A-Plus Career and Resume, LLC
Giving Professionals the Competitive Edge!
  • Home
    • FAQ
  • Resume Services
  • Career Coaching Services
  • Business Services
  • Online Resources
  • Events
  • Free Consultation
  • About Us
    • Client Testimonials
  • Blog

Archive for resume writer

What is a Waste of Space, Unprofessional or Inappropriate on Your Resume?

November 29th, 2017

What is a Waste of Space, Unprofessional or Inappropriate on Your Resume?

I found the above picture yesterday in a search for graphics, and it immediately struck me as perfect for my article. While everyone writing their resume is doing so in earnest and with the best information they have, often the person writing it may have received bad resume advice from friends and family, used poorly written sample resumes or just be winging it to get their resume done for a potential job.  There are several items that jobseekers put on their resumes that are unnecessary, take up excess space, and look unprofessional.  Here are a few I see on a regular basis:

–An Objective:  Instead of putting a tiresome, repetitive objective about how you want to work for a company that loves you and hugs you and will take care of you forever, how about the job title for the specific job you are applying for, and for which the resume is tailored.  There will be no doubt by the reader what you are applying for, and the job title is most likely a keyword in their system.  Then add a list of job/industry related keywords, or three bullet points highlighting great accomplishments, or a one sentence statement of purpose.  Make sure anything you use at the top of the document with your job title is also communicated in the body of the resume.

–References Available Upon Request:  The interviewers already know this, just bring your reference listing to the interview.

–Your Picture:  A picture on LinkedIn is great, but not on your resume.  Not only is there a potential for discrimination but the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) don’t work well with pictures.

–Fancy Graphics:  Similar to above; this is great for handing your resume to someone, but not for the ATS.  Chances are the ATS won’t be able to read the document, or it will place a multitude of unrecognizable symbols in your resume.

–Personal Information:  I have actually seen the following on resumes:   person is in “good health,” has 10 children, height and weight numbers,  hobbies that are a little too personal and don’t relate to the job or create interest, and spousal details.  Again, there is discrimination potential, and these items are not appropriate for the document.

–Obvious Skills:  Microsoft Office; it is always better to give the specific programs – like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access.  You can also do the following:  Microsoft Office:  Word, Access, Excel and PowerPoint, and then you have all the potential keywords.  Phrases like detail oriented, email usage, and problem solver can go away too, they are blaringly general.

–Be Detailed:   Never use general information and vague keywords when you can be precise or explain something in a reasonably short bullet point.  However, let’s not use too short of a bullet point.  For instance, I see the following constantly on resumes: “Answer Phones.”  That isn’t a bullet point, it is a very short statement.  Here is a bullet that describes answering phones.  Answer five-line phone system, including distribution of calls to appropriate parties, and fielding of general inquiries.  A five-line phone system is a whole different animal, and tells a potential employer that the company you worked for was probably very busy, and you had a lot phone calls to manage.  The other merely says you know how to answer a phone.  In this case, more is better.  Avoid one and two word bullet points, they tell the reader nothing.

–Use of Responsibilities or Duties include:  Okay, I will come find you and tear up your resume if you use these phrases to begin a bullet point.  HR hates them, recruiters hate them, resume writers hate them.  Why, because they are overused!  Enough said, find a thesaurus for better action verbs.

–Unprofessional Email:  I actually saw this email address on a resume at a career fair – CMYNPPLRNG, yes, it says “see my nipple ring” in vanity plate parlance.  Also avoid your name and the year you were born – let’s not just give things away.  How about using your name and the last four digits of your phone number or the numbers in your home address?

–Professional development or civic and professional memberships:  Want to provide meaning to your professional development, and professional and civic involvement, put a year, or year-to-year with it.  The date offers context to the reader as to how relevant and recent it is in your career.

–Outdated professional development:  Do you really remember that 1995 Project Management course – probably not.  So, instead go with the last 10 years, and only list the best of the best.  You can always take an addendum to the interview with a comprehensive listing of professional development, if in the last 10 years there are copious amounts.

Space is precious on a resume, whether you have a one-page or three-page document, you want everything on the document to be useful to the reader.  Remember, if your resume makes it past the ATS, and the initial 10-15 second screening, it will be read – make it all count!

