Job Search Misfiring? Revisit Your Executive Resume is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

See this nice looking fellow?

A buddy of his has been pecking at my office window for the past month.

Every morning, he sits on a branch of a shrub next to the window, picks up steam and smashes into the glass.

He plays this game for hours at a time.

Does he see his reflection and think another bird is coming at him, or does he see an open space to fly into?

Either way, he’s getting nowhere. But he keeps banging against that window, day after day.

I’m sure you’ve heard Einstein’s definition of insanity:

“Doing the same thing over and over again,
and expecting different results.”

You may be among the many executive job seekers guilty of making this mistake . . . locking yourself into a repetitive process even though it’s not working.

If you have a branded, targeted LinkedIn profile (so you’ll be found in online searches) and resume you’ve been using diligently, and you’ve  been in a proactive job search (I mean, you’re actively and purposefully networking for a new job) for more than let’s say a month, and you’re getting nowhere . . . no interviews . . .

It’s time to revisit your resume because it’s not positioning you as the good-fit candidate you know you are.

Maybe it doesn’t clearly align your expertise and value proposition with the needs and challenges your target companies are facing right now. If so, go back and stress these attributes and qualifications using the relevant keywords and phrases recruiters and hiring professionals will be looking for.

Or maybe you’ve made the biggest resume writing mistake . . . you haven’t done the personal branding and company/industry targeting work you MUST do first, before even attempting to write your resume.

Either way, take another look at your resume. If it’s broke, fix it!

Put yourself in the place of the people who will be assessing you through it (and your LinkedIn profile). Make sure your promise of value hits home with them.

Related posts:

Top 10 Executive Resume Branding Tips

Executive Brand Resume: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold

The Lazy C-level Executive Job Search

photo by hart_curt

Trust Your Executive Resume To a Certified Master Resume Writer is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

The digital age has significantly impacted executive job search, yet many of the “old” strategies are still tried and true.

Along with purposeful networking, most career professionals will tell you that a targeted, value proposition-driven resume is still one of the most important items in anyone’s job search toolkit.

That’s right. The resume is NOT dead. Without a hard-hitting resume designed to resonate with your target employers, you may never land.

But the Internet, social media and the new world of work have had a major impact on how resumes look and read. No longer a somewhat generic career history outlining jobs, responsibilities and achievements, these days a resume is a career marketing document that brands and positions you as a good-fit candidate for specific target employers.

A branded resume that differentiates your unique value prop is also the foundation for an interview-generating LinkedIn profile, and other online profiles and personal marketing materials.

If you’re like most executives who have suddenly been thrown into job search or are contemplating a career move, you probably don’t know how to pull all the pieces together to create powerful personal marketing documents.

Resume strategy has evolved over the years, in response to the digital age and the needs of those who make hiring decisions. Unless you follow emerging resume and job search trends, you may be at a loss as to how to best position yourself “on paper” to land.

I can help. And here’s where I tell you that I recently earned the CMRW credential, and little about what it means, while I blatantly promote my business.

Awarded by Career Directors International (CDI), the Certified Master Resume Writer is the careers industry’s oldest master-level resume credential and the only one endorsed by a professional association.

Only the 17th person worldwide to have earned this distinguished credential, I join a select group of elite resume writers who have proven themselves by submitting a portfolio of work that has been judged by a panel of CMRW peers. Professionals who themselves are Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) Award Winners and worldwide leaders of the industry.

The portfolio submitted must stand out for its innovation, for advanced formatting that grasps the attention of the reader, and for superior command of the language that makes every bullet point an unfolding story.

Are you thinking you may need help with your executive resume? Review my contact page  and get in touch with me to discuss whether we may be a good fit to work together.

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10 Best Executive Resume Branding Tips is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

(The following is my latest article as the Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org.)

You’re suddenly facing a job search, so you rush right to your resume (if you can find it) to update it. But wait. You may not be ready to tackle your resume yet.

If it’s been several years since you revisited your resume, or if you’re one of those lucky people who never needed a resume, you may not be aware of how much resumes have changed in the past several years.

