Feature Article: Use Your Blog as a Resume? Part I: Pros and Cons
Special Feature: Creative Professionals: Does Your Resume Reflect Your Design Skills?
Bonus Feature: Research on Fonts and Marketing: Apply It to Your Resume?
Extra Feature: Are Video Resumes for You?
A Quintet of Quick Questions: QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search
Notes from the Editor: About this Issue...
After six previous years of publishing resume issues of QuintZine, we wondered if we had anything
new to say. Turns out that there ARE new twists in the resume world.
One of my articles explores the new idea of using a blog in place of a resume. Another looks at applying
marketing research about type fonts to resumes. Jennifer Klein brings us good advice about resumes
for creative people that reflect their creativity. Joe Turner introduces the emerging concept of video
resumes. And we conduct a Q&A interview with Jared Fletcher, who is pioneering the certified
resume, which assures employers that resumes are not fraudulent.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Your Blog as a Resume?
Use Your Blog as a Resume? Part I: Pros and Cons
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
Editor’s note: This article is the first of two parts. Part II
provides tips and examples for using a blog as a resume.
Through the use of a variety of online tools -- blogs, wikis, social-networking sites, portfolios,
podcasts, Youtube videos, and more -- individuals, especially younger people, are socially
constructing their identities in ways unimagined a dozen or so years ago.
Where a dedicated careerist of old constructed a job-seeking identity through a resume and
a few other printed materials disseminated to audiences that seem puny by today’s standards,
postmillennial upwardly mobile types are establishing their career identities to vast global
audiences using the tools of the so-called Web 2.0, defined in part by Web guru Tim O’Reilly
as comprising an “architecture of participation.” The concept of Web 2.0 “suggests that
everyone … can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves,” writes
Andrew Keen in The Daily Standard.
Creative Professionals: Does Your Resume Reflect Your Design Skills?
by Jennifer Klein
The fastest way to compromise your chance of landing a job in a creative field is to submit a
traditional resume. Creative professionals need to use their resumes as a tool to show their creativity
and design abilities. Just as a model would not apply to a modeling job without headshots, nor would a writer
apply to a position without a perfectly composed cover letter, a designer should not apply for a job without showcasing
his/her design in the resume. Incorporating design into a creative professional's resume is as important as
including a name and contact information.
Are you thinking about engaging the services of a professional writer for your resume, CV, cover letter,
thank-you letter, or other career-marketing correspondence? Before you take this step,
consider how a professional resume writer could benefit you.
Research on Fonts and Marketing: Apply It to Your Resume?
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
A few years ago, Pamela Henderson, Joan Liese, and Joseph Cote of Washington State University conducted
research into how consumers react to various typefaces or fonts. Their purpose was to explore how marketers and
advertisers can use fonts to convey specific messages and emotions in logos and advertising copy.
Given that resumes are essentially marketing documents, I wondered to what extent the research might also apply
to fonts you might use in your resume.
Video resumes offer a new tool to get your foot in the door with a growing number of employers today.
But are they an advantage for you, the job-seeker?
Also called "visumes", a video resume is a short video of the job-seeker essentially selling himself or herself to
potential employers. Contrary to its name, a video resume is not your resume on video. It's actually a short promo enticing
the employer to take a look at your "real" resume online.
Typically, these videos consist of a short sales pitch delivered on-camera answering the question "why should you hire me?"
Using a Web cam, camcorder, or digital camera, most job-seekers film their own video. They then upload it to sites on the Web where
potential employers might view them. You'll still need your conventional paper resume though, since video resumes are used primarily
to attract attention, helping job-seekers stand out among the rising competition on the Web.
Our full article will tell you more about what the video resume is all about.
QuintZine's Q&A with Expert: Jared Fletcher
Jared Fletcher, Founder and CEO of ResTrust Certified Resumes.
Ever heard of a certified resume? Jared Fletcher explains the concept and why you may need one: "Given the proliferation
of resume fraud, I developed the certified resume concept," Fletcher said in the Q&A interview we conducted with him.
"A 'certified' resume is one that contains information that an individual has authorized to be verified as factual.
At ResTrust, we verify a client's information relative to employment history, education, and credentials
(e.g., professional certifications). The result of this process is a resume that has now had its contents
officially certified as factual.
"Nine out of 10 hiring managers say they would rather review a certified resume versus an uncertified resume.
A certified resume not only produces a better candidate, but also helps streamline the hiring process by reducing
the cost of hire. A certified resume also provides the individual with a way to differentiate himself or herself
from the competition," Fletcher said.
Read more of Fletcher's advice, including his discussion of how he recognized the
need for the certified resume, the proliferation of Internet job boards, top employability skills, and
over-reliance on the Internet for job-hunting.
Read our full Q&A interview with him.
A meta-search job site that pulls job postings from more than 500 places, including the major job boards,
the top 200 newspapers, hundreds of professional associations, and company career centers. Job-seekers
can search for job listings by title, keywords, company, and location.
