SPEAK EASY NOTE # 28 - Resume Magic

Last week I received an emergency request from a new client for resume help. The voicemail I received on Thursday morning went something like this:

“I desperately need help with my resume. I have a job interview at 3:30 PM today and a recruiter has told me that the opening sections of my resume - featuring the previous two years - look very choppy and that I need to reconfigure what I'm giving to people. Based on what the recruiter told me, I have rewritten those sections of my resume and have sent it out to people but I'm thinking it's not really working for me. I know this is very short notice but do you have any time to help me with this before my interview this afternoon so that I can take something better to my meeting?”

The following examples are the BEFORE and AFTER versions of the opening sections of this resume that I worked on for this individual.

(These examples have been totally fictionalized to camouflage the person’s identity.)

EXAMPLE I 
"BEFORE"
ORIGINAL VERSION – Prior to the Wordsmith update

MARTHA ANN WATERBIRD

111 South Ave., Apt. 66A, Big City, USA 30044
mawbirdatgmail.com

(666) 222-8888

Top producing sales associate within investment world, financial services, and beyond. Consistent track record of exceeding sales and performance goals. Successful in sales due to (a) highly effective internal and external relationship management resulting in quality client development, (b) strong sales support and business development  management skills, and (c) ability to close deals based on experience, client needs assessment, and confidence in asking for the order.


Experience

ENTREPRENEURIAL EFFORTS
2009- May 2010
QRS CAPITAL ASSETS January to May 2010
Managing Partner, Broker/Dealer, Sales Director.
Partnered with former US Bank Equity Markets; Brokerage Head to grow Equities Broker/Dealer.
•    Opened key accounts including FireZion, Frellus Capital, Rattleback, Purple Capital, Obabar Capital, Joshua Capital, Ruffage Capital, Slumberland, and BadBoy Capital.
•    Pitched RAM, LMN, X Capital, Third Pet, Pella Ice Capital and Avatar Fund.
•    Planned, negotiated, and implemented new business strategies and recruitment.
•    Grew revenue 500% in 6 months before key investor exited the business.


SIENNA USA, LLC, 2009-2010
Co-Managing Partner.
Created LLC to explore business initiatives in offshore investing and international trade.
•    Wrote and developed business plan and pitched 40+ VC's on developing the business;
•    Consulted to VIP Communications and Big Capital.

EXAMPLE II

"AFTER" 

WORDSMITH REVISION 

MARTHA ANN WATERBIRD

111 South Ave., Apt. 66A, Big City, USA 30044
mawbirdatgmail.com
(666) 222-8888

TOP PRODUCING INVESTMENT FUND / FINANCIAL SERVICES SALES PROFESSIONAL 

Consistent, successful track record of exceeding sales and performance goals through:

• Effective networking, resulting in quality lead-generation

• Strong sales support and relationship management skills

• Ability to close deals based on experience, client needs, and confidence in asking for order.

EXPERIENCE

INVESTMENT FUND RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT 2009-Present

Managing Partner, Broker/Dealer, Sales Director

Develop and leverage investment fund relationships to build/grow business platforms

• Partnered with former US Bank Equity Markets; Brokerage Head to grow Equities Broker/Dealer, for QRS Capital Markets.

• Opened key accounts including FireZion, Frellus Capital, Rattleback, Purple Capital, Obabar Capital, Joshua Capital, Ruffage Capital, Slumberland, and BadBoy Capital.

• Pitched RAM, Buffet, LMN, X Capital, Third Point, Paella Ice Capital and Avatar.

• Planned, negotiated, and implemented new business strategies and personnel recruitment.

• Grew revenue 500% in 6 months before key investor exited business.

• Created LLC, Sienna USA, as co-managing partner to explore business initiatives in offshore investing and international trade.
• Wrote and developed business plan and pitched 40+ VCs on developing business.
• Consulted to VIP Communications and Big Capital.

Note that

1. All of the information is there in the "AFTER" revision without omitting any of the significant content from the BEFORE version of the resume.

