How To Make Adjustments to Your Resume to Increase Your Callbacks

Prior to the common use of online recruitment, a job seeker would write a resume and cover letter on a word processor and then go to the local printing office and order 100 copies. Then the resumes would be sent out by snail mail and the wait would begin. How times have changed! Today, printed resumes are infrequently used. Most resumes today are transmitted electronically. One of the advantages of online resumes is that it is much easier to make changes when a job search campaign warrants doing so. (Making changes to a paper resume was a hassle as well as an expense.)

Under what conditions would a job search campaign warrant you making a change to your resume? This question tends to confuse some job seekers because they see a resume as a job history or skills document, rather than a competitive marketing tool that's similar to a product brochure. The "key" word here is competitive. Different job campaigns have different levels of competition. To succeed in obtaining callbacks from online resume postings or applications, one usually needs to make adjustments based upon the level of competition you are likely to have.

How does job competition actually work? How do you know whether you will experience more or less job competition? Well, there are three types of competitive job campaigns. They are:

• Position
• Industry
• Combination (Position + Industry)

Position Campaigns
A positional campaign (commonly called the ‘lateral move’) is where a job candidate is looking for another position that is within the same industry or business line and is also the same type of job with same job title. For example: an administrative assistant in the financial industry who is looking for another administrative assistant job in the financial industry. Since skills, experience and corporate culture are likely to be the same in different companies within the same industry, this type of campaign has the least amount of job competition. It's also the easiest way to change jobs. The resume you used for your last job search could very well work for you in the next search. Of course, you would need to update your experience, skills and any training or education you obtained. 

Industry Campaigns
An industry campaign is where a job candidate is looking for the same type of job (title) or role but in a different industry. This happens during recessions a lot or when an industry is restructuring and lots of people are laid off. For example, an admin assistant with financial industry experience who was laid off and is now looking for the same type of job in an engineering consulting company or a manufacturing company or a doctor’s office would have this type of job campaign. This type of job search campaign is more competitive than the positional campaign because (a) skills gaps and (b) cultural differences and (c) the people who already have experience in this new industry are preferred over people who do not have this new industry experience. This means your resume needs to be adjusted for this new industry. To do so, review the job ad again. Look for language that suggest "industry experience." This could be a duty or it could be a productivity tool or even an industry certification. You need to close the "industry" gap as much as possible in order to compete against the industry veterans who are on the hunt for a new job.

Combination Campaigns
A combination campaign is a combination of a positional and industry campaign. This is where someone is looking for a different job (title) or role in a different industry. For example, an administrative assistant in the financial industry who is now looking to be a  project manager in the IT industry because of her new PMP certification. So, she has a competitive hill to climb. Not only is she competing for a new type of job, this new job is in a company in a different industry, which is likely to have different requirements and a different culture. It’s the most competitive type of job search campaign. To succeed in this type of campaign, your resume needs to communicate "rare" skills and capabilities. For this administrative assistant, she needs to find positions that need a project manager who has administrative assistant experience. Your resume needs to be much more detailed; that is, you need to overwrite your resume in order to completely convince the recruiter that you are better than the standard position & industry veterans who have applied to the same job.

Making resume adjustments is sometimes a trial and error procedure. In fact, sometimes the adjustments you will make are subtle. But, the goal is to mirror as closely as possible the profile that was used to create the job ad you read. These days employers are seeking the perfect job candidate. To do so, they look for the "right" person who matches not only the job's duties but also the work environment and the current project team. This, of course, introduces more competition into the hiring process that the old days of paper resumes.

How to Choose a Quality Resume Writer

There are both good and bad resume writers out there; between the state of the job market and the ease of operating a business online, many people are taking up resume writing as a service that is very much in demand. Before hiring someone to write your resume for you, you need to do your research into the writer’s background. Some things to look at include a website (if they have one), a portfolio, and any credentials or testimonials they have available. Here are some of the things you should do before hiring a resume writer:

1 – Check for Certifications
Make sure that the writer you are interested in hiring has some sort of certification or other credential in the field. Experience is also important, but credentials are easier to verify. You can do so online through the website of the company that issued the certification.

