It’s all about standing out from the crowd when you’re trying to get someone’s attention and get them to focus on you and your abilities.  What better way, then to show off some of your skills or your ingenuity and drive by presenting a more polished and graphic presentation of who you are.  Sharlyn Lauby writing in Mashable.com shows us several eye-catching ways to do that:

1. Give the Reader Your History

Michael Anderson’s infographic resume turns his employment and academic history into a colorful visual journey.

And, jumping ahead:

3. Make It Personal

Traditional resumes can be “humanized” by a well-written cover letter. Graphical resumes can add a whole new dimension by visually introducing the person behind the experience.

Federico Moral went with an anthropological theme, placing his skills into the timeline of human evolution.

Francis Homo turns his own silhouette into a frame for his achievements.

Brandon Kleinman adds a really creative twist by making a short presentation out of his Facebook photos.

You get the idea.  Make it interesting, make it compelling, make it fun. Show employers you are not only smart but creative and a bit driven, willing to go the extra mile.  That should at least take you a long way down the road to your next great opportunity.

For the complete article go to 9 Dynamic Digital Resumes that Stand Out From the Crowd

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Now, more than ever, in these bleak economic times, with many legacy companies either drastically downsizing or dropping like flies, it’s a good idea to have your resume up to date. And, as we’ve said many times, the whole idea is for you to stand out from the crowd, which is getting tougher with so many jobless out there, forcefully expatriated from corporate America.

Dan Schawbel writes a blog on personal branding….and we’re all about personal branding in your career…and he shares some thoughts on the best way to put your own unique brand on your resume: Personal Branding Toolkit – Part 3: Resumes « Personal Branding Blog

“1) Design your brand. Instead of using a standard template, use a branded template. A brand you template! If you have Microsoft Word or another word processing program, then you might notice shapes and colors at the top. If you don’t already have a website, blog, business card, etc, then you need to think about what colors you want to use, as well as what type of job you’re applying for. In the picture below, a woman is applying to be a “Cosmetic Nurse Specialist.” At the top of her resume, she has a picture of someone putting cosmetics on a patient. The rest of the resume has shades of pink. The resume comes off as “soft” and “gentle,” with the colors, picture and shapes used. To me this is effective.

Brand yourself with a resume

2) Don’t use your picture. I agree with my friend Chris Russell that pictures can’t be on resumes (even though I’d love to put mine on it). A personal photo is a distraction. Recruiters give you about 30 seconds to impress them with your experience and you don’t want 10 of those seconds to be eyes on your picture do you! Don’t come off as someone who is trying to get a job because of your looks. Companies are scared to deal with your picture because of discrimination laws and lawsuits.

3) Links rock. I haven’t seen many resumes with links EVEN from people that have blogs, social network profiles and other websites. It blows my mind! Why not have a link to your site. If the recruiter likes your resume or has further interest in your credentials, a link acts as a supplemental piece of marketing that will help you sell yourself without saying one word.

4) Experience trumps education. Don’t believe for a second that your degree and “deans list” on your resume is going to get you a job. Recruiters are starting to discount GPA for resumes! Listen, a resume is all about showing recruiters that you have had proven success, eliminating risk on the companies part. In life, experience is everything and if you don’t have it, you will leave to lean towards your education. Make a point to put your work experience in the top part of your resume because that’s what employers really care about.

5) Show some class. The quality of paper you use shows how serious you are about the position and can be used as a differentiator. Purchase quality paper and print your resume using it because more applicants use standard printer paper.

6) Create the multimedia you. How much information can you really get from a stupid resume? Not much. I’ve written about video resumes a lot and believe in them, as long as you are passionate, energetic and have some showmanship. If you plan on videoing yourself sleeping or eating chocolate than you might want to reconsider.

7) Get Linked-In. This is another topic I’ve touched on without a dedicated post. LinkedIn is a resume, cover letter and reference list all in one, which makes it exceptional. It is a virtual resume, with the same fields as a typical resume. It is a cover letter because you have space to explain where you’re at in your career, what you want to be and summarize your qualifications. It is a reference list because it’s searchable by recruiters and you can endorse others (managers, peers, etc).

8 ) Grow it. A resume is useless if it shows the brand you from 1938. You need to constantly update it as you grow, finish projects, switch organizations, etc. Always keep it up-to-date so it represents the “present brand you.” Feel free to grow your resume online as well, by creating a webpage dedicated to it or blending it onto a blog. I’ve seen people add social media elements(Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc) to resumes such as Christopher Penn and Bryan Person, who have sharing features. Think about it this way; if someone finds your resume and has heard of an opening at a different company, they might share it using a social media tool!

9) Summarize it. If I were recruiting someone for a position I wouldn’t care about a resume. I’d ask for your blog, but for everyone else, I think a summary of your credentials is very very important. At the top of your resume, I’d like to see 3-4 sentences that showcases all your top achievements and your career objectives.