Indeed also enables users to search its archive of 50 million jobs a year to plot job trends over time
and offers job-seekers forums in which to ask for answers to job-search questions, as well as for help
and advice. The site also shows bar graphs with average salaries for various job titles.
Code Jobs --
a job site for computer programmers seeking software development jobs,
where job-seekers can search job listings (by keywords, job description, job type, and location)
as well as post your resume. No cost to job-seekers.
HealthDiversity.com --
a job portal that focuses on matching talented, under-represented minority job-seekers with leading
healthcare organizations. You can search job listings (by keyword, job type, and location), post
your resume, and create a job-search agent. No cost to job-seekers.
needlestackjobs.com --
a job site for job-seeking professionals searching for flex-time and part-time jobs,
including in accounting, law, marketing, sales, HR, IT, finance, healthcare, education, engineering, etc.
Job-seekers can search job listings (by keywords, job category, hours per week, work schedule, and location),
post your resume, and create a job-search agent.
nonprofitJOBMARKET.org --
a job site where job-seekers can find volunteering, employment, and consulting and temporary
opportunities with non-profit organizations around the world. Search for postings by keyword,
job status, country, location, job type, and mission type. No cost to job-seekers.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
The adage "It's not what you say, but how you say it" holds particular weight when it comes to resumes, a
recent survey shows. Eighty-four percent of executives polled said it takes just one or two typographical errors
in a resume to remove a candidate from consideration for a job opening; 47 percent said a single typo can
be the deciding factor.
The survey was developed by OfficeTeam, a staffing service specializing in placing highly skilled administrative
professionals. It was conducted by an independent research firm and includes responses from 150 senior executives at
the nation's 1,000 largest companies.
Executives were asked, "How many typos in a resume does it take for you to decide not to consider a job candidate for a
position with your company?" Their responses:
One typo: 47 percent
Two typos: 37 percent
Three typos: 7 percent
Four or more typos: 6 percent
Don't know/no answer: 3 percent
Resumes are increasingly getting caught in e-mail junk filters and may never reach intended recipients. Try e-mailing
your resume to yourself, both as an e-mail attachment and pasted into the body of any e-mail. If it goes to your
junk-mail box, try to determine what offending word(s) might be responsible -- and eliminate the offender(s).
The "keep your resume to one page" rule may be on its way out, a new survey suggests. While more than half (52 percent)
of executives polled believe a single page is the ideal length for a staff-level resume, 44 percent said they prefer two pages.
That compares to 25 percent polled a decade earlier who cited two pages as the optimal resume length; 73 percent of respondents
preferred a single page at that time. Respondents also seemed more receptive to three-page resumes for executive roles, with
nearly a third (31 percent) citing this as the ideal length, compared to only 7 percent 10 years ago.
Both national polls include responses from 150 senior executives -- including those from human resources, finance and marketing
departments -- with the nation's 1,000 largest companies. They were conducted by an independent research firm and
developed by Accountemps, a specialized staffing service
for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Choosing a College Major: Future-Focused Strategies for Finding
a Field Where You'll Excel
Quintessential Careers Publisher Dr. Randall Hansen has a new book!
If you're college-bound, you may already be wondering which major to pursue. This new book is for you!
This guide to majors, careers, and jobs helps students:
plan their futures by examining lifelong interests, skills, and passions
conduct career search through personal and experiential sources
decide on majors and minors by determining what's best for them
Real jobs for real majors. Readers can find practical advice and information on real job titles and careers for college graduates
with just about any college major, from business and the arts, o science and music. Each chapter includes information on
typical majors, background on various careers, skills needed, sample job entry-level job ads, industry resources and professional
associations, employment outlook, salary information, and other features.
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
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
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
Link to Us page.
Need a career expert for a story or article you're working on? Searching for college,
career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
is your one-stop location for getting the information and resources you need.
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming
issues of QuintZine:
* Office Politics
* Gossiping at the Office
* Defending Yourself at Work
* How to Transition Back to Work: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Parents
* Women as Breadwinners
* Maternity Leave
* Your Job Search IQ
* Jobs on the Cutting Edge
* Resume Bullet Points: Before and After
* Social/Online Networking from the Recruiter's Perspective
* Salary Negotiation Mistakes to Avoid
* Use Your Resume to Negotiate a Higher Salary
* GLBT Job-search Issues
* The Value of Internships Abroad and Study Abroad
* Top 10 Fears of Job-seekers
* For Job-hunting Success, Develop a Detailed Job-Search Plan
* Keep Your Career Dreams Alive
* MBA Career Portfolios
* Pre-Hire Background/Credit Checks
* Financial Aid/Scholarship Timetable
* Build Confidence and Avoid Insecurity in Job Interviews
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* Lifelong Networking
* Networking for the Shy
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Hours
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
