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February 22, 2007
Don't Send Your Resume Out Undressed
Okay, so you have painstakingly prepared a powerful, attention-getting resume that fully highlights your accomplishments and frames your skills using the keywords and language of the target industry. Don't make the mistake of sending it out into the world undressed--that is, without the appropriate outerwear--the cover letter!
Few applicants give much thought to their cover letters, even though they have put blood, sweat, and tears into their resumes. The job of the cover letter is to identify the job you want to do, and to sell yourself as the ideal person to do it. Industry professionals agree that at the very least, your cover letter should hook your reader, promote your viability as a candidate, and generate enough interest to inspire reading beyond the letter and on into the resume for more information.
It is also EXTREMELY important to know to whom your resume package should be directed, so you can send it addressed specifically to that individual's attention, with his or her name spelled correctly, and followed by their title. Don’t make the mistake of addressing your cover letter “To whom it may concern” or a generalized “Dear Human Resources Director.” With that approach, it may as well be address to “Dear Circular File” as the odds will be against it getting into the right hands from the outset. Taking the time to learn the correct recipient’s name identifies you as someone who goes the extra distance to sure-up the details – a definite plus for any job candidate.
Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters are experts in writing highly powerful cover letters that generate requests for interviews. Need help with creating a powerful cover letter or writing a winning resume? Order today from the experts at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Posted by Katharine at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2007
Defining Resume Focus
The first step toward preparing a powerful resume, is to fully consider the market you are targeting to determine the job skills necessary to work and excel in it. There is little point in developing a resume that highlights specialty cake-making expertise to appeal to an audience of steel workers. An ill-targeted execution is destined for hardship and likely failure from the outset. So step one of the mission is to define your focus. Begin by determining what your career goals really are, get to know the current hiring and performance trends in that market, research the qualifications typical for that type of job, and get ready to get to work tailoring your execution to fit the chosen profession. With a bit of mental elbow grease here, square pegs can be reshaped to fit round holes by highlighting skills that can be considered as transferable. Focusing on strengths, such as communication, organization, interpersonal skills, management capabilities, and leadership – to name a few – can be applied with great success to almost any job title, but you must be the one to connect the dots for your reader in pursuasive, discipline-specific language. The Internet is a goldmine for conducting this type of career-related research.
Want help assessing the focus and language of your resume or help creating a powerful new resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Posted by Katharine at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2007
Crafting a Winning Resume
It may be no secret that having a professional-quality resume is a must to compete in today’s job market, but the means to creating one may be somewhat less clear and perhaps a bit daunting to do-it-yourselfers. Developing a powerful resume that will fully optimize a job search takes preliminary strategizing and a systematic follow-through to ensure an effective, attention-garnering execution. In an age of technology-enhanced job-search tools--online job postings, and electronic resumes--a resume in any form must be considered as nothing less than a powerful personal marketing tool that spotlights career accomplishments, touts job skills, and identifies you as a viable candidate in the job market.
Experts in the resume-writing field may have style differences, but all seem to agree on the importance of a final presentation that is rich in accomplishments and action-oriented language with unique qualities and special skills promoted as “value-added” extras. It seems to be universally agreed that resume writing is about creating powerful career-marketing documents that identify you as a candidate who is in-step with leading-edge job-search trends and technologies.
Need help assessing the strength and effectiveness of your current job-search documents? Order an objective resume critique today from the resume experts at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Want help creating a powerful, professional resume or help with updating your existing resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Posted by Katharine at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2007
One Size Fits All Resume?
Not possible! A common mistake jobseekers make is to submit the same version of their resume for each and every position to which they apply. This approach to job-hunting makes no more sense than wearing your summertime Teva’s through the rains of autumn and on into the snowdrifts of winter and wondering why your feet are cold and wet! In almost all circumstances, this practice is destined for repeated failure in a job search. Even jobs with the same title can differ distinctly from each other, from company to company, on a range of levels.
The wise job hunter will use some minor sleuthing skills to decipher the advertising language of each listing, identify exactly what hard and soft skills a specific employer seeks, and utilize that information to tweak a resume and cover letter to play to the target reader. Picking up on the keywords in employment ads and job postings can truly be the key to success in the job market. Making minor adjustments in language, to otherwise identical documents, can mean the difference between getting an interview and having your resume land in the circular file--especially in an age where use of keyword-based resume screening software is becoming more common.
Need help identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your current job-search documents? Order an objective resume critique today from the resume experts at Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters. Need help creating powerful, professional career documents or help with updating your existing resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Posted by Katharine at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2007
Will Your Resume Be Ready When Opportunity Knocks?
Are you a bystander in your own career? Have you watched colleagues get promoted and move up the ladder while you remain in the same old job and ruminate on their good fortune? Chances are the only real difference between yourself and your “lucky” colleagues is preparation.
Oprah Winfrey rejects the very idea of luck, believing instead that moments heretofore defined as lucky are instead highly charged instances where preparation meets opportunity. This concept can certainly hold true in a competitive job market where the earliest bird may indeed catch the worm. Having a well-written, up-to-date resume at the ready for an unexpected opportunity could very well position you ahead of the competition. Being able to produce current, professional-looking career documents at not only a moment’s notice, but THE moment’s notice can speak volumes about your viability as a qualified candidate.
Submitting your documents for an objective critique can be a solid first step in your preparedness process. A resume critique provided by qualified professionals, can shed light on how the current state of your resume may be hitting or missing its mark in a target industry or with recruiters and hiring managers. You may also gain valuable insight on how best to optimize your documents for electronic submission and screening.
Need a thorough, objective resume critique or professional help with creating or updating your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.
Please e-mail carolynn@resumesandcoverletters.com for more information.
Posted by Katharine at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)