Your Resume and Your Personality

Does Your Resume Have Any Personality?

Sure, you have plenty of personality, but are you able to convey that in your resume?

Take a look at your resume and read it through like a professional hiring manager would. Is it interesting? Is it boring? Would you fall asleep if you had to read your own resume at 10:00 p.m. at night (like some human resource professionals have to do)?

Creating a resume that gets read from top to bottom is not easy. To do so means you have to interject active, vibrant language throughout your resume. That doesn’t mean you need to use a lot of jargon or slang; quite the contrary. Flowery speech will get your resume tossed out. Words that show enthusiasm, confidence, responsibility and accomplishments are what will keep a reader glued to your resume.

Let your personality show through your resume and your cover letter. So many resumes are dull and lifeless. No wonder they’re so painful to read sometimes. Let the prospective employer know that you enjoy your line of work and that you feel great about going to work each day. (If that isn’t the case, you probably need to evaluate the possibility of a career change).

Your resume has to be professional, but it does not have to be boring. Add some interest by changing out a few words here and there. Show some energy and excitement about your chosen career field. By doing so, you will let the employer know that you want the job and that, by inference, you’ll work hard and be successful.

After all, happy employees are productive employees. If you like what you do, you’ll probably do a much better job than someone who hates it, right?

So, show your personality in your resume. Make it interesting. The employer will thank you.

Brought to you by: Professional-Resume-Example.com

Using a Resume Outline

The Resume Outline identifies the major headings of the resume and what information is contained within each one. Make sure you are comfortable with each of the following sections since you will be creating your own personal professional history with them in mind.

Heading/Contact Information
Objective
Education
Work Experience
Honors/Activities/Achievements/Publications
Other

Do you know what kind of information is contained in each section?

Click here for a description of each section: Resume Outline

This resume outline should provide you with a basic understanding of the sections of a resume. While different formats use these sections in a variety of ways, the information is used in each resume.

If you need more information than this resume outline offers, peruse the site listed above. The formats tab and the examples tab both provide a great deal of information.

Best of Luck

Professional-Resume-Example.com

What You Should NEVER Include in Your Professional Resume

By Tracey Drake

There is one golden rule in resume writing- never include information such as hobbies, race, marital status and political information on a resume. In the 1960s it used to be very popular to include a lot of personal information on your resume. That was an era when the employer wanted to know a lot about your personal life because they would use that information in the decision making process. That was also an era when there were not as many discrimination laws and employers were able to hire and fire on a variety of different reasons. Times have definitely changed and most employers have decided that they don’t need to know that information. Choosing individuals to interview and hire has become a lot more objective and they would prefer that they only know your work history rather than you personal history. Despite all of this, there are still those individuals that decide to include that information either as filler to make their resume longer or because they simply don’t know any better.

You are only setting yourself up for disappointment by including personal information on your resume. The number one item that is included on resumes, that shouldn’t be, is marital status. Potential employees should never know whether or not you are married, single or have children. This suggests that you will be preoccupied with sick children, trips to the doctor, teacher conferences, school events, etc. These things will get your potential employer preoccupied with thoughts of you missing work. Employers should also not know if you are single. This may make them think thoughts like, “Great, we’ll get him or her to work long hours or weekends!” If you are married, they might think that your spouse won’t want you to work late.

Your height and weight should also not be included in your resume. This does not really matter to your position and it is definitely too personal, but people still include this on their resumes. Also, nobody cares whether or not you like to bowl, golf, surf the Internet, take long walks on the beach and play with your puppy. These are just not necessary for a resume and your hobbies are not selling you on the position.

Other aspects that should not be included on your resume include religious and political affiliations. These open you up to personal preferences and prejudices. Potential employers may be very tempted to use this type of information against you.

Another popular feature that was included on resumes “back in the days,” was personal photographs. This is not a portfolio or an actor’s promotion pack. You are not trying to land a part, but a career. Your picture shows people what you look like and this may make them disregard the important information on you resume. This also allows them to make assumptions about you and you shouldn’t give people that opportunity. A picture will also open you up to prejudices and may keep you from getting interviews.

If you have not been in the job market for quite some time, it is time to make your resume comply with today’s guidelines. Too many individuals fail to update their resumes on a regular basis when you should be doing this regardless of whether or not you plan on leaving your current job. It is better to be prepared and always have a resume ready than to have to update one that is twenty years old.

Many students are led astray by word processing programs that suggest you had areas such as hobbies and interests. These areas are not essential and they should not be used. These areas simply add filler and nonsense to a functional resume. You are also tempted to leave personal comments that you will not want included in your resume. If you are unsure about certain areas of your resume, have friends, family, colleagues and career-counselors examine your resume and give you suggestions. Many career-counseling offices at colleges offer free resume counseling services.

