Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Benefits Of The Combination Resume

CV resume writing is not a difficult task if the right blend of the functional and chronological resume is adopted. This type of resume is called the combination resume and thus, helps the candidate to successfully bag the job. Combination CV resume writing is ideal for those persons who wish to include the volunteer and internship career services in their resume. They are also best suited for those who have a diverse employment history and a switch in careers. One must ensure that the combination resume highlights the right features and hence, must be cautious when drafting this resume.

Also known as the Hybrid resume, the ‘Combination Resume’ is a good choice for experienced professionals who have attained many years of work experience. Ideal for older workers the combination resume highlight valuable skills and abilities of the worker with success. In addition to this, the combination resume also portray the applicant’s talents and accomplishments with success. CV resume writing of the combination format is very simple and combines the assets of the functional and chronological styles. The combination format carries more professional weightage and hence, can reassure prospective employers in a better way than the other single formats. The combination formats are also ideal for freelancers and hence, can be effectively adopted. Freelancers benefit from this format because they are professionals wit varied work history and hence, carry valuable skills. They work on several small projects and these projects can be successfully projected through this CV resume writing format. Freelancers are now using this format and out of all the three styles, this is the best suited one.

The combination resume provides the future employers with the advantages of the professional chronological design layout that they desire. These employers can also get a snapshot of an applicant’s work history at a glance. It is not mandatory that the facts and the dates of the employment have to be mentioned. The combination resume can clearly highlight the applicant’s skill sets and accomplishments coupled with related work assets. In fact, the combination resume actually stands out and hence, catches the eye of the employer very easily. CV resume writing with the help of the combination resume can help the applicant to create a positive impact on the employer. The presentation format has a lot of quality and this is what makes it stand out from the rest of the two formats with ease. The combination resume is very eye catching and can attract the attention of the employer very easily.

There is only one disadvantage of the combination resumes and that is this format can be very repetitive with a set of similar jobs and skills. It is advised during CV resume writing of the combination format to proof read it many, so that excessive repetitions can be avoided. This resume is highly popular and is being used by many job applicants in the job market today. They are also very concise and informative sources of information on the applicant’s professional work history in detail.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

What is a Resume

A resume is a selling tool that outlines your skills and experiences so an employer can see you with a look and in what ways you can add to the employer's workplace. A resume must advertise you in short.

While you might have all the requirements for a specific position, a resume is a total loss if a employer does not instantly reach the conclusion that you "have what it takes." The first barrier a resume have to accomplish is whether your resume turns up in the "plausible section" or the "decline folder" which may take less than thirty seconds.

One of the most successful resumes are obviously focused on a certain job title and speaks to the employer's stated requirements for the job. The more one knows of the work and skills mandatory for the job to edit your resume around these notes, the more effective the resume.

One will need information to write a good resume. Not just information about jobs you've held in the past but also information to select the most related accomplishments, skills and experience for this job. The more you are acquainted concerning the employer and the job, the more you can fit your resume to size the position.

Some job seekers think of a resume as their life on a page but how could anyone put everything important about themselves on a single sheet of paper (or two)? To be true, resumes are a lot more specific, adding only related information regarding you for specific employers.

Similar to a life, a resume is always growing and changing. As your career goals shift or the job market changes, as you grow personally and professionally;most likely you may have to re-write your resume or at least write new versions. Writing a resume is a lifelong attempt.

Best Regards,
Jack Wong

Thursday, October 28, 2010

5 Essential Elements in a Resume

Whether you are writing a resume for a job, volunteer, or school application it's a daunting task ahead of you. You've probably procrastinated this long enough confused of how you should write a resume. Although resumes vary in their purposes and template, you should always remember these few essential elements in your resume:contact information, mission/objective statement, accomplishments, education experience, and most importantly you should review your resume before submission.

Contact Information:
Whenever you are writing a resume it is important to always include correct contact information ensuring that it is valid and up to date so your potential employer may contact you. It is vital you check your resume before submitting, confirming your contact information includes your name, email, phone number and address. You should also verify that all your information is up to date. so often people forget to update their information when they have moved or changed providers especially if they are reusing a previous resume(which they shouldn't) and this often cause a lot of miscommunication between potential employers and employees that could cause them the job.

Objective Statement
Another factor to consider is your mission and objective statement. Your objective statement should be located near the top of your resume which will outline your goals and intentions. Many people keep their objective statement vague but in reality you should be precise and to the point. Employers have to review tons of resume and they are probably looking for a specific position to fill, if you make your objective statement vague there is a possibility that it may end up in the trash.

