This is one of the most common questions I’m asked by my clients. I write resumes designed to appeal to a specific target audience, and this means I often omit facts and information that I know won’t impress that target audience. And that can sometimes be hard to swallow. After all, if you see a first draft of your resume that omits key facts, it’s natural to ask “but shouldn’t X be included?” You worked hard for that achie...

I’m a big fan of LinkedIn and encourage all my clients to use it actively. I’m even writing a guide on how to make the most of it as a job search tool. But not everything LinkedIn does is a good idea and the Resume Builder tool is a perfect example of this. It sounds great in theory – create a LinkedIn profile and then transform it into a resume at the click of a button with no extra work. Who wouldn’t want that?Here’s the...

Not long ago, I was invited to join a brand new business social networking site. Because I like the person who sent the invite, I clicked ‘yes’ and signed up. But having looked around, I decided it was much too early stage to spend time on.For the last 3 days, I’ve received an email from the site founder. The first one thanked me for signing up and made reference to the fact I’m a resume writer. I thought that was a nice to...

Just lately, I’ve read a rash of articles claiming to reveal the hard and fast rules of resume writing. They have titles like “5 rules of a great resume” or “10 words you must never use on your resume.” Maybe you’ve read some of these articles. Maybe you’ve even made changes to your resume after finding out that the word “innovative” is now forbidden and must be replaced, or that using the phrase “self-motivated” is akin to...

One of the most common mistakes people make when writing a resume is to try and explain everything. Every detail, every situation, every technology used, every job held no matter how short – everything.But this is a mistake. The job of your resume is not to tell the clearest story of what happened – it’s to show your experience in the best light.The Spotlight Analogy Imagine watching a play at the theater. At certain points...

The most common complaint I hear from job seekers is this: “I’m sending tons of resumes out and no one is calling me back.”I know how frustrating this can be from personal experience. I’ve been there myself back before I had my own business. You see the perfect vacancy – you just know you have all the right skills for it – and you are sure they will call you as soon as they see your resume. So when the phone doesn’t ring, y...

Checking my email one day this week, I found one that started in a way destined to make my heart sink:“I know we finalized this resume a while ago, but I showed it to a friend and he had some comments …”My heart doesn’t sink because of the extra work – I don’t mind that if the comments are helpful – but because I know that they probably won’t be. So I now have two choices. 1) Make changes that will be detrimental to the doc...

Can narrowing down your job search focus actually get you more interviews than trying for a wide range of jobs? That’s been my experience.First let me give you a business example, and then I’ll tell you about a client of mine who got amazing results just by narrowing her sights.When we worked with the amazing Squared Eye to redesign our website earlier this year, we made a big decision: we would clearly define our target au...

I recently nagged a client to get her LinkedIn profile fully up and running. She emailed me the other day to say that she got an email from a recruiter within 2 days of doing it. A new survey explains why.Jobvite surveyed 600 HR and recruiting professionals across the US and found that 73% are using social media and online networks for recruitment purposes. Of those companies, 78% cited LinkedIn as a tool they used regularl...

You’ve worked long and hard on your resume – you feel certain it represents you effectively. You send it out and eagerly await the responses...and hear nothing.The problem might not be your resume content – it might be your file format.Of the resumes we receive to review each day, 10-20% are not saved as Microsoft Word documents. This is job search suicide!99% of the people who will look at your resume online will view it e...