How to Bounce back after losing your Job

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31
Aug 2017

There’s no other way to put it: losing your job is difficult on a number of different levels. It can rattle your confidence and induce anxiety and depression. It messes with your routine; your days are no longer built around your typical work hours, and instead of basking in all that glorious “free time,” you wind up squandering it because you don’t know what to do with yourself.

The Muse has a great step-by-step article on what to do each day following the day you lost your job. The author, Nathan Tanner, details that finding someone to talk to, as well as doing some personal reflection are among the first things someone should do when they lose their job. He also mentions that you may want to take steps to file for unemployment (Career One Stop has a tool that allows you to filter by state to see how to file for unemployment). Tanner leaves off on Day 3, advising people to update their resume because, inevitably, you’ll need to find a way of sustaining yourself in the near future.

In this article, we’ll pick up where Tanner leaves off, with the positive steps you can take to get yourself back in the workforce as soon as possible and as soon as you’re ready. Before embarking on this journey, however, we can’t stress enough how important it is to take a few days off to reflect on the situation, figure out how you feel about it, and confide in a close friend who will be emotionally supportive of you and offer advice if you need it. Once you feel calm and collected and ready to start something new, there are several things you can do to get your career on track again.

The most important thing to do when you lose your job—after taking care of your wellbeing—is to figure out how best to manage and take advantage of this free time you now have. Now that you aren’t buried in work from your previous job, you’ve got some time on your hands. Think of how many times over the last years you’ve thought to yourself, “If I only had the time I would [make new business cards / update my resume / go to this skill-related event to develop my skills.” Well, now is the time to do all those things that you never had or made time for when you were employed.

1) Update your resume

You can start by setting aside a few hours over the course of two or three days to get your resume in shape. Take the time to edit previous work experiences and job descriptions to make sure they really reflect who you are and where you come from professionally. We’ve written in the past about injecting more personality into your resume and phrases that will kill your resume. Now is the time to go through your resume with a fine tooth comb and make it perfect.

2) Get your networking game on

Once you’ve got your resume looking its best, it’s time to start putting yourself out there and meeting new people in the professional world. Make some glossy new business cards and try to find some nearby networking events in your field. Networking can really take place in just about any social situation. You never know who you’ll meet or be introduced to. Alternatively, you almost certainly will be able to find a networking event near you in your field. These days it’s easier than ever to connect with people professionally, once you start looking for events geared specifically towards networking, you’ll realize just how many people share the same desire to reach out to fellow colleagues in their field. This article by Bradley Will details “10 Websites to Find the Best Local Business Networking Events” and this one on JobMob details some helpful tools for finding networking events near you.

3) Write to people on LinkedIn

If you’re not the type to send emails and messages out of the blue, contacting people you don’t know and who you’re not connected to on LinkedIn may seem like a daunting, if not far-fetched, task. However, you may be surprised to find how many people are willing to talk to you. To start out you can check out some tips on “How to Write LinkedIn Messages that Actually Get Read.” You can reach out to people you admire or those who work at organizations you may be interested in working for. Another great place to start is with your alumni network. Find people who share your alma mater and who are in your field. Reach out to them and see if you can meet them informationally. Remember that people do not get to where they are professionally without the help of those who surround them. Even if you’ve never met the person, they may be more than willing to help you out by informing you of open positions or putting in a good word when you apply, for the simple reason that they’re paying it forward. Perhaps their lucky break came when they were in a similar situation and someone helped them out. The bottom line is that you never know what will happen when you connect with someone. The worst that could happen is they’ll ignore your message or will tell you they can’t help you. But they just might be willing to share information, positions, or advice. You won’t know unless you try.

4) Apply for jobs

Once you’ve got your resume updated and you begin networking and making connections, opportunities will begin to arise. Think deeply about what aspects of your job you would like to change or improve for your next career move. Losing your previous job doesn’t have to be all bad. It can also be an opportunity to redirect your career toward a professional path on which you’ll be more satisfied and successful. Do your research and open those doors for yourself. Check out our tips for How to Get a Job in 2017 and How to find your Dream Job.