10) Customization. Aside from customizing your resume to fit your brand, you need to tailor it to the position your gunning for. The resume below is for a Oracle Certified Professional. Think about it, if you are branded as this type of expert, won’t it be clear to recruiters immediately once they see this resume? Aside from this, you should use keywords and experiences that match the position you are trying to fill.”

Resume tailoring 101

Your personal branding toolkit

1) Business cards
2) Portfolios
3) Resumes
4) Cover letters

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• Branded Yourself Yet? 2 Keys to Personal Branding Success

Author and career coach Peter Fisher “is very clear that you shouldn’t be misled into thinking of “acing interviews” or “finessing” your way into a business; the most sustainable and fulfilling roles are gained through understanding your own specific needs and creating your strategy accordingly.

You need to be the best you can at describing your best qualities; particularly your key strengths. In Fisher’s coaching practice, he says ” I generally, at some point, ask my client: “What are you good at?” purely as a means to establish if they have already thought through this most important question.

Some have, but more often they haven’t and the answer usually involves lots of head-scratching, umms and arrhs and then quite often a monologue on what they’re NOT good at!!

Your answer to this should be your key strengths statement. A “Key Strengths” statement is a summary of your most powerful skills and attributes.

The Key Strengths statement

• Highlights your most important skills and abilities
• Differentiates you from others
• Avoids generalizations
• Provides examples of your achievements
• Spoken naturally should take no more than two minutes

Of course at interview, the question may take many different forms:

“What are your main strengths?”

“why should we hire you?”

“what do you think makes you the best candidate?”

“convince me you’re the right person for us”

“how do your skills match our particular needs?”

As with all your Presentation Statements it should be so well rehearsed that it sounds completely spontaneous.

This example I’ve given you here should get you thinking so give your Key Strengths statement some thought now.

“I have very good communication skills; I work well either leading or being part of a team and I am self-motivated and capable of working on several tasks at once.

As a leader of small teams I involve people in the decisions so that they feel involved and ensure they have the opportunity to contribute to tasks facing the team. I manage the information, plan and organise and make the decisions as required.

With my strong communication skills, I have been able to motivate the staff to higher standards of performance meaning we have also helped our profits figures through increased sales and tighter cost-control.

Alongside this I have encouraged innovation and my team has produced several very good ideas for new products, services and markets. As an example the new widget has taken off in Eastern Europe and is contributing 7% of profits in less than 18 months.

Most importantly I actively seek to develop members of my team for their own careers sake but also for the future of the business itself. This means I also look for personal development opportunities to ensure my skills are kept up to date.”

The Key Strengths statement from a a Chief Engineer might go like this:

“I have very good communication skills and work across all departments to ensure that issues are identified and practical solutions are prepared. Coupled with my project management skills and my hands-on leadership style I am able to consistently deliver and commission projects on time and to budget.

I am focused on internal and external customer’s needs, rather than purely functional needs and I apply specialist skills in continuous improvement and world class manufacturing to increase efficiency, reduce waste and losses due to downtime.

As Chief Engineer I have initiated and managed strategic change programmes and implemented effective quality improvement programs all the way through to successful local level implementation. This has led to savings of 750k per annum and helps to maintain the position and financial strength of my employer”.

These key strengths statements naturally answer many of the interviewers questions while being reassuring in content. You will find though, that they will create new questions for the interviewer, so be aware that you must be able to substantiate everything you claim.

Try working on your own statement using your own words and skills, blending them together to create a strong “key strengths” statement to meet your needs.

You’ll be surprised how often you use this one!!”

Quantify, quantify, quantify!.

The purpose of your resume is to build your own brand, “Brand Me” which will have the effect of differentiating yourself from the competition and conveying your value to any company.  The best way to offer proof of your value is to quantify the results  you’ve achieved at your present or previous companies.

“Provide four or five bulleted points under each employer in the experience section of your resume to show what you have achieved for each employer as far as measurable results,” says Terri Robinson, president of Recruit2Hire.com

If you can provide a graphic, so much the better. A chart or bar graph enables the reader, in this case the recruiter, to capture, at a glance, the results you’ve achieved which demonstrate your value to a company.

Roy Miller of Job Search Guidepost gives an example and tells how he views the process:

“Managed a team of five that selected and implemented a new customer service tracking system that reduced lost sales for the company by $1.5M in the first year.“

You’re hired! No, probably not just because of that, but that second statement does two critical things:

1. It tells enough of the story that an interviewer can ask you for more details about this significant accomplishment.
2. It stands out from all the other resumes containing statements like the first one, because it talks about what your employer really cares about – MONEY.

Employers aren’t mean old scrooges. Well, most aren’t. But without profit (or without breaking even for a non-profit), there’s no business, which means no jobs.