Before working on your resume, re-think how to update it, so that you’ll create a career marketing document that will optimally do its job – land you interviews.

Have you been paying attention to all the talk these days about personal branding? How your brand should be built around what makes you a good fit for your target employers? How resume branding can help you clearly identify and communicate what differentiates you from your job-seeking competitors?

Most importantly, you may not understand that step one in job search is NOT diving right into writing your resume.

Step one is laying out the groundwork with targeting and branding. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have the information about your target audience and yourself that you’ll need to write a compelling resume.

Here are 10 tips to build an interview-generating, brand-reinforcing resume:

INFORMATION-MINING

1. Targeting

Before you can define your brand and create content for your resume, you need to know who you’re targeting . . . who will be reading your resume. You’ll need to decide what kind of job you’ll be seeking, compile a list of companies you want to work for, research their current challenges and needs, and determine how you can help them meet those challenges.

Doing this will help you align everything in your resume with what your target employers will be looking for in candidates. Industry and company research, and the information you’ll find in job descriptions, will help you identify required qualifications and those all-important relevant keywords that need to be in your resume. A Google search of your target companies, the companies’ websites and Indeed.com are good resources. And check out Job-Hunt’s Company Research articles.

2. Personal Branding and Value Proposition

Branding is no longer optional. Your competitors could well be using this method to differentiate themselves. You need to brand yourself and the unique value you offer, just to keep pace with them.

My 10-step Personal Branding Worksheet will help you uncover and communicate the combination of attributes, passions, strengths and qualifications that differentiate you from them.

As you’re building your brand, create a vibrant brand positioning statement for your resume.

3. Write Down Your Career Success Stories

Instead of merely listing a string of relevant keyword phrases in your resume, back them up by providing specific examples of your achievements and how they impacted the company – saved them money, made them money, improved processes, improved customer satisfaction, etc. Show them the numbers! Think of the best contributions you’ve made to your employers, in terms of highest value to them.

My article on Challenge – Action – Results (C-A-Rs) stories will help.

WRITING YOUR RESUME

4. Skip the Objective Statement

Employers don’t care that you want a “challenging position to advance my career”. They want to know what you’ll do for them and whether you’ll be a good hiring choice. Objective statements waste valuable space and prime real estate on the page.

5. Real Estate and Strategic Positioning

Busy HR people and other hiring decision makers typically allow only 10-15 seconds to scan a resume and decide whether you’re a person they want to interview.

Their eyes will go right to the top third or half of page one first, and may go no further. You need to capture their attention and hold it by encapsulating the best you have to offer in that spot on the page.

Suggestions for branding “above the fold”:

Lead with a hard-hitting personal brand statement that includes your most important relevant keywords and describes your ROI (Return on Investment) value to your target employers.

• Add a powerful quote from a recent performance review or someone you work with.
• Include 3 or 4 short value-driven bulleted statements with numbers.

6. Readability, Formatting and Length

Avoid densely packed, hard-to-read information. Remember that, when you email your digital resume, the reader could open up and view your document on their PDA . . . that’s a very small screen. Shorter chunks of information are easier to read – on your digital or paper resume – and will draw the reader’s eye to continue down the page.

Keep the formatting attractive, consistent, and clean. Don’t use more than 2 different fonts (one for headings, another for content), and don’t choose frilly, unprofessional fonts. Use graphic lines sparingly and avoid underlining text.

As far as length, recent grads or those with only a few years’ experience should be able to keep it to one page. Executives and more experienced job seekers should try not to go over 2 pages.

Remember that a resume is a career marketing communication, not a career history. It needs to incorporate just enough compelling information to generate interest in you. Everything in your resume must be there for a reason. Nothing should be arbitrary. Pare down your content ruthlessly!

7. Typos and Grammar

It should go without saying that typos and errors in grammar are the kiss of death. They may also convey misinformation. Proofread several times and have someone else do it, too. Don’t rely on spellcheck. Make sure your contact information is correct.