2 – Obtain the Writer’s Full Contact Information
Does the writer have their full contact information on their website? If not, ask them for it and verify it before doing business with them. Do not do business with anyone who will only give you their email address; if something were to go wrong you will need more than just an email address to take action.

3 – Track Down Testimonials
Whether they are testimonials, user reviews, or other user generated content regarding your chosen writer, you want to see positive stories about the experiences other people have had. Ideally you will want to find reviews that speak highly of both the writer’s skills and their customer service!

4 – Read Some of Their Other Work
Does the writer have any work you can review? Things like articles or blog posts about the job search industry would be very helpful to determine if the writer has a good command of the basic skills they will need to write your resume. These types of materials will also tell you how much the writer knows about job hunting and the industry in general.

5 – Get Their Policies First
Before hiring anyone, make sure to get their policies confirmed up front. Things like payment arrangements, payment terms, confidentiality agreements, and any other items you feel are important. These policies should be easily available through the writer’s website.

6 – Make Contact With The Writer
Ideally you want to make contact with the writer you wish to hire long before you hire them. Get to know them a little and get an idea of their fees. Ask any questions you might have and also take this opportunity to communicate what you expect to receive if you hire them. Resume writing is a collaborative exercise, and you will be counting on your resume writer to make things happen. They need to be able to live up to that potential!

How Grammar Problems Can Kill a Resume's Appeal

Resumes are often identified in resume databases or social recruiting sites based on keyword searches. So, many job seekers focus on getting the right keywords in their resume and profile to ensure they are visible in recruiter searches. But once a resume is identified as a good candidate for an open position, before a callback is made, the recruiter will review the resume to become familiar with a candidate. If your resume is ripe with spelling, grammar or word usage errors, your resume's appeal will be on the same level as bad breath.

I have reviewed hundreds of resumes over the years that have had grammar errors. I often wonder why. I can understand the innocuous error; we all make them. But serial language or spelling errors reveals a symptom of a more basic problem: a lack of understanding of the importance of language and communication in today's workplace. Sure, technical skills are of critical interest when sourcing a resume. If a recruiter needs a UNIX Administrator, she needs to find candidates with UNIX skills. But once identified, a job seeker must prove he or she can do the job, interact with other team members, write reports, consult with internal experts and external vendors, among others. Today's market replace requires more written communication skills since more work is going virtual.

So, how does a job seeker address his or her grammar problems? Well, the first step is recognize that grammar and written communication is not your strong suit. Then, get some help to not only correct the problem, but also to do remediation to learn how to correct the grammar problems on your own.

There has been a misguided belief that word processing software will catch these embarrassing problems. This is not true. I do a lot of writing over the course of my workday. Yes, I rely to some extent on the software to catch the most egregious and obvious grammar errors that usually are due to my less than stellar typing skills. However, before the final draft, I go through what I have written line by line to ensure I am communicating error-free.

So, beyond getting some outside help, how can you catch your grammar problems (especially if you aren't sure where they are)? If you are an experienced worker, and you have written language problems, it is unlikely that you have the time to learn to write perfectly. Well, I don't think you have to and that shouldn't be the goal. But, what you can do is learn a few of the most basic grammar problems and focus on correcting those. Doing so, your written communication will improve to the level that what remains is few and far between. So, let's go through the big ones:

Spelling: focus on headings, section headings and introductory information or the first word of a job duty description. If you get these items spelled right, and the recruiter skims your resume fast, any other problems may be skimmed over. When in doubt, I go to a search engine and type in the word. What usually appears is the dictionary entry, which is spelled correctly.

Tense Changes (Subject/Verb Mismatches): generally, resumes are written in the present or the past tense. It doesn't matter which one you use; just be consistent.  Here's an example:

Original:
Installed security software.
Helping users troubleshoot computer virus problems

Corrected:
Installed security software.
Helped users troubleshoot computer virus problems.

Misuse of the Apostrophe: this problem is one of the most glaring grammar problems that occur on resumes. An apostrophe is a punctuation mark that indicates (a) possession, (b) contractions and (c) plurality. Here are the examples:

Possession: Misuse: Bobs car; Correct Use: Bob's car.
Contractions: Original: should not; Revised: shouldn't
Plurality: Misuse: computer's were installed; Correct Use: computers were installed.