If you quantify your experience, you absolutely vault over your competition.

You see, non-quantified experience says you showed up, did some stuff, and drew a paycheck. Not exciting, and unlikely to get the job if somebody else quantifies his experience.”

Why?

Quantified experience says you didn’t just take, you GAVE, and in a significant way. …Quantify your experience whenever you can. It’s not as hard as you might think. Just remember that three things count as quantifiers:

• Dollars you added to the bottom line
• Time you saved the company
• Any other numbers that add to the “he uses numbers” impression

…If you initiated and spearheaded a project that increased corporate profits (or departmental profits, or office profits, or location profits – you get the idea), that’s great. Highlight it using real money numbers.

Ask yourself the worth of what you did, from your employer’s perspective. Did a particular action save money? That’s quantified! Did it bring in more revenue? That’s quantified! Did it produce an operational improvement, such as shorter turnaround on customer service requests? That’s not quite quantified (in terms of dollars), but it’s close! Don’t know a dollar amount, but know an improvement percentage? Use it!

Quantify whenever you can, and get as close to dollars on the bottom line as you can. That’ll get you rave reviews from your current boss (or a raise!), and will make it easier to get your next job.

( For professional customization and help with quantifying your experience in your resume, see AW Career Portfolios, Customized For You)

For more articles by  Roy Miller or his newsletter go to  Job Search Guidepost

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How to look like everybody else.

Want to get a great job? Do you think the best way to do that is to look like everybody else, blend in, fly under the radar?

Bzzzzz!!! That is the beeper going off if you answered yes to any of the above.

If you’ve been reading AdvancingWomen.com‘s blog at all, you know by now, your key strategy for your entire career is to stand out.  And remember, your resume is key to that. “Your resume’s primary purpose is to make you stand out as clearly the best candidate. Your resume has to stand out in the way it looks, and in what it says.

So, you want to stand out. But you’re using a resume template. See the problem? A template makes you look like everybody else.

Just to be clear: the odds of coming up with a completely novel resume format are pretty low. In many respects, it really has all been done before.

But you’re not competing against the entire universe of resumes that have ever been written. You’ll be up against a much smaller subset – the group of applicants for a particular job.

The story goes that a bear was chasing two men ( or women). One guy/gal stops to change to his good running shoes. The other says, “What are you doing?! You’re wasting time! You gotta outrun that bear!” The first fellow replies, “Nope. I only have to outrun you.”

You’re trying to outrun your competition, and slapping together a quickie resume in a cookie-cutter resume template puts you at a disadvantage.

Look at templates, and learn from them. Then create your own custom format. Better yet, get some help doing that, so you can focus on the content of the resume.

( For some professional customization, see AW Career Portfolios, Customized For You)

Roy Miller, creator of Job Search Guide Post; sign up for Roy’s free weekly newsletter.

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• Stand Out! How To Broadcast Your Compelling Story
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Image via Wikipedia

Write A Perfect CV – AdvancingWomen.com

Your CV is a gateway to getting an interview for that ideal job. It is your opportunity to provide a good first impression but you only have two sides of A4 paper in which to do it. It is not surprising then that most people have trouble getting started.

Firstly, you need to know what the employer is thinking.

The employer suddenly has a vacancy. Filling the vacancy is going to take up valuable time that he would rather spend doing his normal job.

He would love to find the perfect person immediately rather than plough through hundreds of CV’s. It is often a dull, thankless task.

The employer has a job description in front of him. It includes experience or qualifications that are essential for the job and some attributes that are desirable but not absolutely necessary.

He starts going through the pile of CV’s on his desk. He scans each one for about 30 seconds and makes a judgement.

He simply hasn’t got time to read the CV that is more than two pages and all the relevant information is hidden in long paragraphs. – He files it in the bin.

Fancy formatting, coloured text or multiple fonts do not impress him. Is this person trying to hide their lack of experience for the job behind an artistic CV. – He files it in the bin.

He notices spelling mistakes and poor punctuation. This person is just sloppy! – He files the CV in the bin.

He breaths a sigh of relief, the pile on his desk is smaller already. He makes another coffee and then starts reading……………………….

This should tell you a few things about writing your CV.

Keep it concise and to the point. The employer needs to see your work experience, skills and achievements in the first 30 seconds of scanning your CV.

He knows what he is looking for. You have what he is looking for. Don’t distract him from your relevant skills by adding in lots of unnecessary information.

Keep it simple…..

Finally: Make it easy for him!

Remember, the employer has very little time. He doesn’t know you yet and is only interested in what you can offer him and his company.

Make it easy for him to:

Scan your CV,

Identify that you have the skills he is looking for.

Pick up the phone to invite you in for an interview.

For more on this go to Write A Perfect CV – AdvancingWomen.com

Resume or Curriculum Vita Tips

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