The Resume Reconstruction Part I - Get rid of your Objective

Ok, so it’s been ages since I’ve blogged but honestly, it’s been a great 6 month break.  Much needed.  I feel refresh and energized to start blogging again so I hope you’re ready.  I’ve got a bunch of content lined up so it should be fun again...which is always important for me.

Quick update on me before this weeks topic….we are settled quite nicely out here in CA.  It’s farking expensive but the weather, availability of most everything and live at the Mothership it’s hard to complain.   I’m still a boy of the 603 but the 408 isn’t so bad.

With that, I’ve been talking to a lot of recruiter friends (nod to referrer!) and have come to a conclusion...it’s time for a resume revolution.  The whole state of resumes is terrible.  The entire thing is just messed up.  Most of them don’t tell the right story and get good candidates rejected without any conversation.  So, for me, that tells me it’s time to just nuke the whole approach and start fresh.  Let’s start at the top and take a look at the “Objective”.

Honestly, I’ve probably read about a million of these things and for the most part they all suck.  The objective of your resume is to get you a job (or the job).  Period.  End of story.  The objective really isn’t to get you a rewarding and challenging position that blah blah blah blah blah…..it’s to get you the job.

True story, I’ve received SEVERAL resumes where the objective has resulted in an instant reject.  I mean, instant.  Sending a recruiter that says “To find a role at WRONG COMPANY” will get you rejected immediately.  Last one I saw was looking for a role at Amazon….that’s great, I love Amazon but um, I don’t work there.  Trash.

Alright...so I’m not a big fan of just complaining so in lieu of an Objective what should you do?  Here are a few options.

1) Don’t stress it.  Start your resume with your best attribute (Education or Experience) so when a recruiter or manager sees your resume it JUMPS to their attention.  This is always my preference on a resume.

2) Start with a summary of skills or experiences.  I don’t love this to be honest but if you’ve got a bunch of skills/experiences that an employer will really value than sum them up, show them off and then dig into the details later in your resume.

Make sense?  I hope so, my big issue with resumes right now is that they are filled with junk and don’t truly show off what makes a person exceptional….so over the next few posts we’ll blow it up.  I leave on vacation this week but will be posting from parts unknown….until then, enjoy the week

The importance of speaking out!

Ok, just a few posts left this year but this is one that I’ve been thinking about for a while.  You hear a lot about the importance of speaking your mind and speaking up in meetings....what’s just as important is taking time to occasionally speak OUT at events.  I recently spoke at a few events here in Boston and it really reminded me of how important is to do if you have the opportunity.  Here’s why:

1) Share your expertise - Speaking out gives you a chance to share your experiences and help other people advance their career.  Sharing what you know is the ultimate experience in my opinion as you get to collaborate and share with other folks in the industry.

2)  Networking on Steroids - That’s right, speaking out at an event is like networking on steroids.  Think about it.  People are there to year YOU speak and listen to YOUR experiences....so, it’s a great chance to meet other folks and do some serious networking.  You can’t go wrong here, seriously, makes networking so easy to do.

3) Public Speaking are GREAT skills - The ability to present to a group or speak publicly are skills that every employer wants.  Most people are afraid of speaking publicly and really stress out when they have to do it.  So...practice makes perfect.  Take the opportunity, get good at it and turn it into another skill in your skillset that you can leverage in your professional life.

4) It’s fun - I love speaking out, think it’s a blast and really have a lot of fun doing it.  So, give it a try and I think you’ll like it too

That’s it this week, I’ll try to get another post out this week but if not....have a great holiday and we’ll keep the conversation going in 2013!

Good luck out there, tough time of year but LOTS of hiring going on.....