8. Overused “Resume-Speak”

You’re not like everyone else. Your resume shouldn’t read like everyone else who’s competing for the same jobs. You’ve done the branding work, so you know what differentiates you. Make that come across in your resume. Keep the content interesting and don’t fall back on dull phrases that don’t differentiate you, such as results-oriented, visionary leader, excellent communication skills, proven track record of success, etc.

9. Passive Verbs

Avoid the anemic, boring phrase “responsible for”. Show your vitality with robust action verbs, identify your personal brand attributes, and explain your niche expertise with relevant key words. Use strong words like advanced, drove, spearheaded, accelerated, optimized, streamlined, leveraged, etc.

10. Repetitive Job Descriptions

Don’t waste precious space in the “Professional Experience” section reiterating obvious responsibilities. Readers will already know the basic duties for your jobs. Reinforce your brand by highlighting your relevant keyword phrases linked to specific examples of the value you offered your past employers.

Bottom Line:

Yes, all of this takes a lot of time. But the work you do, and the content you create, defining your personal brand and developing your resume (and biography and other career documents) around it forms the foundation for all your personal marketing materials, online and offline, and offers many benefits:

• Energizes you with what differentiates your value proposition to your target employers.
• Helps you know how to tell your network how they can help you achieve your career goals.
• Prepares you to speak confidently and knowledgeably about the value you offer.
• Provides a wealth of on-brand information to re-purpose for each of your online profiles and any web pages you create.
• Prepares you to network and interview well.

Related posts:

The Biggest Executive Resume Writing Mistake

The Future of the Executive Resume According to Martin Yate

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

Is Yours a Lazy or Proactive Executive Job Search? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Maybe you’ve suddenly been laid off and weren’t prepared with a job search plan. It happens to many executives. They didn’t see it coming.

Now they find themselves scrambling to pull everything together and get to work on finding work.

Maybe you’ve been in a job search for a while and very little is happening, although you’re on the job boards several hours a day. That’s how you find a job in the digital age, right? Then how come you’re not getting interviews?

Could be that you’re lazy or just misinformed, and going about your search all wrong.

If all you’re doing is putting out a few feelers to recruiters and your network, and getting your updated resume onto plenty of job boards, that makes you a passive or REACTIVE job seeker, instead of the PROACTIVE one you need to be, to keep pace in this highly competitive job market.

You’re a lazy, or misinformed, job seeker if you:

1. Skip over step one – identifying the kind of job you want, targeting the companies that will be a mutual good fit, and researching their current challenges to find out how you can help them solve their problems.

2. Run straight for your old resume (if you can find it) and update it – without first defining your executive brand, and creating content designed to market your ROI and resonate with your target employers.

3. Focus most of your time on job boards – the “monsters” and smaller niche boards. You think that job search in the digital age means hitting the job boards hard because that’s where all the job are. You don’t understand that most jobs are found by penetrating the “hidden” job market.

4. Fear having an online presence and putting yourself “out there” with social networking and social media. You don’t understand that executive recruiters and the hiring decision makers at your target companies are on LinkedIn and other social networks. If they’re hanging out there looking for candidates like you, you should be, too.

Get started with LinkedIn. If you do nothing else with social media, you need to be there, leveraging all that this social network has to offer, just to keep pace with your job-seeking competitors. See my LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search.

5. Neglected your network while you had a job because you didn’t think you needed them any more. Now that you’re looking again, you don’t have the time or inclination to re-connect. It’s too much work! You don’t understand that the way to get at those hidden jobs – where most opportunities lie – is through purposeful networking.

6. Haven’t researched what executive job search is all about today, so you can prepare and do all the back end work, before jumping in.

Are you a lazy or misinformed job seeker?

To get all the inside skinny on landing an executive job in today’s job market, see my post Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit.

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Bullet-Proof Your Executive Career in the New World of Work

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Social Media ROI: Is It Worth the Time?

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How to Sabotage Your Executive Resume is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

It’s time to start writing your executive resume, or updating it, for a new job search.