 

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Resume Summary Statements and How to Perfect Yours

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23
Aug 2017

Your Professional Profile is one of the first things a hiring manager sees on your resume. Before we get into its function and importance, we’ll explain what it is, and other resume keywords you’ll need to know in order to understand the Professional Profile. If you’re new to writing resumes, to job hunting, or are just unfamiliar with the most current language being used to discuss resumes, it’s a good idea to review these key terms. There are proven ways to improve your resume, but in order to utilize the nuanced advice from expert resume writers, you’ll need to become familiar with the terms they use.

First, we’ll break down the sections in the top portion of your resume. We do so more in-depth in our “Anatomy of a Perfect Resume” module, but we’ll stick to some shorter working definitions here. The Header is the first section of your resume, and it contains basic information about you: your name, contact information, city and state, and often social media links. The Professional Profile is the section just below the header.

The Professional Profile is prime real estate on your resume. That’s why it’s crucial to thoroughly understand its purpose, so you can optimize the material you place there. We liken the Professional Profile to an “elevator pitch” of your professional self to hiring managers. Imagine you walk into an elevator to the top of a skyscraper, and you realize that the hiring manager recruiting for your dream job is standing right next to you. In the 30 seconds of face time you have with that hiring manager, what aspects about yourself do you want to highlight to them? The Professional Profile offers hiring managers a highly condensed glimpse of you, probably their only opportunity to see who you are on paper before deciding whether or not it’s worth it to meet you in person.

One component of your Professional Profile is the Key Skills section, which we’ve blogged about in the past. The section that immediately precedes the Key Skills section is your Summary Statement. The Muse defines the Summary Statement as, “a few pithy and strong statements at the beginning of your resume that help summarize your skills and experience in order for a prospective employer to quickly get a sense of the value you could offer.”

We at Resume Yeti generally believe that there are two ground rules to writing a Summary Statement:

1) Less is more

A Summary Statement should not be longer than a few sentences. As this information is highly condensed, including too much of it will be overwhelming and seem superficial to the hiring manager reading your resume. As The Balance puts it, a good Summary Statement should concisely answer the question “What can this applicant offer the employer?”[LINK TO: https://www.thebalance.com/resume-profile-vs-resume-objective-2063185  ]

2) Customize your statement to the position you’re applying for

Your summary statement does not have to be the same for each job you’re applying for. Sometimes you’ll notice that elements of your statement that seem essential to highlight for one position seem superfluous for another. Additionally, you may find that certain positions will require you to be more specific in your statement. For example, take a look at these two summary statements written by the same job applicant, for two jobs in distinct industries:

Marketing/Business Development/Promotions:
“Highly accomplished, creative and multifaceted marketing and business development professional with comprehensive, managerial experience in corporate sales, promotions, advertising, operations, strategic planning and brand management. Exceptionally focused and results-oriented, supporting complex deadline driven operations with high profile clientele. Extensive background in communications and project management.”

Events and Meeting Planning:
“Highly accomplished, creative and multifaceted event management professional with comprehensive experience in the planning, operations, and sales sides of the industry. Exceptionally focused and results-oriented, supporting complex deadline driven operations with high profile clientele. Detail-oriented with experience in creating and maintaining client and vendor relationships. Extensive background in marketing, communications and project management.”

The first Summary Statement is for a position in Marketing/Business Development/Promotions, and the second is in Event and Meeting Planning. We’ll break down the differences below:

The first difference is the type of professional the applicant is. The marketing summary focuses on her versatility and her extensive experience in marketing and business development. The event planning summary focuses both on her versatility as well as her skills in operations and sales. This would be important to point out in the Summary Statement because not all applicants to event planning jobs would necessarily have that experience in sales and marketing, as this applicant does. Including it in her Summary Statement will make her stand out to hiring managers.

The second difference is how the applicant highlights her professional personality. In the marketing/business development summary, she wanted to feature her ability to focus in complex situations, how she excels even under the pressure of deadlines and high profile clientele, which would be crucial for someone in marketing or business development. In the event planning summary, she wanted to highlight her knack for details and nurturing relationships between clients and vendors, skills that would be essential for event planners.

