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#CareerAdvice : #ResumeWriting – 4 Metrics Recruiters Love to See on #Resumes … If you Want to Make Sure your #Resume Catches a #Recruiter’s Eye, There are Few Better Ways to Do So Than by Adding Metrics to It. Why?

For one, “we know that the human eye processes numbers faster than words,” career expert J.T. O’Donnell said in an interview with Glassdoor. But beyond that, they also “help me as a recruiter give context to the size and scope of the work that you did,” O’Donnell explains.

In any given workday, though, there’s no shortage of specific numbers you could call out: the amount of emails you send, the amount of meetings you attend, the amount of projects you work on. So how do you know which metrics to include?

We use the following four-step framework in our Job Seeker’s Toolkit to help you decide which numbers pack the most punch. Once you add the right metrics throughout your resume, don’t be surprised if the interview offers start rolling in!

1. Growth: What did you add to the company?

When deciding which metrics to include, it’s important to think about the key performance indicators, or KPIs, for your role. For example, salespeople are often assessed on how much revenue they drive, how many new clients they bring in, how many of their customers renew, etc. Whatever your role, think about the numbers that matter most for you: perhaps they’re ones that your boss brings up in weekly meetings, that you find in your performance review, or even that you see in the LinkedIn profiles of people with the same job title as you.

Of these different metrics, think about which ones represent ways you added to the company and helped it grow. Depending on your role, this might include:

  • Website visits
  • Revenue
  • Deals closed
  • Partnerships secured
  • Candidates hired
  • New technologies/processes adopted

Examples:

  • Authored 150 articles over the course of one year, driving 500,000 unique website visits
  • Vetted and reached out to roughly 30 prospects per day, resulting in 20 closed deals in Q1 and $120,000 in revenue (+22% to quota)
  • Optimized 15 landing pages during the course of the internship, resulting in 17% lift in organic search traffic

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. Reduction: What did you help the company save?

In many cases, what you help your company reduce or eliminate can be just as important as what you add to it. In fact, certain roles focus their energy entirely on helping companies save or reduce in order to operate more efficiently. Think about whether you have a concrete way to measure how you’ve helped your company save or reduce the following:

  • Time
  • Budget
  • Client turnover
  • Employee turnover
  • Website bounce rate

Examples:

  • Identified three major bottlenecks in the hiring process and spearheaded taskforce to implement new technologies and strategies to overcome them, resulting in 31% faster time-to-hire
  • Led website architecture redesign, leading to a two-second faster load time and 16.5% decrease in bounce rate
  • Conducted internal budget audit and discovered five key areas of redundant spending, saving $23,000 per year

3. Impact: How many people did your work help?

A great way to illustrate how much value you can add to a company is by showing them how many people you’ve previously helped. This doesn’t just have to be people outside of your company like users or clients; it can also include those within your company. Look through the following “people” metrics, and think about which ones might be relevant to your role:

  • Number of team members you’ve led
  • Number of users or customers your work impacted
  • Number of stakeholders involved in a project
  • Number of clients you managed
  • Number of employees you supported (for a function like IT or HR)

Examples:

  • Coached, mentored and led a team of seven direct reports on the factory floor to ensure top-notch quality of products used by millions of consumers
  • Conceptualized and executed a multi-touch blog, social and email marketing campaign that reached 200,000 unique impressions
  • Oversaw both day-to-day and strategic HR operations for a company of 75 people

4. Frequency: How often did you complete tasks?

Understanding how frequently you performed certain tasks goes a long way in helping recruiters and hiring managers reading your resume understand how well-versed you are in a given area — often, the only difference between being a novice and being an expert is how much time you spend practicing.

To help you figure out which tasks are the most important to highlight, take a look in the job description to see which key responsibilities and skills are listed. For example, a job seeker applying to a position that lists analytical skills as a requirement might want to describe how they pulled weekly site traffic reports using Google Analytics, while someone applying to a PR position that mentions media relations skills in the job description may want to describe how they pitched reporters on a daily basis.

Samples:

  • Spent 75% of each day utilizing Python, R and SQL to analyze large volumes of data to influence decision-making processes
  • Analyzed performance metrics, reviewed creative and brainstormed with internal stakeholders to develop and present 4 strategic social media plans per year
  • Worked with facilities, IT and communications teams to set up and flawlessly execute company all-hands meetings every 2 weeks

If you’re not used to adding numbers to your resume, it may feel a little bit strange at first. But don’t worry — you’ll get the hang of it in due time. Best of all, there’s a real chance it will improve your odds in a job search.

“Numbers make a huge difference. If you can quantify what you did in any way, you should,” O’Donnell said.

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GlassDoor.com |  |

#BestofFSCBlog : #ResumeWriting – 13 Irresistible #ResumeTemplates to Download Now! Everything You Need to Know About Writing the Perfect #Resume .

If there’s one area worth investing in when it comes to the job search, it’s definitely your resume — after all, in just about seven seconds of glancing at it, recruiters and hiring managers already know whether or not they want to move forward with your application. Of course, writing a great resume is easier said than done, but at Glassdoor, we’re here to help you every step of the way.

That’s why we combined our job search expertise with Grammarly’s top-notch writing knowledge to create a comprehensive guide on how to write, format and design the perfect resume. With our new Ultimate Guide to Resumes, you’ll learn which type of resume is right for you, what to include in it, how to highlight your skills and more all in one place, so you can create a recruiter-approved resume in no time.

