Older Workers-New Technology: YES THEY CAN

NEW Survey Debunks OLD Stereotype

For years, a stereotype has been fostered by the media, and now social media, that older people are just not that savvy when it comes to new technology. 

This false perception contributes to age discrimination that affects the older job seeker.

Two companies,  DROPBOX and Ipsos Mori, have surveyed more than 4,000 information workers in the U.S. and Europe about their use of technology in the workplace. 

The survey has revealed that workers aged 55+ are actually less stressed using technology in the workplace than their younger peers. The results also showed that older workers are actually BETTER at using multiple devices than their younger peers - only 13% of respondents aged 55+  reported having trouble working with multiple devices compared to 37% of 18-to-34-year olds.

If you are an older job seeker, don't PERPETUATE the stereotype of the obsolete older worker. Be sure to keep your skills AND resume up-to-date. Create your killer resume HERE.

If you haven't been in the job market lately, it might not be your job skills holding you back but your JOB HUNTING skills. CLICK HERE for a free assessment.

"5 Simple Tips to Beat Age Discrimination During a Job Search" Live Event - REGISTER HERE

Your Personal Branding as an Older Worker

What Sets You Apart?

Personal branding is the act of letting your identity be known and showing the qualities that set you apart from others in your area of discipline. It comprises a combination of skills and talents alongside style and personality. In other words, it requires having a clear message of who you are, what direction you are going in, as well as the experience you have. You are letting the hiring manager be aware of your identity so that you are not just part of the faceless crowd.

Personal branding comes with lots of advantages. Besides highlighting your personal strengths, personal branding can help pull your resume from the bottom to the top of the pile and make you an outstanding interviewer.

Here are some tips to help prepare yourself for a new job:

• Brainstorm: Take some time to think about what to include in your personal brand. You can do this by going over your resume, understanding the leadership qualities you possess and your work ethic. Determine the path or direction you want to take your career in and also figure out the type of projects you are mostly drawn to. Then, develop a big plan on how to express this to the hiring managers and recruiters.

• New Market, New Skill: You have to accept the fact that you are competing in a marketplace which is entirely different from what you had in the past. Consequently, you have to learn about the new workplace, accept and leverage it to your advantage. You can do this by trying to understand the generational differences. For example, there is a myth that older workers are not usually energetic or tech savvy. However, they are generally taken to be reliable, honest, hardworking and loyal. Take the positive assumptions, and use them to your advantage. Efforts should be made at addressing the negative ones.

• Technology and social media: Brush up your knowledge about the latest technologies and get yourself engaged in the use of social media. Show your prospective employer your willingness to learn new things. Social media is a great platform to start your personal branding. Therefore, you have to build a social media friendly resume and ensure its done the right way by not making blind submissions to different websites. The idea is to create a resume that would be so dynamic that it becomes readily accessible through searching, distributing and sharing. The resume should be able to:

• Accurately portray who you are as a brand.

• Attract hiring managers, recruiters and job opportunities to you, instead of going about making blind submissions.

• Showcase your abilities, talents as well as what you look for in a job. You can create a personalized resume by clicking here.

• You can also make use of a cover letter. A cover letter represents a better place to make your personality known. Be unique and discuss why you would be a better choice over your younger colleagues. Start creating cover letters that get interviews by clicking here.

• Posting your information on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr and others is a good way to get started.

• Make Yourself Stand Out: This involves convincing the hiring managers that you are a very rare talent. Start by expanding your thinking about your own particular capabilities, then tell it to the world. And make sure you describe your unique personal brand value in everything you do. You can do this by creating an online profile and identity, building your network, connecting with local groups and associations, and seeking out volunteer opportunities.

Studies have shown that most workers who seek job opportunities at mature ages usually find the new job more appealing when compared to the old job. Therefore, ask yourself how you could combine your vast knowledge, experience, and personality to produce something that a younger counterpart cannot. In other words, regardless of your age, you can always brand yourself and stand out.