The last difference is in how she describes her background. The two sentences are identical, with the exception of one word: “marketing.” The marketing/business development/promotions summary does not include the applicant’s background in marketing, while the event planning summary does. This is because it is assumed that an applicant applying for a job in marketing would have a background in marketing. Since the applicant would want to keep the summary as concise as possible, including the word “marketing” in this Summary Statement would be superfluous. However, in the Event Planning summary, she needed to highlight her background in marketing because, again, many applicants for a job in event planning may not have had that experience in marketing. 

Now that you’ve learned more about the Professional Profile section of your resume and how to write an excellent Summary Statement, you can put your knowledge into action and begin customizing your resume. Prepare to see a difference in response from hiring managers once you implement these changes and tweaks on your resume!

 

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Take it from the Stats! Proven Ways to Optimize your LinkedIn Profile

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29
Jun 2017

If you have ever been hesitant about using LinkedIn, allow the statistics to erase your apprehension. It’s no myth that LinkedIn has revolutionized the contemporary workforce, and has provided proof of the powerful interconnectedness of professional networks. It’s estimated that 106 million unique users visit LinkedIn each month, and that every second two new users join the network. It’s not just the number of users that’s increasing, either. From 2016 to 2017, the use of LinkedIn company pages grew from 24% to 57%. If those facts aren’t enough to make you consider creating a LinkedIn profile or using yours more, consider that as of now, 71% of professionals feel that LinkedIn is a credible source for professional content. That means that if you aren’t using LinkedIn, you should be.

Using statistics as a guide, we’ll discuss the ways that you can optimize your LinkedIn use and profile, or create one if you have not done so yet.

Pro Tip: Get Visual

FACT: LinkedIn profiles with professional photos get 21 times more profile views, and 36 times more messages.

If that’s not reason enough to amp up the visuals on your LinkedIn account, I don’t know what is! The simple act of adding a professional headshot increases your visibility by 21 times. On top of that, you’ll be much more likely to receive messages from contacts. 

Pro Tip: Flaunt your Skills, literally 

FACT: Listing your skills on your LinkedIn profile results in 13 times more profile views than if skills are left unlisted.

Recently, we blogged about the importance of having a Key Skills section on your resume, and how listing your skills can help you rank higher in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Turns out it’s also proven that including key skills on your LinkedIn profile can increase your profile’s viewer traffic by up to 13 times. Remember, the more people see your profile, the more of a chance you’ll have of making productive connections.

Pro Tip: Talk the talk, so walk the walk

FACT: There are 19.7 million Slideshares uploaded to LinkedIn.

Slideshares are LinkedIn’s way of showcasing work portfolios and your past presentations (in the form of PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote, and OpenDocument). We’ve already mentioned how simply adding a profile picture to give your name a face can increase your visibility and interconnectedness on LinkedIn. Apply that same logic to adding visible examples of all the great things you write in your profile. Adding samples of your work makes your project descriptions that much more credible.

Pro Tip: Get Someone to back you up 

Fact: There have been over 10 billion LinkedIn endorsements

Endorsements are LinkedIn’s way of adding third party verification of your professional successes, talents and work ethic. People you’ve worked with can testify to how great you are. What better way to make other professionals want to connect with you and share opportunities with you than to have others give testament to your successes? 

Pro Tip: Get Creative

FACT: The most overused LinkedIn profile word continues to be “Motivated” – which also topped 2014 and 2015. 

We’ve blogged about phrases that will kill your resume. Among them are clichéd phrases that, when you think about them, seem very vague and don’t really describe anything about you. The same philosophy goes with LinkedIn language. If you use the word “motivated” in your profile, take it out and replace it with something else. Same thing goes for any other cliché words and catchphrases.

In closing, we hope you’ve now decided that you need to create a LinkedIn profile. If you’re looking for a job, know that LinkedIn now has 3 million active job listings on the platform. Out of LinkedIn’s 467 million users, you are bound to make some incredible connections that pave the golden way forward in your career.

