Starting
Your Job Search - Techniques That Will Get Your Resume Out There
Well, you are out of work or you
have decided to re-enter the workforce. May of us are finding
ourselves in this situation right now. You may have been at the same
job for many years and are not up-to-date on the job market of
today. Let me introduce myself, my name is Jan and I have been
working in the employment field for 8 years. I have reviewed
probably thousands of resumes and I know what will attract an
employer and what will turn off an employer.
First off, have a good resume. You
can get assistance with your resume at a local job help centre or
many job sites online can assist you as well, and definitely have
someone proof read it. I have seen countless resumes, where there
are wild grammatical errors or incorrect words because the spell
check did not pick it up.
Being in the business for so long,
most employers prefer a resume that is in reverse chronological
order (last job first). List your job and your position and what
time period you were there and don't lie because employers do check
references. Then under your job title list your responsibilities at
that company, and so on.
Most employers contrary to popular
belief are the resumes where you write down a list of skills and
then just list your jobs at the end. This doesn't tell anything
about how current your skills are and the person viewing your resume
will get frustrated wondering if your skills that you listed are
from 10 years ago.
Do a cover letter, they are not
always looked at, but keep it relatively short and to the point. If
you can, address it to the hiring manager at the company you are
applying to and describe exactly how your experience can benefit
them. Look at their description and match it up with yours.
Oh and an important point, if you
don't know the name of the person you are sending it to, NEVER put
Dear Sir,-if you get a woman looking at it, she will delete it
immediately because that is offensive. Believe me I have know many
employers and recruiters and most of them who are women, really hate
this and discard it without another look. It shows insensitivity and
it may display in their minds that you are discriminating against
women. Preferably use To Whom It May Concern, or Dear Sir/Madam, or
Dear Madam/Sir, or Dear Hiring Manager.
Your resume:
DON'T
Put personal information regarding marital status, age, nationality,
religion or race. Employers are not allowed to ask you these
questions and in North American this stuff is generally not included
on resumes.
Put a picture on your resume-same
reason above, and most will just think you are sending your resume
from overseas and delete it.
Put your references on-the employer
can ask later and you don't want them calling the references without
your knowledge.
Email it to the employer wherever
possible, and definitely contact the employer in the method they
specify, but if they have a number of methods, call first introduce
yourself and if no phone number, then email it.
Emailing a resume gets a better
response because email is in front of the employer's face all day
and it is easy to respond back to you.
Faxing is not very good because no
one wants to sift through a pile of 100 resumes, staple yours
together and read possibly and unclear transmission.
Have spelling mistakes or
grammatical errors, many employers want people with good
communication skills, don't give them a reason to toss your resume
before they really look at it.
DO
Put all ways of contacting you as
possible-home phone, cell phone, email address.
Give accomplishments using numbers-example:"I
successfully brought on 10 new clients in the first quarter. Or "I
assembled 100 products a day, exceeding the daily quota by 20 %.
On the cover letter-thank the
person for viewing your resume and welcome them to call you for an
interview.
Once you have a great resume and
cover letter, post your resume on as many job sites as you can, most
are free to join. Then do searches on positions you are interested
in and apply to them. You can still go the old fashioned way and
apply to jobs in the newspaper.
Write down every job you applied to and when so when they call you,
you have an idea of who the person is and what company they are
from. This is good if they want to do a phone interview on the first
contact.
Another tip: When you are emailing
your resume as an attachment, it is best if it is in Word format.
The reason for this, is that most employers use Word. If you send it
in another format that they can't open, they will delete your
message. Also, most Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) will only allow
resume submissions in Word for easier keyword parsing.
Also, when emailing a resume, make
sure that your subject line and body of your email are free of
spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Make sure that your email
address looks professional. No one will take you seriously if you
submit a resume with an email address for example:
hotlips@hotlips.com. I personally have seen email addresses with a
similar feel to that. If needed make up a new email account just for
job searching and use an email address with as close to your real
name as you can get.
Follow up after a couple of days
after applying, if you have a phone number for the employer, give
them a call to see if they received your resumes and had any
questions. Always thank them for their time.
