Courtesy of Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess

1. Get FOCUSED – what specific type of occupational field, what level within that field, and industry are you targeting? Trying to be all things to all people in a “generic” resume just doesn’t work anymore. Resume keyword-sniffing technology mandates that the job seeker and career advancer identify exactly what they are going after and then crafting their marketing message around that.

2. Get BRANDED – differentiation is key to career and job search success. I know you will lots to say about that, Winnie!

3. Get UP-TO-DATE EDUCATION – don’t assume that Bachelor’s Degree you got 10 (or even 20) years ago suffices anymore. Employers want to see that you are actively engaged in learning about advancements in your field and acquiring new skills and knowledge. They don’t want to be the ones to have to train you on what you should already know!

4. BONUS: Keep track of your ACCOMPLISHMENTS – they are the “meat” that makes up the resume main course. Without relevant and convincing results, you may be perceived as just a “seat warmer” in your current (or past) jobs. That’s not exactly a stellar approach to securing a potential new employer’s interest. BUT, benefits are! And what better place to showcase the benefits of hiring you than by demonstrating what you’ve been able to accomplish for others.

Thanks BYU-Hawaii for iniviting me to present Power Up Your Career and Rock Your Network(R) programs to your students.

Here are a few more tips from the Power Up presentation:

1) When we talk about contact information, it must be in a readable font and contain a professional email address (unprofessional ones can land in the circular file – or worse – never reach an employer’s desk); 2) Bottom line achievements. They must be relevant to the career goal, bulleted under job descriptions, and most importantly, specify your value using numbers (dollars are best); 3) Using recruiters – the temp job helps you build connections inside a company where you wish to work – creating an inside network!

Getting a clear career focus seemed the hardest for students. It was for me when I was a student. Career Centers can help – and so can these assessment tools:

True Colors – FREE Assessment: “FollowYour True Colors to the Work You Love” by Carolyn Kalil. (The free assessment is in the upper lefthand corner.)

MAPP Assessment – FREE: The MAPP Assessment reveals the real you: your natural motivations, interests and talents for work.

Aloha. Just got back from a speaking gig at BYU – Hawaii. A beautiful campus with terrific people. The students had solid questions and one student wrote an article after the first presentation. I mean he must have written it during the presentation and popped it on the website ’cause it was there by the next day (at least that’s when I saw it).

We covered the Top 5 Tips for Resumes that Rock and the Top 5 Tips to Tap into the Hidden Job Market. Check out what the students said here. 

My favorite line? “At the end, when Terwelp asked the students how many learned some new strategies, almost all raised their hands.”

Terrific! That’s our goal! Thanks BYU for a great experience.

	By Kris Maher From The Wall Street Journal Online

On a recent Monday morning, Olga Ocon, an employment recruiter in Los Altos, Calif., decided to sift through a folder containing e-mails identified as spam. Tucked away among 756 ads for Viagra, cellphones and loan-refinancing offers, which were all set to be deleted after a few days, were eight resumes.Every week, Ms. Ocon receives more spam, increasing the chances that she could miss a good job candidate. “If it’s in there, it’s going to be harder to dig out,” she says. She suspects that one resume containing the phrases “four-time winner of sales awards” and “oversaw in excess of $40,000,000 in sales” was caught by a program on her computer that is designed to filter out e-mail containing money-making offers.

Jeffery Warner, who sent that resume, also is troubled by the effects of spam. “It’s hindering employers that are looking for the right people, and of course it’s hurting the people that are out there seeking jobs,” he says. The 51-year-old former marketing manager in the Dallas-Fort Worth area says his resume has been identified as spam several other times.

Read the rest of the article…

I’m excited to announce the launch of Career Hub’s Insiders’ Guide to Job Search!The book, which features in-depth job search advice from 17 career marketing experts – including me, Wendy Terwelp — is available for download now.

Career Hub founders Louise and Phil Fletcher put this book together because they know many job seekers feel lost when they start out on their search. Since job seekers put all their time and energy into making their employers successful, they’ve had neither the time nor the need to keep up with the latest in career search strategies.

Insiders’ Guide contributors are career coaches, recruiters, consultants, business executives, and resume writers with valuable knowledge to share. Louise asked each of us to contribute to this free eBook in order to share what we know with those of you working your way through the job search process now (or who plan to do so in the future).

Please feel free to share the book. And tell Career Hub what you think, either by email or in the comments. Career Hub plans to issue more free eBooks and your feedback will help make them as useful as possible.