2. In the revised version, the opening overview section reads much more tightly with very easy access to the key selling points and service areas of Martha Ann Waterbird.

3. The presentation of the most recent two years has been combined for a unified focused presentation rather than looking like two separate unsuccessful "choppy" work roles over two years of time.

It is great fun and hugely satisfying to be able to transform resumes to reflect people's best selling points  as well as help them develop the language and responses they will need to convey consistency and focus when they are out on job interviews, presenting their resumes. 

Until next time,

The Wordsmith
SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success

SPEAK EASY NOTE #27 - Phone Racing with the Boss

Situation Synopsis / Communication Challenge


Wordsmith,

My problem is speaking to my boss via the telephone. I find that it's hard to get a word in during a conversation, yet if I'm not quick to respond to a question, he gets annoyed. I find myself very often talking over him which is annoying to me and to him, I'm sure. Sometimes I'm so frustrated after a conversation I want to scream! He can be very rushed at times as he is usually very busy and short on time.

Signed,
Frustrated at Work

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Frustrated,

This is a situation that can be managed over time, using a variety of strategies.

Let’s start with your reactions during and following these phone calls. It is likely that the relationship with your boss has many more elements to it that are frustrating to you than just these rushed phone conversations. If you had ample regular access to your boss and strong open communication with him other than these hurried telephone calls, then it would be unlikely for them to bother you as much as they do.

Always keep this at the top of your consciousness:

“You are the only person you can change.” You have no way to change or control what others do. By changing what you think and how you see situations, you can adjust your own perspectives and communications, and thus increase the potential to have the influence you desire on what others say and do.

So the most important step you can take is to make a commitment to yourself to replace your frustration with acceptance and humor by reminding yourself that, “Yep, that’s the way he always communicates on the phone when he’s busy and rushed.” “I knew that was coming.” “He sure is consistent.” “No surprises here!” “Oops, there it is … again!” These simple reminders can give you an inner chuckle and a sense of soothing tolerance that will set the stage for your heart rate to calm considerably and for your strong emotional response to diminish and even disappear. Your number-one goal is to reduce/eliminate your negative and, yes, legitimate emotional response to your boss’s behavior. If you can start here and accomplish this new perspective, you will have gained such a wonderful new advantage, no matter what he says or how you respond in these conversations.

Accomplishing this new perspective is the first challenge. Once you have been able to integrate and truly internalize this genuine adjustment, there are a number of strategies and communications that have the possibility to create a new dynamic in your workplace. I will provide a range of recommendations for your perusal, selection and adaptation. Remember though that what works well with healthy well-balanced individuals may not work at all with people facing huge pressures or who have mental health challenges. The Surgeon General’s office reports that, “The current prevalence estimate is that about 20 percent of the U.S. population are affected by mental disorders during a given year.” http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/chapter2/sec2_1.html

This means that one in five people in our lives has some type of mental health obstacle. This is just one more factor that is an important consideration in the choices we make in how to approach and communicate with people. And, of course, since this is your boss, that hierarchical element will also be a factor in how politically advisable any of the suggested approaches may be.

With these caveats in mind, I offer you the following communication options for your consideration and adaptation:

“Sam, I hear how important xxxxxx is to you. Right now, here is what I can tell you about xxxxxx. I will follow up on this and get back to you (right away, by the end of the week, or …) with more details.”

“This sounds like something you want to know immediately/urgently. Here is the current best answer I can provide. We will need to do x, y, and z to gain the bigger picture that is required.”

“Sam, I would like to give you a thoughtful and thorough response to your request and can do this if I have your attention while I describe the key elements of xxxxxx.”

“I have listened carefully and understand quite well the demands on your time as well as those required for this project. I would like to make sure we have an open meaningful ongoing regular two-way dialogue about m, n, o, and p to avoid the frustration we both experience when we talk about …. ”

“When I hear this amount of concern and pressure, it is difficult to be as responsive as I would like to be.”