All statistics sourced from “LinkedIn By The Numbers: 2017 Statistics.”

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Include Key Skills on your Resume to Beat Applicant Tracking Systems

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27
Jun 2017

The Key Skills/Core Competencies section is generally the second major section of the resume, placed right after your header – containing your name, email, phone number, and relevant social media links – and your professional profile. In Resume Yeti’s Anatomy of a Perfect Resume, we liken the Professional Profile and Key Skills sections to an “elevator pitch.” In other words, it’s a lightning fast way to create a portrait of your strengths. In a more technical sense, this section is also a way to clearly include keywords that will rank you higher in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

You can read more about ATS here, but in short, the ATS is the first step of the hiring manager’s resume screening process. If the company uses an ATS in the hiring process, then before a person ever looks at your resume, it will be fed through the system in order to select only the applicants that are a “match” for the job description. The ATS only selects resumes that contain specific keywords that are relevant to the position. So, it is crucial to make sure that your resume contains the correct keywords to be selected out of the first screening pool and move on to the next step in the application process, during which a person would evaluate your resume.

You inevitably include many keywords throughout your resume, in your job titles and the descriptions of your responsibilities. However, the Key Skills section is a place where you can take the opportunity to showcase your relevant skills all in one place. Some people recommend not including this section, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t. The benefits of listing your skills far outweigh any disadvantages to including them. Here are some of Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on the advantages of including a Key Skills/Core Competencies section on your resume, and how to do it right.

Pro Tip:  Including a Key Skills section will help you rank higher in an applicant tracking system (ATS)

As previously mentioned, an ATS is often the first step in screening applications for an open position. If your resume does not include enough content that matches the filters the hiring manager has set in the ATS, your resume will not be selected to move on to the next step in the process.

The use of Applicant Tracking Systems is on the rise. An article on Recruiting Daily states that an estimated 75% of big companies use an ATS. And with developments in the technology, it’s becoming much easier and more affordable for small companies to use the programs, too.  Advertisements for Applicant Tracking Systems boast that for employers, the use of an ATS is cost effective and saves extensive amounts of time in the hiring process. Since most companies are using these programs, it is likely your resume will need to be ATS friendly. Therefore, it’s best to prepare your resume so that if it is screened electronically, you’ll have enough matching keywords to move on.

Pro Tip: Your Key Skills should mirror the job descriptions that interest you

So now you know why you need to include a Key Skills/Core Competencies section on your resume, the next logical question is how to do it. The best possible way that you can prepare your resume for an Applicant Tracking System is to be sure that it includes many of the same keywords as the jobs you’re applying for. Hiring managers will often pull keywords from the job description itself to plug into the ATS filters. It’s a good idea for your Key Skills section to mirror the job description.

Apart from those listed in the job description, you can include additional Key Skills that are relevant to the industry of the job you’re applying for. Browse similar job postings, and take note of the desired skill requirements that are being solicited.

We at Resume Yeti make this task even easier for you by providing a Resume Keyword index. In this Index, you’ll find categorized lists of the most common keywords for over 150 different professions. In addition to your own research, including some keywords from this index may help your resume to rank higher in the ATS, and hopefully get your resume in front of human eyes!

Pro Tip: Include a maximum of 20 Key Skills in this section

Once you realize the importance of trying to match your resume to the ATS filters, it’s easy to get carried away and want to include everything you find, to be sure that your resume passes the first screening. But you also have to remember that once your resume does make it past the electronic portion of the process, the same document has to pass a human screening, too. Listing 3 pages of Key Skills might make you appealing to a computer program, but it’s likely to deter human interest in your resume. Thus, you’ll need to strike a balance between optimizing your resume’s keywords for the ATS and optimizing your resume’s other content (like Professional Experience, Education, Noteworthy, Accomplishments, etc.) and aesthetic. We recommend making an extensive initial list of keywords and selecting your top 20 for inclusion in your Key Skills section. Most Key Skills sections will consist of 2 or 3 columns instead of one long list to save space, so you’ll want to make sure these columns are balanced out as well.

