Susan writes, “A recruiter has asked me to submit a CV. How is a CV different than a resume?”Kim’s Answer: Check with the recruiter to clarify what he or she means by a CV. Many people use the terms “CV” and “resume” interchangeably, so the recruiter might want to see your traditional resume.In the US, a Curriculum Vitae (“course of one’s life”) is primarily used by people in medical, academic, and scientific professions. If the recruiter is submitting your resume to an academic, medical, or scientific institution, then you most likely will need a CV. A CV can be multiple pages (especially if you have many years of experience), and you should list all credentials, but not necessarily boast (as in a resume) about your achievements.Typical headings of a CV include education, internships, professional experience, awards and honors, publications (books, articles, reports, journals), speaking engagements, conferences, and professional affiliations.Good luck with this opportunity!Kim Isaacs
Resume Quick Tip: What is a CV (Curriculum Vitae)?
Resume Writing Tip: Objective or Qualifications Summary?
Ron writes, “I have been getting conflicting advice about my resume. Some say I should have a summary at the top, others want an objective, while others don’t want either. What should I do?”Kim’s Answer: Sorry to hear that you’ve been receiving conflicting advice. There are no set “rules” of resume writing, so even the experts agree to disagree. You need to take in all of the available information and make decisions that work for you. If you find that you’re not getting any responses with one strategy, revisit your resume and try something else.We’ve found that resumes that use a qualifications summary can be quite effective, and you can omit the formal objective section by weaving your career goal into a hard-hitting summary statement.Best wishes for a successful job search!Kim Isaacs
Dispelling the Myth of the One-Page Resume Rule
I’ve been recommending two-page (or longer) resumes for most experienced professionals since the 1990s. But the old myth that a resume should only be one page is still floating around.Even though hiring managers may wade through hundreds or thousands of resumes to find qualified applicants, most professionals need at least two pages to adequately present a “value proposition.” A one-page resume doesn’t leave much room to expand on accomplishments, key skills, and other credentials that will help generate interviews. Yes, it’s true that a two-page resume might not get thoroughly read at the first pass, but if it’s well organized and easy to scan, the additional information can tip the odds in favor of securing an interview. Also, the resume may get read more thoroughly at the time of your interview.If you use a two-page resume, be sure to include your strongest information (such as degrees and significant accomplishments) on page one. Here’s a link to an article on the subject of resume length: How to Decide on Resume LengthBest wishes,Kim Isaacs
Summer Job Search Tips
Many people slow down their job search efforts in the summer. Is this a mistake? Are there opportunities in the summer that job seekers could miss if they’re taking a break? Check out my new article on Monster.com to find out:Sizzling Summer Job Search TipsStay cool,Kim Isaacs
Jott.com: Great Tool for Job Seekers
Country singer George Strait’s song, “Write This Down” asks his lover to write down that he loves her because he “forgot” to tell her while they were together. Too late, because she’s leaving. It’s a shame he couldn’t use Jott.com, a new service (currently available in the U.S. and Canada) that allows you to call a toll-free number and have your voice message transcribed and emailed/text-messaged to yourself or the person or group of your choice.Jott.com has great potential to help job seekers. For example, have you ever sat down to write an interview thank-you note, but realized you forgot important information from the meeting? With a free account from Jott.com, you could call Jott.com from your cell phone immediately after a job interview and narrate important points, and the email will be waiting for you when you return home. The service transcribes your voice message, so it’s also a productivity booster. You have to speak clearly (as is the case for any voice recognition program) and the message might not be perfect. I sent myself a message to remember the song “Write This Down” for this blog post, and received an email that said, “Likes this sound.” I have to remember to take the marbles out of my mouth, because other Jotts I’ve tested have been close to perfect.Hat tip goes to John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing (from the Duct Tape Marketing Newsletter)Best wishes,Kim Isaacs
Out of Combat and Into the Job Search War Zone
Veterans often have questions about how to present their military experience for private-sector jobs, and those with combat experience can be even more confused about how to portray wartime experience. I was interviewed by Tranette Ledford, a writer for military publication Decision Times, about the best way to highlight combat experience on a resume. You can read the Q&A here:Does combat experience belong on your resume?Best wishes,Kim Isaacs
Free Resume Critique from ResumePower.com: Critique #2
Here we go again! The second free resume critique is posted below. Remember, resume writing is subjective and is an art as much as a science, so you might have different recommendations for the job seeker. Feel free to post your feedback in the Comments section — all opinions are welcome!