“Sam, I would like to get on your calendar for a face-to-face meeting so we can look at how to make sure our communications with each other are as effective and beneficial as possible. I have some requests I would like to make and some observations I would like to share with you relating to our communications.”

“Thanks for making time to sit down together and meet with me today; I know how busy you are and how much demand there is on your time. I have prepared a list of topics I want to discuss with you. My goal is to make sure I am doing everything possible to do my job in the best way I can and to provide you with the information and input you need. It is important to me that I describe certain obstacles I see in our communications and certain benefits I recognize we would both gain from adjusting the way we communicate. …”

Sometimes all that is needed is,
“I hear you. You have been very clear about what you want. You have been very clear about how you see this.”

It might be beneficial for you to work with a coach or ask a trusted co-worker or friend to role-play with you how you will present what you want to say to your boss. It is important to keep your communication tone very level and respectful.

Until next time,

The Wordsmith
SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success

Speak Easy Note #26 - New Speak Easy Platform

It has been quite awhile since I have written a blog posting. There were a few reasons for the unanticipated lengthy hiatus:

1. Taking a break could be cleansing and refreshing, clearing a path for new ideas, truth and clarity.

2. A dear friend and colleague suggested that I was sending out too much and too frequent email.

3. I had wanted to introduce a new platform to Speak Easy Notes.

4. I was traveling and technical glitches prevented easy posting to Speak Easy Notes.

And so what I thought would be a couple of weeks off somehow turned into almost three months! Thank you to those readers who let me know they missed my blog postings and that they read them religiously. I have truly appreciated hearing how valuable my communication advice has been to you and your colleagues at work. It means so much to learn that what I have written has touched others in a meaningful and significant way.

What I would like the new platform to be is my responding to individual communication questions from readers related to both professional work situations as well as personal relationship dynamics. I would like for people to send me a brief synopsis (consisting of 100-words or less) describing a situation or circumstance they are experiencing, along with the communication challenge they would like to tackle.

EXAMPLE

Situation synopsis:

My girlfriend’s mother constantly describes in a very judgmental tone to uninvolved people - like a repair person fixing the washing machine - what she would like for my girlfriend, her daughter, to do about something - when her daughter is not present to hear these comments but I am. To me, it seems completely inappropriate for my girlfriend’s mother to be exposing uninvolved people to this information and to her opinions, and to be saying these comments in the hopes I will tell her daughter. It is very difficult for me that she regularly communicates this way.

Communication challenge:

I want to ask my girlfriend’s mother to stop doing this and let her know how much I dislike this type of communication. I want to be respectful of my girlfriend and avoid a confrontation with her mother. What are some good ways to handle this type of communication challenge?

Signed,

Stressed Boyfriend

Response:

Dear Stressed,

First of all, I can hear how uncomfortable you are when you feel that your girlfriend’s mother is discussing private information with strangers concerning your girlfriend, and especially how much it bothers you that the mother is making these comments in front of you without your girlfriend being there to hear for herself what her mother is saying.

Before giving you advice on how to have a communication with the mother, I would ask you first to be 100 % sure that you want to say something about this altogether to her. Sometimes it is better to say nothing in these situations so that you avoid reinforcing and calling attention to the negative situation, feeding right into it and giving it importance by making it “bigger” than it already is. This concept is similar to managing bad behavior in a pet. Often when your dog misbehaves, it is better to ignore him or distract him if possible by giving him a command to “sit and stay” that you can calmly praise him for than to make a big deal out of his annoying barking. Sometimes negative reprimand increases an undesired behavior because there is so much attention given to it. When your girlfriend’s mother says these types of things, if you can internally capture an attitude that encapsulates: “So what!” “Who cares what she says?” “How silly and unimportant this is!” and immediately leave the room as quickly as possible without saying anything, you might be communicating what you want to communicate in the best way possible.

