So today let's talk about three big keys about the resumes.
Do and don'ts. But really great techniques. And I'm going to get into some really good detail here about what you should be thinking about as you write your resume. And where this came from.
People have lots of problems articulating themselves in the best light. Let's talk about that three points." Let's get rolling. The first thing that I want to talk aboutw resume writing is you need to know how someone looks at your resume. How somebody looks at your resume. resumes are not read left to right and top to bottom. People don't read resumes like they read a book. Keep in mind what the employer is going through or probably the recruiter or some human resource official, is opening up a resume, looking at it very, very, very quickly. The first place their eyes go is to the top center of the resume. They're just trying to get a feel for who you are. So I want to talk about what that means for you. If their eyes go to the top center of ther initially, it's like your smile, it's like the first thing that they see. Are you smiling, beaming bright, saying you are going to love looking at my resume? Or are you going to fall flat? And I'm going to show you a few samples of what the top of a resume could look like. But this is really important that you grab their attention first. So top center, top center, top center. You need to be thinking about what is that going to look like. Now, this is so critical.
First thing, let's talk about what not to do. What not to do. Under no circumstances, it doesn't matter if you're a college student or a pro, do not include an objective statement. I have absolutely no idea where objective statements came from. None mind you. Because it would never make sense to me at any point in our existence why anybody would put something that they want on a document intended to show what you offer. So an objective statement is typically whatis your objective in seeking this job, in your career, whatever it might be. There's no place anywhere in the resume for that. There're other vehicles that you can use. The email or the cover letter or some other things. But definitely no objective statement and for both of you, students and professionals, your education should also not be the first thing somebody sees. They'll get to it soon enough. Even if you're a college student. Resist the temptation to put your education at the top. Your degree is not a voucher to anything anymore. You need more. Employers are looking for more. So you got to give them more upfront beforet get to your education. The other thing that you shouldn't do is don't go right into the current company that you are working for. And I'll explain in detail why we don't want to do this. But if this is your place to shine and show them who you are in all your glory, at least at a summary level, starting with where you're currently working is just going to answer the question where are you now. And then they're going to have to look through the rest of the resume to figure out who you really are. So don't put your company in there.
I'll give you some more clarity on that. Don't put tables. Don't put tables anywhere in your resume, Especially not at the top. Tables are boring. They often times don't include the right information. Applicant tracking systems don't like them. So don't put tables up at the top. And whatever you do, and nowhere in the resume, but not at the top, should you be putting any opinions about yourself. So these are things like those meaningless buzzwords that say that you are detail oriented, a strong communicator, a leader, or whateverit is that you think you are and may very well be. But on a resume you need evidence to backthat up. So don't put those words anywhere. We want you to put evidence inside the resume so that you can show the employer that you are a detail oriented person, great leader,organized, or whatever it might be. So those are things that I don't want youto do. Now I want to talk a little bit more aboutconceptually what's going on at the top of the resume. Some people think "Well, I need to have alot of white space there. It's more pleasing on the eye. People have a difficult time, if there's alot of text there, skimming the text. And I've been told that I should list my skillsat the top and all that stuff." Now let me answer a few of these for you very specifically I want to actually show you a little something about skimming. And I thought this might be a pretty decent way to do that. Look at this sentence. I bet it doesn't take you but a mere two seconds to read that. Or that. Can you make that out? If you can make that out give me a hey inthe comments or something. Say whatever you want. But I'm guessing that you could read that sentence no problem. Absolutely no problem. Let me go back to my face for a second. I'm assuming you can read that. Imagine what a trained recruiter can do witha few seconds when those words are spelled correctly and they see hundreds of resumes a day, day in day out for years and years and years. So you guys get my point. If I know what I'm looking for and you aregiving me the right kind of context to frame it, I can pick that up in a nanosecond. So trust me when I tell you, this is whatI'm talking about. Now imagine these samples I'm going to showyou and I want you to just for a second think about how you feel just about the way theylook and the content that you're going to see.