Download the full eBook here, and get a sneak preview with our tips below!

1. Choose the Right Type of Resume

If you thought there was just one type of resume, think again. There are multiple different kinds, and the one you should use will depend on your own unique career circumstances. A chronological resume lists your different positions top to bottom from most to least recent, and is best for those whose careers reflect a clear path to the role they’re applying for. A functional resume emphasizes relevance over recency, with different positions listed top to bottom from most to least relevant, a skills section and a professional summary explaining why you’re a great fit. This is a great option for those who are transitioning into a new field or re-entering the workforce after a resume gap. A combination resume borrows from both formats by combining the professional summary and skills section of a functional resume and the chronological work experience order of a chronological resume. This is a good way to emphasize skills and experience equally, and is a great choice for many different types of job seekers.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. Know What You Need to Include

Resumes tend to have six major components: a header and contact info, professional summary, skills section, work experience, education and additional experience. Here’s a brief rundown of what they are, and tips for how to make the most of them:

  • Header + Contact Info: The top of your resume (or whichever is the most prominent part) containing your name and contact info.

    • Pro Tip: Think twice before including your street address. It’s largely unnecessary nowadays, and can hurt your chances of scoring an interview if you live far from where the position is
  • Professional Summary: A brief, one- to three-sentence description that encapsulates who you are, what you do and why you’re a great fit for the job at hand.

    • Pro Tip: Avoid descriptors like “hard-working,” “self-motivated,” etc. — those terms are vague and generic. Focus instead on the skills and accomplishments that set you apart.
  • Skills: A list of the key skills you possess that will help you do the job you’re applying to.

    • Pro Tip: Can’t decide what skills to include? Look to the job descriptionto see which skills matter the most. 
  • Work Experience: A list of the different titles you’ve held, places you’ve worked and achievements you accomplished. 

    • Pro Tip: When writing out your bullet points, use the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to not just describe what you did in a previous job, but what sort of impact it had.  
  • Education: Details on the level of education you’ve attained, where you went and what you studied.

    • Pro Tip: Only include your GPA if you’ve graduated in the last couple of years and earned a 3.0 or higher — the further along you are in your career, the more recruiters and hiring managers pay attention to experience over education.
  • Additional Experience: A catch-all section where you can add your volunteer experience, hobbies, awards, etc.

    • Pro Tip: Some companies are particularly passionate about volunteering and giving back to the community. If you’re applying to one of them, use this section to describe how you’ve made a difference — it’s a great way to show culture fit!

3. Don’t Forget Design & Formatting

At the end of the day, a well-written resume with relevant experience will win out over one that’s pretty, but light on content. However, if you combine great content with a neat, clean design and proper formatting, you’ve just hit upon a winning combination. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you want your resume to look its best:

  • Use an easy-to-read font of no less than 11 pt.
  • Add margins of at least .7 inches.
  • Make sure there’s sufficient white space between sections
  • Keep your resume to 1-2 pages max, unless you’re in a field like academia or medicine and must cite papers and publications.
  • Don’t go overboard with intricate design or decoration — touches of color are fine, but avoid any clashing or visually busy details.

4. Check for These Last-Minute Items

Once you’re feeling good about your resume, don’t click submit just yet. Uploading your resume before giving it a thorough scan can result in errors and missed opportunities to make the best impression. Check off the following items to make sure your resume is ready to be seen by the world:

  • Verify your employment information to make sure that it matches what you have on LinkedIn. Any discrepancies, even if they’re accidental, might raise red flags for a recruiter
  • Use a platform like Grammarly to edit your resume. Grammarly can save you from misspellings, hundreds of types of grammatical and punctuation mistakes and words that are spelled right but used in the wrong context, all of which look unprofessional on a resume and can seriously hurt your chances of making it to the next round.
  • Save your resume with a simple file name to maintain professionalism and to simply keep better track of it in your files. You can’t go wrong with “Lastname-Resume-2018”
  • Double check capitalization on company names and titles — consistency in your resume is key.
  • Review your bullet points to make sure they’re focused on showing results, not simply listing your tasks.

Want more details on how to create a next-level resume? Check out the full Ultimate Guide to Resumes!

 

 

GlassDoor.com |  

Your #Career : #ResumeWriting – 64 Action Verbs That Will Take Your #Resume From Blah to Brilliant….Here’s How to Use Action Verbs on your Resume Intelligently to Help you Land the Job of your Dreams. 

You’ve probably heard the advice that action verbs should be sprinkled throughout your resume. By starting each bullet point about your past experience with a powerful action verb, you draw hiring managers in and give them a concrete picture of your expertise. Certain action verbs are also likely to help your resume get past automated scanning tools.

 

But it’s not as simple as just throwing a bunch of verbs on a piece of paper and hoping something sticks. Here’s how to use action verbs on your resume intelligently to help you land the job of your dreams. 

Choose Them Carefully

“It is important to be strategic on the action verbs used to describe your skills and experience,” notes Jessie Czerwonka Roller, Manager of Career Services at Turning the Corner. “Being in the career services field for over a decade, I have seen an abundance of resumes: the good, the bad, and the ugly.” The ones that stand out, she says, are resumes that are tailored toward both the job and the industry, using verbs that feel relevant and targeted.