If you decide that you do want to speak to her about this, it is important that you make sure there are just the two of you present for this conversation and that the talk takes place at another point in time shortly following when her public judgmental communication took place. It might go something like,

“Nancy, there is something I wanted to let you know in private. First, I want to tell you that I am respectful of your opinions and your right to express them. (Make sure there is no “but” following that prior statement.) It is also important to me to tell you that I am uncomfortable hearing what you wish Sarah would do about something when she is not there to hear what you are saying. I wanted to let you know how I feel about these types of conversations and how much I would appreciate not hearing these kinds of comments. Thanks for your respect and for listening to what I wanted to tell you.”

It is better to refrain from saying anything about whether you will communicate or have communicated any of this to your girlfriend. Again, by keeping that out of your comments, you actually are communicating that you are not going to be the mother’s message deliverer. If the mother asks you if you are going to tell the daughter anything about this or if you have already shared the conversation you overheard, you can respond respectfully by saying something like, “I wanted this conversation to be about privacy and respect and that is really all I wanted to say right now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I look forward to receiving your communication challenges and selecting from them the ones that best represent communication issues many people face on a daily basis. I may adapt some of the examples and I will certainly camouflage people’s identities so that privacy is respected. Please let me hear from you.

Until next time,

The Wordsmith
SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success

SPEAK EASY NOTE #25 - WHO WANTS TO BE A VICTIM?

I am working with a client to help her improve her presentation skills and in particular to help her gain more professional presence when she is making presentations to senior executives in her company. Last week we were preparing for a presentation she would be making this week. She was rather nervous about the presentation and I asked her how she experiences the management team she will be making her presentation to. She replied, “They intimidate me.” Her voice was full of discomfort when she told me this and she sounded very different from the confident knowledgeable person she usually is. I then asked her to describe these executives in more detail, to tell me what they are like, and she said, “They are intimidating. They like to ask questions that people don’t have answers for. They often interrupt when others are presenting. They are a bit like dogs with bones when they want to go down a path that no one else is interested in.” As she provided these descriptions, I was struck by the clear contrast in how she was speaking. She actually sounded amused by these characteristics. She definitely sounded self-confident and relaxed. And most of all she was simply describing these people on a level playing field without any sense of victimization by them whatsoever. The most striking difference was how she had naturally and easily changed her use of the word “intimidate”:

“They intimidate me.”

Versus

“They are intimidating.”

When I pointed out to her how differently she had sounded when she simply described these people as intimidating rather than saying they intimidated her, I saw the sparkle of recognition in her eyes. What a simple distinction and what a big difference this distinction made. She began to tell me how dissimilarly she had actually experienced making the two different statements.

We talked about what happens when we use passive language and what happens when we change that language to descriptions that do not victimize us. We then proceeded to work on her presentation to set the stage to decrease or prevent intimidating audience behavior. We also talked about and practiced together good ways to handle and respond to intimidating comments and behavior. It was wonderful to hear how well the presentation went this week. It is immensely satisfying to work with clients and see them incorporate new awareness, bringing them enhanced approaches, communication and behavior.

In “SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success” available from Word Craft Press, I write about victim language:

When you describe situations by using language that expresses what happened to you, you’re taking on the role of a victim. If, instead, you can describe what happened, what the circumstances are, and what you’re doing as a result of what happened, you will be able to experience the situation differently.

COMPARE:

Victim Statement: “What happened to me just completely destroyed me.”
Situational Description: “The experience was so unpleasant and difficult.”

Victim statement: “That kind of remark just does me in.
Situational Description: “I experience that kind of remark in such a negative way. I like to make sure to discontinue communications when people speak that way.”

Victim statement: “My wife dumped me for another man.”
Situational Description: “My wife decided she no longer wanted to be married.”

Victim statement: “I was terminated and have to find a new job.”
Situational Description: “My former employer eliminated my position and now I’m making decisions about what next career steps I want to make.”

It’s critical to become aware of how victim statements like these weaken how you feel about yourself and contribute to others seeing you defeated by your circumstances. By using situational descriptions instead, you will feel less like a victim and more in charge of your life, and those around you will see you in control of difficult challenges rather than as a powerless or injured person.