 

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Optimize your Resume to Avoid Age Discrimination while Job Hunting

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14
Jun 2017

If you are over the age of 40 and have been searching for a job, there is a strong chance that you have experienced age discrimination in the hiring process. As you age and continue to apply for jobs, you may notice that call-backs and interview requests are becoming increasingly rare for you. While hiring managers may not realize that they are discriminating against applicants based on their age, there are several age-related factors that could negatively affect how your resume is viewed, and those factors subsequently affect whether or not you are invited for an interview.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 states that employers shall not discriminate against job applicants or workers who are over the age of 40 throughout the hiring process or in the workplace. Employers declare themselves Equal Opportunity Employers, though treating each applicant equally is much more challenging in practice than in theory. Hiring managers may have the impulse to gravitate, subconsciously even, toward applicants who give the impression of being young. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, this practice is illegal. Yet it persists in the modern workforce because of the subtle behaviors we adopt from societal attitudes and stigmas, as well as the difficulty in enforcing equal employment opportunity laws.

Your resume projects who you are to hiring managers. As their first impression of you, your resume has the power to be the one thing that compels them to elevate you to the next step in the hiring process. There are several ways in which you can optimize your resume to ensure that you are not discriminated against based on your age. Below are Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on how to optimize your resume for the modern job hunt.

Pro Tip: Focus on your most recent positions

In the “Professional Experience” section on your resume, you should emphasize only the most recent positions you have held. While it is crucial to include professional experience that is relevant to the positions you are applying for, any jobs outside of the past 10-15 years should not appear in the main “Professional Experience” section of your resume. Instead, you can simply list these positions in an “Additional Experience” section below your “Professional Experience” Section. The positions you list under additional experience do not need to include dates, though you may be asked about dates during an interview.

Pro Tip: Keep your resume short

No matter how many unique work experiences you have had, or how many years you’ve been working, your resume should ideally be two pages or less (three at the absolute maximum). Having an overly lengthy resume can indicate your age to hiring managers. Long resumes can also be overwhelming to read and process, and they can actually work against you in the hiring process. Keep your Professional Experience descriptions concise and direct, with three short bullet points per position.

Pro Tip: Eliminate your graduation dates

By dating your education, you date yourself. If you alert hiring managers to the year you graduated from college, they can estimate your age within a few years. Your age is supposed to be irrelevant to hiring managers, but if they calculate your age based on your education dates, it opens up the chance that they could discriminate against you, however unknowingly.

Watch out for this question in interviews, too. Even if you remove your graduation dates from your resume, hiring managers could attempt to gauge your age by casually asking what year you graduated from college or high school in an interview. If this question should surface in the hiring process, you may be able to deflect it by responding, “May I ask the reason why you need this information?” or “I could order you a copy of my transcript if necessary.”

Pro Tip: Modernize your resume’s appearance

Again, your resume is hiring managers’ first impression of you. This part of your application is a way of projecting who you are without ever meeting someone from the office in person. Older job applicants have a tendency to use outdated visual techniques and formats in their resumes. In today’s job market, many applicants are utilizing graphic design and self-branding in order to attract the attention of hiring managers. If you can modernize your resume’s appearance, then you will not stick out as an older applicant when hiring managers first screen resumes for the position. If you are worried that you don’t have the graphic design skills to modernize your resume, don’t worry! Resume Yeti uses an online system in which you type in your information, and the program rearranges it into your choice of a beautiful modern template.

It may not be possible to eliminate age discrimination in the workplace and hiring process, but it is possible to prevent it from happening to you. Test our Pro Tips, and get ready to receive more call-backs and interview requests than before!

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3 Creative Ways to get Noticed and Land the Job

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23
May 2017

There is a fine line between gimmicks and authentic creativity when it comes to capturing the attention of hiring managers. A stunt too outlandish will land your resume in the garbage, but there are several tricks job hunters may employ that—with finesse—just might pique the interest of hiring managers and get you in the door for an interview. Each of the following strategies requires a bit of extra time, and in some cases a little money upfront, but each is a way that has been proven to move job hunters forward in their search for employment.

