NEW YORK (AP) - If you're worried about losing your job as the U.S. economy weakens, it's time to update your resume in case you need to hunt for new employment.
Your goal should be making your resume stand out from the hundreds of other resumes that employers receive.
It used to be that a resume — which is a brief, written summary of an individual's education, work and accomplishments — started with a "statement of purpose," something akin to "I'm seeking a challenging position that offers professional growth." But that doesn't make the jobseeker distinctive from the competition.
"You really need to highlight your last five years of experience and concrete accomplishments," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. outplacement firm in Chicago. "That's what makes you stand out."
Challenger said, for example, that "saying you are a marketing executive with experience in brand management" doesn't make you stand out because most market executives have those skills. But "saying that you are a marketing executive who developed the concept and designed the materials for an advertising campaign for a new brand" reveals much more, he said.
Job applicants also have to realize that they're applying to work for very busy people, so they have to keep the key items in their resumes brief and to the point, he added.
It should go without saying that all resumes have some things in common:
_ They're attractive to look at, whether mailed or e-mailed
_ The content has been checked for typos and grammatical errors
_ The contact information is correct
Kate Wendleton, president of the Five O'Clock Club, a career coaching and outplacement firm in New York, said jobseekers also should prepare a cover letter for their resumes.
In brief, it should say you've been following the company's activities, that you have a number of years of experience in the relevant field, that your most important accomplishments are X and Y, and that you'd appreciate 20 minutes of the would-be employer's time to discuss the job.
Workers — especially those who are changing fields — need to make sure their resumes use the right vocabulary in describing their skills, said Wendleton, author of "Packaging Yourself: The Targeted Resume."
"We had a person with banking experience, an executive who specialized in check processing, who came in to work with us," she said. "Now he wanted to work in hospitals, but they don't do check processing. So he had to get the word 'check' off his resume and emphasize transaction processing, which hospitals do."
Those who have done a lot of job hopping — which could make a worker look unreliable — can make it less obvious in the way they organize their resumes, she said.
Say someone has worked at three companies in the past seven years. Wendleton recommends that instead of listing each job separately, the jobseeker should create a single category like "research management, 2000 to present" and incorporate the three companies below that with emphasis on accomplishments over the stated period of time.
"Remember, visual appearance is very important," she said.
Both Challenger and Wendleton emphasized that finding the right person to send the resume to is very important. The best choice is not the head of the human resources department but the person who eventually could be your direct supervisor.
"Resumes have become so easy to send out with the click of a button that companies' HR departments are inundated," Challenger said. "Go that route, and your resume is on a pile with hundreds of others."
Instead, he suggested, "figure out the person you'd work for directly and send it to him or her."
And don't hesitate to follow up — but not with a "thank you" note, which Wendleton considers to be a waste of time.
"Do a real proposal, with an argument about why they should want to hire a person like you," she said. "Influence them."
And salary requests? Money doesn't come up until you get your foot in the door for a person-to-person interview, both said.
On the Net: http://www.challengergray.com http://fiveoclockclub.com |