Until next time,
The Wordsmith

Speak Easy Note #24 - Quenching Your Thirst No Matter What's In The Glass

Since so many of us continue to be making more out of less and learning how to do without, I have selected a section of “SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success” available from Word Craft Press for this week’s blog posting that focuses on the importance of looking at everything from a new and positive perspective:


Often when we look in the mirror of our lives, our view is narrow and distorted rather than broad and encompassing. There’s a tendency for people to zero in on what’s wrong or missing rather than see what they have. They also tend to bring a habitual optimistic or pessimistic perspective to their communications. Just like certain people have a tendency to use negative rather than affirmative language formation, people have a propensity to see the world from a full or empty perspective.

There’s an often-told story of twin children with completely opposite views of the world - one was extremely optimistic and the other was quite far beyond pessimistic.

One Christmas Eve, their parents decided to take action to resolve their children’s extreme views. The parents filled the little pessimist’s room with every imaginable toy a child could want. They filled the little optimist’s room with manure.

On Christmas morning, the parents first went to their pessimistic child’s room to find the child crying in a heap in the middle of the room, lamenting, “With all these toys I got for Christmas, there are too many parts that can get broken. I’ll never have enough batteries to keep these toys running. I won’t be able to understand the instructions and learn how to use them. I’m probably too stupid to do them right anyway. I know I’m going to break something. Somebody will want to take these away from me. I’m going to have to share these with other kids. I don’t know what to do first.”

With sighs of exasperation, the parents left the pessimistic child’s room and entered into the little optimist’s room full of excrement. This second child was ecstatic and was running around screaming with joyful delight, “I am so excited. With what I woke up to in my room today, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

It’s definitely all about perspective.

How you see the world becomes your reality

and controls what you say about it.

We know that over 90% of how we receive communication is non-verbal. Changing the words we use, however, still has the power to change how we feel and how others react to what we say. We will begin to see situations differently when we begin to choose different words to describe them:

AVOID: “There’s only half a glass left.”
BETTER: “There’s still half a glass left.”

AVOID: “She never calls me.”
BETTER: “I’d like to talk to her more often.”

AVOID: “At my age, there are so few options left for me.”
BETTER: “At my age, I’m so clear about which options I want to select.”

It’s true that in many instances there’s a smaller amount rather than a larger one to express in our communication. Rather than being about how full or empty the glass is, it’s about explaining what there is in the glass to drink. If there are only three drops of water in the glass, the point is to figure out how to describe quenching your thirst with whatever amount you have. You can’t articulate how to drink the empty part so it’s unproductive to focus on it.

Until next time,
The Wordsmith

Speak Easy Note #23 - Working It at Work

In Chapter 10, Working It at Work in “SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success” I have selected seven best career management practices and labeled them as

“YOUR CAREER GYM COMMUNICATION WORKOUT”

1. Be prepared.

2. Be positive.

3. Give “live” illustrations.

4. Avoid limiting qualifiers.

5. Be focused.

6. Avoid negative assumptions.

7. Be consistent.

#1 – Be Prepared

Groundwork plays a significant role in career advancement.

A fundamental key to achieving professional success is being well-prepared.

It’s critical to do your homework for any type of professional or work-related meeting that you’re going to attend or participate in, no matter the size or the venue.

# 2 – Play Up The Positive

Whenever you determine that something won’t work or isn’t working, make sure you find a way to convey, “This is exactly what we need to do to make this successful.”

Rather than describe what’s wrong, it’s always better to focus on communicating the solutions to fix the situation.

Remember that you can always communicate everything you want to say in an affirmative way .

#3 – Be A Story Teller – Live Examples Work Best

One of the most effective ways to sound confident and to overcome nervousness or artificiality in communication is to be a story teller.

When you’re describing actual positive experiences you’ve had, your communication becomes quite natural and energized because you’re re-experiencing what happened and you’re seeing yourself in a positive situation.

