Resumes For Dummies. DeCarlo Laura

can read about following up with an employer after submitting your resume, applying for a federal job, putting together a curriculum vitae, and finding folks to serve as references.

      Where to Go from Here

      Most For Dummies books are set up so you can flip to the section of the book that meets your present needs. You can do that in this book, too. I tell you where to find the information you might need when I refer to a concept, and I define terms as they arise to enable you to feel at home no matter where you open the book.

      But this book breaks new ground in resume creation and distribution. To get ahead and stay ahead, start by reading Chapters 1 through 5. In this era of tweeting and texting, they help you say hello to new ideas that offer more reach for your time investment.

      Part I

      Getting Started with Resumes

      

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In this part …

      ✔ Find out why resumes remain relevant and get an overview of how technology plays a role in your job search.

      ✔ Mine the wide world of social media for job leads, networking opportunities, and self-marketing.

      ✔ Discover the ins and outs of using smartphones and tablets in your job search.

      ✔ Check out how employers gather information from your resume and see how formatting can affect this process.

      ✔ Understand why it’s so important to be aware of your online reputation and know how to keep it in top-notch condition.

Chapter 1

      Seeing How the Digital Age Is Changing the Job Chase

In This Chapter

      ▶ Growing your career with truly terrific resumes

      ▶ Blending human know-how with new technology

      ▶ Staying on the leading edge in job search

      Are resumes outdated? Every few years an employment expert excitedly announces a “new discovery” – that resumes are old hat and unnecessary. The expert advises job seekers to forgo resumes and talk their way into an interview. This advice rarely works in real life. Very few people are eloquent enough to carry the entire weight of an employment marketing presentation without a resume.

      One resume strategy depends not on oratorical talent but on technology. In some situations, recruiting professionals encourage employers who’ve grown weary of hiking over mountains of resumes to do away with them, replacing resumes with rigid application forms on the web – complete with screening questions and tests – to decide who gets offered a job interview.

      Another scenario – also technology dependent – reflects the view that online profiles on social networking sites are pinch hitting for resumes as self-marketing documents. As I point out in Chapter 2, online profiles are equivalent to generic resumes. Because prospective employers are likely to hunt down your LinkedIn profile, the ideal strategy is to make it as targeted as possible to your current job target.

      This book combines the details of how to create marvelous resumes and also puts a microscope on various technological delivery options in the digital age. This chapter previews what’s ahead in this comprehensive guide to resumes and how to use resumes and other career marketing communications to reach your goal in the great job chase.

      Resumes Are Here to Stay

      At some point in a hunt for better employment, everyone needs effective career marketing communications. That is, everyone needs a resume – or something very much like a resume – that tells the employer why

      ✔ You’re an excellent match for a specific job.

      ✔ The value you bring matters.

      ✔ Your skills are essential to the bottom line.

      ✔ You’re worth the money you hope to earn.

      ✔ You’re qualified to solve the employer’s problems.

      ✔ Your accomplishment claims can be believed.

      Resumes that deliver on these decision points remain at the heart of the job search ecosystem.

      Keeping Up with Resume Times

      The ongoing need for terrific resumes doesn’t mean the job chase is frozen in time. Far from it. In this digital age – when 90 percent of young people (ages 18–34) are checking their social media updates when they first wake up, even before they go to the bathroom or brush their teeth – every job seeker needs to embrace the entire package of tools and strategies for getting a new job. The package contains new and traditional components:

      ✔ Digital tools that are rapidly altering the nature of how jobs are found and filled in America and across the globe.

      ✔ Timeless know-how and savvy developed by the best employment giants over decades.

      

Don’t think the digital age is just for the young. In fact, the number of people in the 55- to 64-year-old age bracket using social media has grown by 79 percent in the past few years with sites such as Twitter. Further, the 45–54 age group is currently the fastest growing demographic user of sites such as Facebook.

      

New technological ideas standing on the shoulders of historically proven smarts are a winning combination. Technology changes in a decade; human nature doesn’t.

      Reset your concept of what you must know about resumes in the job chase. Writing great resumes is no longer enough. You must know how to distribute those resumes to people who can hire you, or at least can move you along in the process.

The targeted resume rules

      Job seekers, brace yourselves: Navigating the job market is getting ever trickier and requires considerably more effort than the last time you baited your resume hook – even a short five years ago. The generic resume, which I refer to as a Core resume throughout this book, is at the top of the list of job search tools on the way out. (Read all about it in Chapter 8.)

      

You probably have an all-purpose resume lying around in a desk drawer somewhere. What legions of job seekers everywhere like about the all-purpose resume is that it casts a wide net to snag the attention of many employers – and it saves time for those of us who are too busy getting through the day to keep writing different resumes for different jobs. I appreciate that. But your one-size-fits-all work of art is obsolete, and it’s getting lost in more and more recruiting black holes.

      The Core resume has been replaced by the targeted resume (which I refer to in this book as OnTarget), a customized resume tailor-made for a specific employment opportunity.

      

An OnTarget resume is a valuable marketing tool to convince the reader your work can benefit a specific employer and that you should make the cut of candidates invited in for a closer look. An OnTarget resume

      ✔ Addresses a given opportunity, showing clearly how your qualifications are a close match to a job’s requirements.

      ✔ Uses powerful words to persuade and clean design to attract interest.

      ✔ Plays up strengths and downplays any factor that undermines your bid for an interview.

      Of friends and resumes

      “The number one way to use your OnTarget resume is to find