How To Target Your Resume as the CEO of ME, INC.

As a fifteen–year veteran of Human Resources recruiting in both a corporate and an agency setting, I've devoted a third of my life to reviewing resumes. During this time, I saw every combination of resume fads and styles. It is abundantly clear to me that professionals spend too much time and money developing a winning resume when the client is not looking for a resume at all.

The client is not really interested in a full accounting of your education and employment. What he or she wants to know is if you have the required skills for the job and if you've successfully demonstrated mastery of those skills, preferably within the last 3 – 5 years.

Here are the questions most likely to be running through the client’s mind:

· Does the candidate have the required skills?

· Does the candidate clearly describe how he/she used the skills in his/her last few positions?

· Does the candidate demonstrate success in the skill sets required?

· Does the candidate have enough of the skills to be worth pursuing even if he/she is not a perfect fit?

· Is the candidate able to clearly communicate this on the resume or is it poorly written?

· Are the compensation expectations in line with the role?

· Is the candidate a fit from a “level” (grade) perspective? Is he/she looking to take a major step down just to find employment and then leave once a better opportunity presents itself? What is the risk in hiring the candidate?

· Will the candidate fit within the culture of the organization?

Most decision-makers review a countless number of resumes each day. On average, you only have 10 - 15 seconds in which to make a powerful first impression. If your Targeted Resume doesn’t “grab them” right away, there may not be another opportunity to grab them at all.

Still more food for thought: In the race for 21^st century jobs, we are now living in an age of consensus hiring — the decision of “yea” or “nay” is not up to just one individual but rather a whole team. Your ability to “connect” with the entire team matters a great deal.

Finally, you'll have a much better chance of being considered for an interview if the experience you cite is relevant, current, and clearly written. This way, no one with input on your suitability will misunderstand or misinterpret what you’ve written. That is the power of the targeted resume.

Separating Resume Fallacies From Facts

Fallacy

· The purpose of a resume is to list all your skills and abilities.

· A good resume will get you the job you want.

· Your resume will be read carefully and thoroughly by an interested employer.

· The more good information you provide about yourself in your resume, the better.

· If you want a really good resume, have it prepared by a resume service.

Fact

· The purpose of a resume is to spark employer interest and generate an interview.

· All a resume can do is get you in the door.

· Your resume probably has less than 10 seconds to make an impression.

· Too much information on a resume may kill the reader’s appetite to know more.

· Resumes are written to impress, not inform. Think of your resume as a marketing tool, not an historical record. It is valuable real estate, so use it for your most impressive but relevant information.

Specific Steps for Preparing a Targeted Resume:

1. Copy and paste the core requirements and responsibilities from the job description into a blank document.

2. Place a bullet “·” before each key requirement/responsibility.

3. You now have a list of key questions the client/company will ask you on the interview.

4. Now put the list in priority order — here, you must try to think and act as if you are the decision-maker to determine priority.

5. Select the top 5 to 8 skills from the list and write below each one how you have accomplished the requirement/responsibility including the impact/result of your work.

6. You now have the content to build both a great targeted resume and your talking points for the interview.

7. Incorporate your answers into the generic resume and you now have the beginnings of a powerful targeted resume.

8. Delete/remove from your resume facts/details that have no value for the job.

Don’t forget to listen to our weekly radio show Your Career Is Calling – Sunday at 8am (EST).

Best wishes and keep networking alive,

Rod Colón

Get in the Habit of Learning About Social Media “Supplemental” Tools

Here is just a very short list of applications you need to research that will make your use of social media more meaningful and more productive.

Note that we have not provided any URLs for these applications! J

1. TweetDeck – A tweet management system that makes using Twitter much easier by organizing your tweets into either predefined or customized categories. It also allows you to tweet, retweet, and reply without logging into Twitter and is great for following trending topics.

2. Twhirl – also a tweet management system; has a cloud computing feature that allows you to follow what’s trending. Can be sent to track everything that’s being tweeted about you, your company or a particular topic such as job search.

3. Postlater - A blog scheduling tool that allows you to post-date blogs and/or microblogs

4. Friendfeed – a web service that allows you to add all of your updates from social media sites, blogs, and microblogs in one place

5. SecondBrain- a social content aggregator that allows you to gather, organize and share online content

6. TweetBeep – used to set up tweet alerts – like Google alerts.

7. Hootsuite - Twitter toolbox. You can manage multiple Twitter profiles, add multiple editors, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success.

The challenge is not only to investigate these applications but to find others, or perhaps newly released ones, that could help you in your efforts to increase exposure on the Internet. If you are truly a savvy social media user, you know that its power lies in its ability to help you make connections with others!