Shefali Raina, an NYC-based executive coach, agrees. “For maximum impact, use action verbs selectively and convey simple, direct messages. Nothing dilutes the impact of action verbs than being surrounded by many other action verbs!” In other words, you definitely want action verbs throughout your resume, but don’t go overboard. 

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Show Who You Are

It’s a good idea to include action verbs that showcase your personality. “Empowered speaks to your ability to give energy, authority, confidence, and power to a group or a team to achieve a certain result,” Raina says. “It suggests that you possess the confidence and the influence to be able to authorize and energize a team or group to have powerful impact.”

Organized is a wonderful verb that denotes an individual who can prioritize not only the items on their desk, but their tasks too,” says Gabrielle Pitre, Recruiting Team Lead at Coalition Technologies. “This lets employers see that you understand what is valuable to your job. But, perhaps, an even better verb is orchestrated, as it’s rarer and more likely to attract attention.”

Initiated is a powerful one because it demonstrates that you are proactive and that you spent the time and energy to begin a project or originate an idea,” Raina notes. “To employers and recruiters, it speaks to a positive, ‘can do’ mindset and says that you will be a solution starter.”

Be Specific 

One of most key ways to use action verbs effectively is to choose them based on the jobs you’re applying to. “If you are a job seeker who wants to gain a leadership position, you want to describe both your skills and experiences using strong leadership action verbs such as advocated, bolstered, drove, engaged, elicited, and spearheaded,” Roller explains. 

To highlight management experience, you’ll want to use verbs like establishedand delegated, Pitre says. “These words can say much more than more common verbs, such as led or oversaw. You want to show how proactive you are and these verbs express that well.”

Try brainstorming industry-specific action verbs, as well. For example, “if you are a job seeker targeting the IT industry, use action verbs such as administered, centralized, configured, engineered, installed, and programmed,” Roller recommends. These show that you know the space inside and out and you won’t need to be brought up to speed.

If you’re looking at creative jobs, you might want to consider the verb designed. “This word tells me that the candidate has built something new that did not exist before,” says Amanda B. Gulino, founder of A Better Monday. 

Be Open to Trial and Error

“A job seeker’s goal is to entice the recruiter or search committee member to read more and get excited about their background to elicit an interview invite,” Roller points out. “You know your resume isn’t working if you aren’t getting interviews.” If your current resume isn’t working for you, be flexible in switching it up until you find the right eye-catching combination of words and phrases.

And remember, it’s not just about the verbs. “We love to see candidates stray from ordinary statements,” Pitre says. “It’s not always just about a specific adjective or verb, but everything around it. The best candidates often understand how important it is to share their specific stories, give examples and show how and why they are good at something, rather than just stating that it’s a skill.”

More Verb Ideas 

Need a little more inspiration? Here are some of our favorite action verbs to get your resume-updating wheels spinning. 

Entry level and above:

Audited, Built, Collaborated, Created, Delivered, Earned, Exceeded, Generated, Identified, Improved, Minimized, Negotiated, Obtained, Outperformed, Planned, Presented, Produced, Redesigned, Reduced, Researched, Solved, Trained, Tested

Manager level and above:

Championed, Coached, Consolidated, Decreased, Enabled, Facilitated, Grew, Hired, Implemented, Instituted, Integrated, Launched, Managed, Mentored, Partnered 

Executive Level: 

Advised, Aligned, Cultivated, Developed, Evaluated, Founded, Guided, Motivated, Transformed

HowtoGetJob Toolkit Glassdoor 2018 ResumeHowtoGetJob Toolkit Glassdoor 2018 Resume2

GlassDoor.com | June 18, 2018 |  Posted by 

 

Your #Career : Don’t Embellish Your #Resume –Do These Things Instead…Lying on your Resume is a Slippery Slope. Rather than Make Up an Achievement, Take these Strategic Approaches to Present Yourself in the Best Possible Light.

There’s nothing wrong with playing up your skills on a resume to present yourself in the best possible light. But there’s a difference between slightly embellishing and downright lying.

Countless Americans, though, are guilty of the latter, especially among the under-40 set. In fact, 26% of workers in that age range admit to lying on a resume, according to data from Udemy. Workers over 40 aren’t off the hook, though–7% of those 40 and above have gone the same route.

If you’re thinking of lying on your resume to make up for the fact that it’s otherwise not all that impressive, you should know that doing so could end up costing you the jobs you apply for and damaging your reputation in the process. Here’s a better approach to making yourself more appealing to prospective employers.

1. BE SMART ABOUT HIGHLIGHTING YOUR MOST IMPRESSIVE SKILLS

Maybe you’re not coming in with the most eye-catching job title. But if you have the same skills as someone at, say, the director level, talk them up. Use data and statistics to show that you’re equally capable of getting the job done, and that you have a proven track record of success. It’s a better bet than putting down a job title you never actually held.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. LOAD UP ON ACTION VERBS

Your resume should tell employers about the many things you’ve done in your career, so the more action items you include, the more attractive a candidate you’ll be. So talk up the various tasks you’ve tackled in previous roles, and focus on language such as “managed,” “created,” and “implemented.” Words like that will help the person reading your resume picture you doing those tasks, thus helping to make your case.


Related:This Is How To Spot A Lie On Your Resume 

3. TAILOR YOUR RESUME TO THE JOBS YOU’RE APPLYING FOR

Maybe you didn’t spend the bulk of your time at your last job meeting with clients and presenting marketing pitches, but if you did that some of the time, and the role you’re applying to now hinges on your ability to present and sell, then that’s something you want to focus on. Tailoring a resume to a specific job by focusing on certain aspects of your career isn’t lying, provided you did the things you claim you did, and there’s nothing wrong with not including certain former responsibilities that aren’t relevant to the job at hand. Emphasizing the things prospective employers want to see is a good way to get their attention.


