Yes, you do need a summary statement on your resume!

 The summary statement is a 3-4 line opportunity on your resume to highlight your significant experience related to the job you are applying for.  You have 10 seconds to grab the attention of the recruiter or hiring manager that is looking at your resume.  Therefore, your summary statement should be loaded with details as to why you are qualified to do the job the company is trying to fill.  This is your opportunity to shine, to show your personality as well as prove your qualifications to do the job.  Your summary statement is not your bulleted skills, those come after the summary statement.

You may be wondering exactly what I am referring to.  The following are two examples of summary statements that may help you to better understand.

#1 Financial Services Executive

“Over 7 years’ broad banking experience, including accounting, finance, and auditing.  Technical expertise in special assets, loan workout and, credit administration.  In depth knowledge of forclosure and multiple bankrutcy procedures.  Excellent ability to communicate and build concensus with diverse groups of individuals.”  from Resumes for Dummies

#2  Career Coach

“An inspiring and persuasive coach, recruiter and hiring manager of 15+ years with in-depth knowledge of career and business development, training, and sales.  Proficient in building relationships and specialized in career transitions.  A motivational speaker for job search, business contacts, interviews and resumes.  A diversified career counselor giving 150% committment to clients becoming excited about their next job opportunity.”  Created by Anna Lee Secretarial professional resume writer.

I hope these examples help you better understand exactly what a summary statement is on a resume.  As always, please contact me for a complimentary consultation at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Now, go out there and make it a great day!

Virtually every client I have ever had, has a problem thinking of their accomplishments on previous jobs.  It is sometimes very hard to toot our own horn, to talk about your careers and work in terms of accomplishments.  We often feel like we were “just” doing our jobs.  Isn’t that what was expected of us, just do your job?

If I were a gambling person, I would bet that you not only did your job, but that many times you far exceeded the expectations of your employers.  You may or may not have received credit for the extra work you put in, but you know you did do plenty of things that increased your employers bottom line.  The increases may have saved time, money or brought in additional revenue because of your abilities on the job.

Following are a few jobs or positions and then the metrics that help determine what accomplishments you may want to highlight in your resume.

#1  Operations – Inventory turnover, out-of-stock rates, product rejects, warranty costs, raw material costs

#2  Sales – Pipeline of clients, closing ratios, new business development and quotas

#3  Customer Service – Customer satisfaction, customer complaints, number of calls taken without errors, dropped calls

#4  Collections – Over due accounts, reconciliation of how many accounts, cost of collections

These are just a few of the many types of positions and the types of issues that can have percentages or actual dollars saved or time spent that will determine the accomplishments that may be of interest to your future employer.  I consistently stress the need to be the solution to your next employers problems.  If you can demonstrate through accomplishments that you can and will be the solution, you will be miles ahead of your competition.  Remember, most people cannot clearly name and explain their accomplishments.  Do not be one of them!  Fill your resume with accomplishments, you will not be sorry.

As always, please contact me for a complimentary consultation at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to helping you find your accomplishments and much, much more.

Now, go out there and make it a great day!

Today I want to celebrate Valentine’s Day and share a short story with you written by Jim Rohn.  This story is not about Valentine’s Day, but it is about relationships.  I believe you will enjoy this article on many levels, but specifically with self-improvement during your career transition and job search.

Vitamins for the Mind
by Jim Rohn

Influence/Association

There are two parts to influence: First, influence is powerful; and second, influence is subtle. You wouldn’t let someone push you off course, but you might let someone nudge you off course and not even realize it.

We need a variety of input and influence and voices. You cannot get all the answers to life and business from one person or from one source.

Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association.

Don’t spend most of your time on the voices that don’t count. Tune out the shallow voices so that you will have more time to tune in the valuable ones.

“No” puts distance between you and the wrong influence.

You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?

Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.

Some people you can afford to spend a few minutes with, but not a few hours.

Get around people who have something of value to share with you. Their impact will continue to have a significant effect on your life long after they have departed.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Coach Deb – I hope you found this article inspiring and motivating.  In relationships, we need to find the people who support us, help us grow and who love us for who we are!

As always, if you would like a complimentary consultation, please contact coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Now, go out and make it a great day!

Yes, you need a core resume.  What is a core resume?  A core resume is really a draft document where you have listed every possible skill, accomplishment, job, volunteer opportunity, education, certificate or anything else that might be valuable to a future employer.  You will include names of previous employers, dates of service and job titles for previous positions you have held.  Your finished resume will cover only 10-15 years previous employer dates, but this draft document will cover every job you have ever had.  You list every job in the draft so that you remember to include any relevant information in your summary portion of your finished resume.