© Career-Launch – specializes in effective and focused resume packages, written by industry certified professional writers. Career-Launch has written thousands of successful resumes to date for clients across a diverse range of industries and career choices. Any reproduction or reprint of this article must include this information.

Article Source:

Tracey Drake

Article at EzineArticles.com

Brought to you by: Professional-Resume-Example.com

Leaving the Military

If you are in the process of leaving the military for civilian life, expect some big changes. If you have already left the military and are embarking on a new career, you already have a bit of a grasp of how difficult it is to make the transition.

One of the most frustrating aspects of changing careers from military to civilian is transforming your resume from jargon and acronyms to terms that ordinary folks can understand. My husband went through this when he left the Air Force and started looking for work in the corporate world. It's not easy to translate Combat Communications Officer into something that corporate employers are going to understand.

Something that will be of immense help to you is the option of viewing a real resume prepared by a service member which was actually used to find a position with a major international manufacturing corporation.

Take a look at this link to see how one person's resume was updated from a military perspective toward a more civilian perspective. Understand that some things just do not translate well, so it's a challenge no matter what you've done in the past. Just keep revising your resume and ask others to review it for you.

Here's the link: Military to Civilian

Will a Resume Get You a Job?

Will a Resume Get You a Job?

That question is asked over and over again in Career Placement Centers, Employment Offices and on forums on the Internet. Will a resume get you a job?

The short answer is "no".

A resume will not get you a job. What a resume will do, if it is done effectively, is pave the way for an interview. Employers use resumes to decide who they think is best suited for the job and typically weed out enough poorly written resumes to narrow the candidate pool to 5-6 good candidates. (Some companies have a higher number than that and others have a lower number. It depends on the organization and how they structure the interview process.)

If you want to be counted among those 5-6 candidates who are called in for an interview, then your resume DOES have to be outstanding.

Will a resume get you a job? Now, let's answer that question a different way. A resume is a necessary part of getting a good job. Does that contradict the first statement? No, it doesn't. A resume on its own can only do so much, but without it, at least with most companies, you cannot even get anyone to acknowledge you. You must have a resume in order to get your foot in the door in many companies.

Of course, not any resume will do. Some of the people that you are competing against for jobs are going to spend a lot of time and money crafting excellent resumes. Yours has to be just as good – preferably better.

You don't need a professional resume service, either. What you need is the right information and the best guidelines to provide you with everything you need so that you can create your own top-notch resume.

It may take more time to write an excellent resume, but a poorly written resume isn't going to do any good at all, so either write the best resume you can write or don't bother writing one at all. It is just that important.

Here are some links that might be helpful to you:

'Resume Tips'

• 'Resume Do's and Don'ts'
  
  
• 'Resume Keywords'
  
  
  
  
  • 'More About Resume Keywords'
    
    
  
  
• 'Four Resume Tips'
  
  
• 'Resume Checklist'
  
  
• 'Professional Resume Advice'
  
  
• 'Resume Mistakes'
  
  
• 'Build Your Resume'
  
  
• 'Resume Components'
  
  
• 'Resume Brainstorming'
  
  
• 'How to Make a Resume'
  
  
  

Boost Your Resume And Get That Job!

Boost Your Resume And Get That Job

1. Market yourself with your objective statement. The successful use of an objective statement targets each position the candidate is seeking, while subtly selling specific skills in a way that benefits the employer. Define some of your finest qualities and present them as a means for the company to achieve greater results. This is not a statement about "What I want from the company." It's a statement about "What I have and how it will assist the organization for which I work."
2. Target the employer. Everything in your resume should be directed toward one goal: Getting a specific job at a particular company. Each one of your resumes should be uniquely targeted to an audience of ONE.
3. Define yourself in terms of skills and accomplishments. An employer wants to know what kind of person you are. Show the employer that you are a problem solver, results-oriented, loyal and determined to succeed and you will do much better at making a good impression than someone who simply states their employment history.
4. Quantify your accomplishments. What does that mean? It means that you need to create a solid picture of what you have achieved in the past. Don’t just tell the employer what you have done in the past. Show how you have been successful by concrete examples of your performance. For instance, if you are a customer service manager and you created and implemented a new workflow pattern that improved the response time to customer’s inquiries, then state the percentage of improvement in customer satisfaction something along those lines.
5. Use action verbs to boost your resume's appeal. If you want a prospective employer to take notice of your resume, you will need to use words that jump off the paper. Get the attention you deserve by presenting your skills and accomplishments in an influencial and appealing way.

If you would like more information about writing an outstanding resume, take a look at the links below:

Resume Dos and Don'ts

The Resume Checklist