CLICK HERE for a complete schedule of online workshops and resources to prepare you for your new career.

Is A Resume Embellishment An Exaggeration Or Lie? Confused?

You're writing your resume and decide to say " I was responsible for growing the business from 100k to 2 million dollars in 1 year." Impressive. But you didn't mention that your company bought another company with 1 million in sales; or that you worked with in a team of 10. you. Is this an embellishment or a lie?   

"When Do Exaggerations and Misstatements Cross the Line?"
When public figures are caught embellishing their accomplishments or qualifications, whether by exaggeration or misstatement, people everywhere express outrage. Indeed, as more and more politicians, CEOs and other big names these days try to make amends for fudging their resumes, incorrectly relating the details of a story or otherwise playing fast and loose with the facts, the general reaction from an increasingly jaded public is: "What were they thinking?"
As it turns out, what they were thinking isn't much different from everyone else. Embellishment is part of human nature, experts say, and almost everyone is guilty of it at one time or another.


Left unchecked, however, exaggerations that seemed innocuous at first could result in serious, potentially career-ending consequences. "[Getting caught] can be devastating; I think it can ruin a person," says Alan Strudler, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton. That's unfortunate, he adds, "because embellishment is just a human frailty. But once you're caught in a deception, even if it's a common deception, people won't trust you. And once the bond of trust is lost, it's terribly hard to recover."
Create a Better Resume     

In today's work environment, where no one comes in for a job interview without being Googled first -- and where small talk in the elevator or comments made at a staff meeting are just a Twitter post away from reaching a global audience -- it's easier than ever to get caught in an exaggeration, Wharton experts and others note..
   But the temptation to embellish has also never been greater, they say, as recession-weary workers feel pressured to justify their worth and a 24-hour news cycle demands that leaders have an immediate, sound-bite-ready answer for everything. 

"The questions come when something happens that breaks the social facade that we're all honest and we're all trustworthy," says G. Richard Shell, a legal studies and business ethics professor at Wharton. "When someone is revealed to have done something selfish, there's a crack in the facade and then everyone has to figure out what that means. Does the crack reveal some sort of venal person, or does it reveal the same sort of hapless person we all are underneath?"

Finding the Line
The type of self-deception that most people employ falls in the middle of a spectrum occupied at one end by those who are complete truth-tellers, and as a consequence are often considered "rude and socially inept -- think of a small child telling a dinner guest that she's fat," says Shell -- and at the other end of the spectrum by pathological liars, who occupy a fantasy world that they believe to be real.
"Self deception is something that everyone is prone to," Shell notes. "There's a lot of research that says if we lack any positive illusions then that is a sign of depression.... We like to think of ourselves as being more important, more skilled and more experienced than we are. When a test comes, and someone asks what your experience is, or what your basis for stating something is, then it's tempting to make something up." Indeed, a 2003 report by the Society of Human Resources Management found that 53% of all job applications contain some kind of inaccurate information. 


Although only 8% of respondents to a 2008 CareerBuilder survey admitted to lying on their resumes, nearly half of the hiring managers queried said they had caught a prospective hire fabricating some aspect of his or her qualifications. Almost 60% of employers said they automatically dismissed applicants caught making misstatements about their backgrounds.
The challenge, experts say, is not to cross the line from harmless puffery to a more damaging form of elaboration. In some cases, the limits of what is accepted and what isn't are clear-cut -- few would condone amplifications that break the law, for example, or cause others serious harm. Equally prone to reproach are cases in which company executives or leaders within an organization are found to have included degrees they never earned, or positions they never held, on their resumes, according to Wharton operations and information management professor Maurice Schweitzer." 
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To see complete article and listen to audio visit:The Wharton School

Free List Of "49 Benefits Of Hiring Older Skilled Workers"

Hiring Managers Seeing More Lies on Resumes

Editor's Note: In a survey of 3,500 employees by HireRight, it was reported that 88% of those tested had lied on their resume compared with 70% five years ago. In this article in Fortune, Anne Fisher interviews Mary O’Loughlin, HireRight’s vice president of global customer experience, to find out why people are exaggerating on their resumes.