Remember resumes are not solely for people. They are for hopefully people. That's the goal is to get them to the person and then to wow them and then to get the interview, but you also, a lot of you, are going to have to get them past the applicant tracking system. The applicant tracking system is not going to recognize the bullets in the hidden table that's inside the Microsoft Word doc that you looked at. So applicant tracking systems don't like tables. They don't like graphics. They don't like acronyms. They don't like a lot of these things. The research has shown this. And a lot of the tools that are out there support this and educate us on that. So my experience of looking at over a halfa million resumes tells me the second one works more effectively. The surveys that we run with side-by-sidesamples of resumes and ask people to choose the preferred format tell me this. And the applicant tracking system tells us this This is why the top center of the resume is so important And if you think for one second that you arerepeating yourself, And when I have to go through all these resumes if I'm a human resources person or a recruiter working for a company and I'm getting all these, it's not exciting to me. I'm not in a great mood when I get down to the rest of your resume. So you get to control the narrative plus for all of you career changers, for all of you that are staying within the same types of jobs, but maybe you want to get back to your roots or something that you did three years ago or eight years ago, you can pull a lot of this stuff forward. This is why it's so important to have a career profile. You get to say whatever you want to say uptop. So the top center. Stay away from those things that I told youto avoid and this is more in line with what I would do at the top center. All right. Let's talk about point number two. There're lots of formats that are out thereand I favor, always have, always will favor, the chronological format. And I guess technically, specifically I meanthe reverse chronological format for the work experience section of your resume or the professional experience section. Whatever it may be. That simply means you've got the company nameat kind of the top left of that section, then maybe you have a little line or two aboutwhat the company does and what you're doing within the company, then your title, thenyour responsibilities, and then your previous title and those responsibilities, and so on. And then the further back you go in time,those companies, list those out in order as well so that your first company or the longest ago company that you have on your resume, whenever you decide to cut your resume, is at the bottom. There are other types of resumes. You guys have probably seen them or heard of them. The skills based resume or the functionalresume. The skills based resume highlight those features you have. The reason that those styles, those layouts are ineffective is number one, the second question that an employer has after who areyou is where are you. Think about it. I know a lot of you are senior people. You're in my programs. You're in my community. You follow me. You email me. And you comment on my stuff. And I know you're in your 40s and your 50sand your 60s. And a lot of you are hiring people. Think about when you get a functional resume. What's the first question you want to know? Where are they now or where were they mostrecently? And it's very difficult to tell. So employers, hirers, HR people, recruiters,whoever it is, they like to see that chronological order. Shows them the evolution. The other thing that the skills based or thefunctional based resumes do is they put suspicion in the mind of the recruiter like you're trying to hide something from me. As a matter a fact, I kid you not, when Iget a functional resume, the first thing that goes through my head is I now start looking at what are they trying to hide? That's actually where my attention goes. So think about that. You've now put me in a position where I'm looking for something bad like a gap in employment. I don't mind if you have a gap in employment. Show me where it is. So just really, really stick to the chronology. It's much easier. It's much easier for everybody to follow. Now, third point that I want to make is aboutthe way in which you articulate yourself in the bullets themselves or the sentences thatyou write, whether it's in the career profile or I also recommend a career highlights sectionfor those of you that have. But I also want you to focus on your accomplishments and your benefits. And I'm going to give you a little sample on the PowerPoint here of what I mean. But employers, and I say this a lot in my resume writing programs, that it's not just good enough to show them what you did, employers want to know what you did, but they really want to know what happened as a result of what you did. What happened as a result of what you did? So if you manage the customer service department with 10 employees ... I see a lot of resumes that say I manage the customer service department with 10 employees. What doesn't this tell me? Are you a good manager? Do your people get promoted? Do they love you? Actually are your customers happier? Have you done anything to streamline thoseprocesses or whatever? So this probably has some place on the resume. It could probably be broken up, it could beburied, it could be up in the summaries, but I would much rather see a bullet that saidsomething like I raised customer satisfaction 33% by designing and implementing processesthat reduced time to answer customer inquiries by half. I put something in place. I put something in place that made our customers a lot happier. Because it only takes two minutes to get backto them or they only have to stay on hold two minutes and I can answer the questionin two minutes instead of eight. So these are the kinds of things that I thinkare very, very important for you to get onto your resume. Whether you're putting them in the highlights section, which you should be, and putting them in the professional experience section,which you should be. Do's and don'ts. If you focus on making sure that the top centerof your resume sings and gets people excited to read it, you make sure that you lay itout in a great format chronologically that's easy for them to see what hopefully is a nice career evolution for you and there's tons of ways we can handle all your exceptions and And the third thing that I would do is I'dmake sure your focusing on your accomplishments and your benefits in addition to what your responsibilities are.
All right.
Hope you enjoyed that.
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