Free Resume Advice For Job Seekers

Highlighting your key skills and attributes are essential in promoting yourself in your resume! Very rarely do I develop resumes for clients that simply list duties, tasks or responsibilities undertaken in roles. I ask the question: ‘what key skill does this duty or task represent?’ For example, if a client lists for a particular position on their current or outdated resume (prior to me revamping it) that they supervised the work duties of staff. I would rewrite this point to highlight the skill and elaborate on the duties in this manner:

Leadership & Management: Managed and supervised the day-to-day tasks of staff (up to 12 at any given time) including scheduling work rosters, checking deadlines, delegating duties, conducing performance appraisals, and providing career development coaching.

This example now shows a more in depth coverage of not only the specific duties undertaken but also the key skill set utilised.

Transferable skills can be developed through both paid and non-paid work including community or volunteer involvement, studies, hobbies, and homemaker tasks. They are all transferable to the job market. There are many skills that we develop in our daily lives that are important and can be incorporated into your resume. On many occasions I have had clients who are mothers and wanting to enter the workforce again in either a part time or full time capacity only to ‘forget’ to mention that they have undertaken community service work whilst rearing their children and not in gainful employed during this period. These clients have been called up for job interviews once I have developed their resume which highlights their community service work.

It is important you brainstorm and apply lateral thinking skills when developing your resume and ask yourself about the skills you have utilised and developed throughout the years. Common transferable skills include (but are not limited to): organisation and time management, planning, leadership, team work, relationship building, networking, communication and interpersonal, problem solving, analytical and critical thinking, research, technology, and so forth.

Transferable skills:

1. Are the secret of job-hunting success because they are the most basic unit of whatever career, occupation or job you choose.
2. Are the secret of changing careers without necessarily going back to school because they allow you to build a picture of a new career from the ground up.
3. Are customarily divided into 3 basic areas according to what kind of object they act upon, whether it be some kind of data (information), people or things:

   * data – synthesizing, coordinating, innovating, analysing, compiling

   * people – mentoring, negotiating, instructing, supervising, managing, persuading

   * things – controlling, manipulating, tending, handling, setting up
4. When you list your transferable skills, you should always claim the highest skills you legitimately can on the basis of past performance.

Remember, it’s all about marketing you!

Cheers,

Annie Cerone

When I lecture to audiences on job market skills (specifically on resume development and cover letter creation), I always outline specific key factors to think about and apply in the initial formulation stages and throughout the resume development process. These key factors are essential tools in laying the foundations in creating a winning marketing document. Resume writing is not a difficult process; however, it is an ‘art form’ so to speak. This ‘art form’ comes in the process of learning how to apply concise, high impact writing techniques in a consistent manner throughout the document.

You need to alter your mind set and think in terms of the ‘3-factor think tank’: think objectively, think laterally, and think quality!

Firstly, by thinking objectively, you should be thinking in third person when writing your resume and cover letter. As you are developing your resume and letter you will be undergoing a lot of internal dialogue – asking yourself questions about what you have done, what you have achieved, what skills you have developed, and so forth. Ask yourself these necessary questions in third person, in other words, remove the ‘I’ from the equation and instead replace it with your name. By doing this, you will find a subtle shift in the mindset, like you are thinking about somebody else instead of yourself. The majority of people find it way easier to write positive things about somebody else rather than themselves.

Secondly, by thinking laterally, you need to think in terms of the skills you have developed both in and out of work situations. For example, skills you have attained and developed whilst studying or attending training courses, in paid employment, in volunteer or community involvement, and so forth.

Thirdly, by thinking quality, you must think in terms of the quality of the written content, not the quantity. A two-page concisely written resume can blow a 5-page resume right out of the water. Do not stress if you do not think you have produced enough content. Concentrate on the content you do have. When writing your cover letter, never exceed one page unless specifically requested. The word quantity should not exist in your vocabulary.

When developing your resume and cover letter, ensure you pay attention to these factors. Guaranteed, you will find the process easier as it goes along, and it will also make the updating process effortless.

Remember, it’s all about marketing you!

Cheers,

Annie Cerone