Being the intuitive person that I am, I therefore deduce that resume writing is not something more people enjoy.

Me? I love it!

For me, writing a resume is like a complex puzzle. I have all this information about my client and I have to figure out the best, most effective way to present it. If I get it right, my clients get the jobs of their dreams and that’s pretty cool.

So over the next week or so, I’m going to share with you some of the inside secrets to success when it comes to resume writing. I hope that my suggestions will make you rethink that hatred for resume writing and awaken some of the enthusiasm I feel when I start a new resume writing project. So let’s get started.

How to Write a Resume #1 – Feel Their Pain

When you’re struggling with how to write a resume, you’re likely focused on yourself. You have questions like ‘how do I explain this gap?’ or ‘how do I show I have the important skills?’ or ’should I explain why I left this job after such a short time?’

These are all reasonable questions, but it’s this focus on YOU that gets in your way. Because your resume isn’t about YOU.

I know that sounds nuts, but if you’re focused on you, you’re missing the point.

If you want your resume to grab the attention of employers, it needs to be about THEM.

The most important question to ask when you’re writing a resume

There is one question I ask myself at the start of every resume project and it’s this: What do my target employers want?

You need to answer this question before you think about writing a word. Because the answer to this question will guide you as to what you should include and exclude from your resume. It will help you decide what to do about that gap, or which skills to highlight.

As an example, one current client wants to go back to doing something she last did 8 years ago. Since then she’s had several contract and freelance jobs and run her own business. To ensure that employers see her highly relevant past experience, I structured the resume so that all those freelance and contract jobs were rolled into her consulting business. I then kept that section relatively brief and only highlighted the assignments that were closely related to her target positions.

By doing this, I was able to get 8 year-old experience up on to page 1. I also created a strong profile with headlines that described that older experience in a way that would appeal to target employers because it addressed their main concerns.

This new resume has given my client a real shot at her dream job for one reason and one reason only – we thought about the needs of target employers before we started to write one word of the resume.

How Do You Know What Employers Need?

If you’re staying in the same industry, you will already know this. Think about the most successful people in your field or in your company … what do they do?

Think about your industry… what challenges is it facing?

If you know the company advertising a vacancy, research them to find out all you can about their goals and culture and market position.

But if you’re aiming to move into a new field, you’ll need to do more research.

Read all you can on forums and blogs and company websites and industry association websites. Tap into your network and talk to anyone with knowledge of the industry. Reach out to social media connections to see if they will share their knowledge. Scour the web for job postings and note any common themes.

Next Comes the Good Part!

Once you know the answer to the question ‘what do my target employers want?’ you are ready to start thinking about your resume strategy. It’s that strategy that will get you interviews. It’s that strategy that will guide you as you make decisions about content and layout and font choice and all that good stuff. And developing that strategy will be the subject of my next post in this series.

To receive email notification when that post goes up, just sign up here.

And for much more resume help, take my free e-course on resume writing. It comes in 10 installments and takes you through every step of the process.

[Photo by moonstarsilverwolf]

But what if he did?

Would he wait for vacancies and then apply to the ones he was most qualified for? And once he’d done that, would he wait for the phone to ring for an interview?

I don’t know about you, but back when I was job hunting, I often did just that. I’d find vacancies and apply. Or I’d write to recruiters and then wait for them to call. For many years I did what everyone else does.

Then one day I was talking to my boss and we were discussing a particularly weird problem that we didn’t know how to solve and he said ‘be Steve Jobs.’

I looked at him a little funny. After all, I’m not a guy or a genius or an inventor of amazing things. I don’t own even one black turtle neck sweater.

“What do you mean ‘be Steve Jobs?’” I asked.

“Stop trying to think like you. Pretend you’re Steve Jobs and you’ve been called in to solve this problem.”

Amazingly it worked! Once I was freed from my own perceptions, I thought of new ideas that hadn’t occurred to me before.

Later, I read E-Myth, which is a book about small business management. In that book Michael Gerber asked an intriguing question. He tells his readers to imagine they had just bought their own business. And he asks ‘as the new owner, what would you change?’

