Did You Get My Resume?

Google the phrases job hunt and black hole and you'll turn up 55,700 results. The reason for this confluence of terms, as any job hunter will tell you, is that applying for a position increasingly involves two phases.

Recruiters say the percentage of online applications viewed by an actual human being ranges from 5% to 25%. And while it drives job hunters crazy, there's a good reason companies use so-called applicant-tracking systems to screen and rank candidates.

Resume-Writing Dos and Don'ts

It's worth reviewing the do's and don'ts of resume writing. Aside from your portfolio, a well-crafted resume is a designer's most effective tool for landing an interview and, ultimately, a new job. But to stand apart from the crowd in today's competitive employment market, a candidate must submit a document that makes an immediate positive impression.

Neglected Resume Section: Education

In today's tight job market, you can't afford to ignore a section of your resume that is easy to take for granted. Read more...

Résumé Lies Can Haunt‏

Build your résumé and your reputation on integrity for ultimate success

"I hate to tell you this," he said, "but Julie didn't lead any of those projects. She was a member of the team, but the leadership role as well as recognition for the results belongs to someone else." He shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry." So was I.

By the end of that day, Julie was no longer employed by my company. She tearfully explained that she had lied on her résumé, expanding the description of her former role in order to be given the chance to lead major projects – something she knew she could do.
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3 Things Your Resume Could Do Without

Here are three things that, judging from my mail, hiring managers dislike in a resume.

1. Spelling and grammatical errors. We’ve covered this area quite a bit on TechRepublic. (See 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid) Some members have blasted us for our seeming exaggeration of the effect these kinds of errors can have. While I’ll concede that you may be able to get away with them in the informality of day-to-day work life, you CANNOT get away with them in your resume. If you can’t even make error-free a document that is supposed to, in one or two pages, present you to the world in your best light, then you’ve got problems. Mistakes in a resume speak volumes to a prospective employer about your attention to detail, or lack thereof.

Read More TechRepublic

Hiding Résumé Flaws

By Jennifer Anthony, ResumeASAP

If you're job hunting, the last thing you need is weakness in your résumé. Any bit of negative information can keep you from landing your ideal job. Issues such as lack of a college degree or minimal job experience don't have to hinder your efforts. All you need to do is work a little résumé magic.

Here are some tips to help you create a winning résumé.

Read More CareerBuilder.com

Resume & Interview Advice: Make your career objective count in your resume.

Watch the Video Career TV.com

13 Most Overused Résumé Phrases

How to turn them into solid examples of talent

By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer

Throughout your career, you’ve accomplished many feats, exceeded several goals and mastered countless skills. Now you’re on yet another job hunt and you can’t remember a lick of any of it.

Such is the importance of keeping your résumé up-to-date, whether you’re looking for a job or not. When you don’t, not only will you forget the important details that’ll help your résumé stand out to employers, but in your rush to submit your application on time you’ll end up using the same words and phrases as everyone else – ruining your chances altogether.

Career experts always advise job seekers to avoid common résumé mistakes, but one grave error often left out of the mix is the overuse of clichés and vague phrases – and perhaps it’s the worst gaffe to commit.

“If a job seeker places overused phrases on his or her résumé, the chances of standing out from other candidates are greatly diminished,” says Kathy Sweeney, a certified professional résumé writer for her company, The Write Resume. “A résumé is a marketing tool and should be utilized to distinguish the candidate from other people vying for the same position.”

click here for Full Article.

Your Cover Letter Sucks

And may be thrown in the trash unless you use this insider secret

SOME AMAZING FACTS ABOUT COVER LETTERS
And Why This Powerful Little One-Page Sales
Letter May Be The Single Most Important
Letter You Ever Write!

Fact #1: Your cover letter is more important than your resume!

Most people pay more attention to their resume instead of their cover letter; however, the cover letter is the first impression, and we all know that you never get a second chance at a first impression. If you do not grab the employers' attention and appeal to their interests right away, THEY WILL NOT GIVE YOUR RESUME THE TIME OF DAY and will immediately toss it in the trash.

Fact #2: 99.9% of all cover letter templates will not work!

