Feature Article: Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?
Special Feature: Ten Resume Tips
Bonus Feature: Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?
QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert: John Logan
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
September is Update Your Resume Month.
September is the perfect time to start a new approach to career care-taking, according to
the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association's Update Your Resume site.
While children are embarking on starting the new school year, adults should also be taking
stock of their professional attributes and career value by updating their resumes.
Keeping your resume up to date is a proactive approach to meeting unforeseen market and company
changes, as well a way to reevaluate personal worth and prepare to take the next step in career
growth. Too often job-seekers avoid taking this crucial step until the last minute, when they
need their resume yesterday.
By updating your resume in September during the official update month, job-seekers have the
opportunity to better control and champion their own futures.
This issue of QuintZine offers lots of tips for taking the resume reins.
Find jobs for which to send your resume to at our job portal.
Like so many of us, we are stunned and saddened by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
To help victims get back on their feet, Chandler Hill
Partners is offering Jobs4Katrina.com
to assist the victims of Katrina with employment-related issues and provide a place to bring
employers and the job-seeking victims together.
--Katharine Hansen, Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master, Certified Electronic Career Coach,
and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Why a Resume Writer?
Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?
by Katharine Hansen
In my five years as a resume writer, the vast majority of resumes I have seen
have been relatively weak. As I now begin to step away from resume writing and return
to the college classroom as an instructor, I still see considerable value in the idea
of hiring a professional resume writer. A well-chosen resume-writing professional can
truly make a significant difference in a job search.
A thoughtful, carefully constructed resume, using information you have obtained through
research about a specific company and industry, does more than ensure that you get an opportunity
to interview. It also prepares you for the interview and will contribute to your ability to effectively
make a case for hiring you, allowing you to close the deal! Each resume should be tailored to the job
you are applying for. Broad or generic resumes may (by luck) get you an interview, but they will not
prepare you for answering tough or specific questions when you get there.
In the age of email and online job services, job hunting suddenly became much easier.
Or did it? Sometimes it's hard to know if your resume is actually reaching someone's desk
-- or is lost somewhere in the great void of cyberspace.
And then there is the Quint Careers Blog.
It consists of career and job-search news, trends,
and scoops for job-seekers, compiled by the staff
of Quintessential Careers.
The blog is a great way to stay posted on the most
recent events occurring in the career and employment fields.
John Logan, human-resources manager for ZS Associates, Princeton, N.J.
"A resume should be a statement of the skills a job-seeker would bring to a new
job, as well as an outline of accomplishments in past positions," said John Logan in the Q&A
interview we did with him. "Because the resume is often the only data an employer receives
from a candidate, the bullet points must provide context for past work; providing details like
number of people supervised, size of project budget, estimated cost savings in dollars (or other
appropriate specifics) helps an employer place each candidate in the context of the organization.
I find that most resumes do not provide
enough details for me to understand the scope of the candidate's experience, but are merely a
restatement of a job description, which is not helpful to me as an employer."
Read more of Logan's advice, including resume pet peeves, his thoughts on resume keywords, the importance of
cover letters, positive and negative employment trends, top skills employers seek, mistakes and
myths of job-hunting, and tips on breaking into management consulting in
our full Q&A with him.
"Resumania" is a term coined by Robert Half, founder of the specialized staffing firm
Robert Half International Inc. (RHI), to describe errors made by job-seekers
on resumes, applications, and cover letters. He first published Resumania in his company
newsletter back in 1966 and encouraged readers to submit items that they came across. Soon,
he began receiving a steady flow from colleagues throughout the United States. Its popularity grew,
and the never-ending supply of Resumania continues today.
The examples at Resumania come from clients and businesses worldwide over the years. States the
site: "Although the bloopers are a lot of fun, the purpose of Resumania is not to disparage the
individuals who made them, but to emphasize the importance of professionalism in resume preparation,
which means avoiding:
personal information
attempts at humor
misusing or omitting words
extraneous or inappropriate information
awkward phrasing
It pays to carefully proofread all resumes and cover letters before submitting
them to potential employers -- just one typo may knock you out of the running for a job!"
Maria writes: "I'd been job-hunting without much success when a recruiter at a job fair told me he thought my
resume was really bad. I was shocked! I thought I had a pretty darn good resume. What do I need to write
and improve my resume?"