It’s amazing that by asking yourself that question, you can instantly see things differently. You have all these ideas for what you would do if you had acquired the business, only of course you already own it!

And that’s why I want you to look at your job search or your career situation as if you were Steve Jobs. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be Steve. It could be Seth Godin. Or Oprah Winfrey. Or Calvin Klein. Or anyone, in any walk of life, whose creativity or leadership skills you genuinely admire.

The important thing is to step outside yourself and your own restrictions and your own biases and your own ways of thinking and then see if new ideas present themselves.

The good news is that most of them have no idea what they’re doing.

I meet a lot of job seekers during the course of my work as a professional resume writer. From executives to entry-level, I see the same mistakes over and over again. And the people making these mistakes have no clue that they could be doing better.

So how about you? Are you committing any of these sins?

1. You Have No Idea Where You’re Going

The old saying is true, If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

At least once a day, I turn away a potential resume client because he or she doesn’t know where they’re going. To write a resume and start a job search without any sense of direction is to simply waste time.

By the way, it’s OK to have several very different career targets. It’s just not OK to start out without knowing where you’re going.

If you need more help at this stage, check out Nicholas Lore’s book Pathfinder, or work with a professional coach such as The Rockport Institute, Pathfinders or The Reinvention Institute.

2. Your Resume Is Boring

I’m going to be honest. Most people are horrible at resume writing. I don’t know whether you are one of them or not, but the odds are not great.

When I started my business 7 years ago, I made a vow that I would never sell services to someone who honestly didn’t need them. Ethics are very important to me.

Well, all these years later and I would say I have turned away maybe 50 people. The rest badly needed my help.

I am not saying this to sell you on Blue Sky’s resume writing services. I am saying it because it’s true. If you’re not getting a response to your resume, then it’s not good enough. Period. End of story.

Either work with a professional (see our recommended writers here) or do some serious home study on how to write a great resume. We actually offer a free course and you’re welcome to sign up here.

3. You Haven’t Built a Strong Web Presence

What happens when someone googles your name? What do they find?

Google my name (Louise Fletcher) and you’ll see that I compete with a famous actress for page 1 space on Google. Despite this, I have made it onto page 1 with my Twitter feed and also by creating a Google profile, which appears at the bottom of the page when my name is searched.

If you don’t share your name with a famous person, you can do even better.

There are a ton of free websites that allow you to establish yourself online and promote your professional knowledge completely free of charge. Not using them is insane!

To create static profiles, start with LinkedIn (more on this next), ZoomInfo, Google and Facebook.

To promote your knowledge of your subject area, sign up for Twitter, start a blog, or create Squidoo pages on your area of expertise.

Job search is not what it used to be and if you’re not using these tools, you’re not playing the game.

4. You’re Not Active on LinkedIn

I ask all my clients for their Linkedin URL when we start working together. I would say that 10% of them have a fully completed, active profile.

40% have created a profile, but have not completed it properly.

50% are not even on there.

What???

LinkedIn is a free network of highly influential professionals. It super charges your networking capabilities. If you’re not on there and active, you are definitely not in the game.

More on why you need to be on LinkedIn here. And here are my tips for creating a profile.

5. You’re Not Networking

Many people shy away from networking because they imagine it to be a difficult and awkward process. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

What’s more, networking is without a doubt, the #1 best strategy for finding your next job. Everyone feels more comfortable with a referral and employers are no different. If one of their current employees hands over your resume, you are much more likely to wind up with the job than if you applied online.

If you’re not networking right now, check out our coach Barbara Safani’s article 7 Rules for Networking Success or if you are really lost, contact us for in-person coaching.

The single best thing you can do for your job search is to start networking today.

6. You Have Not Sent Your Resume to Tons of Recruiters

Before I ran my own business, I worked in Human Resources. I obtained each of my last three positions through recruiters and interviewed for quite a few more opportunities as a result of my recruiter relationships.

If someone can refer you to recruiters in your field, that’s great. As I said before, everyone likes a referral. But that may not be possible and in that case, you will need to contact them cold. The key to success is:

a) Target recruiters carefully, contacting only those who work in your field or industry (this is a great tool to research and contact recruiters).

b) Make sure your resume shows exactly how you will add value in your next job.

c) Contact lots of recruiters because most of them won’t be recruiting for a suitable vacancy right at that time. You need to find the 5 or 6 who are.

