Feature Article: Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves of Hiring Decision-Makers
Special Feature: Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ
Bonus Feature: Five Top Trends for Executive Resumes
Extra Feature: Are You Up To Snuff When It Comes To Soft Skills?
Special Recession Series, Part II: Job-Hunting in a Weak Job Market: 5 Strategies for Staying Upbeat (and Improving Your Chances of Success)
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...
Looking for resume resources and samples? You have hit the mother lode!
As part of our strategic efforts to beef up the sections of QuintCareers that visitors
consult most often, we have added a ton of material on resumes.
This issue of QuintZine marks the publication of my new book,
Top Notch Executive Resumes,
and is therefore the appropriate vehicle for introducing four new resume articles, a Q&A,
and our huge cache of new resources.
Although these resources are meant for job-seekers at all levels and professions,
we have focused special efforts on resumes for executives, new grads, and
students seeking internships.
With the economy still looking gloomy, we also bring you the second in our recession series, this
one about staying upbeat in the face of a difficult job market.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy@quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Resume Pet Peeves
Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves of Hiring Decision-Makers
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
In the subjective world of career-marketing communications, where opinions vary widely and consensus is hard to find, the
pet peeves and preferences of those with the power to hire offer enlightenment for crafting your executive resume -- especially
what to avoid.
Through a list of the Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves, hiring decision-makers reveal the landmines aspiring executives
can avoid while positioning their career-marketing documents to meet decision-maker needs. I surveyed 59 hiring decision-makers
for my book,
Top Notch Executive Resumes
(from which this series of articles is adapted) about their peeves and preferences. One of them,
Melissa Holmes, senior technical recruiter, at Levi, Ray & Shoup Consulting Services, Springfield, IL, speculated that while executive
and senior-level candidates make the same resume mistakes as all other job-seekers, perhaps hiring decision-makers are less forgiving.
QUINTESSENTIAL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS is now providing solutions
with unmatched quality in the areas of career planning, professional resume writing, and interviewing, having
successfully helped tens of thousands of clients, from executives through individuals beginning a career,
succeed in their career goals..
Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
This article seeks to be the complete compendium on the questions that are most often asked about resumes. In creating
this Resume FAQ, we have created seven sections with a total of 55 of the most frequently asked questions about resumes.
A great interview-generating executive resume is all about differentiating yourself from others competing for the same jobs.
With constantly changing trends in strategic resume writing, new ways to accomplish this differentiation are always coming
forward. If you take advantage of the latest trends before they mainstream, you are much more likely to stand out, make a
positive connection, and stimulate the attention you deserve.
Until recently, companies believed that only hard skills impacted the bottom line. After all, how could anything
described as soft be valued in the hard-charging, results-driven business world? Conventional wisdom dictated that hiring the
very brightest people with the best academic credentials, factual knowledge, and technical skills would automatically
make a company successful.
Now, however, a flurry of studies are telling us it's the soft skills -- behaviors and traits such as self-awareness, adaptability,
critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, teamwork, communicating, likeability, risk taking, and time management
-- that determine the bottom line and will make or break an employee's career.
Soft skills are becoming a significant consideration for firms during the recruitment process and gaining the respect they
deserve. They are being linked to positive performance appraisals and salary increases. For example, if you have all the technical skills
and fancy pedigrees in the world but can't get along with people, sell your ideas, get your work in on time, and demonstrate competency
in countless other soft skills arenas, you'll be going nowhere fast.
With soft skills more important than ever before, how do executive
job-seekers credibly portray them on a resume or cover letter?
Job-Hunting in a Weak Job Market: 5 Strategies for Staying Upbeat (and Improving Your Chances of Success)
by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Job Market Blues:A malady affecting millions of Americans
during a weak job market caused by a struggling economy. Symptoms include high levels of anxiety, fear, and depression
related to keeping one's current job or finding a new job, tied to the ability to pay one's bills and maintain a place to live and food to eat.