Accomplishments:
In any resume your accomplishment is a key point to include, a resume should be created to show off yourself so you should include any major events, ability or achievements, previous work accomplishment or anything that would make you stand out above all the other applicants. This should be included regardless of your age or experience. It may be hard to do so if you are just starting out or haven't done much but it's essential. Try to think of anything you have been involved in, I'm sure you can think of something. Even if you're just coming out of school there are many things you can include. I find my brain process better and is able to recall events in silence so give it a try, sit down and go through your life.

Education Experience
You should always include your education whenever you are writing a resume. This includes any courses or schooling you have taken, completed or in process of and your GPA if it's significant. You should present this in order of your most recent to the latter with your most recent schooling or course you have attended listed first. If you've yet to completed a course or graduated you should include the course you are attending and the expected date of graduation.

Reviewing your Resume:
Finally it's time to proof-read your resume, this is a vital part to the process of completing your resume. Make sure that your resume is free of typos and grammar mistakes, check through, edit, check through, edit, check through and edit again. Then when you finally think your resume is to your best ability without any mistakes check through once more and have a friend review it. It is important that you ensure there are no callas mistakes or worse painfully obvious mistakes present on your resume since this indicates a lot about you when reviewers review your application.

Targeting:
Also remember to make your resumes targeted, you shouldn't be reusing resumes for different jobs you may be able to reuse the template but you shouldn't just print out a 100 copies of one resume and hand it to 100 jobs. You should make your resume appeal to the company you are potentially working for with facts and facts alone. Also remember to include previous work experience or anything else that would draw eyes to your resume. I have to stress and remind constantly that a resume is meant to attract your potential employer and make yourself stand out from the rest.

Now remember these tips when you are writing your resume, do some more read up and research. And don't forget to continue following our blog for more posts. And don't forget these are just some of the many elements in a resume. Be sure to include these but don't live by these alone. We may be having a follow up post on this one to cover work experience and a few other elements on include. Also often you can get relatively good resume template on Microsoft Word. To do this when you create a new document select "resume" and choose what applies to you. I'm currently in the process of getting PLR (Private Label Rights) to a book so that I may give loyal readers and followers this additional resource FREE as I encourage additional reading and research. You never know you may find it a blast.

Be sure you tune back to our blog for more on resume and job application help.

And Thanks for Reading.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Top Five Tips to Give Your Resume the Much-Needed Boost

Resume is a marketing tool, which showcases the skills of a professional to the prospective employers. This is perhaps a decisive step in the pursuit of getting a job, so it should be fool-proof. There are a number of aspects that play an important role in boosting your resume, however customizing that to a specific job is the key. Let's see what all factors contribute in creating a successful resume.

Top Five Tips from the HR managers

The most repeated question to a HR manager is what they look for on a resume, which comes to their inbox? In 2008, many HR managers across United States have been interviewed by E-Mail to find some tips to creating a successful resume. The common answer to that cliché question is to keep the resume and covering letter customized according to the company and the Industry.

1. Customizing the Resume

In simple words, if you are looking for a job in the manufacturing, try to avoid the credentials of IT industry and vice versa. The common practice that we could see across the globe is creating one generic resume for the jobs across all the industries. This is fatal, when it comes to boosting your resume. Customize the resume as per your requirements.

2. Focus on Resume Objective

These are the commons things, which the candidate should give emphasis on.

* Give emphasis on background and skill
* Do not clutter the resume with 'too much' information
* Keep it short
* Be clear of the Job description and use resume writing tips to alter the resume accordingly.

3. Small Changes Can Make Big Difference

Let's take an example of a job opening for a copy writer for a text book publishing company. As the primary step, the job seeker should thoroughly go through the company's website and learn more about their way of doing business, products and more importantly about the job profile. The next step, which the job seeker should do, is to create a resume that emphasis on his/her accomplishments, skills sets and experience pertaining to the job profile. The resume should always be send along with a customized and well written Cover letter. While writing a resume one must encompass all the excitement and enthusiasm of the self, so as to entice the employer when they flip through it.

4. Give Emphasis on Your Accomplishments

If you are applying for the post of a Sales Professional, nothing else matters than the number of sales you have closed in your previous job. As sales rely more on numbers, it is important to have a good sales record to present in your resume. Show all your achievements on your résumé, even if you think some might not hold any value. In some case you will make the cut if you have won accolades for some thing like 'good presentation' and you are applying for a position which needs to have good presentation skills.

5. Inject Some Vigor in Your Writing

Routine resumes can take you nowhere. To add certain vigor to your Curriculum Vitae you can take the help of some resume software or even a professional resume writer for creating a successful resume.

Finally, the main focus should be on making your resume outstanding so as to make others believe in your capabilities.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Three C’s of creating a resume

Irrespective of the job that you are looking for, you need to follow the three principles or three C’s of resume writing to get a good feedback. The three C’s refer to Clarity, Coherence and Confidence – the main ingredients of a great resume.