Yet another reason for inventing whole chunks of a CV: Embarrassment about having lost a job to the recession. “Candidates think there is a huge stigma attached to unemployment,” notes O’Loughlin. “So they make up things to fill that gap in their work history.”

She notes that it is a far worse stigma to be dishonest than to lose a job! Click here to read more.

So many resumes... so little time

FREE WEBINAR:  "Stop Applying Online - Get Hired Instantly" Register Here

So should you prepare a Reverse Chronological Resume or perhaps a Functional Resume? There are numerous approaches and styles to consider when preparing an effective resume. Many factors can affect which approach you take including your work experience, industry and career objectives. This article is a good starting point to help both older experienced and younger inexperience job seekers understand what preparing a resume means in today's world. (Editor's Notes)


In many contexts, a résumé is short (usually one to two pages), and therefore contains only experience directly relevant to a particular position. Many résumés contain precise keywords that potential employers are looking for, make heavy use of active verbs, and display content in a flattering manner. 


In the past, résumés used to be no longer than two pages, as potential employers typically did not devote much time to reading résumé details for each applicant. In some countries employers have changed their views regarding acceptable résumé length. Since increasing numbers of job seekers and employers are using Internet-based job search engines to find and fill employment positions, longer résumés are needed for applicants to differentiate and distinguish themselves, and employers are becoming more accepting of résumés that are longer than two pages.


Quickly Create Customized Resume Cover Letters- Start Here and Now


Many professional résumé writers and human resources professionals believe that a résumé should be long enough so that it provides a concise, adequate, and accurate description of an applicant's employment history and skills . A résumé is a marketing tool in which the content should be adapted to suit each individual job application and/or applications aimed at a particular industry. The transmission of résumés directly to employers became increasingly popular as late as 2002 . Jobseekers were able to circumvent the job application process and reach employers through direct email contact and résumé blasting, a term meaning the mass distribution of résumés to increase personal visibility within the job market. However the mass distribution of résumés to employers often can have a negative effect on the applicant's chances of securing employment as the résumés tend not to be tailored for the specific positions the applicant is applying for. It is usually therefore more sensible to adjust the résumé for each position applied for.


The complexity and simplicity of various résumé formats tend to produce results varying from person to person, for the occupation, and to the industry. It is important to note that résumés used by medical professionals, professors, artists and people in many other specialized fields may be comparatively longer. For example, an artist's résumé, typically excluding any non-art-related employment, may include extensive lists of solo and group exhibitions.

A simple résumé is a summary typically limited to one or two pages of size A4 or Letter-size highlighting only those experiences and credentials that the author considers most relevant to the desired position. US academic CVs are typically longer.Résumés may be organized in different ways. The following are some of the more common formats:

Reverse chronological résumé:

A reverse chronological résumé enumerates a candidate's job experiences in reverse chronological order, generally covering the last 10 to 15 years.
The reverse chronological résumé format is the most commonly used by those who are not professional résumé writers. In using this format, the main body of the document becomes the Professional Experience section, starting from the most recent experience going chronologically backwards through a succession of previous experience. The reverse chronological résumé works to build credibility through experience gained, while illustrating career growth over time and filling all gaps in a career trajectory. A chronogical résumé is not recommended in the event that the job seeker has gaps in their career summary. In the United Kingdom the chronological résumé tends to extend only as far back as the subject's GCSE/Standard Grade qualifications.

Functional résumé:

A functional résumé lists work experience and skills sorted by skill area or job function.


The functional résumé is used to assert a focus to skills that are specific to the type of position being sought. This format directly emphasizes specific professional capabilities and utilizes experience summaries as its primary means of communicating professional competency. In contrast, the chronological résumé format will briefly highlight these competencies prior to presenting a comprehensive timeline of career growth via reverse-chronological listing with most recent experience listed first. The functional résumé works well for those making a career change, having a varied work history and with little work experience. A functional résumé is also preferred for applications to jobs that require a very specific skill set or clearly defined personality traits. A functional résumé is a good method for highlighting particular skills or experience, however, those particular skills or experience may have derived from a role which was held some time ago. Rather than focus on the length of time that has passed, the functional résumé allows the reader to quickly identify those skills.