Most employers are so accustomed to receiving the same old boring templates that most of the time they hurt you more than help you. When an employer sets their eye on a personalized cover letter it instantly grabs their attention. By simply personalizing the first paragraph of each cover letter for the company you are applying to you will automatically stand above the rest of the competition and dramatically boost your chances of landing the job.

click here for Full Article.

Stand Out with an E-Portfolio

Take a minute to search your name on the Internet. What comes up? Your MySpace page? An old paper you wrote in college? A court document archiving your arrest from college?

While some of these citations are worse than others, none of them are items you want to showcase – especially to potential employers. And believe me, they’re looking. Thirty-five percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates, according to a recent survey by Ponemon Institute, an information and privacy think tank. Nearly one-third of those Web searches lead to job rejections.

“If an employer is going to be searching for you online, would you rather them find pictures of you at a party or valuable information about your experience, expertise and career goals?” asks Kelly Driscoll, president and co-founder of Digication, a technology solution firm.

Enter the e-Portfolio, the newest career tool in our tech-savvy era of job hunting. Not only will an e-Portfolio give you a competitive edge in the job market, it also gives you a positive digital identity when companies search for you online, Driscoll says

“E-Portfolios are becoming increasingly important to supplement, support and extend a résumé into a dynamic profile of an individual with not only descriptions of work that was done,” Driscoll says, “but actual examples that give employers the ability to learn much more about an individual before even entering the interview process.”

Want to learn how to hone your digital identity as a competitive advantage in your job search? Read on for a crash course on e-Portfolios.

By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer
Click here for Full Article.

Find Unpublished Graphic, Creative Director and Art Director Jobs

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Only members of our service can view these special jobs which means less competition for you!

We can also help you tune up your resume and/or offer career coaching from our staff of former corporate recruiters and human resources executives. Membership starts at $4/month.

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Worst Résumés Ever

In their years as recruiters, Jon Reed and Rachel Meyers saw plenty of résumés pass across their desks. Plenty were good... but some raised some eyebrows. Reed and Meyers kept track of some of the more bizarre entries and compiled them in their funny new book, "Résumés from Hell" (eCruiting Alternatives, Inc.).

As Reed and Meyers point out, the mistakes these job seekers made give us valuable how-not-to's for our own job searches. These are some example entries from their book, and some useful lessons for the rest of us.

By CareerBuilder.com
Click here for Full Article.

Eight Résumé Editing Tips

Depending on how it's written, your résumé can make or break your job search. A professional, well-written résumé can have employers banging down your door; but a sloppy, mistake-laden résumé can turn off a hiring manager in a split second.

Proofreading is a must. Neglect doing it and you could send out a résumé with simple mistakes that could have been avoided. Before you send yours to an employer, follow this checklist to ensure it is the highest-quality representation of yourself.

By Jennifer Anthony, Resume Expert
Click here for Full Article.

Seven Things to Know Before Writing Your First Résumé

There are many rites of passage in every young person's life. Getting your driver's license, graduation day and turning 21 are just a few. But another rite of passage can be even more important to your future -- writing your first résumé.

While it's not as exciting as learning to drive, creating your first résumé is a vital step in launching your career. The process may seem daunting. You have to put all of your best qualities on paper, make yourself look more attractive than the next person and completely sell yourself, all on one sheet of paper. "You have only a few seconds to snag the employer's attention," writes Seattle-based career coach Robin Ryan in Winning Résumés, (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003). "You must sell the employer within 15 seconds of looking at your résumé, or you'll lose the job." Here are seven tips to help you catch an employer's attention.

By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor
Click here for Full Article.

Job Hunting 101 for New Grads

Despite a chronic case of senioritis, you turned in that 100-page term paper, presented the group project for which nobody pulled his weight, and completed final exams. Now after surviving the never-ending commencement activities with your family, it's time to kick back and take advantage of some of your newfound freedom. Right?

Wrong!

The grim reality is that you're no longer on the Mom and Dad gravy train. The rules have changed and it's time to fend for yourself. And that doesn't mean waiting tables at your neighborhood cafe or serving drinks at your college stomping ground. You're actually expected to put your shiny, new, freshly-minted degree to work.