 

Karen Silins is a multi-certified, award winning resume writer, career, business and personal branding coach working with individuals and small businesses. After graduating with degrees in education and vocal performance, she made her own career transition into the Human Resources realm. Karen left Human Resources to become an entrepreneur and help jobseekers and fellow entrepreneurs achieve their goals. She keeps current regarding trends in the resume writing, coaching, HR, small business and marketing industries by working daily with individual clients on resume development and career coaching, consulting for small businesses in business plan development, marketing, blogging, hiring and overall HR processes, and providing 30-70+ seminars and workshops annually to a variety of organizations in the greater Kansas City area. She can be reached via her website at www.careerandresume.com.

Categories Careers, Job Search, Personal Branding, Resume Writing
Comments (0)

Shake It Off

February 11th, 2015
Shake It Off

Bias Wordcloud

About two to three times a year someone writes a “Nasty-Gram” article about how all Career Coaches and Resume Writers are charlatans, and naturally professionals in this industry get very upset.  This is what happened in the most recent case with Matt Charney’s article on Recruiting Daily.  Mind you Matt is “friends” with many of us, including me on some social media outlets, so this was a bit of surprise coming from him.  This is a man who describes himself on Twitter as “snarky and gangsta” and purposely works to get under people’s skin.  Mr. Charney can also be outrageously funny and has a passion for jobseekers being treated well, something I truly appreciate.  The thing about this particular article that really angered our community was his purposeful targeting of colleagues for which Mr. Charney, a very smart guy, didn’t really do his research, but definitely made his suppositions from the limited research as if it were fact.  We need to shake these things off as an industry and continue to do our job well as professionals. Matt is actually, from what colleagues say (I made a couple of calls), a pretty good guy, but I will, as a response from an industry professional that has been in business as a Resume Writer, Career Coach, and Business Coach for 16 years, make a point in this article about the ignorance of blanket categorizations.

Just as in Mr. Charney’s industry, there are people who become a Career Coach or Resume Writer for the wrong reasons, including the hobbyist, the “might get rich” people , the “don’t know anything about the industry” people, the lazy “simple template” people, and the “I think I’m qualified because I offered some career advice or wrote my own resume” people.  When I mentor new resume writers and career coaches I tell them plain and simple – you impact a person’s ability to earn a living, get a job, put food on the table, pay their mortgage, and sometimes self-worth, you had better know your craft, and constantly be educated in it!!!

I also work with recruiters frequently and many of them are good friends and individuals who are incredibly knowledgeable, and I regularly recommend these recruiters to my clients.  Just because there are a few people in recruitment who don’t understand recruitment, HR, applicant tracking systems, the hiring process in general, and only want the potential client commission (the jobseeker be damned), doesn’t mean that is how everyone in the industry operates.

Here’s just a small list of job titles that regularly get complained about in an uninformed manner as if everyone in that profession is problematic:

Recruiters and Headhunters (internal/corporate, contingency and retained)

Web Designers

Human Resources Personnel

Police Officers

Accountants

Doctors

Home Improvement / Construction Personnel

Attorneys

Salespeople

…and any government employee, just to name a few…

So, let’s take a detour about the harm of judging without proper information.  I learned early in my life of the preconceived notions others can have about a profession – my father was a Kansas City, Missouri Police Officer.  No other profession gets the kind of ill treatment and almost gleeful bad press as police officers.  Despite their hard work, he and his colleagues were, and still are, called racists, cruel, stupid, Neo Nazi’s, pigs, and many inappropriate words I can’t put in this article. From being cursed at, yelled at and sometimes nearly killed for giving someone a speeding ticket, to being shot at for trying to stop a crime in process, both the dangers and inane comments are endless.  Yes, some police officers have been awful people, but most civilians know that this is a very small portion of the profession as a whole and don’t spend their time putting ill-informed comments on the Internet saying all policeman are bad.

My father was a true hero in every sense of the word and taught me never to make blanket assertions about a person, their job and industry in general, race, religion or politics, but to look at the whole individual and their true intent.  Here’s a small encapsulation of his career:  Medal of Valor, Police Officer of the Year, Police Officer of the Month, featured on television (multiple interviews), the Kansas City Star, and The Call, numerous commendations, promotion to Detective, promotion to Sergeant, promotion to the head of the Auto Theft Unit, progression to Central Patrol Desk Sergeant in one of the toughest inner city precincts, and Sergeant on the street and Watch Commander (a huge honor), and where he loved to be – helping people directly.  He also passed the torch in both the lives he touched and police officers he mentored.

