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Top 5 Resume Writing Myths & Mistakes To Avoid

By Michelle Dumas

Are you struggling to write your resume and promote yourself effectively in your job search? Here are five prevalent resume writing myths and mistakes to avoid that you must be aware of. 1) Myth: Resumes should be only one, or at the most, two pages. In most cases, this is true. It is the rare reviewer of resumes who, when being completely honest, will tell you that he or she spends more than a few seconds in the first review of a resume. Unless your resume captures immediate attention through an eye-appealing design and succinct, compelling language, your resume will be screened out after just 15 seconds. With this reality in mind, imagine the thoughts of the reviewer when he or she receives a four- or five-page resume, with another 100 resumes waiting for review right behind it. Clearly, the odds of your resume capturing attention and being read increase when the length is limited to one or two pages. Are there exceptions to this rule? Absolutely! While it is true that with each additional page you reduce your chances of your resume being read thoroughly, for many executives, contract workers, consultants, and technical professionals it is unrealistic and nearly impossible to compress years of experience into one or two pages. When attempted, important achievements are left out to make room for a full chronology of the career history and education. What is left is a boring listing of companies, positions, and dates that are virtually guaranteed to turn off the reader and land your resume in the circular file. A better strategy is to write your resume with exactly as much detail as is needed to persuasively convince the reader that you are the ideal candidate to solve his or her problems - to compel the reader to pick up the phone and call you for an interview. While this is sometimes a difficult balance to strike, you should edit your resume with a very discriminating eye toward reducing unnecessary wordiness. Every word in your resume should have a purpose. Items that can be presented as a list - continuing education courses, technical summaries, associations and memberships, etc. - can often be included in an addendum that may or may not be used as appropriate. Within the resume, use succinct, dynamic, action-oriented language to convey your ability to add value to the reader's company and you will capture and hold attention through three or even more pages. 2) Myth: All resumes should include a clearly stated objective. It is essential that your resume is audience-focused - it must succinctly communicate that you understand the employer's needs and that you are uniquely qualified to meet those needs. While the use of an objective is a controversial issue, at its basis, an objective tells the reader what you want from him or her (focused on YOUR needs rather than the employers'). A popular and often more effective alternative to the objective, the qualifications summary, allows you to establish focus for the resume while summarizing the key qualifications and value you offer the employer. This is a subtle but critical difference - one that may weigh heavily in opening the door to an interview. While an objective is both appropriate and effective in some cases, for example, career changers or new graduates with little or no work experience in the targeted field, experiment with the qualifications summary as a strong alternative. 3) Myth: Resumes should thoroughly describe the responsibilities of each position. The absolute most important element of your resume is your value proposition. Your unique ability to solve business problems, meet challenging goals, and produce desired results should be the focus of your qualifications summary (see above) and this focus should be supported by proof throughout your career. How better to do this than through achievement-oriented, results-focused descriptions of your career history? While employers and recruiters will want to know the scope of your position (number of direct reports, amounts of budgets managed, areas of management authority, etc.) this is most effectively communicated within the context of the challenges you faced, the actions you took, and the results of your actions. "Responsibilities" only tell the reader what you were supposed to do, not what you actually did do. Use powerful, active language to concisely tell the reader the "story" behind your most recent or relevant positions. By documenting your consistent ability to produce results and solve problems you will demonstrate your ability to produce similar results in the future. 4) Myth: Resumes should include only the last ten years of experience. Content of your resume should be strategically selected to support your focus and value proposition. While it is true that readers of your resume will be most interested in your most recent experience, there is often value in including experience further back in your history. Perhaps your early career includes work for well-known, prestigious companies. Perhaps you want to document the full scope of your cross-industry experience, much of which occurred in your early career. Perhaps you believe some valuable networking opportunities may come out of your experience 15 or 20 years ago. Or perhaps your most impressive accomplishments were in a position you held 12 years ago. In any case, if your career history is lengthy, it will be apparent to the reader that your career did not suddenly materialize ten years ago, so there is little harm and many benefits to summarizing this early experience. Of course, this does not mean that you must give equal page weight to your early career. If you feel early dates will be used to screen you out, subtly leave them out of your early career summary. If some early career positions have more strategic relevance than others, give them more emphasis in your summary. Think carefully about the content of your resume. If there is solid reasoning behind your desire to present early experience, than do so. 5) Myth: Resumes should include personal information, to indicate the many dimensions to your life and interests. There is no way to predict the personal biases of the individuals who will read your resume. The first and primary way that an employer uses a resume is to screen candidates out; don't give them any reason! Professional memberships and related volunteer work should often be included but religious affiliations, family status, social club memberships, and hobbies have no place on a resume. The only exception to this is when you are preparing a resume specifically written to appeal to a single individual who you are absolutely certain would be fascinated in your piloting license or passion for golf. Even then, be careful; you never know where your resume will be passed. However, if you are certain that your personal information will help you to break the ice and build rapport, you may have a valid reason for including it.