Combination résumé:

The combination résumé balances the functional and chronological approaches. A résumé organized this way typically leads with a functional list of job skills, followed by a chronological list of employers. The combination résumé has a tendency to repeat itself and is therefore less widely utilized than the other two forms.

Online résumés:

The Internet has brought about a new age for the résumé. As the search for employment has become more electronic, résumés have followed suit. It is common for employers to only accept résumés electronically, either out of practicality or preference. This electronic boom has changed much about the way résumés are written, read, and handled. Delivering a résumé in person is better than online, but if there is no other easier way, sending résumé online could be attempted. Giving a résumé in person enables the prospective employer to see you.

Job seekers must choose a file format in which to maintain their résumé. Many employers, especially recruitment agencies on their behalf, insist on receiving résumés as Microsoft Word documents. Others will only accept résumés formatted in HTML, PDF, or plain ASCII text.
Many potential employers now find candidates' résumés through search engines, which makes it more important for candidates to use appropriate keywords when writing a résumé.
Including an e-mail address in an online résumé may expose the job seeker to spam (see Spambot).
Many large employers use electronic résumé processing systems to handle large volumes of résumés. Job ads may direct applicants to email a résumé to their company or visit their website and submit a résumé in electronic format.

Some career fields include a special section listing the life-long works of the author. For computer-related fields, the softography; for musicians and composers, the discography; for actors, a filmography.
Keeping résumés online has become increasingly common for people in professions that benefit from the multimedia and rich detail that are offered by an HTML résumé, such as actors, photographers, graphic designers, developers, dancers, etc.

Job seekers are finding an ever increasing demand to have an electronic version of their résumé available to employers and professionals who use Internet recruiting at any time.
For job seekers, taking résumés online also facilitates distribution to multiple employers via Internet. Online résumé distribution services have emerged to allow job seekers to distribute their résumés to employers of their choices via email.

Another advantage to online résumés is the significant cost savings over traditional hiring methods. In the United States, the Employment Management Association has included Internet advertising in its cost-per-hire surveys for several years. In 1997, for example, it reported that the average cost-per-hire for a print ad was $3,295, while the average cost-per-hire with the Internet was $377. This in turn has cut costs for many growing organizations, as well as saving time and energy in recruitment. Prior to the development of résumés in electronic format, employers would have to sort through massive stacks of paper to find suitable candidates without any way of filtering out the poor candidates. Employers are now able to set search parameters in their database of résumés to reduce the number of résumés which must be reviewed in detail in the search for the ideal candidate.

Finally, the Internet is enabling new technologies to be employed with résumés, such as video résumés—especially popular for multimedia job seekers. Another emerging technology is graphic-enabled résumés, such as Visual CV.  Source:Wikipedia


Quickly Create Customized Resume Cover Letters-Learn More here.
Save time by posting your resume instantly to 75 job sites.

Common Sense About Resumes

By Larry Light

A number of recent articles, including one in the New York Times, “Can I Hire Someone to Write My Résumé and Cover Letter?” by the Ethicist, question whether you should write your own resume -presumably to show off your writing skills – or whether you ought to hire someone to do it.

Since I regularly write powerhouse resumes for people, I have a few simple answers to this dilemma:

• If you want to try writing your own resume, give it a go. Do it and begin submitting it to potential employers.
• If you get responses and get called in for interviews, your resume is doing its job.
• If you are not getting responses, find someone to write (or re-write) your resume, because the only job a resume has is to get you an interview when you submit it for a job opening.

Simple enough, isn’t it?

In terms of side-issues, such as showing off your writing skills, I find it far-fetched that employers will ever look at a resume as anything but material for deciding whether or not to interview you.

