Resume Tips
It is obvious that many people go to colleges; universities get their
degrees and thought that life is going to be good and the future is
going to be great. It is after struggling to find a job for months do
they realize that it is not as straight forward as it seems. You might
be a graduate from MIT or even Harvard but if you don't have a good and
professional resume, it will kill you.
You have invested in yourself by spending tens of thousands of dollars
to get your degree. Your whole life had been studying and learning to
the point that you are ready to reap the rewards. What do you do then?
Go to Google and grab a resume template. It sounds really idiotic but
just wait a minute and ask yourself this question. Isn't everybody
doing that too! Oh yes, you've just joined the me-too group of job
seekers.
In lots of marketing events you will always hear the marketing gurus
say this. You need to differentiate yourself. You need to stand out
from the rest. It is true. In every industry, only the top 5 players
can be guaranteed of survival. Look around you and you will realize
that the smaller players eventually fades off and new companies start
to come to the scene and this cycle just repeats itself ever since the
dawn of time.
That's the reason why you need to stand out from the rest. It doesn't
matter where you graduated or how good your communication skills are.
You need to be able to strike interest and gain the HR executive's
attention. These folks normally spend less than 30-45 seconds reviewing
each resume. You could expect at least 100-300 applicants applying for
each job.
How Do You Get Your Resume Noticed?
First of all, forget about cover letters. Who reads it anyway? Through
my experience serving the likes of large companies like IBM, Accenture,
HP, Unilever and many more, there's one thing for sure. You do not need
to send a cover letter. This information just helped you saved 100USD
and I hope the resume providers don't hunt me down for sharing this
piece of information.
I am going to share these trade secrets with you and please read it carefully.
Step 1
1. Do A Spell Check
HR executives hate it when applicants send word documents that are not
checked and you get all sorts of red and greens from the error from
Microsoft Word. Like I say before, they only spend 30-40 seconds
reading each email. Their job is to just send the resume to the hiring
manager and they need the resume to be perfectly readable. You can make
their job easier by spell checking.
2. Never Use More Than 1 Font.
A lot of times, I realized that most resumes that comes from India has
got this problem. Apparently there are 4-5 different fonts with
different sizes hijacking the resume. This makes my eyes pop up at
times. Please avoid that. Don't use fancy fonts as well.
3. Drop the Cover Letters
Instead of paying hundreds and getting a 1-2 page cover letter that
will confuse the HR executives, choose to write a small 1-2 paragraph
of executive summary that is around 4-5 lines telling the HR executives
what specific job you are applying and what are your strengths. Why no
cover letters? Do you know how troublesome it is to file two documents
instead of one? I can vouch that HR executives don't read cover
letters. Period.
4. Use A Professional Looking Template
Please get a professional looking template. If you want to get average
returns, you can do whatever the others are doing. Know the secrets of
what those who work in large MNCs are doing. You need to have a resume
that will excite the HR executives. One that is so good that they
simply do not need do anything and can forward straightaway.
5. Knowing What A Job-Winning Resume Look Like
If you are applying for a job of an IT Consultant, you need to know
what it looks like. Similarly for SAP, Oracle Consultants, Executive
Director, Sales Manager, CPA, Account...etc. You need to know what a
job-winning resume look like. There are lots of bogus resume providers
out there. It's simple to setup a website and boast you are the best or
the cheapest. But you seriously need to ask whether they know what
they're doing about. It is better to work with vendors who walk the
talk and preferably in the headhunting industry so that they know what
they're doing. The job of the resume providers are there to fill the
gaps and to consult/advise you on how they can best present you to the
companies at large.
Coming back to the topic, 'Who Took Your Million Dollar Job'? I would
like to ask you this question. Do you know of anybody who's in the same
job as you who are making another $500 or $1000 extra? What if you can
get the same deal or even better? Imagine you having $500 more every
month. This adds up to around $6,000 a year excluding bonuses. If you
were to multiply by 30 years it would add up to $180,000. However, if
you were to compound the bonuses over the 30 years, you would be
getting close to 1 Million Dollars. Now you ask, 'Who Took Your Million
Dollars?'
The only fear is to sit around and do nothing. Here's the paradigm
shift. If you always think the others are good and that's why they get
good paying jobs then please go on complaining and bitching about how
life sucks. I can assure you that a lot of them don't deserve the jobs
they have but are there because they invested in themselves. They are
there because they might have done something right. You might be next.
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