This may be your first active job search ever, because you’ve been in demand and easily slid from one job to the next, as your career progressed. You never needed a resume.

Or it could be several years since you’ve dusted off that resume to dive into yet another search.

You know that the purpose of your resume is to attract executive recruiters and hiring authorities at the companies where you’re applying for a job. Your resume should prompt those people to contact you for an interview.

Maybe you know that resumes don’t look or read the way they did even a few years ago.

Maybe you figure that, if you just consult a resume book, you’ll learn how you have to format, write and edit your resume. You may think that things like too many pages, whether or not to use an objective statement, and dealing with employment gaps are your biggest worries.

Figure out how to handle these kinds of things and you’ll be all set, right?

What you may not understand is that resumes today are more personal branding- and personal marketing-driven than ever before. They are meant to drive home what makes you a good-fit candidate for the companies you’re targeting, and differentiate the unique value you offer over your competition.

Not heeding this imperative is at the crux of poor executive resume writing. That is, resumes that are too generic, fall flat and don’t resonate with anyone. Without knowing who your target audience is and what their needs are for a good-fit candidate, there is no way you can know what information you should (and shouldn’t) put into your resume.

Read more about this biggest executive resume writing mistake  at my Executive Career Branding blog.

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The Future of the Executive Resume: Martin Yate’s Thoughts is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

My friend and colleague, Martin Yate (@KnockemDead on Twitter), job search expert and author of the excellent Knock ‘em Dead series of career and job search books, recently spoke with me about the future of the resume.

I was thrilled to contribute to his latest must-have book shown here, Knock ‘em Dead: Secrets & Strategies for Success in an Uncertain World, in which Martin reveals how to take control of your job search, career, and life.

In an earlier discussion, we talked about the top two biggest mistakes he’s seen executives make with their job search efforts, how they should approach hiring managers, and what executive job search will look like in 10 years.

I asked Martin if he thought the traditional paper/digital resume was dead, and if the resume is still a critical component in every executive’s job search toolkit.

His answer:

There is nothing I like about the traditional paper/digital resume — they are hell to write and once they’re written you know that no one is rushing into the office looking forward to an exciting day of resume reading.

Nevertheless, I don’t think the resume is dead or dying or that it will be replaced by streamed video resumes, personally branded websites or anything else in the near future. The traditional paper/digital resume continues to evolve and is not in danger of imminent demise.

Technology constantly makes new tools and services possible and these tools often get applied to the world of resumes. Any new approach that renders the paper/digital resume obsolete must do so by improved speed and performance in the evaluation of the customer, and it must be affordable by the vast majority of job seekers. That hasn’t happened yet and I don’t see the applied technology that will bring it to pass anytime soon.

What I do see are technology applications that make greater depth of evaluation possible. Yes, a personal website that brands you is a plus, assuming you can afford it and have something worth branding. And yes a streamed video resume can also be a plus, again assuming you can afford it, and that you are telegenic and natural in front of a camera, something very few people are.

These and other approaches like them are genuinely exciting new tools. Well kinda new, video resumes were first promoted as the next big thing twenty-eight years ago in 1983. But given the customers’ needs — for a tired and distracted recruiter or hiring manager, who just wants the facts and wants them fast — the paper/digital resume is tough to beat.

For you, a properly crafted resume is both the process and the tool with which, as a professional, you first succinctly define who you are and what you can deliver to an employer. On the other side of the desk, recruiters and hiring managers:

• Use that paper or digital resume as a time saving device to get a fast (5-45 second) take on a candidate; fast and accurate enough to rule you in or out of consideration.
• Use it to prepare for and refer to during an interview.
• Use it in reviewing final candidates at decision time.

In fact, the recruiters I know, and I know a thousand or more, all prefer the paper/digital resume. They also appreciate the enriched resume that has links to your social networking profile, personal website or video resume. Such links give recruiters and hiring managers an option for deeper investigation … once you have been evaluated as worthwhile from your paper/digital resume.