Recruiters hold the key to a great number of excellent vacancies so getting on their radar screen is crucial.

7. You’re Following the Rules

This is a bad habit to get into.

When you’re applying for a vacancy, don’t apply the same way everyone else does and then leave it at that.

Follow the instructions, sure.

There’s always a slim chance that your resume won’t disappear into a vast database never to be seen again.

But then take it further. Start doing some research to find out the name of the hiring manager or other senior people within the company.

Then use your network (including LinkedIn and Twitter) to make contact. Or send a creative job application directly. Or call them. Or come up with any one of 100 different ways to stand out.

Just don’t, whatever you do, follow the rules.

What do you think? Have I missed any deadly sins? Or omitted any great techniques for finding a new job?

The whole post is worth reading but the gist is this:

34 percent said they found their last job through a job board and when asked where they expect to find their next job, almost 70 percent said a job board!

I guess I shouldn’t have been quite so surprised. I often hear from potential clients who want to hire Blue Sky to rewrite their resume when their real problem is poor job search strategy. These job seekers have good resumes – perhaps not quite as good as we could write – but not so much worse that they should be spending hundreds of dollars on a rewrite.

In these cases, we ask a few probing questions and soon learn the real issue: they are spending most of their job search time applying for jobs online. And of course, so is their competition. Which means that the odds are bad even before you factor in that only 34% of them got their last job via an online job board.

This week I worked with a senior marketing executive who once worked for a well-known, highly innovative fashion brand. When I asked about their marketing philosophy, she said it was ‘do what everyone else wasn’t.’

In other words, they didn’t vie with their competitors for ad space in magazines – in fact they never advertised. Instead they carved out new ways to grab attention including promotional events, philanthropic work, and free media coverage.

What Does This Have to Do With George Costanza?

Do you remember the episode of Seinfeld, where George finally realized that his life was going horribly wrong because he always made bad decisions? He decided he would just ‘do the opposite’ of whatever his gut told him.

Now thankfully, you’re not George. but you can take his advice and do the opposite – of what everyone else is doing. Just like my client’s former company, you can take the path no one else is taking.

It starts with dropping job boards. Everyone else is there – and while they’re spending time 70% of their time doing something with a 34% success rate, you could be spending yours doing something a lot more productive. Not sure what? Check out my recent post on Career Hub: You’re Not Applying for a Job, You’re Running a Campaign.

Let me ask you this in return … if you knew of a regular social gathering attended by all the decision-makers who could impact your job search, would you go?

What if I told you that most of them would even be open to connecting with you in some way if you just approached them?

And further, what if I said that lots of them posted their senior-level vacancies on a bulletin board available to all members?

Finally, I’m going to tell you that the place is swarming with recruiters all looking to hire for well-paid positions.

If you’re looking for a job but refused to go to that place, I’d say you needed your marbles checked!

LinkedIn is That Place!

But that’s exactly what LinkedIn is.

According Anderson Analytics, LinkedIn users are senior-level, happily employed and well-connected:

According to the survey, 30% (9 million) of LinkedIn users are savvy networkers who earn nearly $93,500 per year and have a work purchase-power of $88,000. This group earns a “great” in social networking influence; 69% read blogs, and 9% maintain their own blogs. They are most likely to use Gmail and visit technews sites like Slashdot.

The next largest group, clocking in at 28% (8.4 million), are senior executives earning a mean of just over $104,000 per year with a purchasing power at work of $99,000. Most of this group is happily employed and uses LinkedIn for business contact networking.

As anyone who has networked on the site can tell you, most users are very open to introductions and new connections.

And just as in my imaginary get-together, LinkedIn also posts senior-level vacancies and it’s a favorite hunting ground for recruiters, who like to uncover happily employed candidates for their searches.

So the only question is, why are you not there?

Need help setting up your profile? Here are my tips on Building a Successful LinkedIn profile

Think how it would feel to point recruiters to the speech you gave at a prestigious conference or your Masters thesis on your industry.