Catherine writes: "I don't think I have ever seen either of my questions (or problem) in your columns. Both deal
with background checks. Recently I was terminated from a position I had held for only a month. They claimed to
have received information from a law-enforcement agency showing that I had committed a crime. After checking
with the agency mentioned, I learned they had no such information. I suspect that a former employer or someone
in his office where I worked previously made the false accusations. Can I take legal action?
My second questions now that I back in the job market, is that some of the places I have applied to are requiring
that I sign a release to allow them to get my credit report. I feel this is an invasion of my privacy since none of
positions I have applied for have any connection to money or finances. Is this something new?"
Anonymous writes: "I have just completed my bachelor of business administration degree with majors in management
and finance. I'm interested in positions in human resources (primarily), but there are also positions in finance that
interest me. I've created different versions of my resume that target the different career fields, each highlighting
relevant experience and accomplishments, and I'm tailoring my cover letter to particular positions as well. But now I've
found two distinct positions that both interest me, and they're at the same large company with the same contact
person. How might I gracefully pursue both jobs?"
Emily writes: "I am starting a new career and have not been successful in landing a job. I am interested
in working for a bank, but have limited experience. About 99 percent of the jobs advertised requires one
to be experienced. How do I get in at entry level with no qualifications? I am a quick learner and a
team player. I am 50 years old but look about 40. In today's working world, 40 is old, so I have an
extra dilemma."
Looking for work online often means job-seekers must send out their resumes electronically.
But how can a job-seeker make sure his or her resume will not get deleted by a company's junk-mail filter?
Career Journal offers some tips on
writing a resume
that gets noticed by employers and not filters.
Perhaps it's the rush to submit their resumes before other job candidates or too much focus
on creating a visually appealing document. Whatever the reason, many job-seekers overlook
a critical step in the employment process -- ensuring their application materials are clean
and blunder-free. Thirty-four percent of executives surveyed recently cited typos or grammatical errors
as the most common resume mistake.
The national poll includes responses from 150 senior executives -- including those from human
resources, finance and marketing departments -- with the nation's 1,000 largest companies.
It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by specialized staffing service
Accountemps.
Executives were asked, "In your opinion, which of the following is the single most common mistake
job seekers make on their resumes?" Their responses:
Typos or grammatical errors: 34 percent
Including too much information: 22 percent
Not listing achievements in former roles: 17 percent
Poor layout and/or design: 17 percent
Including too little information: 7 percent
Other/don't know: 3 percent
Accountemps Chairman Max Messmer, who writes Resumania,
a weekly column for Scripps Howard News Service, offers the following suggestions for creating
a winning resume:
Tailor your resume to each opportunity. A one-size-fits-all approach tells employers
you have not taken the time to research their company.
Move from general to specific. Organize information in each section by beginning with a broader statement
and following it with more detailed ones.
Keep it short. Resumes require brief statements that do not have to be complete sentences.
Use bullet points to emphasize important details.
Avoid including personal information. What you cite should directly pertain to
the opportunity and your career.
Proofread your resume several times. Ask others to do so as well.
Leave off references. Today's hiring managers assume you will provide these contacts. Remember
to give your references a copy of your resume and advance notice that they may be called.
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
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send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* How to Build a Personal Advisory Board
* Keep Your Career Dreams Alive
* MBA Career Portfolios
* Trends/Tips in Career Portfolios
* Pre-Hire Background/Credit Checks
* Noncompete Clauses
* Sticky Job Interview Situations
* Career Activist Quiz
* Practice Career Management to Avoid Career Crisis
* The Changing Landscape of College Admissions
* Offbeat Ways to Pay for College
* Financial Aid/Scholarship Timetable
* Build Confidence and Avoid Insecurity in Job Interviews
* Empty Nest Job-Seekers
* Baby Boomers Beware
* Are You Sabotaging Your Job-Search/Career?
* Quiz: Marketing Yourself
* Marketing Yourself with internal/External Promotions
* Lifelong Networking
* Networking for the Shy
* Converting a Seasonal Job to a Permanent Position
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Hours
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Career, College, and Job-Search Book reviews
. . . and much, much more!
Don't ever want to miss another issue of QuintZine? Get a free subscription to
the email version of QuintZine by completing our
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