If writing is an important part of the job, they will assess that during the interview, maybe even asking you to write a short piece for them. The resume got you in, didn’t it, in the first place?

What employers are looking for is the best, the brightest, sometimes the least expensive candidate.

On average, more than 300 people respond to a quality job listing, but only 10% of the submitted resumes will appear “good enough” to be read by the hiring manager; that makes 30 competitors.Of those 30, maybe 2 – 5 will be interviewed.

So you have to be “best of class” or “better than” the others, and your resume must reflect that.

For those who prefer to leverage the accumulated knowledge and experience I’ve had over 15 years of career/job coaching with all levels of individuals, from CEO’s to staff, I offer a complete package that includes:

• A powerhouse resume
• Teaching you how to write a cover letter quickly that gets interviews for specialized jobs
• An hour one-on-one to prepare you fully for an upcoming interview
• An hour one-on-one to get you started correctly for networking (even if you’re shy or introverted)

Just send me your existing resume, and I’ll critique it to get started. I’m presuming you already have a resume; if not call, me at 949.716.3581. Or just call me if you have questions.

CLICK HERE to submit your resume.

Boomers:Does Creating A Killer Resume Cover Letter Make A Difference?

   As an older skilled worker (Boomer) searching for a new career it can become overwhelming as you try to determine what the correct cover letter tactic should be. There are various opinions on whether resume cover emails or letters can make an impact. The reality is a cover letter sends a message to a hiring manager and/or Recruiter that you are focused, purposeful and diligent.  So can it really hurt? What do you think? (comments below)
The problem often is that we just find it difficult to allocate the time or initiative to write a different cover letter for the 100s of jobs we apply to. So for those that still feel a cover letter is impactful you can now save time creating brilliant cover letters that catch the reader's attention. (Editor's Note)


Learn More Below:
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• Are you struggling with writing a unique cover letter for each job application?
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4 Essential Job Seeker Tools To Help You Change Your Career?

Career Transitions Tools:

If you have been looking for some simple and effective steps to accelerate your career transition or job search  then you may want to try some of  these 4 tools developed and delivered by industry experts.

1. Skills Analysis & Development:
•  Free:Take a 7 minute Career test.
2. Resume Development:
•  Create Brilliantly Crafted Cover Letters
•  Want to stop wasting time posting your resume to career sites?
3. Interview Skills:
• Learn how to nail your next interview? 
4. Job Searching:
• Post your resume & search for new careers.

Have You Ever Lied On Your Resume?

"Stop Applying for Jobs--and Get Hired Instantly" (make your resume stand out).

 Free Webinar: Register Here

You're writing your resume and decide to say, 
"I was responsible for growing the business from 100k to 2 million dollars in 1 year." 
Impressive. But, you didn't mention that your company bought another company with 1 million in sales or that you worked within a team of 10. Is this an embellishment or a lie?  

"When Do Exaggerations and Misstatements Cross the Line?"
When public figures are caught embellishing their accomplishments or qualifications, whether by exaggeration or misstatement, people everywhere express outrage. Indeed, as more and more politicians, CEOs and other big names these days try to make amends for fudging their resumes, incorrectly relating the details of a story or otherwise playing fast and loose with the facts, the general reaction from an increasingly jaded public is: "What were they thinking?"
As it turns out, what they were thinking isn't much different from everyone else.

Embellishment is part of human nature, experts say, and almost everyone is guilty of it at one time or another.

Left unchecked, however, exaggerations that seemed innocuous at first could result in serious, potentially career-ending consequences. "[Getting caught] can be devastating; I think it can ruin a person," says Alan Strudler, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton. That's unfortunate, he adds, "because embellishment is just a human frailty. But once you're caught in a deception, even if it's a common deception, people won't trust you. And once the bond of trust is lost, it's terribly hard to recover."

In today's work environment, where no one comes in for a job interview without being Googled first -- and where small talk in the elevator or comments made at a staff meeting are just a Twitter post away from reaching a global audience  --  it's easier than ever to get caught in an exaggeration, Wharton experts and others note.