If you’re not a well-know entrepreneur or senior executive, you might think that’s just a pipe dream. But it’s not! No matter what you do for a living, the Internet makes it possible for you to establish yourself as an expert.

There are lots of ways you can do this, and many of them take time. For example, you could start a blog and build up an audience. You could tweet about your profession and attract attention that way. You could build up a strong online presence by writing articles for trade publications. All of these are excellent strategies for building awareness.

But what if you don’t have the time or inclination to write regularly?

That’s where my solution comes in.

Meet Squidoo.

Squidoo is a free web publishing site that allows anyone to sign up and create web pages (called ‘lenses’).

Here are a couple of lenses so you can see what I’m talking about:

The Best and Most Effective Way to Promote Your Business
50 Ways to use Twitter

These pages are quick and easy to create – the interface is very intuitive and they offer lots of help. Best of all, the service is completely free. in fact, if you attract a lot of traffic to your page, you can actually earn money, but that’s another story. For now, I want to focus on how Squidoo can help you further your career goals.

How Can You Use Squidoo to Stand Out?

Here’s all you need to do.

Create a Squidoo page that demonstrates your professional knowledge

We all carry around enormous stores of knowledge about what we do for a living – knowledge that can’t be communicated in a two-page resume or short cover letter. Squidoo allows you to share that knowledge with other people while also positioning yourself as an authority.

A sales person could create a page called “How to Grow Revenues Through Solution Selling”

An internet marketer could create a page called “The Top 10 Web Analytics Tools and How to Use Them.”

An executive assistant could write “An Executive Assistant’s Guide to Organization.”

A benefits administrator could write “Understanding Your Health care Plan: A Quick Guide.”

A plumber could write several pages on simple household problems such as ‘How to Unblock a Sink.’

Include your page (or pages) in all job search correspondence

Add a link to your page into your resume. Either at the end of your resume profile, or at the end of the actual resume, say something like “Learn more about my approach to sales in my article ‘How to Grow Revenues Through Solution Selling’” and include a link to your page.

Include the same statement in cover letters or emails to potential employers/recruiters.

Add a link in your email signature.

Link to the page on your LinkedIn page or Google profile.

Now You’re an Expert!

Just like that, you have positioned yourself as a knowledgeable candidate. Marketers know that establishing a sense of authority is one of the keys to selling a product or service. The same applies to marketing yourself to potential employers. Show them that you know your stuff and they will instantly think more highly of you.

You have also shown that you are serious about your work. Employers are looking for dedicated, hard-working employees who care about what they do. It’s hard to tell that from a resume. But someone who took the time to write an article about his profession? That’s someone I want to meet.

[Photo by suvodeb]

Most resume advice articles will tell you to focus on achievements not responsibilities, or to use lots of action-oriented words, or to be sure you communicate your ‘personal brand.’ I’ve written these articles myself and I meant well, I really did! But all of this is what I call ‘bitty’ advice. It’s useful and lots of it is true, but it’s nibbling around the edges of the problem.

What my art teacher taught me about resume writing

My first college art teacher was called Arthur Bagley. He had a beard and unkempt hair and he made teapots. Whenever I hear the phrase ‘doesn’t suffer fools gladly’ I think of Arthur Bagley. He didn’t suffer fools glady at all and he immediately decided I was one.

I had chosen to study art because I was good at drawing. I had read lots of books and taught myself how to replicate anything. On the first day of class, Arthur asked us to show him art work we had done. I proudly showed him a portrait I had done of a minor celebrity. It was good! I was excited to hear what he had to say.

‘Well, he said,’ after a long pause. ‘It looks just like him.’

I beamed. I knew it! But he hadn’t finished.

‘But what’s the point?’ he asked.

‘The point?’

‘Why did you do it? What are you saying here?’

I stammered but I didn’t even really understand the question, let alone have an answer.

He tossed the drawing back on to my desk with a slight sneer. ‘I think that your drawing has no point other than to show other people that you can copy what you see accurately,’ he said.

Then he paused, turned back to the class and issued one devastating last word on the matter: ‘Meaningless.’

What is the point of your resume?