When you’re describing an actual experience that occurred and you’re using it as an illustration for the point you want to make, you will sound much more believable than when you use a hypothetical or theoretical description or try to use facts or data to convince people of your genuineness or authenticity.

# 4 – Toss Those Qualifiers

As long as you see and describe your experience as limited, you will convey self-doubt and will certainly not be seen as having professional presence or as being a thought leader.

Limitations place the emphasis on what’s missing rather than on what exists. Habitually qualifying chips away at the substance of what you have to offer and who you are professionally.

You can eliminate qualifiers from your speech patterns without replacing them with exaggerations and misrepresentations. The goal is to focus on what exists without adding disclaimers, doubt, and hesitancy. Use communication that says you take ownership and pride in what you do and who you are.

#5 – Aim Straight For The Target

Never distort! Never misrepresent!

“SELECTIVE HONESTY” means to target your communications selectively and avoid self-revealing broad-based confessions or testimonials that tell all, leaving you exposed in ways that are unnecessary and unbeneficial.

If you aim your communications directly at the bull’s eye instead, you can become skilled and fluent in targeting your responses to your advantage and to the listener’s focus as well.

Even when your comments are innocent and harmless, when you forget to target your communications, you can unknowingly be diminishing your professionalism and potential for recognition and advancement.

# 6 – You Know What They Say About Assumptions

Negative assumptions provide the foundation for defensive and self-defeating communication.

Make sure you communicate from a perspective that demonstrates you are basing your comments on a positive premise.

#7 - Inconsistency Always Bites You On Your Backside

If you want to be seen as a professional and you want to advance in your career, it’s important to be aware of how subtle inconsistencies in your communications can influence how you’re seen and how your opportunities for advancement can be measured against them.

We all have competing characteristics and circumstances in our lives. Life is full of paradox. The point is to be aware of what you are communicating before blurting out whatever comes into your head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Career fitness is vital for success and satisfaction. Look at the career communication exercise regimen as a package and make the career workout part of every workday. The payoff will be that over time all of these behaviors and communications will become so second nature that they will be completely natural and effortless. These guidelines are the right foundation for preparing for the JOB INTERVIEW as well.

You can read more about The Career Gym Communications Workout in “SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success.

Until next time,

The Wordsmith

Speak Easy Note #22 - The Killer Resume

When I first earned my Masters Degree, I became a resume snob for a short period of time. After all, I thought, I have a Masters Degree in Counseling and I will help people with making critical life decisions about who they are and what they will do with their lives so that they can feel productive and contribute to the world. I will help them look at their internal barriers and emotional roadblocks. I will help them enhance how they see themselves and how they present themselves to others. Any business professional could help people write their resumes, I had decided. And then BAM! How wrong I was hit me quite soon after assuming this limited attitude about the process and value of helping someone write his or her resume! At that time, I was primarily working with women who had taken time out of the workforce to raise children, some of them for quite a number of years. It was astounding to see the transformation that took place for these women when I was able to help them craft resumes that took their lives and volunteer experiences and presented these in a professional and business-like manner. It also became very obvious that writing a resume is very connected to a person’s self-esteem and level of confidence. Writing a resume is putting oneself on a piece of paper. This is not an easy task for people to do. Even skilled writers have a great deal of difficulty writing resumes because of all that I have just described and because the writing itself is quite different from all other writing forms.

At some point down the road, as I honed my skills in fine-tuning people's resumes with them, my cousin and I sat down together to work on her resume.  She was a single mother then and had recently lost a husband and his considerable income; she needed to seek employment.  She began describing her experience and I thoughtfully began to work some magic in turning what she had done into significant professional business descriptions.  As I worked, she commented, "Oh I see.  What you do for a living is b--- s---!"  I continued working and without missing a beat, answered, "No! There's a very fine line between b--- s--- and what we're writing and we're NOT going to step over that line!"