For many job-seekers, searching for a new job is a stressful experience. The end result, though, is usually a positive one
in which the job-seeker is rewarded for his or her past accomplishments with a better job -- a job that has more prestige, higher pay, and perhaps
with a better organization.
But when you have to conduct a job-search in a weak job market,
the stress level increases dramatically -- especially if you are currently unemployed, expect to be let go from your current
employer, or work in an industry or profession that has seen widespread job cuts.
To make matters worse, it's hard not to get anxious and depressed from the daily economic and job news we receive. Just about every
day we hear about another company announcing layoffs or some economist predicting more months of job losses and a sharp increase
in the unemployment rate... leading many into the Job Market Blues.
Let's face it -- if very few politicians will. The U.S. economy is in a recession. While other economic data may not yet confirm what
many of us have known for months, history shows that anytime in the last century when the economy has had at least six consecutive
months of job losses (as we have had, starting back in January 2008), the economy has ultimately been declared in recession.
So, when all this bad news abounds and adds to the stress you already feel in trying to find a new job, how do you keep your focus
and stay upbeat? What's the remedy? Granted, it can be difficult, but if you
follow the five strategies in our article
you should be well on your way to overcoming the stress and anxiety and landing
that next great job -- or at least a job that will help you pay your bills.
QuintZine's Q&A with Career Expert: Meg Guiseppi
Meg Guiseppi, president of Executive Resume Branding.
"A great resume," said Meg Guiseppi in the Q&A interview she did with QuintCareers, one that will help the candidate land
his or her next great career opportunity faster and with top compensation, is all about differentiating the, candidate's
value proposition from competing candidates." Meg is an expert in branding executive resumes to differentiate
candidates.
Read more of Meg's advice, including striking a balance between soft and "hard" skills on a resume, the need to be proactive in the
job search, the effective strategy of sending post-interview thank-you notes, and the importance for candidates to monitor their
"online presence" in our full Q&A interview with her.
In addition to the new resume articles added in this issue, we've added 114 professional resume and cover-letter samples --
all at no cost -- in these categories:
The anonymous blogger who collects resume gaffes for this site writes:
"Your resume should sell your skills and experience to the World, but there's plenty of people who are a few feet short
of the runway. Here's some of them."
Of himself, the blogger says: "I'm just a recruiter, somewhere, inappropriately laughing at resumes."
Here's a sample gaffe: "My hobbies include regular attendance at my local gym and swimming poo"
Affirmative Action Register -- one of the
most recognized resources for equal opportunity employers who are seeking to add diverse,
qualified candidates to their workforce. Job postings include positions in academia,
business, healthcare, and the government. No cost to job-seekers.
Job Search Shortcuts --
a great job-search site that provides links directly to more than 15,000 company career centers job listing Web pages
in 30 metropolitan areas nationwide. Jobs are categorized both by city within each metro area as well as alphabetically -- and
links send job-seekers directly to the employer. No cost to job-seekers.
Jobs in Pods --
a Web 2.0 job site in which job-seekers can listen to employer "jobcasts" -- audio interviews
from employer HR managers/employees that discuss corporate culture, benefits, etc. At the end of each
podcast you're instructed on how and where to apply to the jobs you just heard about. Each podcast also
comes with a blog post which lists all the relevant links and information about the employer and job listings.
No cost to job-seekers.
LocalHelpWanted.net
-- lots of features and benefits to this job site where job-seekers can search for
job listings by first narrowing choices by state and major city. You can also post
your resume, audio resume, video resume, and portfolio items after registration. For
an additional fee, you can obtain addition space to post even more information.
No cost to job-seekers for basic services.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
In his Gilbert Gazette newsletter, Marty Weitzman includes an article by Laura Raines on resume trends from the
Atlanta Journal Constitution in which he is quoted. A few excerpts:
The resume [is] still the traditional workhorse of the business world: the same 8.5-by-11-inch, white or
cream-colored document designed to get you in the door for an interview.
It's your "ticket to the show," says Martin Weitzman, managing director of
Gilbert Resumes in New York.