Related:Former Recruiters Reveal The Industry’s Dark Secrets That Cost You Job Offers 


4. CRAFT A STRONG COVER LETTER

Your resume is only supposed to serve as a snapshot of your work history. If you have gaps you think will prevent you from getting the job you want, rather than fib your way through your resume, use your cover letter to sell yourself as a candidate. Talk about your strengths, prove that your experience matches the requirements for the role in question, and use language that lets your personality shine through. With any luck, that’ll be just the thing to entice employers and get your foot in the door.

Natural as it may be to want to lie on a resume, it’s a mistake that could end up costing you. Remember, if you’re hired, but your employer then comes to discover you weren’t truthful during the interview process, you could easily find yourself out of a job. And if that happens, you can forget about getting a reference for your next go-round. You’re much better off being honest about the things you did and didn’t do and the titles you did and didn’t hold–even if that means losing out on one or two opportunities along the way.

FastCompany.com | May 8, 2018 | BY MAURIE BACKMAN—THE MOTLEY FOOL 3 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : 7 Ways to Make Your #Resume Easier for #Recruiters to Process…So, like Anyone Faced with a Whole Lot to Do, Recruiters take Shortcuts. Instead of Looking through Every Single Application Carefully

Getting recruiters to thoroughly read your resume is a luxury you have to earn. By making your resume more skimmable for recruiters, youll position yourself as a strong candidate worthy of being taken seriously.

Its easy to think that after all the work you’ve put into perfecting your resume, recruiters will at least spend the time to thoroughly reading it through from start to finish. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. Recruiters are generally very busy. Resume writing blogger and long-time recruiter Steve Wang says,

“During my more busy weeks, sometimes I have to fill as many as 15 positions at once, and when each position gets over a hundred applicants, I can only afford to spend a minute or two on each resume.”

So, like anyone faced with a whole lot to do, recruiters take shortcuts. Instead of looking through every single application carefully, they’ll simply skim through each resume to see which ones might be worth taking a closer look at. Because of this, its crucial that even a quick glance at your resume will leave readers awestruck. With this in mind, here are some techniques you can dish out to make your resume super easy for recruiters to skim through and understand.

Use Standard Headings

I get it, you want to get fancy with your headings to stand out from the pack, but doing so can have the unintended consequence of making your resume way harder to skim. Recruiters are used to reading the same old headers over and over again. If you change Work Experience” to Work Background, that can throw off a recruiters rhythm – even if its just a little. So when it comes to resume headings, stick with what is tried and true.

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Question: Want the ‘the best/current articles/blogs on the web’ on Job Search, Resume, Advancing/Changing your Career, or simply Managing People?

Answer: Simply go to our FSC Career Blog below & type(#career, #leadership, #life) in Blog Search:  https://www.firstsun.com/fsc-career-blog/

What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Digitize Your Numbers

When its time to decide whether to spell out numbers on your resume, you might find yourself in a dilemma where youre unsure whether to use APA or MLA style rules to approach this common concern. While its great that youre paying attention to this type of detail, its a lot simpler than you think. Just write your numbers as digits to make information like numerical achievements nice and easy to spot. Whether you follow APA or MLA protocol is the least of anyones concerns here.

List All Your Skills Separately

Some job applicants like to intertwine their skills with their job experience. If they used skills A, B, and C while working for Job X, they’ll mention those skills in the same section of the resume that describes the job. While this is certainly a fine way to format your resume, its still important to have a separate section that lists out all your skills in their entirety. 

Use Short Bullet Points

One to two lines is an okay length for bullet points. If they get any longer though, not only will your resume become more difficult to understand, but it can also hint that youre trying to get at too many different things at once. Instead, keep your bullet points short, sweet, and to the point.

Choose the Right Template

Some resume templates do a far better job than others at making your content aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand. Make sure that the template you use is taking full advantage of techniques like bolding, USING ALL CAPS, italics, underlining, and even colors to make information like job titles, company names, and dates more distinguishable from one another. Heres what I mean:

Job title, Company Name, New York, NY May 2016 – Present

This would be considered hard to read. While everything is bolded and italicized to differentiate the entire line from the rest of the resume, individually the job title, company name, location, and date are hard to distinguish.

Job title, Company Name, NEW YORK, NY May 2016 – Present

Here the formatting is far superior. The job title, company name, location, and date all have their own unique style, which makes everything much easier to discern.

If youre ever unsure about whether a particular resume template might be easier to skim than another, simply test them out by skimming them yourself.

Align Dates to the Right

Keeping all your dates to the right allows you to create a clear timeline of your resume. If a recruiter wants to check to see if you have any work gaps, all the recruiter needs to do is look over to the right and all the dates will be lined up as clear as day.

Begin Each Job Description with a Summary

In some cases, even though each individual bullet point on a resume may be easy to comprehend, sometimes they dont paint a clear picture of the job applicant collectively when put together. This difficulty is exacerbated when bullet points describe assorted one-off achievements at a particular job. To alleviate this issue, its often a good idea to use your first bullet point to give a short summary describing what the core of your job is all about. This way, recruiters can better contextualize how your later bullet points fit into the bigger picture of what you do.