But the temptation to embellish has also never been greater, they say, as recession-weary workers feel pressured to justify their worth and a 24-hour news cycle demands that leaders have an immediate, sound-bite-ready answer for everything. 

"The questions come when something happens that breaks the social facade that we're all honest and we're all trustworthy," says G. Richard Shell, a legal studies and business ethics professor at Wharton. "When someone is revealed to have done something selfish, there's a crack in the facade and then everyone has to figure out what that means. Does the crack reveal some sort of venal person, or does it reveal the same sort of hapless person we all are underneath?"

Finding the Line
The type of self-deception that most people employ falls in the middle of a spectrum occupied at one end by those who are complete truth-tellers, and as a consequence are often considered "rude and socially inept -- think of a small child telling a dinner guest that she's fat," says Shell -- and at the other end of the spectrum by pathological liars, who occupy a fantasy world that they believe to be real.
"Self deception is something that everyone is prone to," Shell notes. "There's a lot of research that says if we lack any positive illusions then that is a sign of depression.... We like to think of ourselves as being more important, more skilled and more experienced than we are. When a test comes, and someone asks what your experience is, or what your basis for stating something is, then it's tempting to make something up." Indeed, a 2003 report by the Society of Human Resources Management found that 53% of all job applications contain some kind of inaccurate information. 

Although only 8% of respondents to a 2008 CareerBuilder survey admitted to lying on their resumes, nearly half of the hiring managers queried said they had caught a prospective hire fabricating some aspect of his or her qualifications. Almost 60% of employers said they automatically dismissed applicants caught making misstatements about their backgrounds.

The challenge, experts say, is not to cross the line from harmless puffery to a more damaging form of elaboration. In some cases, the limits of what is accepted and what isn't are clear-cut -- few would condone amplifications that break the law, for example, or cause others serious harm. Equally prone to reproach are cases in which company executives or leaders within an organization are found to have included degrees they never earned, or positions they never held, on their resumes, according to Wharton operations and information management professor Maurice Schweitzer." 

To see complete article and listen to audio visit:The Wharton School

Want Some Easy Steps To De-clutter and Improve Your Resume?

So many of you job seekers are constantly asking us how can you improve your resume.  Well there are some simple ways to do this. Most you want the recruiter or screening process to put your resume in that "A" pile when you are potentially competing with 100's or 1,000's of applicants.  You can now review all of our resume building articles below including  "Steps to De-Clutter your resume".  I thought it might be a good way to get your job search on track. Hope you find this useful and have a great week.
Read here to see all of the articles on improving your resume.   

What's Wrong With Your Resume?

From the desk of Lawrence M. Light, Creator of eJobCoach.com.
Co-Host Of "Ask The Experts: Accelerate Your Career Transition"  see our on demand workshop "Creating a Killer Resume here: Join Here.

Since this is my first post as a Guest Contributor to Interns Over 40, I thought it appropriate to start off with what is undoubtedly the most important thing to understand as a job-hunter in this terrible economic time, with too many people (who are often as qualified as you) going after a job.

How’s this for odds? Thirty out of three hundred. And of those thirty, maybe five will be selected. And of those five, only one, perhaps two (the second as a “back up”) will be finalists. There’s only one winner, folks, and the first prize is, you guessed it, the job being offered.

I’m making a generalization here, of course, and my figures may be off if you’re a stickler, but in this job market, even though the tempo may have picked up slightly in the last few months, those are the kinds of figures HR personnel and recruiters report as seeing regularly when a job is advertised as being open. What this means, of course, is that it’s still a very, very, very competitive world out there and anyone who applies for a job from a monster.com-lookalike or a newspaper ad is facing stiff competition.

All of which leads me to the topic of the month, which is that most resumes don’t work hard enough to ensure that the job-seeker is included in the dreadful “first cut.”