So I came to love the work of crafting competitive and fine resumes for my clients. I came to appreciate the many levels of benefit a strong, well written resume could provide. I saw that resume writing incorporated my two top strengths: Wordsmithing and Counseling.

Since it’s always a good practice to keep your resume fine-tuned and up to date, I have decided to make resume writing the topic for this week’s blog. I encourage everyone to update your resume and/or create your latest bio. Even those readers who are retired or simply not working currently nor seeking employment, will benefit from making sure you have your updated profiles ready to give to those who ask you for these. Maybe you will be asked to speak before a group or participate on a panel on a topic you care about. Perhaps you will want to be a part of a task force. Maybe you will join an organization that asks you for your background. And even if you are someone who is happily ensconced in a job that you want to stay in, it is quite valuable to have an updated, highly marketable version of your resume ready for whatever unfolds.

I have decided to provide another TOP TEN list for this topic:

THE TOP TEN LIST FOR WRITING AN AMAZING RESUME

 

#10. A resume should be no more than TWO PAGES long - ever. Many people recommend a ONE-PAGE resume. If you use two pages for your resume, make sure to fill the second page so that it is at least 75% filled; otherwise condense to one page! If you use a two-page version of your resume, make sure your name and “Page 2” appear at the top of the second page. If the second page continues a section from the first page, create a heading or indication of what is being continued from first page. No matter what type of resume you’re writing, the first page must have a work chronology with dates included. It’s unnecessary and not recommended to include the months in the dates on a resume. Most students, younger less-experienced workers, and entry-level individuals usually would have a one-page resume.

#9. Remember the Three Cs of resume writing: Be CLEAR, CONSISTENT, and CONCISE.

#8. AVOID using HACKNEYED, weak, repetitive language such as “responsible for”, “served as”, “acted as”, “handled”, “assisted", “helped”, “performed”. Make sure the language on your resume feels authentic and comfortable for you. You must be prepared to discuss everything on your resume!

#7. When writing the work history sections of your resume, always start with the most recent experience and work backwards in REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

#6. Use STRONG ACTION VERBS whenever possible to describe your experiences. Resumes require telegraphed language and should never have complete sentences on them. Avoid using “a”, “an” and “the” on your resume. Also avoid “I”, “me” and “my” on your resume. Resumes are actually written in the third person and are about a person rather than written in the first person where I talk about me.

#5. Whenever possible, demonstrate and illustrate your experience with ACTUAL EXAMPLES. Throughout your resume, make sure you have illustrated the strengths and focus you have laid out in the beginning/focus resume sections. De-emphasize or omit unimportant and irrelevant information.

#4. Make sure your career goal is about the VALUE you will ADD rather than about what you want to gain from your employer. Quantify and show actual RESULTS and SOLUTIONS whenever possible.

#3. Your resume must reflect FOCUS. It is okay to omit having an Objective to start your resume. It is not okay for your resume to be without focus. There are many ways to ensure that the focus is strong, including the use of opening sections like the following: Areas of Career Interest, Professional Expertise, Strengths, Selected Achievements, Industry Experience, etc.

#2. The average amount of time spent on the first reading of a resume is only 17 seconds! Make sure the key pieces of information on your resume POP off the page.

#1. A resume is a MARKETING document. Its goal is to demonstrate your key selling points and marketability as an employee and strong contributor to a work environment. Select everything you put on your resume with that in mind rather than include everything you have ever done.

There are many ways to write a strong resume. If you could find the top ten RESUME CONSULTANTS in the entire country to advise you on your resume, they would all tell you something slightly different and for sure, you would end up with ten different versions of your resume from working with each of them.

Once again, I have written about a topic that is not in “SPEAK EASY – The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success” available for purchase through Word Craft Press. Of course, having your resume updated goes hand in glove with Chapter 9 on networking featured in last week's blog posting as well as Chapter 10, WORKING IT AT WORK which may be a good topic for next week’s blog. Tune in to find out …

Until then,
The Wordsmith