I tell this story because it perfectly sums up the issue with most resumes and the reason most resume advice can lead you awry. Before you can follow the tips about adding action words, and focusing on accomplishments not achievements and all the other stuff that resume advice articles generally cover, you have to decide on one thing: What’s the point?

The Resume Strategy

The number one secret to writing a resume that gets results is simply this: Have a strategy.

I never start writing a resume without one. I gather tons of information on my client, and without much thought, I could probably write a resume that was impressive on the surface, but lacking a central point. 95% of clients would probably walk away happy with that, and some of them might even get good jobs.

But that’s not enough for me and it shouldn’t be enough for you. Because by doing more, you can dramatically increase your success rate. The way to do that is by determining your own strategy (and by the way, it’s OK to have several resumes, each with a different strategy and each to be used in different situations).

The Resume Strategy Formula

Here’s how I develop a resume strategy when working with my clients:

1. What does the person want to do next. Clear target positions are essential for a strong resume. If you don’t really know what you want to do next, your resume will reflect that and it will fail.

2. What matters most to employers in that field? If you don’t know the answer to this question, research is key.  You will need to understand their needs in depth if you are to write a resume that appeals to them. Study as many job postings as you can to identify the required skills, experiences and personal traits.

3. What do you have to offer that matches employer needs? Dig into your background, experiences and personality traits and write down everything that meets the needs of your target employers. When you’re done, summarize this into a short description of how you will add value.

4. Develop your strategy and keep your resume content focused on communicating that message. This is hard, but you will need to omit or minimize information that doesn’t show employers why you are the perfect fit to solve their problems. You might be dying to boast about this or that accomplishment, but if it’s extraneous to requirements it will only distract from your central message. Stay focused!

Arthur would be proud!

After a few months of art classes with Arthur, I had moved from copying the things I saw to painting wild, imaginative landscapes inspired by poetry. I was never a technically skilled or particularly gifted artist, but finally my art work had a point.

If you follow my resume writing strategy formula, you will be able to say the same about your resume. Arthur Bagley would be proud!

Need more help with your resume? Sign up for my free resume writing course. No spam ever – just two weeks of emails teaching you how to develop and implement a solid resume strategy.

[Photo by Keith Williamson]

Twitter doesn’t exactly make it easy. You don’t get much real estate to talk about yourself – just a tiny little bio and space for one outbound link. But those two things, combined with the photo you select, are key to whether people decide to follow you.

To show you what I mean, here’s a shot of my Tweetdeck window today.

The far right-hand column is new followers. I usually don’t have time to click through to each person’s page, so I generally just scan the bio to determine whether I want to follow or not.

In this case, I definitely wanted to follow Elyse S. Her bio is interesting and smart – she conveys her work ethic by saying she’ll wade through snow to get there rather than by saying something dull like ‘I have a great work ethic’ – but what’s even better is that I will also remember it. Should I know of a sales job in Atlanta, I’ll think of her. And if she follows lots of recruiters and other people in career-related fields, others will react the same way when her bio pops onto their radar screen.

So what kind of Bios work to attract followers?

Mostly I’d say bios with personality. If you seem like a human, I will pay attention to you and maybe follow your tweets. Here are a couple I liked, one because it’s just human and one because it’s funny.

But you don’t have to be funny. Especially if you’re using Twitter to promote yourself or your business, you should say what you do – but without being boring about it. Mention that you’re a recruiter or a career coach and I will be likely to take an interest because of my own profession. Do it with a touch of personality and I’ll definitely follow your tweets.

What Turns People Off?

Here are a couple of bios that didn’t encourage me to follow. These may be fabulous people – and for all I know, I am missing out. But I can’t tell that when I have no information to go on, like here:

Or when the whole bio is a sales pitch like this one:

Now it’s perfectly possible that some of the people who don’t include a bio don’t want to be followed. Lots of people use Twitter for casual socializing and keeping up with friends, and that’s absolutely fine.

But if you want to be found and followed, think about how you present yourself in that all-important little bio. Here are my tips:

• Tell people what you do
• Show a little personality
• Reveal something personal (but not TOO personal!)
• Don’t include religion or political affiliations

What about you? Anything you love or hate about other people’s bios?