Getting recruiters to thoroughly read your resume is a luxury you have to earn. By making your resume more skimmable for recruiters, youll position yourself as a strong candidate worthy of being taken seriously.

Glassdoor.com |  |

Your #Career : Add This To Your Resume After Deleting Your “Objective” Statement…A “Performance Summary” Puts a Fresh (and Tech-Savvy) Spin on an Outmoded #Resume Feature.

Since most resumes are written to cast a wide net, they basically just recite everything the writer has done, but this approach dilutes the all-important data density that makes your resume discoverable. In order for recruiters to find your resume in the vast databases they search through, you need to focus on a specific target job, then get the role’s relevant keywords front-and-center where ATS, or “applicant tracking systems,” will detect them.

And as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that is by resurrecting–but with a twist–the dusty old “objective” statement you’ve been told dozens of times to cut.


Related: How To Trick The Robots And Get Your Resume In Front Of Recruiters


WHY YOUR “OBJECTIVE” DOESN’T MATTER

No one reads resumes for fun–only when there’s a specific job to fill. That means recruiters and hiring managers are fixated on the skill requirements of the job openings they’re looking to fill. Consequently, a resume that starts with “Objective” and focuses on what you want out of your career as the opening paragraph does nothing to help you. After all, nobody really cares what you want at this point (save that for negotiating an offer), so putting that right up top wastes prime ad space.

Headlines of all kinds, including the one at the top of this article, act as signposts, telling the reader what’s ahead–and that holds true on your resume, too. So replace “Objective” with a more relevant and compelling heading: “Performance Summary” or “Career Summary” tends to work well. Right away it flags for the reader that you’re going to tell them what you can do or what you’ve already done, rather than what you want.

Under this heading, highlight your capabilities as they relate to the demands of the target job, using the words, phrases, and acronyms listed in job postings for the type of role you’re angling for. Make sure you include objective criteria for your customers’ needs, too. That helps your resume’s discoverability by ATS, and it grabs the reader’s attention.


Related: Try These Resume Templates For Every Stage Of Your Career


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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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WHAT GOES INTO YOUR SUMMARY

To write a good performance summary, you need to get inside the heads of your prospective employers’ customers to discover what they collectively want. Yes–think past the hiring managers and recruiters for a second, and consider the organization’s end goals instead: the people it’s trying to serve.

I’ve laid out some tips for doing this in one of my books, but for present purposes, the gist is just to think about your own capabilities as they relate to customer needs. How can what you do directly help them? The answer to that is the basis of your performance summary.

Here’s an example:

Performance Summary: 9-plus years of marcomm experience in new technologies executing high-impact, cost-efficient, media outreach for brand awareness, b2b marketing, and business and public-policy audiences. Expert in crisis communication and corporate reputation maintenance. Bilingual.

  • Five years managing disbursed internal and external communications teams.
  • Adept at developing marcomm strategy with teams spread across all EMEA cultures.

Note those keywords that are likely to get swept up by an ATS: “marcomm” for “marketing communications,” “b2b” for “business-to-business,” “EMEA” for “Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.” And the bullets help you quickly break out a couple of key highlights.

Using employers’ language to describe your capabilities, wherever you can, creates a tightly focused document that establishes a clear match between your skills and employer needs. That, after all, is your resume’s real objective.


Martin Yate is the author of  Knock ’em Dead: The Ultimate Job Search Guide.

Your #Career : Here’s Exactly What To Put On Your #Resume To Land An #Interview (And What to Leave Off)… Maybe Getting another #CollegeDegree or Adding an #Internship isn’t the Best Way to #LandaJob .  Perhaps you just Need to Update your Resume with a Few #Stats & #KeyWords.

While resumes are often written to appeal to a hiring manager, few are ever actually viewed by a human.  “Companies, more and more, are using automated screening systems to make it cheaper and faster for them, which grossly dehumanizes the process,” said Kushal Chakrabarti, CEO and cofounder of TalentWorks, an AI-driven resume optimization and job search platform.

That means that the first filter for a lot of people isn’t actually a person looking at their resume, it’s a robot seeing whether or not you included a keyword, scoring your resume to decide if a human should even look at it.”

As a result, Chakrabarti has found numerous ways candidates can better stand out to hiring managers and automated tools.

Over the past few months TalentWorks has tracked 4,068 job seekers across 541 distinct locations and industries to determine the resume factors that had the greatest impact in landing an interview.


Related: How To Trick The Robots And Get Your Resume In Front Of Recruiters


GOING BACK TO SCHOOL DOESN’T HELP YOU THAT MUCH

The study found that those who had a second college degree saw their chances of getting an interview increase by an average of 21.9%; a modest improvement compared to other, far less costly, and time-consuming resume touch-ups.

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“There is fundamentally different hireability improvements associated with different majors, but within any one industry, there’s often a lot you can do that’s more effective than going back to school,” said Chakrabarti, explaining that if you want to switch careers, getting a degree in a new field can help, but getting an advanced degree within your field likely isn’t worth it.

REMOVE BUZZWORDS LIKE “TEAM PLAYER”

Counterintuitive as it may sound, those who frequently mention buzzwords associated with collaboration–such as “team player,” “supporting member,” or “participated”–are often penalized by hiring managers. In fact, candidates with more than one or two mentions of these buzzwords on their resumes are 50.8% less likely to be called in for an interview, according to TalentWorks research.

