It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Part 11. An Inventory of Your Career: Resume as Assessment

Your resume is a record of your career accomplishments. It lists positions held, skills developed, and assignments completed. Could your resume be used for another purpose? How about using your resume as a career assessment? When you hear the term assessment, you probably think about Myers-Briggs or DiSC or my favorite the CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder). These …

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Part 10.

Talents, Strengths and Your Resume Why do you include any particular bit of information on your resume? Why do you include information about your education? Why do you mention a particular work success versus some other one? Why would you include your involvement in a volunteer activity? You include them to: Show you meet educational …

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Post 8. How Dressed Up Does Your Resume Need to Be?

So now you are ready to produce your resume. It’s time to put ink to paper or dark digital bits to screen. You’ve followed all of the suggestions in this series. You have amazing, powerful, spot on bullet points. The words you are using align with the language from the job listing. You have responded …

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” : Part 7: What to Do When You Don’t Meet All the Requirements

Ok. You’ve reviewed all the good stuff in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series. If not, you really should. You’ve used the a la carte resume process to match the job listing. Your ready to send that resume to get that interview, to start the next chapter of your career. But …

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”: Part 6. Avoiding the Mundane, Boring, and Useless

A Revelation Your resume is not about you. What? No, it isn’t. Then what is it about? Your resume is about how prepared you are to solve a potential employer’s problems and make her life easier. Organizations hire people to solve their problems or satisfy their needs. That problem or need may be to sell …

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”, Part 5 – Creating a Universal Resume (When you Don’t have All the Facts)

Previous posts in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series have explained ways to: Match your experience to the requirements of the job listing. Align your resume’s language to the language of the job listing. The fourth post in the series discussed using word clouds to reveal important language in a job …

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” – Part 4: Finding the Words (literally)

From the first post in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, remember that the purpose of a resume is not to get a job, but to get an interview. To do that, your resume must survive a process of winnowing and weeding. At each step, your resume is in danger. Tossed …

BONUS – “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”- Part 3a : What is the Correct Length for Your Resume?

What is the right length for a resume? How long should your resume be? Long enough to spark the interest of the hiring manager, but not more than two pages. Unless you are a CEO of a major firm or foundation, you should limit your resume to two pages. Even if you created the next …

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”- Part 3 : The a la Carte or Customizable Resume

What happens to your resume when it gets to the hiring manager? Before creating your resume, consider what will happen to it when it gets to the potential employer. Let’s call the person who will receive your resume the hiring manager.  It is likely going to someone with a different title, but hiring manager describes …

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work – part 1

If you are going to “Put Your Strengths to Work” in a job, other than the one you currently hold, you are going to need a resume. As a change from posts that concentrate on applying your CliftonStrengths to the job search, let’s concentrate on the unavoidable tool you need to get your foot in …