The new tools are here to stay and will continue to evolve, and money and time allowing can be valuable additions to your arsenal, when they are properly focused and expressed. In the meantime, no one is going to rule you out of consideration for a job because all you have is a kickass, easy and fast to read paper or digital resume.

Related posts:

My own take on the future of the executive resume, Is the Executive Resume Dead or Dying?

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Resume Sample?

Executive Branding & Job Search Ebook PRICE CUT! is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Many people look forward to catching up on reading over the summer. Light novels and other diversions are popular.

But if you’re in a job search, or think you’re headed there, summer is a great time to strategize your search, do some career planning, and actually get a foothold and gain some traction.

Your target companies may be hiring this summer . . . and they may be looking for candidates like you.

To entice you to buy and read my ebook this summer — and learn some basics on how to navigate the complex world of today’s executive job search — I’ve reduced the price. Read about and purchase my ebook here.

The ebook will help you pull together all the pieces:

• Targeting
• Branding
• Career Communications — executive resume, biography, and other career documents
• Storytelling
• Online Identity
• Online Reputation Management
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Social Media
• Networking
• Interviewing

Along with taking a little time to recharge from your job search efforts, devote some of your reading time this summer to accelerating your search by learning how to better manage it.

Happy reading! Happy summer!

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The Executive Resume is Dead? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

You’ve probably read and heard plenty of conflicting advice about resumes in the digital age.

Are they completely useless in this new job search landscape? Do you really need one anymore?

Does your online presence trump any documents you may have needed in the past?

Many self-appointed experts argue that the paper and digital resume most job seekers still build their career marketing plan around has become obsolete — completely replaced by modern day tools like a LinkedIn profile, e-resume or some kind of web page.

I argue that it’s way too soon to give up that traditional document entirely — and it may never go away. Get the whole story in my Executive Career Brand post, Is the Executive Resume Dead or Dying?

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How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

Executive Brand Resume: Differentiate Your ROI Value Above the Fold

C-level Executive Resume Length: One, Two, or Three Pages?

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photo by jstonkatoy

Job-Hunt Personal Branding Expert is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

For nearly 4 years, I’ve been fortunate to be the Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org, the top-rated Internet employment portal, among some very distinguished experts in other job search-related fields.

Contributing a new article every month or two, I’ve amassed a long list of what I hope are helpful articles on personal brand in job search, and using various tools and strategies to build one’s brand, including:

• Google Profiles
• LinkedIn Profiles
• Google Alerts
• Twitter
• Guest Blogging
• Online Photos
• The 3 C’s Test
• The Colors of Your Brand

You’ll find the rest of my Job-Hunt articles here.

Some of my favorite other Job-Hunt experts include:

• Randi Bussin, Career Change
• Laura DeCarlo, Job Interviewing
• Robyn Greenspan, Job Search Networking
• Rosalind Joffe, Job Search with Chronic Illness
• Susan P. Joyce, Online Job Search
• Jeff Lipschultz, Working with Recruiters
• Hannah Morgan, Job Search Navigation
• Phyllis Mufson, Boomer Job Search
• Miriam Salpeter, Social Media & Job Search
• Harry Urschel, Job Search Mindset

You’ll find all of the Job-Hunt experts here.

Can You Really Write Your Own Executive Resume? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Over the years, I’ve reviewed many home-grown resumes written by c-level executives taking a stab at do-it-yourself career marketing.

Some are pretty good attempts to capture the value they offer to potential employers.

Most don’t hit the mark at all.

Often, the problem these executives face is suddenly being thrust into job search when they never really experienced it before. Like so many senior leaders, they never needed a resume. They easily slid from one job to the next, through referrals and networking, as they progressed in their careers.

They have a vague idea of what should go into a resume, but often don’t understand all that goes into resume strategy. And they often don’t know the impact personal branding and the new job search landscape have had on resume strategy.

Over at Executive Career Brand, I’ve outlined 4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume.

Related posts:

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

What’s Wrong with Copying an Executive Brand Resume Sample?

photo by Drew Coffman