Wrong Word Usage: this problem will not be caught by word processing software if the worngly used words are spelling correctly.  Here's are a few common examples of word usage problems:

Their: indicates possession (Ex. Their car has bad brakes.)
There: indefinite pronoun (Ex. There is a car with bad brakes on the street.)

Run-On Sentence: This sentence fault is very common in all writing. The writer connects two separate sentences with no punctuation or improperly with a comma. The best way to deal with this problem is to write short sentences. Here's an example:

Run-On Fault: I inspected the computer, I fixed the problem in no time.
Correction: I inspected the computer. I fixed the problem in no time.

If you attempt to learn how to identify these four grammar problems and correct them, your resume will drastically improve its appeal. Granted, there are other grammar problems that can plague a resume. However, these are the most obvious ones and the easiest to correct.

Resume SEO: How To Use Keywords For The Best Results

Keywords are specific words or short phrases that are used by a recruiter or hiring manager to source a qualified job candidate in a resume database. In the past, the popular keywords were verbs such as manage, coordinate, supervise, oversee, etc. While these keywords should be used in the description of your job duties, they are not used in resume database searches; rather, nouns or noun phrases are used for searching purposes. Software or certification are the most common keywords (e.g., PhotoShop, MCSE, BaseCamp, InDesign, Lotus Notes, A+, MatLab, PRO II etc.) A resume without keywords place strategically on it will either not become part of the search findings of a particular search or, if it does, will receive a lower ranking when compared to other resumes. In other words, a resume without keywords is virtually an invisible resume to the recruiter's attention.

The power of resume keywords is not a simple mathematical formula. In other words, the number of keywords is not the primary driver of resume database visibility. Packing a resume with tons of keywords will not necessarily get you better results than a resume with few keywords. Rather, it is how the keywords are (1) strategically placed within the resume and (2) how the resume and profile information is entered into the job board's candidate database which determines the ranking, visibility and type of recruiter response you receive. In addition, recruiters have become wise to the clever techniques that job candidates use to place keywords on their resumes. So, after a resume is selected by a recruiter, she will determine the depth of use of the keywords, which will influence if she passes your resume onto her client -- the employer.

Keywords that are placed within the job duty narratives or accomplishments section are more powerful than those keywords placed in a list at the top of a resume, typically in the summary of qualifications section. Recruiters know that anyone can find a list of keywords and put them on a resume. But it is the candidates who really use these keyword skills will place them deeper in the resume and demonstrate (1) how they used the keyword skills and (2) the hands-on results they obtained with these keyword skills. Of course, this is not a rule that says do not list your keyword skills in your career summary section. Rather, it is a guideline that demonstrates the depth and competence of those keyword skills.

Here are a few examples of how keyword skills were used in job duty narratives that demonstrate a depth of knowledge, skills and abilities:

• Chemical Engineer: Used PRO II, a process engineer simulation system, to design the cracking and quenching section process flow diagram and to run simulations.
• Information Technology: Initially, an Apache tomcat was used as web server, which led to the critical problem of large size documents not uploading properly. My solution was to change the web server from Apache tomcat to IIS webserver. Result: Uploads of single documents (1 Gb) are accomplished without issue. Project completed successfully under budget.
• Military: OPERATIONAL READINESS / LOGISTICS: Led the detachment on a 1,200-mile convoy in support of a joint mass casualty exercise without any incident. 

Placing keywords in a resume does not necessarily mean all you need to do is upload your resume to a job board and wait for the recruiter calls to roll in. Rather, the resume needs to be entered and the profile completed such that your keywords will be accessible during database searches.

The primary place for resume keywords is the "Resume Name" or "Job Title" field of the resume database. Do not name your resume by your legal name. Rather, use the job title followed by comma separated keyword skills. Some resume database give you up to 128 characters for naming or titling. Use all of them! Here's an example of how a Job Title field was entered such that it received many recruiter inquiries:

• Integrated Marketing Specialist with website project management, HTML, Illustrator, PhotoShop, Dreamweaver exp.