It will probably take you several hours to complete your core resume draft document.  But when you have finished, you will have all the information you need to custom tailor your combination resume for each position you apply to. 

Yes, you need a custom tailored resume for each position you apply to.  What does that mean?  It means you must take the job description you are applying to and create your resume to reflect your experience.  Do not confuse the job duties and the stated job requirements.  You will first deal with the job requirements, matching your resume to those.  Then you can show how your experiences or education matches the most important job duties.

You are making a fatal mistake if you do not follow these tips and suggestions for creating your resume.  Many job seekers just apply to any and every job posting they see that has a few of the duties they have done in the past.  Believe me, recruiters and hiring managers are very aware of this practice and will screen you out in 10 seconds or less.  You are wasting your precious time also.  The time would be better spent actually finding and applying for positions that you would do well in.  Make your career transition more quickly by having a great focused and targeted combination resume.

As always, please feel free to contact me for a complimentary consultation and resume review at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Now go out there and make it a great day!

We have established how important your resume is to your job search or career transition.  We have also established the combination resume as the type of resume that will have the most impact on the hiring managers and recruiters.  What else will impact the hiring manager or recruiter?

We know your resume will be scanned using keywords that match the job description.  Have you ever noticed the job description is loaded with information that tells you what skills are required to do well in the job?  Some of the skills required are called hard skills or things like “Must be proficient in Microsoft Suite applications or perhaps “Must have engineering background”.  The job description will also have soft skills required.  Soft skills are things like; flexible, quick learner, team player etc.  It is the soft skills that I would like to give you some action verbs that make your resume jump off the page and be much more interesting and informative to the reader.

While creating your summary on the combination resume, if you infuse verbs, the reader can clearly see actions rather than just a laundry list of jobs you have done in the past.  Verbs inspire the reader to see you in the position they are trying to fill.  Additionally, using verbs showing your accomplishments while listing things you have done for previous employers again demonstates action rather than a boring list of job duties. 

Here are a list of some of my favorite verbs:

• Accelerate
• Articulate
• Brainstorm
• Champion
• Collaborate
• Decipher
• Demonstate
• Encourage
• Energize
• Hypothesize

Think about using verbs while creating your resume.  As a former recruiter and hiring manager, I know I would have loved to read some interesting resumes as well as the boring ones most people submit when applying for a new job.

As always, please contact me for a complimentary consultation at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Now, get into action and make it a great day!

In my last post, I wrote about suggestions to keep your resume out of the dead file.  I shared my favorite resume type which is the combination resume.  Let’s move on to some more tips to insure that your resume gets reviewed by recruiters and hiring managers.

Why do I like the combination resume?  I believe it is the best resume type to showcase your skills, accomplishments and education in a clear and concise way.  You want to grab the recruiter or hiring managers attention within 20-30 seconds.  The combination resume starts out with a job title which I recommend you get from the job description.  Next you will have a 3-4 line summary of your experience, skills and education that absolutely qualifies you for the position you are applying to.  Next you will bullet point your skills that again “absolutely qualify” you for the position you are applying to.  Notice I am using “absolutely qualifies you”.  You must modify your resume for each position that you are applying to. Finally, list your previous positions and companies you worked for in chronological order. 

I recommend you print out the job description and have it easily accessible while you are modifing your resume.  This way you will be using the job title, keywords and other information to create your resume.  This assures you that you will clear the electronic software that most employers are using today that screens out resumes that are not qualified.  Printing the job description also helps you stay focused on exactly what qualifies you for the position.  Nothing is more frustrating to the recruiters and hiring managers than having people apply to the position when they are clearly not meeting the requirements of the job.

I strongly suggest you hire a professional resume writer to create your resume.  You will then be able to use that document to modify your resume to apply for different positions. 

Following these suggestions will help ensure that you have an opportunity to interview with the recruiter or hiring manager.  Your resume is the most important part of getting your job search started.  If no one views your resume, the possibility of getting a new position is greatly diminished if not impossible.

As always, please feel free to contact me for a complimentary consultation at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Now, get in action and make it a great day!

Have you ever wondered what happened to your resume once you applied for your dream job and no one ever called you?