Certified resume writer and personal branding strategist, Michelle Dumas is the director of Distinctive Career Services LLC. Through Distinctive Documents http://www.distinctiveweb.com and her Executive VIP Serviceshttp://www.100kcareermarketing.com Michelle has empowered thousands of professionals all across the U.S. and worldwide. Michelle is also the author of 101 Before-and-After Resume Examples http://www.before-and-after-resumes.com. Article Source: Article Mania

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Three Essential Interviewing Secrets You Must Know to Quickly Land Your Next Job

By MedHunters Staff

By: Michelle Dumas The single most important thing you can do to get a job is to interview. That's right. You've promoted yourself with a stand-out resume, you've opened the right doors, attracted the attention of the person with the power to hire you, solicited an invitation for a meeting, and now it is the moment oIf you've brought your job search to this point, congratulations are in order! Success—the job of your dreams—is in sight. And yet, many people are fearful of interviews, anxious that they might stumble or freeze on a difficult question, scared of appearing unqualified, or afraid of rejection. While it is natural to feel this way, interviews are also the time when you can shine and where you can position yourself strategically to win the job. This article will teach you an easy way to prepare, so that you can feel confident and really shine in interviews. With an understanding of these three interviewing secrets and the preparation that goes along with them, you will have the ability in your next interview to engage in a conversation and paint a picture in the interviewer's mind of exactly how you are the best qualified candidate to meet their needs and help them solve their problems - ultimately winning the job offer. Secret #1 - Know your prospective new employer Take your time to do your research before the interview. Preparation is an absolute must. Before your interview, you should take the time to learn all you can about the industry and trends in the industry, the company you are interviewing with, their strengths and weaknesses, their competitors, and the challenges that they are facing. But, don't stop there. Try to uncover some information about the position you are filling. Will you be replacing someone? Can you find out why? How does the position "fit" in the overall plans and goals of the company? What will be the expectations of you in the position, the challenges you will face, and the problems you will be expected to solve? These are, of course, all good topics for conversation and questions AT the interview. But, if you go armed with some knowledge already, you will have a basis for understanding the motivation behind questions the interviewer may ask, and will have a stronger foundation for framing your answers. Finally, you should also take the time to learn about the interviewer, the person who will be your boss, and your boss' boss. What keeps these people up at night? What are their top issues? What goals and objectives are they tasked with achieving for the company? All of this knowledge allows you to be prepared with success stories from your past that will illustrate you're your strengths and value proposition are a perfect fit for the needs of the company. Take the time to do your research and you will shine in the interview, easily differentiating yourself from the competition through your knowledge, sincere interest in your future employer, and your initiative. Secret #2 - Know your value proposition and how you will deliver ROI to your new employer It is essential that you understand the bottom-line motivation of every company: that each of their employees deliver value—a return on their investment in hiring that employee. Value and returns can be defined in a variety of ways, so it is helpful to remember that at the core every job is designed for one or more of three purposes: 1) To make money for the company 2) To save money for the company 3) To solve a problem for the company Prior to your interview, it is essential that you give some deep reflection to the questions of how YOU will make contributions to your prospective new employer. How will you make the company better? More profitable? Stronger? More productive? More efficient? What problems are you especially well qualified to solve for them? In the answers to these questions, you find your value. Communicating your value during the interview, particularly as it relates to the drivers and issues you uncovered during your research, is a crucial key to the success of your interview. Secret #3 - Be prepared with success stories to illustrate your proven ability to add value At this point, you are probably thinking about preparing to answer questions during the interview. The best way to do this is NOT to just prepare memorized speeches to the hundreds of potential questions you might be asked! Sure, you should be familiar with typical interview questions and be ready with a general strategy for answering them. But if you put too much time into memorizing them, your answers will come across as stilted and rehearsed, and when you are asked an unexpected question you are likely to freeze. Remember this essential truth: At its very core, a job search is a marketing campaign very similar to any other marketing campaign in which you are selling a product or service. But in a job search you are selling the ultimate product - YOURSELF! At the essence of all marketing campaigns is an understanding of the priorities and problems of the target audience, and then of course the communication of the benefits and value that the product or service that you are selling will deliver in relation to those. We've covered each of these in the first two secrets of interview preparation. I would like to encourage you to begin thinking about your job search in this very same way. You are the product that you are selling and as such, you have value and benefits to offer your target audience - the employers and hiring authorities. These values and benefits need to be conveyed in all of your job search interactions and communications. Your job search really is a personal sales and marketing campaign. Knowing all this, how do you prepare for answering interview questions? As much as possible, you'll want to phrase your answers in terms of the benefits and value they will add to the employer. Don't just tell the interviewer you have a strength—give them an example that illustrates how you have used the strength to produce positive results in the past and provide context that will help the interviewer understand the strategic importance of the delivere results. Your interview answers will be derived from what is commonly known as CAR Success Stories (Challenge-Action-Result Success Stories). Before your interview, take the time to think about and document between six and twelve CAR Success Stories. What are some of your greatest accomplishments that illustrate the strengths you want to highlight in your interview? What were the challenges you faced related to these accomplishments? What actions did you take to meet the challenge? What were the results—quantified results when possible—of the actions that you took? Take your time to write out these stories and then learn them backwards and forwards. You will call on them to answer nearly every question you are asked in an interview, successfully turning your interview from a simple Q&A session into a memorable, positive, job-winning dialogue. ------------------------------ Nationally certified resume writer and career marketing expert, Michelle Dumas is the director of Distinctive Career Services LLC. Through Distinctive Documents http://www.distinctiveweb.com and her Executive VIP Services http://www.100kcareermarketing.com Michelle has empowered thousands of professionals all across the U.S. and worldwide. Michelle is also the author of Secrets of a Successful Job Search http://www.job-search-secrets.com  Article Source: Article Maniacf truth.