To get the best results from your resume's keywords, always think in terms of what the employer needs and how you can fulfill those needs. To accomplish this challenge, go back to the job ad. Read it a couple of times. Look for keywords. Use a yellow highlighter to note unique, detailed terms or short phrases. These are the important keyword skills the employer wants. Place the ones you possess on your resume at strategic points. For those you do not have, take a course to fill in your skill gaps.

Using Tough Interview Questions to Improve Your Resume

A resume can be improved on a variety of levels. The basic level typically involves spelling, grammar and other language improvements. The goal of basic resume improvements is to eliminate simple errors that would otherwise create the impression in the eyes of an employer that you lack an attention to detail or have written communication problems.

The medium level of resume improvement focuses on completeness. Ensuring you have documented all your skills, certifications, licenses and duties will improve a resume immediately. Many resumes are weak on information, that is, there is more white space than text on the resume page. Many do not even include the most basic software skills. The goal of medium improvements is to "beef up" an underwritten resume so it mirrors the skills and experience cited in a job ad by placing them on the resume. The medium level frequently moves a job seeker from the rejection pile to the initial group of candidates to call back.

Both the basic and medium levels of resume improvement do make a difference. But would these improvements move you to the handful of candidates who are invited to onsite interviews and have a shot at a job offer? Not always. Competition is tough nowadays and employers screen lots of resumes. So, is there any other way a job seeker can improve his resume to make it sing with hiring appeal? To get a resume that sings with appeal, you need to go to the advanced level of improvements.

The advanced level of resume improvements tells a potential employer not only what you are capable of doing, but also how well you performed based on past work experience. This seems like quite a hill to climb. It's not as hard as it sounds. By looking at the toughest interview questions, we can get an idea what employers really want to know about a job candidate. And then crafting answers to these questions and placing them strategically on a resume can make a good resume a killer resume. Let's look at a few tough interview questions.

The toughest interview questions are behavioral questions. What are they? Why do they exist? Behavioral questions are a fairly recent trend. In the past, basic and proficiency questions were commonly asked in job interviews. What are you good at doing? What are you good points and bad points? These questions often elicit memorized or canned answers which do not really help the employer determine how well you will perform on the job. The answers to behavioral questions cannot be memorized. They require you to answer about a specific experience you had on the job in a structured answer format. They require you to explain the (1) problem, (2) the challenge of solving it and (3) the final outcome. Here are a few common behavioral interview questions:

• Please relate a work situation where you were graceful under pressure?
• How do you overcome errors at work?
• Provide an example where a goal was set for you. How did you meet it?
• Tell me how you came to making an unpopular decision and how did you make it popular?
• Give an instance where you had a disagreement with a co-worker. How did you work through it?
• Relate a time when you had a difficult customer and how you overcame the difficulty?

So, how can we use these questions to improve a resume. Let's work through the following question: Provide an example where a goal was set for you. How did you meet it?

Let's say you worked for a school system that had a tight budget. And all school departments were told that they had to find a way to reduce costs--this is the goal or the problem. All businesses or schools who are instructed to reduce costs have problems doing so --this is the challenge. But, by being clever and conducting some research, let's say you found a way to buy a different kind of office materials that would save money -- this is the solution. Condensing this story a bit, here's how a computer technician at a school system phrased the answer and placed it on his resume:

• Cut costs by over 200% by recommending to the School District to switch to recycled paper and toner cartridges.

Cutting costs is a simple way to demonstrate to a potential employer what you can do for them upon hiring. But not all things can so easily be reduced to cost cutting or told in a single line. Here's another example of the advanced level of resume improvement. In this example, the employee had worked for a business publication that was trying to find ways to obtain more advertisers. This employee helped the advertising sales people by giving them information in a spreadsheet regarding which advertisers were renewing their contracts:

• Increased Advertising Contract Renewals by tracking the success rate of external clients in both the print and online publications and providing the account executive and external clients this originally sourced data. Result: improved client visibility and satisfaction to enable the account executive to increase contract renewals thereby protecting existing revenue streams.

The advanced level of  resume improvement is not always easy to do but it is the most effective at demonstrating your hiring appeal. Many people can implement the advanced level on their own. But in cases where you can't, it is useful to talk to an expert resume writer who can not only identify these important stories, but also craft them in appropriate language for a resume.