“As a hiring manager, I’m looking for reasons to disqualify you,” explains Chakrabarti. “If I see a resume that talks a lot about collaboration, I will think this person probably didn’t have much of an impact.”


Related: This Is The Part Of Your Resume That Recruiters Look At First


INSTEAD, USE NUMBERS AND CONCRETE FACTS

While being a “team player” can signal a minimal or insignificant contribution, concrete numbers have the exact opposite effect. In fact, demonstrating results using numbers increases a candidate’s likelihood of being interviewed by 40.2%, according to the TalentWorks research.

[Image: Talentworks]

“Saying you’re a ‘leader’ doesn’t prove anything; explaining how you led your team to achieve 120% of their quota demonstrates your aptitude in leadership,” explained Amanda Augustine, a career advice expert at professional resume writing service TopResume. “Recruiters care about measurable success. If you were successful in a similar role in the past and able to deliver results, they assume you’ll perform successfully for their client or team, too.”

ADD A KEY SKILLS SECTION

While collaboration-focused buzzwords like “team player” can cause hiring managers to question the extent of your contribution, industry-specific buzzwords can serve to demonstrate a deeper understanding of a given field. In fact, adding 15 to 20 buzzwords, acronyms, and relevant key skills will increase the likelihood of being interviewed by 58.8%, according to TalnetWorks’ research.

Furthermore, since today’s gatekeepers take the form of keyword-seeking robots and potentially fatigued hiring managers, Augustine says adding a key skills section to the top of their resume can help applicants stand out to both.

“This skills section is one of the major factors in determining whether or not your application passes the initial gatekeeper and reaches a human being,” she says. “If specific skills are routinely being mentioned as requirements for the position, be sure to include them in your key skills section and incorporate them throughout your resume.”

START EVERY SENTENCE WITH DIFFERENT ACTION VERBS

Overall, the single most effective way of improving the likelihood of being interviewed for a position, according to TalentWorks’s study, is by starting every sentence with distinct action verbs. Doing so has been found to increase the likelihood of landing an interview by 139.6%–nearly seven times more than going back to school.

[Image: TalentWorks]

Chakrabarti adds that this finding demonstrates the overall theme of the research, which is that softer, flimsier claims are often punished, while strong, specific descriptions are rewarded.“If you give me soft language and weasel words, I don’t really know what do with that [as a hiring manager],” he explained. “If you can really make it concrete and make it real for me, that goes a really long way in giving me the information I need to hire you.”

FastCompany.com | January 18, 2018 | BY JARED LINDZON 4 MINUTE READ

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Your #Career : How To Talk About The Gap In Your #WorkHistory ..Sometimes, Addressing it Directly Can Be your Best Option.

Whether you’re gearing up for a triumphant return to the workforce or grappling with the best way to explain a recent gap in your employment history, addressing time away from the professional world can be a daunting task. Given that a glaring hole on your resume will likely be a red flag to prospective employers, you’ll want to take steps to proactively answer questions they may have.

Balancing your need to provide a reasonable explanation with your right to privacy might be a bit tricky, but it’s far from impossible. Employment gaps can easily be addressed directly on a resume, mentioned in a cover letter, or discussed during an interview. Read through the approaches below to determine the strategy (or strategies!) that’ll work best for you.

ADDRESSING GAPS DIRECTLY ON YOUR RESUME

When it comes to a gap in employment on your resume, it’s best not to leave recruiters guessing. Including a brief blurb about your time away from the workforce will serve to proactively address any questions or concerns prospective employers may have. It’ll also make answering questions about that gap on your resume much easier when it comes time to interview, as you’ll have already laid the foundation for a direct, concise response. Let’s take a look at five common scenarios and how to address them.

1)  YOU WERE RAISING A FAMILY

Taking time away from the workforce to raise a child is often a deeply personal decision–-one that you may not want to discuss with a prospective employer. This is perfectly understandable, and frankly, no one’s business! That said, being upfront about your time away could increase your chances of landing an interview by as much as 40%, so it’s worth including a brief, professional explanation. Try creating a “recent experience” section below your previous, more relevant work history, or use a single line in your chronological experience section to explain your time away. Something as simple as, “Family Care Provider, 2013–Present” will do the trick.

Highlighting charity work or continuing education courses will help to smooth over a gap, too. Volunteering in a classroom, helping out with a friend’s business, or taking professional courses can all be included as relevant recent experience.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2)  YOU WERE CARING FOR YOURSELF OR A LOVED ONE

Your medical history or the health of a loved one aren’t really anyone else’s business (and interviewers aren’t legally allowed to ask), but most hiring managers can appreciate your need to take time away from the workforce to manage a health issue. Your explanation can be something as simple as “took a leave of absence to care for a loved one” or “took a healthcare sabbatical to address a now fully resolved medical matter.” List this at the top of your experience section, include the dates of your leave, and keep the explanation to 1 to 2 lines. Then dive right in to highlighting your most recent experience.


Related:This Is What Recruiters Look For In Your LinkedIn Profile 


3)  YOU WENT BACK TO SCHOOL

Going back to school to finish a degree, gain additional expertise, or earn a certification are all perfectly acceptable reasons to step away from a job. Be sure to include your education at the top of your resume (this strategy is typically reserved for current or recent students, only) so that recruiters can easily see the progression of your career timeline. If you’d like to include additional details about your program or coursework, you can also list your education as experience.