For more information on Twitter, check out Using Twitter for Job Search. If you like this post, you can subscribe by email to receive updates whenever we post new content.

Hiring a new employee can often feel the same way. One resume after another, all filled with hype and smooth sales talk, all with the faint whiff of desperation.

By glib sales talk, I mean cliched ‘resume speak.’ The stuff you see on everybody else’s resume. Like this …

Accomplished 10-year veteran with extensive cross-functional and matrix experience in process re-engineering and systems design. Exceptional leadership abilities and strong project management skills.

Are you asleep yet?

And by hype, I mean things like this …

Dynamic senior leader with 20 years of driving seven-figure revenue growth through ground-breaking innovation and world-class execution. Unfailingly respected by peers, employees and clients. Adored by his wife. Revered by his friends! Worshiped by his children!

OK, I went a little bit overboard at the end, but you get the drift.

The thing is, the people who write resumes like this think they’re doing the right thing. They saw examples like this in books or on websites and they’ve been told over and over again that they have to sell themselves.

That’s true. You do have to sell yourself. But you can’t do that if you sound like everyone else. And you can’t do it if you sound incredibly desperate for attention and love! 

So What Should You Do?

Kevin Womack had an excellent post the other day on recruitingblogs.com.

With all of the advice that is out there for writing resumes, I can tell you that the single most important thing to remember and probably the only thing that you need to remember if you are an IT Job Seeker or IT Staffing Professional is to “WRITE THE RESUME TO REFLECT THE POSITION YOUR ARE TRYING TO OBTAIN”. That’s it….period.

Kevin’s point was that you should always edit your resume to suit each posting, and I agree with that, but I think he also touches on a larger issue … headhunters don’t want fluffy claims and over-hyped language. They want to know ‘how exactly will you solve my client’s problems?’ (Internal HR folk and hiring managers have the same question btw only in their case it’s phrased ‘how will you solve my company’s problems?’)

The best way to show what you will do in the future is to show what you have done in the past. So when you write your resume, just focus on presenting an authentic and compelling case for yourself through facts and real-life examples.

Facts Not Fluff!

Ask yourself: What do potential employers care about most? Then choose facts and results that address those concerns and lead your resume with those.

A CFO might start with a quick summary of his most impressive company turnaround.  A sales rep might start off with the fact that he’s been a President’s Club member for 9 years out of the last 10 (it’s OK to include the one year you missed – no one is perfect and pretending you are is classic used car salesman).  A marketer might lead off with the most successful brands he’s worked on.

All of these are designed to impress, but they’re based on fact, not smooth talk and even more importantly, they’re addressed directly at what matters most to the hiring authority.

Check out this example of a strong, fact-based, employer-targeted, resume introduction and ask yourself what you can do to inject more employer-focused facts into your own resume.

Need help writing your resume? Check out our free resume writing course. Over 2 weeks, you’ll learn how to construct a strong, fact-based resume that sells you effectively without over-hyping your skills.

[Photo by jbcurio]

Click through to see all the designs, but here are my personal favorites:

(Note this is an English website, so they’re including some personal info that would be a no-no here in the US, such as birth date and marital status).

The post also includes some great resume tips, all of which I agree with, but I do have a couple of concerns about these resumes:

1) Unless Steven has a version in MS Word, or text only, his resume won’t work with applicant tracking systems. This means his data won’t be found 3 months from now when the HR department needs to hire a designer, and scans the database for candidates.

2) The focus of this contest was on visual appeal. The contestants weren’t actually given enough information to write strong content. (You can see the rules here). A strong resume should communicate what makes you different. How are you uniquely valuable? What impact has your design work had on your employers/clients? Has it increased sales? Driven leads? Improved conversion?

Unlike most professionals, web designers are able to measure the impact of almost everything they do. A resume that doesn’t communicate that impact is an ineffective one – no matter how pretty it looks.

My own advice to web designers is to create a practical, easy-to-read, impact-filled resume in MS Word (here’s an example) and then go a little crazy on a PDF version that demonstrates your design skills. When you apply for a position by email, send both. That way you are sure to make the most of all the opportunities available to you.

Check out the rest of the designs here and let me know what you think.