1) The Unsolicited Application

The strategy of cold calling has historically been one of the most tried-and-true methods of job hunting, although it has changed a bit in the last decade. To set this strategy into motion, you need to do your research. It’s a good idea to use a spreadsheet to organize your findings. Start by making an exhaustive list of companies and organizations that interest you—be it the company’s mission, the products they make or advertise, or the ideal next step up in your career. For each entry in your spreadsheet, record the company’s name, a sentence about why it interests you, and the available contact information about the staff member most likely to be in charge.

Once you have several entries, begin contacting the companies. In an email, send your resume along with a formal, individualized message about why you’re interested in the company, your skills that you think would make a positive contribution to their staff and workplace, and a reminder that even if they are not hiring at the moment, to please keep you in mind for future opportunities. The majority of these emails may go unanswered, but sometimes, companies are looking for employees for positions that haven’t been posted yet, or hiring managers and staff members will remember your outreach efforts and might contact you in the future.

2) The Role Reversal

Some of you may have heard about programmer Andrew Horner’s website that encouraged employers to apply to have Horner work for them. While this strategy was ultimately very successful for Horner, it is not likely that everyone will achieve the same results. However, there are a few ways that you can “turn the tables” so that people solicit you to work, rather than the other way around.

One tactic is to advertise on Facebook and Google. To make a Facebook ad, you’ll have to start a business page. Once you do, you can follow these steps to create advertisements for small fees to reach specific audiences. To place advertisements on Google, you’ll have to make a Google AdWords account. Once you’ve set that up, there are many options to create Search Ads (those that appear in the list search results when you Google something), and Display Ads (those that appear as banners on websites you visit). There are also many different payment tiers, depending on your needs and the audience you want to reach. You can learn more about how to effectively use Google Adwords here.

Another “role reversal” tactic is to post advertisements for your services on sites like TaskRabbit and Craigslist Jobs**. While Craigslist tends to be a bit more of a wild card in terms of gaining actual clients, it has proved effective when used intelligently and persistently. It’s also easy to post–you can do it within 10 minutes! Craigslist uses what’s called “relay mail,” so that you can communicate with potential clients anonymously until you have reached an agreement and feel comfortable exchanging other contact information with your client.

TaskRabbit allows you to create a profile that lists your skills and strengths so that people who need work done can contact you if your skill set is a match for what they need. You can become a “tasker” here. As a tasker you can also browse work that people need done and contact them to offer your services. If they agree that you’re a match, then you’ll move forward with a contract and you’ll be on your way.

** Remember never to post personal information inside ad text, never to give bank account information or passwords, and never to send/wire money over Craigslist.

3) The Imitation Game

Maybe you’ve heard of Alexander J. Velicky’s video game resume, which he submitted to Bethesda Game Studios, where he was keen on working. Or perhaps you’re aware of Jeanne Hwang’s Pinterest CV, which she submitted to Pinterest. Or Leah Bowman, who built a Lego-themed resume to appeal to future employers.

These are three examples of job hunters who grabbed hiring managers’ attention by synthesizing and personalizing elements of the companies’ branding, mission, and work. By thoroughly researching the companies they wanted to work for, these job hunters were able to project their best qualities by imitating the characteristics they loved best about the companies. When the hiring managers saw enthusiasm for the companies mirrored in their job applications, these applicants were invited to interview.

 

All three of these creative strategies require a bit more time, research, and even money (in the case of advertising) upfront. But for jobs that you’ve got your heart set on, it just might be worth a shot!

Have you ever used a creative strategy to land an interview or job offer? Share it with us on Facebook or Tweet us @ResumeYeti!

 

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5 Phrases that will kill your Resume (And how to replace them)

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15
May 2017

Employers are often shocked at how many job applicants include outdated language on their resume, regardless of their age or level of career experience. In today’s hyper-competitive job market, you cannot allow employers’ first impression of you to be shaped by archaic words, writing styles, or catchphrases. Luckily, these buzzwords are easy to spot, if you know what to look for. What follows is a list of ResumeYeti’s Top 5 outdated resume phrases, with our Pro Tips on how to replace them if they appear on yours.

