles in different fields, you must customize your resume for each open position. The main way to do this is by including the language in the job description.

For instance, if an advertisement requests someone who uses “creative training methods,” make sure you incorporate that exact phrase on your resume for that job. The employer’s applicant tracking system is programmed to hunt for the words in the job description, so putting them in usually ensures your resume will be looked at by an actual human.

You don’t mention whether you’re trying to break into a new field or not; but, either way, look closely at the job description to determine how to list your experience. Since you’ve had a long career, presumably you’ve acquired critical transferable skills such as project management, client relations and sales. Note any skills mentioned in the ad, put those front and center on your resume and don’t forget to add bullets demonstrating how you applied those skills and how your efforts concretely affected the bottom line.

To address your first point, if you are listing every position you’ve held since you graduated from college, your resume may indeed be too long. Depending on the role you’re going after, remove jobs that are irrelevant — or only slightly relevant — to the new position. 

For example, if you are applying for a job in a Fortune 500 company as a VP of training and development, your teaching jobs may be a better fit than your grant-funded job. Your resume should be concise while also telling a coherent story. Your career, just like life in general, might be a bit muddled — but your job as a great resume writer is not to let that show. 

Finally, working well into your sixties and seventies is a reality for most employees today and organizations should feel lucky to get a seasoned Boomer, but nevertheless, age discrimination does exist. For this reason, I’d encourage you not to advertise your age on your resume. Don’t include the date you graduated from college, and if possible, highlight jobs from the last 15-20 years. Refer to sample resumes from your field(s) online to ensure that you are up-to-date with the most current presentation of information. 

 

The Real Reasons Employers Aren't Responding to Your Resume

If you’ve applied to dozens of jobs but haven’t received any interviews, a warning signal should be going off. There are a number of reasons why employers don’t respond to your resume, and most of them can be easily fixed. Increase your chances that employers will respond to your resume positively by fixing these potential gaffes.

You Submitted It Online

Sending your resume to an organization with no context whatsoever is a surefire way to get lost in the black hole that is the applicant tracking system. You can apply online if it’s mandatory, but try to route your resume through a personal contact in the organization.

You Didn’t Customize It to the Open Position

In today’s tough job market, every resume should be crafted in response to the requested experience and responsibilities listed in the job description. If your resume is off target, it will quickly be put aside. So yes, this means you must have multiple versions of your resume.

For more reasons, head over to the full post at the FlexJobs blog.

 

How to Easily Customize Your Resume

In an era in which you can send off 100 resumes in just a few minutes, I’m always getting the question, “Do I have to customize my resume to each job application?” Sorry folks, but the answer is yes. Here are three ways to customize your resume each and every time.

Hiring managers get so many resumes that they will easily discard the resumes that don’t meet their specifications exactly. Fortunately, though, you don’t have to reinvent the resume wheel every time you apply for a new position. Follow these simple tips for a perfectly targeted resume.

#1: Match the language in the job description

Pluck out the keywords in the job description such as “initiative,” “teamwork,” and “creativity,” and intersperse these throughout a new version of your resume. The hiring organization’s applicant tracking system will zero in on your resume because it contains the words and phrases the system was instructed to look for.

For the other two essential tips, head over to the FlexJobs blog.

Yes, You Should Show Freelance Work on Your Resume!

By 2030, nearly 50 percent of the American workforce will consist of contract employees. In other words, freelancers. Indeed, we’ve come a long way since a freelancer was a writer who wrote and edited corporate publications. Today, freelancers encompass nearly every role in every industry.

Given this trend of legitimacy and the modern pace of career change, why would it be weird for a freelancer to pursue a full-time, more traditional opportunity? I don’t have the answer, but I do have a suggestion for how you can make your recent roster of freelance jobs make you appear less like an aimless job jumper and more like a serious-minded careerist.

Create your company.

When putting together your resume, come up with a name for your own company the way other self-employed individuals do. Mine, for instance, is Inspiration at Work, and I am the president and CEO. List your company as you would any other, and include quantifiable results from your key projects. These can be organized chronologically or by skill—just be consistent.

For the full post, check out the FlexJobs blog.

Find a Job in Two Hours

I recently had the opportunity to meet a talented career consultant, Steve Dalton, at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.  Steve has written a new book called The 2-Hour Job Search.  I know what you’re thinking: is he trying to become Tim Ferriss 2.0?  Well, there are certainly worse goals.

I mention Steve because he has a refreshing view of the job search that applies to most if not all of us fully employed folks.  Steve says that because we are so busy, we need a job search plan that allows us to move our goals forward without devoting 40 hours a week.  For Steve’s top tips for cutting the time you spend on your job search way down, have a read of my post over at the Fast Track blog.

 

How Not to Get Fired Like the Yahoo! CEO

Last week, Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson was called to step down from his position following a scandal involving his credentials.  An investor recently discovered that on Thompson’s resume, the ex-CEO claims he graduated with a computer science degree from Stonehill College, when in fact he finished with an accounting degree.  A computer science degree did not even exist at the school at the time.

When the truth came out, Thompson blamed a headhunting firm for misrepresenting his education when he was in the process of being hired by eBay in the mid-2000s.  It didn’t work.  The firm fought back by providing Yahoo! with a copy of Thompson’s original resume – fake degree and all.

A while back, I talked about how to cope productively in the wake of scandal.  And cope productively Thompson did not.  For all of the details about what he did wrong and how you can avoid it, check out my recent post on the Quickbase blog.