ResumePower Resume Critique #2Format and Content Recommendations:1. Change your resume from a functional style to a combination style. Combination resumes list employment history in reverse chronological order, and lead with a qualifications summary highlighting your strongest skills. Combination resumes work well for the majority of job seekers. Functional resumes (also called “skills resumes”) are the least-preferred format, and are often used by people trying to hide something (such as employment gaps or job-hopping). You could be sending red flags before your resume is even read (if it gets that far).2. Add a headline. This replaces the objective in your current resume, and goes directly below your name and contact information. Although objectives can be useful for recent graduates or career changers, professionals on an established career path are better served by using a headline, tagline, and qualifications summary. The headline gives you a way to quickly communicate your career goal and qualifications. Try something like, “Experienced Administrative Support Professional.”3. Add a tagline directly below your title. You can use this to sum up your breadth of experience.Here’s how your headline and tagline might look:EXPERIENCED ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT PROFESSIONALOffering expertise in MS Office and versatile skills that include executive support, bookkeeping, accounting, purchasing, and customer relations4. Add a qualifications summary. This section goes below the headline and tagline, and can be written as a few bulleted statements or as a brief paragraph. Summarize the key strengths and value you bring to the table.5. Add a key skills section. Most commonly written as a bulleted list in a two- or three-column format, this section helps maximize keyword density in your resume. Here are a few examples of keywords that you might want to include in your skills section:
- Front Desk/Office Management
- Bookkeeping & Accounting
- Spreadsheet Creation
- Database Administration
- Executive Calendaring
- Meeting & Event Planning
- Records Management
- Data Entry (75+ WPM)
- Purchasing/Inventory Management
- Reports/Presentations/Proposals
6. Create a professional experience section.This is the “meat and potatoes” of your resume, and it should include your employer names and locations, your job titles, and employment dates, followed by a brief description of your responsibilities. Create a bulleted list of “Key Accomplishments” for your most recent jobs (going back ten years or so). You can briefly summarize your earlier experience in an “Early Career” section to save space.Use some of the content from your current “Job Skills” section to describe your daily responsibilities. For your “Key Accomplishments,” incorporate content from your “Special Achievements” section, and then expand this so that you have several “Key Accomplishments” bullets for each job.Your accomplishments should include examples of results, outcomes, and benefits you have delivered. Try to quantify your accomplishments with numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, or before/after comparisons to add credibility to your claims. You did this in the fist “special achievement” that you list on your current resume.To avoid the appearance of job-hopping, group your temporary assignments together.7. Omit references to time periods when you were seeking work. You are drawing unnecessary attention to the employment gaps. Downplay gaps in your work history by listing your years of employment (vs. listing months and years).8. Keep your “Technical Skills” section, but move it below education.9. Include the year you earned your AAS degree.Design Recommendations:1. Your resume would benefit from a redesign to give it a more polished, professional appearance. Peruse resume samples online or books to get some ideas.2. Add space between each of the jobs you have held. This makes your document more reader-friendly by avoiding a “cluttered” look.3. Be consistent with font usage. Your resume is mostly Times New Roman font, but you have a line of Arial in the address section.Language Mechanics Recommendations:1. Proofread your resume. You have some capitalization, punctuation (e.g., misplaced commas), and grammatical errors in your document, and your resume should be 100% error-free. For example, job titles should not be capitalized unless they are part of a standalone heading.2. Correct inconsistencies. For example, sometimes you write out the word “manager,” and other times you abbreviate it (“Mgr”). In your Technical Skills section, you write “MS Word” and “MS Works,” “Microsoft E-mail,” and “Excel.” All of these are Microsoft applications, so you need to be consistent in how you are referencing this (either “MS” or “Microsoft” throughout). Administrative support professionals are valued for their attention to detail, so your efforts will pay off and be noticed by hiring managers.Best wishes,Kim Isaacs
Resume File Types: MS Word, Plain-Text, and Adobe PDFs
