By 40, I thought I’d eaten every crumb of humble pie ever baked. Try on a bathing suit in front of a three-way mirror in a too-bright dressing room? Check.
Expect the cute grinning tourist is going to ask you out only to have him ask for directions, then bow slightly and say, “Thank you, ma’am?†Been there.
Bump into your first love with his pretty size-two wife three weeks after giving birth looking as if you still have two weeks to go? Hello!
Honestly, I wasn’t much for working out at the gym but exercises in humility? I was a pro! So when, after 15 years as a journalist, the majority of which were at one company, I had to update my resume, I thought, “No biggie. I got this. Bring it!â€
After all, I used to write a career management column. Matter of fact, I created the damn column! I’d interviewed enough career counselors, placement officers, executive recruiters, and human resources managers over the years to know a thing or 20 about writing a resume. So I was unfazed. But then, I had to actually do it. Talk about a wake-up call!
First, I needed a reality check on the rules. Some suggest there no longer are any, but that’s not true. The fact is, there are new rules, but they leave lots of room for interpretation. The most important is that the last time I did a resume it was really just to provide contact info and a job history, however, in today’s era of Brand You, your resume is your primary marketing tool. Everything about it should be fashioned with the purpose of creating interest in you, exciting employers about you, convincing them that they simply must meet you!
Research shows that one in 200 resumes gets that call for an interview and most are scanned (not read) in 20-30 seconds (yes, seconds) in a first round. Because this process will most likely take place on a screen, not that perfect eggshell stationary I took such care in selecting way back when, forget how many pages your resume is and focus heavily on what’s above the fold. That’s your billboard. Make it work for you.
Formatting should be clean but interesting; “hot buttons,†like great titles, accomplishments and strengths should pop out. Essentially, you’re going for a two-pronged approach. Above the fold you want to say, Here’s who I am and what I’m best at! Below lies the proof
that I’m damn good.Click here to continue reading…
Resumes need to be fluid documents now, carefully crafted for specific purposes. I was applying for an adjunct teaching position at a local college. My full-time job was intact–thank God–but I wanted to broaden my marketability, and my options for a second career in the future. In the short term, it was just going to be a part-time gig, but the process for getting it required no less than a full-on effort.
I hadn’t taught in years, so I emphasized the fact that I had a master’s degree and was a published author. Colleges love that stuff. I made a lot of my speaking engagements at conferences and schools, as well as any volunteer work that involved some instruction, even if it was just helping friends and family with their college application essays. I wouldn’t have dreamed of including anything like that back in the day.
Which brings up another point: The fact that I even have a “back in the
day.†In this market, age is a sore point–but only if you fail to make it a winning one. If you’re 50 or over, the rule of thumb is to minimize, by removing your graduation dates and even the exact dates of any position prior to your most recent one.If you’re under 30, you want to max out your depth of knowledge and experience, including everything you’ve done of relevance and value dating back to junior high, if necessary. Of course, you don’t want potential employers to realize you were only 12 when you scored “record sales†as the “marketing director†of your BFF’s Girl Scout Cookie “business.†So use common sense, and be honest. If you started a not-for-profit in 10th grade that’s still a thriving entity, put it out there; it shows leadership and commitment.
If, like me, you’re a tweener on the age front, you want to be as aware as possible of your likely competition. If you skew older than the average person in that field, lean toward the over-50 rules; if you’re younger, enjoy what could in today’s market be an advantage, but adopt the under-30 approach, just to be safe.
At all times, keep in mind that jobs and what it takes to get them may be distinct, but the goal of every resume is the same: To get you an interview. Toward that end, certain rules remain unchanged in spite of our upside-down world. Visual appeal is key; it should be concise and to the point; experience comes first, education last; all basic contact info should be clear and accurate (that phone number had better be one that gets answered); and there should be no errors. None. Not grammatical, spelling, typos, or tenses. You need not give a potential employer the easiest reason of all to trash your resume and, by extension, you: Carelessness.
As for me, I got offered the job but it paid so little relative to the amount of time and energy it would require, that I didn’t take it. But the process yielded me an updated resume (something we should all have at all times–another basic rule that never changes) and a serious workout in terms of what today’s market requires of us in this area. It was humbling, for sure, but well worth it.