You see I believe that the ideal resume is NOT one that basically says “I am as good as anybody else”and “I have the experience you want.” That may possibly get you into the “first cut” of the thirty individuals who are selected, and I emphasize the word “may” here because, in such a competitive world, it is possible that they may pick the first thirty, all of whom say “I am as good as anybody else”and “I have the experience you want” in their resumes, and then get tired because there are forty, or fifty, or even sixty who have these characteristics. So the thirty-first and all the others that are as good just don’t get picked. After all, thirty is a good round number and to sort through them to winnow it down to find the five to bring in for an interview is a fair amount of work. Five interviews is also actually quite a lot of work when you think about it, in this busy world in which employers are asking each person to shoulder more than their share of work.

Yet that is the type of resume I see, more often than not. It lists what the applicant has done and, if it lists a few achievements here and there, it is still comes across as muted, monochromatic, rather lifeless and certainly not anything like the kind of document it needs to be to galvanize the reader to really, really want to see them, speak to them about what they did and how it can help at the company with the open job. I see these factual, job-description monochromatic type of resumes with awesome regularity and they’re very clear, very succinctly written, as if the world were the same as it was twenty years ago.

No, I believe there’s a better way and it is based on the idea that the ideal resume is one that basically says “I am much better than anybody else” and “I have the experience you want and have put it to great use for my prior employers.” Think about it. Which person would you, if you were the person doing the screening for the hiring, choose?

Now a funny thing happens when you lay this philosophy on the table. People get scared. They immediately say, “I haven’t had anything like that kind of experience and I couldn’t possibly claim that I’m exceptional.” They don’t believe in tooting their own horn; they really want an “objective”, flat job description type of resume.

I don’t mean to imply that anyone needs to lie about what they’ve done. But, after some digging, I usually find that the people I’m talking to have indeed made a substantial contribution to the companies they’ve worked for; they just never thought much about it, or they tend to minimize it. And, believe me, in my work, sometimes it does feel like digging during an initial session when we’re building a resume. (But I like to do that kind of work, obviously.)

That’s why I’ve come to believe that most people can’t write a “Killer” resume for themselves. They’re just too close to the subject-matter to be objective. And, more often than not, they’ve been taught not to brag or trumpet their accomplishments. It’s actually painful for them to write a “Killer” resume, I’ve found.

So, if I may be so bold as to ask you to step back, and look at your resume, to see if it does indeed say,“I am much better than anybody else” and “I have the experience you want and have put it to great use for my prior employers.” If it does, bravo! If not, back to the drawing board!

Get Your ebook:Create Your Own “Killer” Resume That Gets You Into The “Yes” Pile?

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Keywords in Résumé Lead to Interviews


Eighty percent of all submitted résumés (and 100 percent of résumés sent to Fortune 1000 companies) get scanned by software commonly known as an applicant-tracking system (ATS), and such scanned résumés are stored on a server in a digitized format. Humans are seeing your résumé only if it resurfaces based on a query. That’s why most job applicants don’t receive responses from companies after submitting résumés. Therefore, in order to increase your résumé’s chances of being at least viewed by a human--even if it’s not thereafter considered suitable--you have to understand the process and beat them at their own game.


Human resources departments that use ATSs base their queries on keywords they lift from job descriptions or receive verbally from hiring managers. Based on that information, the ATS extracts appropriate résumés from the ones on file. The human resources employee’s query may result in just a few résumés or a vast number. The ATS also scores those résumés and sorts and prioritizes them. Then the employee reviews, say, 20 and submits 5 to be interviewed.


Your job is to ensure that you embed sufficient keywords in your résumé. So, what’s the best way to find those magical keywords? It’s a simple, albeit somewhat tedious, exercise.

1. Search the Internet via job boards such as Monster and The Ladders.com to find 5 to 20 job descriptions of jobs advertised in the field you’re interested in.

