If we liken the job search to a game of Monopoly, and compare job applicants to the playing pieces moving around the board in search of prosperity, know this.  Without keywords as well as their proper placement in their resumes, job seekers will not advance past Go.  They will remain in holding patterns while their competition sails on, en route to securing choice jobs.

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Just as doctors normally make the worst patients, writers are often ineffective in conveying their skills and accomplishments on documents intended to create career opportunities.  And while core competencies may be apparent, the achievements of writers can appear elusive, at least, on a resume.

Unless one is a successful novelist or author of short stories, most writers hammer out and edit material in order to promote a product or a service, or persuade audiences to agree with a specific point of view.   The aspiration linked to this goal is usually the generation of revenue.  And while it can appear difficult to quantify revenue generation in terms of writing expertise, consider that “squeeze pages” have been known to spawn Internet campaigns netting hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in sales volume, and that other forms of marketing material, at their most effective, have done the same.  If you can connect your abilities with similar feats, you will have identified your accomplishments for potential employers. Read the rest of this entry »

These days there’s dudes gettin facials;
Manicured, waxed, and Botox’d
With deep spray-on tans
And creamy lotion-y hands,
You can’t grip a tackle box.
With all of these men lining up to get neutered,
It’s hip now to be feminized.

(Brad Paisley, “I’m Still a Guy”)

The gods may be vain, but men are vainer.  As county music icon Brad Paisley points out in his hit song, aesthetics and cosmetic surgery are no longer confined to the female gender.  Individuals of both sexes invest in eyelifts, tummy tucks, personal trainers who whip them into shape, and colorists who convert gray hair into richly hued tresses.   Cosmetic subterfuge, however, cannot alter one’s circumstances in life.  And, after a while, one usually reverts to how one appeared prior to the transformation.  So why invest in something so transitory?

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Consider the import and content of a resume.  The essence of an applicant’s work history, education, professional training, and other relevant data must be contained within one or two pages.  If this seems a daunting task for the applicant, consider the onus placed upon the hiring manager.  He or she is compelled to sift through a multitude of resumes in order to distill the sea of candidates down to a relatively small pool.  Even with the use of talent acquisition management software, the hiring manager’s task is enormous.

Make that manager’s task easier, and you’ll increase your potential for interviews.

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Often, deciding what to list on your resume in terms of education is to ride the horns of the proverbial dilemma.   Too high an academic level can remove you from the candidate pool as the employer may fear that a.) you will demand an exorbitant salary or b.) usurp him as manager, as his own education is not as impressive as yours.  The opposite side of the coin indicates that too little education could also knock you out of the ball park, and not in the way that you’d like, as the employer will view you as a.) basically unschooled and/or b.) not ambitious.

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In more than thirty years of crafting resumes, cover letters, and other documents targeting career advancement, we have witnessed a specific trend that emerges time and again during floundering economies. Seeking reinvention of their core competencies leading to broader career opportunities, a good portion of our client base streams out of vocational/technical institutions, recently graduated and eager to attain placement in their new industry of choice.  These hopefuls span the gamut of the more mature employee displaced from the industry in which she had previously realized success, to the younger, college-age applicant who eschewed a more traditional university education in favor of a focused technical training program.

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