1) Personal Pronouns

Using the pronouns “I,” “my,” “me,” etc. comes off as overly informal and thus, unprofessional. Employers automatically assume that everything on your resume is related to you and your experience. Think about the lessons you learned early on about writing academic or scientific essays. The most authoritative voice is the one that remains objective. The same goes for resume language.

Pro Tip: Find ways to express your career experiences without pronouns. The phrase “My responsibilities included training my interns to use the digital asset manager,” could be reworked to be, “Trained a group of 5 interns to use Portfolio Digital Asset Manager.” The new sentence is preferred because it is direct and objective, and it also quantifies an element of your job (resume readers love this), AND it specifies a computer program/system you are skilled in using.

2) Address

You should not include your full address in the “contact” section of your resume. In the past, the address was typically included as a formal gesture, but today, your personal address is seen as unnecessary information that visually clutters the top of your resume.

Pro Tip: DO include your phone number and email address. You should use dashes, periods, or parentheses (for the area code) to format your phone number. When you list your e-mail, be sure to use a professional address with your name, rather than a silly account that does not identify you.

3) Exceedingly formal or wordy language

The flip side of making your resume seem too informal by using personal pronouns would be making your resume seem so extraneously proper that it comes off as silly. Some examples of this language are phrases like “responsible for,” “duties included,” “oversight of,” and “references available upon request.” Apart from taking up precious space on your resume document, these phrases complicate the details that you are trying to convey to employers. Today, advertisers are lucky if they catch our attention for 5 whole seconds before a YouTube video plays. If your resume language is complicated and verbose, you can count on it being buried in the pile and overshadowed by other applicants.

Pro Tip: Be direct and concise. If you’ve gotten to a point where you’re stuck and you don’t know where to start, have a friend look it over. Instruct them to edit every sentence as if each one had a word limit. Every character counts. Try to pare down your language so that only the most crucial points remain. Think of it this way: for every overly wordy phrase you remove, you can use a bit of the extra space to specify or quantify a detail of your experience (thus improving your resume).

4) Vague Expressions

What do you think of when you hear the phrases, “out-of-the-box,” “dynamic,” “win-win,” or “team player?” Having a hard time envisioning something meaningful? Employers reading your resume will have a hard time, too.  Clichéd phrases like these are vague. They emit a gimmicky, sales pitch-y tone, and should be left off your resume.

Pro Tip: If you do spot these phrases on your resume, zoom in on the context in which you used them. What exactly is it that you are trying to express about yourself? If you describe yourself as an “out-of-the-box, dynamic team player,” try to imagine a time when your innovative ideas or actions were successful in a team setting. Did the success occur because you were resourceful? Enterprising? Efficient? Assertive? Isolate the clichés and either eliminate them or find a more expressive way to convey what you mean.

5) Everyday, general skills

It is assumed that most adults in the U.S. know how to use Microsoft Word. You do not need to assure employers (and waste space on your resume) of your proficiency in this common program. Other “skills” that are frequently listed on resumes are problem solving and being detail oriented.

Pro Tip: These are qualities that are essential not only to being an employee, but also to just being a human. Life is problem solving. If you pay attention to details, you’re more likely to get what you want or avoid situations where precautions were in the fine print. You’ll need to show, rather than tell, your future employer that you possess these qualities. To begin with, show your employer how detail oriented you are by spell checking your resume and cover letter. Go the extra mile by handing in your gorgeously designed ResumeYeti resume, complete with matching letterhead for your cover letter, and business cards to make a great first impression.

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3 Resume Old Wives Tales Debunked!

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06
Feb 2017

Writing your resume is no easy feat, especially with all the resume rumors flying around out there. Watch out for resume advice that can actually hinder your chances of getting the job!

Three common misconceptions that will lead you astray and likely get your resume trashed include:

  1. Using white-font-keywords on your resume to get past an applicant tracking system,
  2. Using a functional resume format, and
  3. Placing a photo on your resume.
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