Real World 101 for Soon-to-Be Grads

College graduation is nearly upon us once again, and many seniors have felt paralyzed by the still struggling job market.  Kristen Fischer, author of Ramen, Rent, Resumes has these tips for members of the Class of 2010 and members of the Class of 2011 who are wisely planning ahead:

Think about what you want to do.

Put some thought into the direction you want to take, after all, you may not want to enter the field you just spent four years studying.

Start your resume.

While you are on campus and have the resources, get tips for writing a resume. Compiling a resume is often overwhelming for soon-to-be grads because they feel like there’s nothing to fill up an entire page, but if you really assess your skill set and look at the latest resume-writing trends, you can come up with a powerful document.

Start looking for a job—yesterday.

Even thinking about what you want to do and where you want to live—and arranging for those things—is smart planning. Start browsing websites, setting up accounts on sites like LinkedIn and Monster.com.

Practice interviewing.

If you aced your public speaking class and excel at debates, start developing answers to common interview questions and practice a mock interview with a friend.

Enjoy your last days in college.

Spend extra time with friends, sleep in, stay out late, hit up a crazy party, or enjoy campus activities. Look to the future as a professional but don’t forget to enjoy your college days.

I give advice for college grads pretty often, but it's nice to have a fresh perspective now and then.  Thanks, Kristen!

Making Your Digital Footprint Work For You

I've  heard about a cool new service called VisualCV from a few different sources recently, so I thought I'd share what I learned here.  VisualCV helps job seekers put forward a consistent professional image online that can be linked to wherever they have a digital footprint - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  And it's more than just for job seeking, as people currently use VisualCV for personal branding, business development, and networking.

VisualCV enables professionals to have complete control over their online representation and networking.At the most basic level, the professional can track his/her own, private one-degree community. Or, it allows them to take their personal brand to the Internet so that they can be found in a way they want to be represented professionally. You can embed images, charts, audio and video clips of your work, letters of recommendation, awards, qualifications and skills, and there are no content or quantity restrictions on portfolio items.

Of course, there are the ever-present privacy concerns.According to the VisualCV folks, you retain complete control over who sees your CV.  You can share different versions of your VisualCV with specific contacts, opt to have your VisualCV viewable within the VisualCV.com community, or make your VisualCV available on the Internet by opting for public display of your unique URL. And this is neat – you can register interest with a company or individual, and identify search settings and categories for which you’re interested in being “found.”

Supposedly, top companies like Amazon and Citrix are already on board with accepting VisualCVs, and hey, if Guy Kawasaki is using it, it must be good.   

4 Ways to Keep Your Resume Out of the Black Hole

There are so many people applying for jobs these days, it’s difficult even to get your resume read, let alone get invited for an interview.  Some candidates, however, go overboard in the quest for attention, resorting to boldfaced lies about their education and experience in order to make their resumes stand out.  CareerBuilder.com’s Rosemary Haefner has these suggestions for ethically getting your resume to the next stage.

·         Be the first in line. One in five employers said they are receiving more resumes this year than last year.  A good way to break out from the crowd is to be the first one in line. Sign up for e-mail alerts and perform daily searches for jobs in a specific field or industry.

·         Use keywords. Many hiring managers and HR departments are using new technology to review job candidates. Applicant tracking systems scan résumés and provide the managers with a ranking based on keywords in the document.  Among the terms employers searched for most often: "problem-solving and decision making skills," "oral and written communication," "customer service," "retention," "performance" and "productivity improvement," "leadership," "technology," "team-building,"  "project management" and "bilingual."

·         Focus on tangible results. Most hiring managers spend a minute or less looking at resumes.  Think of yours as a written audition and make the most of a limited window of opportunity.  Focus on specific accomplishments and positive outcomes that you achieved in previous positions.

·         Be transparent. If you have a gap in employment periods, explain why. Mention any volunteer work you did or classes you took at these times to show that your skill set is still current and highlight what you have accomplished. People often forget to include volunteer work, part-time jobs and freelance work in a resume, even though that work is often relevant to your career path. If you did not complete a degree, do not claim that you did; college and university attendance is easy to verify.  

More on Resumes: Some Good Things in Life Are Still Free

Maybe because we’re still at the beginning of a new year, or maybe because we’re on the edge of a recession, resume writing has become an even hotter topic lately.  On the heels of the great response on last week’s Razume post, I thought I’d share some information about a new free resume help service my friend Louise Fletcher has just launched.

Louise is the president of Blue Sky Resumes, co-founder of the popular Career Hub blog, and author of the book, The Complete Guide to Resume Writing.  Her approach to resume writing is based on her 15 years in corporate HR and learning what works in the real world. The essential point is that you must think of your resume as a marketing document and draft it accordingly.  Similar to advice I’ve given in the past, Louise says that a critical mistake candidates make is thinking that the resume is about them, not about the employer.  Job seekers are so concerned about their needs, and their experience, and making sure they explain everything they've done, and they don't stop to think about what the employer is looking for.

Louise’s short and easy to digest 7-part online course can help you overcome this hurdle, and provides the same sound guidance that you’d receive paying a fee to your local resume writing service.  Here’s a quick overview of the contents:

·         The #1 problem with 95% of resumes and how you can avoid it

·         How to show employers exactly why they should hire you!

·         Boost the response rate to your resume by 50% or more with a simple shift in focus

·         The secret ingredient that the best professional resume writers use to spice up their clients' resumes

·         How to use basic design principles to make an impression in that all-important first 20 seconds.

·         How to evaluate your resume to ensure it's the absolute best it can be.

·         How to use these resume writing techniques to ace your interviews

So if you’re looking for resume assistance, check out the course and then post your resume on Razume for feedback!