15 Reasons Why Your Resume Doesn't Get You A Callback

After job seekers post their resumes online or apply to a job, they usually anticipate a week or so delay in getting a telephone callback from a recruiter or hiring manager. While this can stretch into 4-6 weeks for large company, government or academic jobs, the time between application and callback should not be inordinately long. So, what happens when they have not receive any callbacks for 2 months or more?

They typically wonder if they have a bad resume and it needs to be rewritten. If you feel this way, then you should have your resume reviewed by an objective authority or at the very least a friend who can give you some honest and constructive advice. But if your resume has gotten you responses in a prior job search campaign and it reflects most of the requirements listed on the job you applied to, then you should consider the possibility that there are other reasons why you are in the no-callback, no-response dead zone of your job search campaign.

It's been my experience that that are 15 reasons why your resume doesn't get you a callback. A few are directly related to your resume's quality. But most of them are external to the resume. I found out about these external causes of resume non-performance by spending three years tracking job seeker behavior between 2002 to 2005 with about 2,000 job candidates who were having the no callback  problem. Let me briefly go through them.

1. High Job Competition: online recruitment has become so effective at sourcing resumes for early-to-mid career jobs that obtaining 200 applicants for a job is common. High competition is not going away. I have seen as many as 1300 applicants for an Online Marketing Manager. When there are a lot of job candidates, the employer will try to eliminate as many as possible.
                  
2. Low Job Demand: if you see very few job postings in your target location, this is a sign that either the job market is in equilibrium or there is very little demand for a specific job. Low-demand jobs can artificially create high competition due to the number of job applicants that are generated.          

3. Improper Job Ad Selection: when a job seeker does not fully read a job ad's requirements, there is a likelihood that he/she will apply to a job that they are either not qualified for or partially qualified for. When the employer applies its HR filter, these resumes or applications usually are eliminated in the first round.

4. No Resume Database Visibility: a "visible" resume is one that appears in the search findings of a resume database search engine. To be visible requires that the resume is both detailed enough to have keyword correspondence with a recruiter's search terms and it is integrated into the resume database correctly. Sometimes when a resume is uploaded into a resume database, the software does not correctly populate the database fields.

5. No Keywords: this reason is associated with no resume visibility and usually occurs with 1-page resumes that have so little information that it will not possess enough keywords to obtain high ranking in database searches.

6. Misspelled Words: language and grammatical errors are common reasons why a resume is eliminated.

7. No Work Schedule Flexibility: many jobs today work on flex or rotating shifts. If you are only available for an 8 to 5 shift, you may never be contacted if a job has a shift that runs from 11am to 7 pm.

8. Missing the Closing Date for Applications: this reason usually applied to government jobs that are posted for brief periods of time. On the job ad or vacancy announcement, you will see the closing date. If you miss the closing date, your application will be disqualified.

9. Incomplete Applications: job applications today often require more than a resume and cover letter. References, college transcripts, work portfolio and supplementary statements or questionnaires are often part of the entire application package. Without a complete package, your application can be disqualified.

10. Large Gaps in Employment: If you have not worked recently or there are huge gaps between jobs, your resume will have less value than if you have explained all times between jobs. Now, a month or so between jobs is not what I am referring to here. Rather, 1 year or more. You should explain these long gaps.

11. Ineligibility: your ability to work legally in the U.S. is critical to your job application. If you do not have a work permit or require sponsorship, you will not be called back unless the employer makes arrangements.

12. Non-local Job Candidates: this reason is one of the subtle causes of the no callback problem. Prior to online recruitment, qualified, non-local candidates were flown in for interviews and offered sweet relocation packages. But, today, with large resume or social databases, most employers prefer local candidates. They will conduct candidate searches by zip code, which will bypass a non-local candidate.

13. Lead Generation Ad: some job ads are not really job ads. Rather, they are posted to source the job seeker as a potential customer of a product or service.

14. Phoney Job Ad: these job ads may look like a job ad but are not. They are not trying to generate sales leads. Rather, they are intent on damaging you or your identity in a criminal scheme.

15. Not Enough Time: rarely will an employer respond to a resume or job application in less than a week for a legitimate, occupationally specific position. Remember, employers will source resumes using a variety of avenues. They want to get a full range of candidates to find the one who is most suited for their open position. This process takes time.