4) YOU WERE PURSUING A PASSION (LIKE TRAVELING OR WRITING A BOOK)

Unless your passion project is somewhat related to the jobs you’re now pursuing, you’ll want to keep this explanation nice and simple. That said, it doesn’t hurt to highlight a few interesting tidbits or compelling accomplishments here, either. Include a brief one- or two-line description of how you spent your career pause, and use a couple of bullet points (if relevant) to highlight your newly gained skills or achievements. When in doubt, a concise line like “Backpacked 2,190 miles across the Appalachian Trail, March 2016–October 2016” is all you need.


Related: Here’s How To Write The Best Resume In Your Industry


5) YOU WERE UNEXPECTEDLY UNEMPLOYED

If you were unexpectedly let go from a job, chances are you didn’t have something new lined up right away. Depending on how recently you became unemployed, you may not have to address a gap at all. If it’s just been a couple of months, updating your resume and highlighting your most relevant achievements will probably be your most potent strategy. That said, if you were laid off, it wouldn’t hurt to include a brief explanation next to your end date. Something like, “(laid off due to loss of funding)” would be perfectly acceptable.

Unfortunately, if you were fired and it’s been more than a few months since you were last employed, addressing your employment gap could get a bit tricky. If you can supplement your time off with volunteer experience, temp jobs or part-time work, you’ll be in pretty good shape. But if you don’t have any interim experience to highlight, try including a concise explanation like, (“departed due to shift in company priorities”). This won’t scream “fired!” but will also allow space for you to explain the circumstances of your termination in an interview.

LEVERAGING YOUR COVER LETTER

Cover letters provide a great opportunity for you to supplement the information on your resume. If you choose to include a cover letter with your application, consider addressing your employment gap in the body of your letter. Saying something as simple as, “After taking a personal leave to care for an immediate family member, I’m eager to dive into a new professional challenge” should do the trick.

Bonus: If you spent your time off learning a new skill, or if you have a relevant, compelling anecdote to share about your career pause, your cover letter is the place to elaborate!

DISCUSSING EMPLOYMENT GAPS IN AN INTERVIEW

The beauty of proactively addressing gaps in employment on your resume or cover letter is that you’ll be less likely to be asked about your time away during an interview. If the hiring manager knows that you were caring for your family for the past two years, she probably won’t have any follow-up questions for you. That means you’ll be able to spend more time talking about all the great skills and experiences you bring to the table!

If your employment gap does come up during an interview, keep your explanation short and sweet. Say something like, “I’ve been lucky enough to spend the past three years focused on raising my family, but now that my children are a bit older, I’m eager to step back into a professional role. I’m particularly excited about this opportunity because . . . ” or “I’ve always wanted to pursue a career in advertising, and decided that it was time to complete my marketing degree. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m excited to leverage everything I learned in the classroom as I continue to grow my expertise in a role like this.” Notice how the first sentence addresses the reason for taking time off, while the second line pivots the conversation to your applicable experience or enthusiasm for the role. The key is to answer the question succinctly, then move the conversation forward.

Gaps in employment can be challenging to address, but if you’re honest, concise, and straightforward, you can proactively explain your time away, ease your prospective employer’s concerns, and efficiently redirect the conversation to your relevant skills and achievements.

 

FastCompany.com | January 16, 2018 | BY JACLYN WESTLAKE—FAIRYGODBOSS 6 MINUTE READ

Three Ways To Highlight Your Career Successes On Your Resume.

It’s amazing how often someone I’m working with will begin lamenting their lack of career success. And almost every time, during the course of our chatting and doing a “deep dive” into this person’s work history, I’ll come away dumbfounded at how wrong they are.

It’s not that you don’t have enough successes; it’s that you’re taking most of them for granted! Correcting this is essential if your resume is going to stand out. Here are three ways to get there:

1. FROM THE OUTSIDE IN

Let’s say you have a shortlist going of roles you’d be perfect for. Take a close look at the major things they’re asking for and ask yourself: What projects have I worked on that touch on this? Let’s take the following job posting excerpt for a Director of Change Management position:

Liaised with Organizational Effectiveness Leader on global HR change strategies and initiatives.

You can use this for fodder for a great accomplishment such as:

Played integral role in the development and launch of “ONECompany” initiative transforming a regional, U.S.-based HR function into a global one. Defined HR change strategies in close partnership with Organizational Effectiveness Leader, and worked heavily with counterparts in Asia and UK to achieve critical roll-out milestones.


Related: Here’s How To Write The Best Resume For Your Industry


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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. FROM THE INSIDE OUT

What drives you? Is it the challenge and exhilaration of turning a cutting-edge technology into a launched product? Is it solving internal conflicts and getting teams playing on the same page? Is it leveraging analytics to improve the user experience? Jot down three to five of your key driving motivators. Now use them as fodder for resume accomplishments.

Here’s an example of a resume accomplishment inspired by a driving motivator:

Revitalized vendor and partner relationships through deploying a value-driven sales and marketing strategy emphasizing long-term relationships versus “quick wins.”


Related:Try These Resume Template For Every Stage Of Your Career


3. PROGRESSIVE GRANULARITY

Be on the lookout for opportunities to either elaborate upon, or else split up, major successes into a series of accomplishments. I call this “progressive granularity” because you’re finding new material through getting more detailed about the work.