References to religion, politics or hobbies -- unless they directly elate to the job -- are out, Weitzman said. Education, computer and
language skills, and professional certifications are in.
A resume is an advertisement, and you're the product," Weitzman said. "The first page -- particularly the top quarter of the first page -- has
to have impact. This is where you position or brand yourself."
An objective statement can be an eliminator. Instead, write a summary of qualifications. This is your sales pitch. Use it to establish your value
by telling people why you're ready for this job and what you bring to the table," Weitzman said.
"You can change the thought processes of the reader by what you put in your summary of qualifications and what skills you choose
to highlight," Weitzman said. For example, if you have both sales and buyer experience in retail, you might describe yourself as "an accomplished
buyer with 20 years' sales experience" or "a successful salesperson with strong buyer experience," depending on which is more applicable to the position.
"There's nothing wrong with emphasizing one area over another, as long as you don't lie. You're creating a roadmap for the employers
to follow, presenting the information the way you want them to read it and setting up what they'll ask in the interview," Weitzman said.
A new study by Office Team shows that less than 15 percent of hiring decision-makers feel that cover letters are NOT
valuable. A whopping 86 percent consider cover letter valuable in evaluating candidates:
As the job application process increasingly moves online, some job seekers might be tempted to think a formal cover letter
is no longer necessary -- not so, the survey shows. Eighty-six percent of executives polled said cover letters
are valuable when evaluating job candidates. Moreover, eight out of 10 (80 percent) managers said it is common to receive
electronic resumes accompanied by cover letters.
The study was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by OfficeTeam, a staffing service
specializing in the placement of highly skilled administrative professionals. The survey is based on telephone interviews
with 150 senior executives from the largest U.S. companies. Executives were asked, "When evaluating prospective job
candidates, how valuable is the cover letter that accompanies the resume?" Their responses:
Very valuable: 23%
Somewhat valuable: 63%
Not valuable at all: 14%
Executives also were asked, "When you receive a resume electronically from a job candidate, how common is it for that
resume to be accompanied by a letter of introduction or cover letter?" Their responses:
Wondering about the maximum number of bullet points to include in each section of your resume? The answer is more than 50 years old:
Technical writers, business writers, instructional designers and others have elevated the central concept to a truism of writing, called
Miller's Magic Number, based on a scholarly article by George A. Miller from 1956. Basically, it goes like this:
A list or sequence, to be retained easily in short-term memory, should contain no more than 7 +/- 2 items.
Some interpretation has been used to apply the number:
A list or sequence could be a bulleted list or a numbered list.
Corollary: Use subheadings to break long procedures into shorter sub-procedures (chunking).
Use subheadings to break long bulleted lists into shorter, related lists.
Original article: The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information, George A. Miller (1956),
Harvard University, First published in Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.
See all our entire collection of Q-Tips:
Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips.
The Quintessential Guide to Surefire Resumes for New Graduates and Other Entry-Level Candidates,
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., provides seven chapters
that will help you pack punch into your resume and cover letter and then gives you two chapters
of tools -- worksheets and samples to guide you to applying what you've learned from the book to
creating surefire career-marketing documents.
QuintCareers Network of Empowering Blogs
What are QuintCareers empowering blogs?
The Career Doctor Blog:
Especially for those who miss our former regular feature, Ask the Career Doctor, this blog each day features a question and answer from The
Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD.
If your school, organization, business or other
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send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
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QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* Credit Reports and Job-Search
* 10 Critical Interviewing Tips
* Study Skills
* Academic Success
* Wheel of Wellness
* 3 Generations of Workers: Y, X, Boomers
* Employee Healthy Benefits
* College Financing
* Scholarship Do's and Don'ts
* The Academic Job Search
* Perks of Working in Higher Ed
* Signs Your Job is in Jeopardy
* Blogging Way to New Job or Holiday Job-Hunting
* Office Politics
* Maternity Leave
* Jobs on the Cutting Edge
* Job Search IQ Quiz
* Resume Bullet Points: Before and After
* 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...