Fortunately, CareerBuilder.com found there's good news for the class of 2005. Sixty-two percent of hiring managers plan to recruit recent college graduates this year and one-in-four say they will be increasing starting salaries over those offered in previous years.

"It's a different job market today with more promising prospects for college graduates," says Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.com. "Educated labor is in demand and 18 percent of hiring managers say they plan to hire a greater number of recent college graduates this year than they did in 2004."

In terms of compensation, 28 percent of hiring managers expect to increase the starting salaries for recent college graduates this year, and only 6 percent plan to decrease them. Fifty-nine percent of hiring managers expect to offer less than $30,000, and 26 percent will offer $30,000 to $39,000. An additional 10 percent will offer $40,000 to $49,000 while 6 percent will offer $50,000 or more.

With promising job opportunities, favorable salaries and plenty of free time, new grads should have no reason not to look for that first job. Here are the top things hiring managers look for when sizing up a candidate:

By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor
Click here for Full Article.

Your Résumé: Marketing or Misleading?

A résumé is a marketing tool – it should showcase your experience and qualifications in the most succinct and relevant way possible. And that often means being selective in the kind of information that you include or crafty in your wording.

But that doesn't mean you should lie. A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 96 percent of HR professionals always conduct reference checks on job candidates, and more than half say they sometimes find inconsistencies.

By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor
Click here for Full Article.

Job Hunting 101 for New Grads

In terms of compensation, 28 percent of hiring managers expect to increase the starting salaries for recent college graduates this year, and only 6 percent plan to decrease them. Fifty-nine percent of hiring managers expect to offer less than $30,000, and 26 percent will offer $30,000 to $39,000. An additional 10 percent will offer $40,000 to $49,000 while 6 percent will offer $50,000 or more.

With promising job opportunities, favorable salaries and plenty of free time, new grads should have no reason not to look for that first job. Here are the top things hiring managers look for when sizing up a candidate:

By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor
Click here for Full Article.

Stand Out with an E-Portfolio

Take a minute to search your name on the Internet. What comes up? Your MySpace page? An old paper you wrote in college? A court document archiving your arrest from college?

While some of these citations are worse than others, none of them are items you want to showcase – especially to potential employers. And believe me, they’re looking. Thirty-five percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates, according to a recent survey by Ponemon Institute, an information and privacy think tank. Nearly one-third of those Web searches lead to job rejections.

“If an employer is going to be searching for you online, would you rather them find pictures of you at a party or valuable information about your experience, expertise and career goals?” asks Kelly Driscoll, president and co-founder of Digication, a technology solution firm.

Enter the e-Portfolio, the newest career tool in our tech-savvy era of job hunting. Not only will an e-Portfolio give you a competitive edge in the job market, it also gives you a positive digital identity when companies search for you online, Driscoll says

“E-Portfolios are becoming increasingly important to supplement, support and extend a résumé into a dynamic profile of an individual with not only descriptions of work that was done,” Driscoll says, “but actual examples that give employers the ability to learn much more about an individual before even entering the interview process.”

Want to learn how to hone your digital identity as a competitive advantage in your job search? Read on for a crash course on e-Portfolios.

By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer
Click here for Full Article.

Don't Lie, But Don't Be Afraid to Spin

Some résumé gaps can be plugged, others should best be avoided

Oh, the dreaded hole in your résumé.

Maybe you did a lot of job hopping and don’t think telling a prospective employer the whole truth about your past is a good idea. Or you left a job on bad terms but don’t want to dredge up the past during the interview process for fear of jeopardizing your chances. Or you took time off the raise your children and think that will work against you when you try to get back in the work place.

How do you explain it? Can you fudge the truth?

By Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC.com contributor
Click here for Full Article.

Hiding Résumé Flaws

If you're job hunting, the last thing you need is weakness in your résumé. Any bit of negative information can keep you from landing your ideal job. Issues such as lack of a college degree or minimal job experience don't have to hinder your efforts. All you need to do is work a little résumé magic.

Here are some tips to help you create a winning résumé.
By Jennifer Anthony, ResumeASAP

Click here for Full Article.