2. Cut and paste all of the descriptions one after another into a new Word document.

3. Review the document, resetting in boldface what you consider the keywords throughout.

4. Delete everything except the boldface words.

5. Alphabetize the words, and delete duplicates.

6. Copy your résumé into a new Word document, and repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 on that copy.

The two resulting lists will display which keywords from the descriptions are missing from your résumé. And now comes the creative part: you incorporate the missing keywords into your résumé so it seems seamless and a perfect match for the context in which the words are mentioned in the job descriptions.

By doing this admittedly laborious task, you increase manyfold your chances of being picked out from the crowd.
Guest Contributor:Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching.(www.landingexpert.com)


Quickly Create Customized Resume Cover Letters:Learn More Here

Free:49 Benefits To Hiring An Older Skilled Worker-Learn More

¤ Dealing With Gaps In Employment On Your Resume Or CV ¤

Many times during a job search you may find yourself having to explain an extended "gap in employment" on your resume. This may be due to job or life changes:including children, career transition or family sick leave. Susan gives some excellent suggestions on how to deal with this issue in a simple and effective way.(Editor's Note)

• Out of the job market for an extended period then take 7 Minute Career Test? Its Free:)

• Want to know how to improve your Next Job Interview?

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Older Skilled Worker: Simple 5 Tips When Sending & Creating A Resume

So you think you are a savy techno expert? But sometimes the smallest detail can make difference as to whether a recruiter gets to even see your qualified resume. For example have you ever thought that about how the file name of your resume could affect whether you make it to the "A" resume pile. Well you might want to think again. See a few simple tips that are worth their weight in gold.(Editor's Note)



Is Your Resume A Mess? Learn More
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Why Is Your Resume Objective Statement Critical?

 Why Is Your Resume Objective Statement Important ? 

All we hear about is whether a cover letter should be sent with a resume. But perhaps a simple objective statement can go a long way. Peggy McKee at Career Confidential shares her resume tips.



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Is Your Resume A Mess?

I wish everyone could have a career coach and professional resume writer who works for them full-time. But that is fantasy! So for the rest of the world we need to find a simple and less costly method. In my quest to find one potential solution I browsed passed a product called Amazing Resumes. I say browsed because I passed it at least 10 times before I stopped to read it . Why you ask?  It is one of those web sites with an annoying talking head. I guess this is effective marketing for some people.
But what impressed me more was what the product could do. BTW they offered a money back gaurantee. So I figured lets play.

The product turns out to give very clear tips on how to create a an effective resume that will catch HR's attention. It is so difficult today to differentiate yourself and make your resume stand out and grab the attention of the employer! 

Learn more on Amazing Resume Creator below(information below provide by Resume Creator):

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	Point And Click your mouse to choose the TYPE of resume you want to create.
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In just minutes, you're all done! You've created a personal, powerful, "amazing resume" that is 100% customized for you!

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10 Simple Ideas to keep your resume out of the Black Hole

What can you do to keep your resume out of the "Black Hole"?

1. Apply only to those jobs where you possess 85% or more of the requirements

2. Customize each resume to include every key word that is mentioned in the job description

3. Develop a headline that provides a “wow factor”, uniquely defining your area of expertise

4. Create 3 or 4 key sentences at the top of your resume to highlight your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

5. Focus on promotions, results and direct contributions, not responsibilities and tasks

The second question, and the one rarely considered, is: what can you do to ease the pain of the HR professional?

1. Focus on securing an introduction to the company through a mutual colleague; contact the hiring manager and/or HR professional to leverage the contact and get yourself on the radar screen



2. Clearly indicate how your skills match up with the job requirements – don’t make them search for your relevant skills

3. If you are unable to secure an introduction, call the HR professional and/or hiring manager 2 days after sending your resume, to ensure it was received; during this call, acknowledge that you are aware of the volume of resumes they have received, and request “5 minutes to provide 3 factors” that will demonstrate your fit for the position

4. Send a thank you/follow up card by mail to the HR and/or hiring manager reminding them of the “3 factors”

5. Develop a campaign to follow up with the HR and/or hiring manager on a weekly basis
For the rest of your story click here:

Related Tools:Create Brilliantly Crafted Resume Cover Letters