I talk about this in my resume workshops and would like to share a few tips that might help you achieve more success when sending your resume in the future.  As I a hiring manager and then a recruiter and now a career coach, I have seen hundreds of resume.  I can honestly state to you that even with all the information available to people on resume creation, the vast majority are AWFUL! 

#1.  Style or type of resume matters.  There are 3 popular resume types that can be used with some success.  Reverse chronological resume, functional resume and combination resume.

The reverse chronological resume type is the most popular format for recruiters.  The reverse chronological resume lists all employment and education beginning with the most recent and works backward.  This is a good format for a strong work history.

The functional resume in it’s purest form has a job title, profile listing experience followed by skills, including soft skills.  This resume gives the reader a good idea of what skills you have mastered over your entire career.  The functional resume is generally used by people who have gaps in their job history or by a person wishing to make a career transition into a new field.

The combination resume is my favorite and is gaining popularity because it gives a more complete history of a persons work/job experience.  The combination resume starts out with a clear job title (usually the job you are applying for), followed by a summary of your experience that pertains to the specific job you are applying for.  Next there is a bulleted section of your skills and finally a list of employers and dates you worked there.  The combination resume works very well for college grads, military, career changers and seasoned employees looking to be recognized for all their accomplishments on the job.

In my next blog, I will be discussing addtional tips on resume basics for getting noticed when applying for a job.  I will talk about the number of pages a resume should have.

As always, please feel free to contact me for a complimentary consultation at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  I look forward to hearing from you. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

Make a plan and make it a great day!

A spicy resume sells, what does that mean?  It means that you better have a resume that catches the attention of the hiring managers or recruiters when you are making a career transition.

How do you get a spicy resume?

There are numerious ways to achieve a results driven resume.  Let’s discuss the top 3 ways I believe you need to do to begin to create a results oriented resume that will get the attention of the hiring manager or recruiter that needs to find the perfect person to fill a position they are working on.

#1.  The most effective resume will be the targeted combination format when creating the resume.  A targeted combination resume is designed to specifically mirror the job description for the position you are applying for.  The targeted combination resume is a blended chronological and functional resume that focuses on your skills and accomplishments on the various positions you have held, targeted to the specific job description you are applying for.

#2.  Instill excitement for the person reviewing your resume.  Be creative using keywords and accomplishments that relate to the job you are applying for. Show where you created revenue or saved money or time for previous employers.  Use % or $ values whenever possible. Your resume should not be a laundry list of the job functions you did on previous positions that you held.  You want the person reading your resume to believe that you can handle the job they are trying to fill.  You should always meet the minimum requirements for the position but preferably be confident that you can do 95% of what the employer is looking for and show the ability to learn whatever else will be required.

#3.  The top 1/3 of the resume is the only part that the hiring manager or recruiter will be interested in during the 20-30 seconds they review your resume looking for who they are going to interview.  With that in mind, I believe you need a 3-4 line summary rich with keywords  targeted to what qualifications you have for the specific job description you are applying for.

There are many more suggestions and ideas for great resumes, but for this posting, I feel these are the 3 most important things you need to know to get started on creating your spicy resume. 

As always, please contact me for a complimentary consultation to discuss how I can help you make your successful career transition.  You can reach me at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.

Get into action and make it a great day!

Hi everyone,

I was fortunate enough to be invited to see the classic Cinderella at a local community playhouse.  While I sat watching the play and listening to the music, I had the thought of how often an employee in a difficult job or career can feel like Cinderella.

Have you ever had a boss that was like Cinderella’s stepmother?  Or maybe you have had co-workers like Cinderella’s stepsisters.  As for myself, I have had both a difficult boss and quite awful co-workers. 

With 65%+ of all current employees really hating their current jobs or career paths, it is no wonder the workplace resembles Cinderella’s daily grind.  The economy today is also causing people to stay in positions that are less than satisfying because they feel they have no choice.

Current statistics indicate that only 5% of college educated workers are actually unemployed.  The vast majority of the unemployed are undereducated lacking skills to succeed in today’s current job market.  My comments in this blog are targeted to the college educated women who feel trapped in a career that is less than satisfying.

Please take a moment to contact me immediately for a complimentary consultation on how to make a career change in today’s economy at coachdeb@careercoachnow.com.  You do not have suffer like Cinderella or wait for a prince charming to rescue you from your career misery.  Step 1 of the 5 step program is to believe that you can and will create a better career opportunity for yourself. 

So please, give me a call now to discuss the possibility of a new career in 90 days!  What are you waiting for?