Rod Colon

LinkedIn

Introduction

LinkedIn is a social network made up almost entirely of business professionals. It is not really about social interactions; rather, it’s designed for networking between people within the same industry and across industries. As social networking sites go, it's not very glamorous but for business purposes, it's got the best practical advantage since it allows anyone to build a network.

LinkedIn’s Features and Advantages:

You can:

· Maintain online resumes and link with friends, colleagues, and business contacts

· Find experts that can help you with career or job search problems

· Connect directly with any LinkedIn account holder without the need for an introduction.

Rod Colon

HOW TO IDENTIFY THE RIGHT JOB

The right job enhances your life. It is personally fulfilling because it nourishes the most important aspects of your personality. It suits the way you like to do things and reflects who you are. It lets you use your innate strengths in ways that come naturally to you, and it doesn’t force you to do things you don’t do well (at least, not often!).

How can you tell if you’re in the right job? Here are some general guidelines. If you’re not employed, keep them in mind as you search for your ideal job. If you are employed, see how your present job measures up.

If you’re in the right job, you should:

• Look forward to going to work

• Feel energized (most of the time) by what you do

• Feel your contribution is respected and appreciated

• Feel proud when describing your work to others

• Enjoy and respect the people you work with

• Feel optimistic about your future

It’s important to recognize that there are as many different paths to career satisfaction as there are happily employed people. There is no one “ideal job” to which everyone should aspire. But there is an ideal job for you — you just need to master the skills necessary to find it.

There are an infinite number of variables in the workplace. To achieve career satisfaction, you need to figure out what your preferences are and then find a job that accommodates them. Some jobs provide warmth and stability; some are risky and challenging. Some are structured, some aren’t. One job may require a lot of socializing, while another may require quiet concentration. Do you know exactly what kind of job suits you best? Have you ever even stopped to think about it?

Rod Colon

MAKE YOUR UNIQUENESS WORK FOR YOU

Since the right job flows directly out of all the elements of your personality type, you need to spend some time figuring out what makes you tick. By making a conscious effort to discover the “real you,” you learn how to focus your natural strengths and inclinations into a career you can love for a long as you choose to work.

This is where “type” is so helpful. It provides a systematic, effective way to evaluate both your strong points and your probable weaknesses or blind spots. Once you have these figured out, you’ll know how to make sure you are always operating from a position of strength.

Each one of us has a distinct personality, like an innate blueprint that stays with us for life. We are born with a personality type, we go through life with that type, and when we are laid to rest (hopefully at the end of a long and fruitful life), it is with the same type.

Now you are probably wondering, “Wait a minute. I might be one way sometimes, but at other times I’m a very different person. Doesn’t the situation influence my personality type?”

The answer is no, it doesn’t. Do we change our behavior in certain situations? Certainly! Most human beings have a tremendous repertoire of behaviors available to them. We couldn’t function very successfully if we didn’t. Sure, we act differently at work than we do at home, and it makes a difference whether we’re with strangers, close friends, at a ball park, or at a funeral. But people don’t change their basic personalities with every new door they walk through.

All this is not to say that environmental factors are not extremely important; they are. Parents, siblings, teachers, and economic, social, and political circumstance all can play a role in determining what direction our lives take. Some people are forced by circumstances to act in a certain way until they are literally “not themselves”.

If you are skeptical about the idea that personality type is inborn, take a look at different children from the same family. These could be your own children, your siblings, or even children from a family you know. Do they have different personalities? Absolutely! And the differences are often apparent from birth.

The concept of “personality type” is not new. People have always been aware of the similarities and differences between individuals, and over the centuries many systems and models for understanding or categorizing these differences have been developed. Today, our understanding of human behavior has been expanded to such a degree that we are now able to accurately identify sixteen distinctly different personality types.

Finding the right job for each of these distinct personalities may seem like an awesome task. However, all sixteen personality types do function in the world. As we will see, it is possible to identify your own personality type and the types of others, to understand why certain types flourish in certain kinds of jobs, and to clarify why people find career satisfaction in different ways.

Rod Colon

BLOGGING

BLOGGING

Many job seekers ask "Should I be blogging?"

Blogging allows you to offer your thoughts, insights, and opinions to the online community; it gives them a "view" of who you are and how you think. And it’s important to remember that decision-makers often browse blogs to see who truly provides value.

If you’re new to blogging, here’s a great tip: Start by not blogging at all, at least not right away. Instead, simply visit the blogs of others, especially those who share your interests. If you post meaningful comments on their blogs, you’ll be setting the stage for reciprocal visits once you settle into a comfortable posting routine.