Here are three “before” examples:

  • I turned the underperforming New Mexico region into one of the biggest U.S. sales growth drivers for the company.
  • I generated over $26 million in annual, recurring revenue through closing deals with major healthcare and security companies.
  • I cut the formerly eight-day month-end closing process for product allocations down to two.

And now here are three “after” examples that demonstrate progressive granularity in action:

Transformed New Mexico region into a top-three U.S. sales growth driver through:

  • Building three high-performance sales teams from the ground up and introducing customized strategies across Home Health, Hospice and TeleHealth product lines.
  • Reinventing the product demonstration process for greater impact and a shorter sales cycle.
  • Identifying and differentiating high-value (or Tier 1) business opportunities from lower-value (Tier 2 and lower) opportunities, and efficiently allocating company resources accordingly.
  • Secured over $26 million in annual, recurring revenue through closing deals with Company X, Company Y, and Company Z, with the latter a multi-year exclusive.
  • Leveraged deep understanding of the Healthcare and Security sectors to achieve buy-in at the highest levels.
  • Cut eight-day month-end close process for product allocations down to two through building a comprehensive suite of standardized processes and tools, garnering buy-in from department heads, and training staff in adoption.

FastCompany.com | January 12, 2018 | BY ANISH MAJUMDAR—GLASSDOOR 2 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : Exactly How To Decide Which Skills To Put On Your #Resume …Don’t just List every Software Program you’ve Ever worked With. Take these Four Steps instead.

You know what your goal is when you’re writing your resume: You’ve got to capture recruiters’ and hiring managers’ interest in a way that separates you from everyone else in the stack.

But while you’re hopefully savvy enough to avoid listing “Microsoft Office” in your skills section, you may be missing your chance to show off what you’re really skilled at–by bragging about skills that aren’t as valuable as you might think. Here’s why, and how to fix it.


Related: How To Trick The Robots And Get Your Resume In Front Of Recruiters


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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Our national obsession with STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math) skews job seekers’ thinking about what counts as a resume-worthy skill. Even for semi-technical and non-technical roles, many proudly tout the programming languages they know, their experience with design programs, and their work with particular databases. They hope the accretion of these skills makes them seem like modern “digital natives” (a term often burdened with ageist assumptions) worthy of landing an interview.

It’s no doubt that technical skills are crucial for jobs across many industries. Indeed, some reckon that even tech candidates tend to lack the hard skills employers require; if your coding job requires a lot of Java-based programming, you’d better know your Java. But a lot of what separates the good employees from the great is not their technical expertise–it’s their ability to work together with their colleagues. People skills, also known as “soft skills,” matter a lot. So one of your main goals in writing your resume should be to show off how great your people skills are.

Consider the familiar rap against liberal arts majors. How many college students majoring in history, philosophy, or literature get harangued at family gatherings by well-meaning relatives who think they’re pursuing a worthless degree? Because who needs a historian, philosopher, or literary critic at a business meeting? Actuallylots of companies do.

I run a program at the University of Texas called the Human Dimensions of Organizations. At the undergraduate level, we work with students to understand the soft skills underlying courses in the liberal arts. A class about the history of the Camp David Accords also teaches strategies for mediating disputes. A course exploring the philosophy of belief also teaches about the ways people’s knowledge can be affected by arguments. A semester exploring 19th-century English literature creates opportunities for empathy and for recognizing the roots of modern industrial practice.

The point here isn’t to argue for the value of a humanities education. It’s that every job seeker needs human-based skills to land a job offer. People’s collected workplace (and classroom) experience leads them to develop skills beyond the technical abilities mentioned in a job listing’s “requirements” section. Which means your resume needs to demonstrate that you’ve done exactly that.


Related: These Are The Skills You Should Exclude From Your Resume


SO WHAT ARE MY SKILLS, EXACTLY?

Figuring out which of those skills you should highlight comes down to these four steps:

  1. Identify one or two of the biggest projects you’ve worked on since taking your current job.
  2. Reflect on the biggest challenges to success in those projects.
  3. Ask yourself what you had to do (get specific–which specific steps did you have to take?) to overcome those obstacles. Those skills are the ones that you need to highlight on your resume. Some of them may be interpersonal, and others might be more technical, but chances are, none of them are “Excel.”
  4. Find the clearest, most concise way to describe those skills in terms that show off your abilities with regard to what the job listing calls for.

For instance: Did the team disagree about how to pursue a project? Did you play a role in helping your coworkers arrive at a common vision? If so, you’ve developed skills in mediating disputes and building a collaborative environment. Or did you have to take a poorly defined problem and turn it into a series of discrete challenges that you could tackle with individual projects? If so, you’ve honed your skills in project design and implementation, not to mention your team communication skills.

One benefit to going through this process is that it helps you understand your skills in practice. They won’t be these diffuse, abstract things you’ll struggle to talk about on job interviews. Instead, you’ll be able to discuss exactly what role you took in the project that inspired that line on your resume–and why, thanks to your amazing skill set, you’ll be able to meet similar challenges on your new team.

A final word of warning, though: Don’t oversell your abilities. If you’re generally not that good at resolving disputes, don’t put yourself in a position where you  may be forced to do that on a regular basis. Yes, highlighting your soft skills is key to actually getting noticed. But you (and the people you work with) won’t be happy in a position that doesn’t match what you’re actually best at.

FastCompany.com | January 4, 2018 | BY ART MARKMAN  4 MINUTE READ