I know personally he experienced bias and assumptions merely because of the badge he wore, but didn’t allow the ill-informed to keep him from protecting the public. He shook the comments and biases off so he could do his job well.  I am proud to say I am his daughter, I look like him, have his Type A personality, have no fear of speaking in public, am entrepreneurial (he always wanted to own a business), and I don’t judge everyone in stereotypes due to what might have been a bad experience or just ignorance.  Just as my father, we as a profession should not allow an occasional uninformed article to affect our work.

Every single profession, inclusive of entrepreneurs, has the malignant personality, the lazy, the exploiter, the hobbyist, the racist or bigot, the micromanager who trusts no one, and the inept.  To categorize an entire industry negatively makes the person complaining look bad, NOT the industry, as most people reading Mr. Charney’s article will take it for what it is, blathering for attention – sorry Matt, but you are way off base this time (but I still love most of your posts and articles and will continue to share them online – as I am not judging you on just one article).  Some people like to complain about others to make themselves feel better as a person, and some to make people mad.  Shake it off, it’s not worth the anger, worry or emotion.  To quote the Taylor Swift song that I used for the article title, “and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate,” SHAKE IT OFF!

 

Karen Silins is a multi-certified resume writer, career, business and personal branding coach working with individuals and small businesses.  After graduating with degrees in education and vocal performance, she made her own career transition into the Human Resources realm.  Karen left Human Resources to become an entrepreneur and help jobseekers and fellow entrepreneurs achieve their goals.  She keeps her pulse on the resume writing, coaching, HR, small business and marketing industries by consulting for small businesses in business plan development, marketing, hiring and overall HR processes, working daily with individual clients on resume development and career coaching, and providing 50-70+ seminars and workshops annually to a variety of organizations in the greater Kansas City area.  She be reached via her website at www.careerandresume.com. 

Categories Opinion, Personal Branding
Comments (0)

Is the Resume Dead?

February 21st, 2013
Is the Resume Dead?

Job Interview

This was my recent answer on a Goggle+ thread as to whether the resume is dead:

No, because the resume ultimately helps you to develop the information/data/verbiage to communicate your personal brand – essentially it is a marketing document and tool, no longer just static and non-interactive because of its multiple uses. From utilizing content for appropriate social networking and blogging to online applications and in-person networking, to showcasing writing ability, it is still a necessary tool in hiring. It is no longer just a piece of paper.
While yes, I am a resume writer, I am also a career coach in personal branding, networking (including social networking), interviewing, job search, career exploration and transition, and career management, which also includes aiding businesses and their owners in marketing. I would have enough business just on the coaching side alone, but find the resume along with the detailed interview process I go through an absolute necessity in formulating my clients overall job search or business strategy. The resume and a comprehensive process to create it dovetail’s the development of additional marketing verbiage so essential in JobSearch 2.0 and Business 2.0.
The resume will never be dead, but will morph with the times, just as it has always done. We will see the use of resume mills and forms-only to fill out for the design of career documents replaced by personal interviews and actual time spent strategizing for it true use – marketing. As I began to state above in the first paragraph, resumes and cover letters are used in job search, interviews, networking, writing examples, to plan social media, blogging, website verbiage and selection of keywords for SEO, and career planning and management.  I’ve seen these articles come out regularly saying the resume is dead over the last 20+ years of my former HR career and current resume writing and career coaching business – and they never go away, they adapt.
Categories Job Search, Resume Writing
Comments (0)

Recent Posts

  • Positive Self-Talk Can Increase Women’s Career and Personal Achievement
  • Time Chunking for Time Management Success
  • The New Candidate Profiles and Their Impact on Your Job Search or Business

Categories

  • Business Coaching
  • Career Coaching
  • Career Exploration
  • Career Management
  • Career Transition
  • Careers
  • Human Resources
  • Inspiration
  • Interviews
  • Job Search
  • Life Coaching
  • Networking
  • Opinion
  • Personal Branding
  • Resume Writing
  • Talent Management
  • Uncategorized

Archives

Tags

career career advancement career coaching career management careers career search corporate america Employee Engagement hiring HR Human Resources interview interviewing interviews job job candidate Job Hunt job interview jobs job search job searches job searching jobseeker job seeker jobseekers LinkedIn networking online job search online job searching personal brand Personal Branding professional development Recruiters recruiting resume resume development resumes Resume Writers resume writing social media social media profiles social networking training unemployed unemployment

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org
A-Plus Career and Resume, LLC
Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved
iThemes Builder by iThemes
Powered by WordPress