Job seekers are often confused about different resume file types, so here’s an overview of four common file types and when to use them:MS Word (.doc) fileMany employers like to see the MS Word file, and this is the version you should attach when emailing your resume (unless instructed otherwise).Adobe PDF (.pdf) fileSometimes employers aren’t using standard word processing programs and would like to see the resume layout as it was intended. Send the PDF if the recipient had problems downloading your Word file or viewing it properly. You may also use the PDF format as a download option on your career folio website.ASCII (.txt) for emailing file (see Why You Need Two ASCII Resumes)This version is suitable for emailing your resume to hiring managers. The best way to send an ASCII for emailing file is to copy and paste the cover letter and resume in the email message box, and then attach the MS Word file. If there’s any problem with downloading the Word file, the recipient will still be able to review your plain-text resume and cover letter. Important: Remember to customize the cover letter and resume to suit the opportunity!ASCII (.txt) for webforms fileThis version is suitable for submitting your resume to online webforms. When you’re submitting your resume to online forms on job boards and employer/recruiter websites, copy and paste your resume from this file. The difference between this format and the email version is that the webform version does not have forced line breaks — this enables your text to naturally wrap around the webform box and minimize a “jagged” effect.Best wishes,Kim Isaacs
Cover Letter Tip: Don’t Copy from Your Resume
Today I received a resume and cover letter to review, and when I opened the cover letter, I was struck with a case of déjà vu. Oh wait, I wasn’t going crazy (too late for that – lol), I did just read those same words — in the resume. The job seeker had copied and pasted big sections of text from his resume to his cover letter.I can see how easily that could happen. Both documents market your strongest credentials, so why not take that perfectly written resume content and transfer to your cover letter?Two reasons why it’s not a good idea:1. You don’t want employers to experience the same déjà vu that I did, only for them to realize your documents aren’t original.2. A resume serves a different purpose than a cover letter. A resume is more formal in tone, but a cover letter gives you a chance to reveal your personality (or a toned down version suitable for professional life).You can expand on important accomplishments in your cover letter and hit on the ways you would add value to the employer’s team, but vary your word choice so both documents are creative and fresh.To your success,Kim Isaacs
Resume Writing Tip: Slasher Secrets Revealed
I’ve mentioned before that some resume writers know me as The Slasher due to my superhuman ability to slash resumes down to size. How do I do it? Recently a colleague sent me a resume she wanted slashed, and I took note of my actions. Here’s a recap of how I turned a 2.25-page resume into a solid two-pager. I hope it helps if you need to shorten your resume:1. Increased the font size: This might seem anti-slasherlike, but the writer had made the font so tiny that my eyes glazed over when I first opened the document. The key to a great resume layout is readability, so I immediately changed Garamond 10 point to Garamond 11.5. MS Word tip: You can use the “Find and Replace” feature to find one font size and replace with another instead of manually changing it section by section. Here’s a link to James Marshall’s About.com tutorial on how to do this: Replacing Font Formats With Word’s Replace Dialog Box2. Adjusted page margins: The top and bottom margins were set at 1″ and the left and right were 1.25″ (I think this is MS Word’s default setting). I like nice, wide margins and many hiring managers like them, too — it’s good to have margin space to jot notes on hard copies. But the default was unnecessarily wide, so I changed to .8″ all around. (BTW, the margin adjustment added a lot of space, and there’s nothing like the thrill of watching the resume get shorter during a slash job. Yes, the life of a resume writer can be very sad indeed!)3. Cleaned up orphans and widows: The font size increase created orphans and widows throughout the document, so I made minor text edits to clean up the typography. Widows are those pesky single words taking up a whole line at the end of a paragraph, and orphans are the first lines of paragraphs at the bottom of pages that get separated from the rest of the paragraph on the following pages.4. Consolidated early work history: The experience section went back to the 1980s and there was too much detail about old, irrelevant jobs. I created an “Early Career” section that had two sentences referring to several of these jobs, which freed up enough space to make the resume a two-pager. Another Slasher success!Best wishes,Kim Isaacs