Clarity

Having clarity of all the aspects to be contained in a resume is very important. You must have a well stated and obvious objective. Also, you must include all the necessary information pertaining to your educational background and employment history. Everything that is required for the job should be visible. If you can present an easily readable resume, you stand greater chances of being considered for the position.

Coherence

You always write a resume with a purpose. Therefore, you must provide all the relevant information to get noticed. For instance, if you are now applying for the post of an executive, you need not mention what you’ve done in your college days or when you were struggling. Maintain coherence. Giving irrelevant information would bore the readers and they might not even notice what you’ve mentioned in the later part of your resume. Be professional and highlight your objective.

Confidence

Your resume should reveal confidence. Employers prefer those candidates, who are confident about their skills and abilities, and therefore it is extremely important to utilize the correct words and phrases to demonstrate your level of confidence in writing your resume. Nonetheless, you must be clear about the subtle difference between confidence and overconfidence. Confidence seems good but overconfidence is taken as arrogance. Avoid being excessively foregoing in explaining your capabilities and proficiency. Sentences that begin with “I am confident…” or “I am capable…” sounds better than something like “I am the only one…” These fine lines must be taken into account while applying for a job.

In a nutshell, you ought to be clear, coherent as well as confident in your approach, but within your limits. Your resume should be professional and very well written to match the expectation of the position that you wish to see yourself in.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Electronically Submitting Your Resume

In order for those large job sites like monster.com and hotjobs.com to work in your favor, you are going to have to submit a personal profile and a copy of your resume. If the website that you are using to find a job doesn't have a ‘fill in the blank’ template for your resume, you should be able to upload your resume as a Microsoft Word document.

In addition to having to figure out how to upload your resume to a job hunting website, you should also learn how to email a copy of your resume. It is not at all unusual for an employer to ask for another copy of your resume (they want to see if anything has changed since you first uploaded your original resume).

Follow the Directions

Don't zone out when a potential employer asks you to email a copy of your resume. Different employers have different ways in which they want your resume to be emailed. The most common methods for sending a resume are attached to the email, or as the body of the email. Make sure that you listen very carefully when they tell you how they want the resume sent. If they don't give you any specific instructions, you should ask. A perspective employer would rather have you ask questions when you don't understand something as opposed to you sending something incorrectly.

You should also make sure that you know exactly who you are supposed to send your resume to. Some employer's will have you email directly to them while others will have want you to send it to someone else. Not following these simple instructions can cost you the job.

Proof Before You Hit Send

Before you attach the resume to your email, you should spend a few minutes looking it over. Not only do you want to make sure that all of the information is correct, but you want to make sure that it is free of typos and other mistakes.

After attaching your resume and before you hit the send button, take a few minutes that you are sending your resume exactly the way you were instructed and that you have entered the correct address for the recipient.

Be Professional

Due to the fact that you aren't dealing with any people face to face, there may be a tendency to forget that a lot hinges on your professionalism. Make sure that all of your correspondence uses proper grammar and is properly punctuated. Treat all of your email correspondence just like you would a physical application.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Drafting Your Resume

You will find that writing your resume will be easier if you sit down and think of why you are working on a resume first. If you don't have a job than the reason for writing your resume is easy, you need to work, but if you currently have a job and are making a weekly paycheck the reason for seeking a new job are often more complex.

Reasons that People Look For a Different Job

The most common reason that people start to look for a new job when they already have one is because they don't like their current situation. They are not getting any pleasure from going to work and the only reason they get out of bed in the morning is so that they will have enough money to pay the bills,

Other people start to look for a different job because they want to grow professionally and they don't feel that their current place of employment allows them to do that.

Some people start looking for another job because they have very definite career goals and their current job is little more than something to do while they looked for something that would put them on the correct career path.

Once you know why you are looking for a different job, you will be able to address those issues when you are drafting your resume.

Why Employers Want Your Employment History

Although a potential employer will want to know how well educated you are, they aren't nearly as interested in your education as they are in your employment history.

The first thing they are going to be looking at is how long have you been employed. They want to know if you are someone who is going to be around for a several years, or if you are someone that will only stick around until a better offer comes around.

In addition to wanting to know how long you routinely hold a job, you should also make sure that you include what your duties were while you were employed by a particular company. For example if you spent five years working as a stable, you should tell them that you taught lessons and managed the barn and kept the books or else the potential employer is going to assume that the only thing you did was clean stalls.

When you are writing your resume make sure you include the contact information of the person who oversaw you. If a potential employer is interested in hiring you they will want to speak to your former employers.

Other Information

In addition to your employment history and a summery of your life, you should also make sure that you include a list of your important life experiences and provide information about your educational background.