August 10, 2016 Seven Things to Think About When It Comes to . . . the Do’s and Don’ts for Creating an Amazing Resume

Even though most people often get hired because of a personal contact or referral, you still need to have a great resume. Here are seven key do’s and don’ts to take your resume from ok to one that stands out in a crowd.

1. Size does matter: Your resume should use a 9 to 12 point font. Using anything larger or smaller makes it hard on the reader or seems like you are trying to make up for limited experience. Stick to fonts that are used in books, like Times New Roman, Helvetica, and Garamond, which will ensure that they are ideal for others to read.

2. Say it with color: Find ways to incorporate color into your resume to help you stand out. One way is to include a color logo of the companies that you have worked for. Adding logos is a simple and easy way to make your resume “pop” and differentiate it from the others in the pile.

3. Keep bullets to a minimum: For each section or job position include a maximum of 5 bullets. Any more than that will most likely not be read.

[] 4. Include examples and statistics: More than 50 percent of hiring managers say that they wish candidates would have included more examples and numbers to explain their previous work/accomplishments. Include the number of customers reached or the exact percentage growth of what you have helped create.

5. Avoid personal information: Don’t include your marital status, number of children, photo of yourself, or other personal details on your resume. A professional photo of yourself should appear on your LinkedIn profile. Also stay away from “cutesy” emails like 1hotmama@gmail.com, instead try to use your first and last name.@gmail.com

6. Manage the length: If you have less than four years of experience, the ideal resume should be one page and include approximately 400 words per page.

7. Take out filler words: Bullets are not meant to be complete prose sentences. Be sure to take out filler words like “a” and “the” and find the most concise way to list your work experience using tailored key words and action verbs like created, managed, coordinated, and developed.

This week, dust off your current resume by using these and other ways to make it engaging to the reader. Taking one hour to make simple yet important changes can make all the difference and enable you to stand in a meaningful way.

Breaking into a new field when you lack “experience”

One of the many things I love (and do well) is using branding and marketing strategies and tactics to help people in life and career.  As a quick reminder, strategies are what we want to do (i.e., create, advance in, or even break into a new field/career/industry).  Tactics are how we actually go about doing it (i.e., work as a consultant doing freelance projects while keeping your full time gig, taking a part-time job to pay the bills or creating some ‘hustle’ on the side).

Regardless of industry, you need to first identify and then communicate a consistent and distinct professional brand.  Often, all you need is just a simple phrase or even a couple of words that can effectively communicate who you are and what you do (i.e., your brand).  Let’s say you’ve worked for a few years in internal communications and you are making a segway into TV production – your brand may be a “master storyteller.” Or perhaps you work in IT or Project Management helping organize processes or correct other people’s problems, so your brand is an “organizer of chaos” or the “fixer.”

Once you have clearly defined the essence of your brand and its core attributes, now you have to find (or most likely create) untraditional ways to promote yourself.  Your first step is to draft (or hire someone) to develop a professional biography.  

A bio is one of the best marketing tools for anyone involved in career exploration or seeking to advance to the next level of career readiness.  It allows you to transcend the confines of titles, and put the focus on what really matters (the experience itself) and not when it occurred. For example, you may have worked in sales 10 years ago for five years. That information sticks out like a “you really don’t have experience in this field” type of resume. But the bio lets you tell your whole “story,” and enables you to pick the characters, roles and scenes that relate to what you want to do now and moving forward.

A resume is a linear, chronological history of your professional life.  And, people are just as linear as the resume. Often, we only see what’s presented right in front of us.  You show someone a resume of a person who hasn’t worked at the “required” level (for more than a decade or even at all), then that’s how they will see you.  But if you give them your customized resume (a requirement for almost every job) and also provide a great bio that tells your complete professional story in a way that demonstrates your brand value, you might be given a shot to prove yourself.

Your bio effectively unites your professional brand, “unrelated” experience and work history, and prepares you to tell a believable story.  A believable story is one that convinces others you are the perfect person for the job, despite what your resume may or may not ‘say.’  Your story is not something you “wing” on the interview but rather what you create and fine-tune well before any opportunity presents itself.

With your bio, brand and believable story in hand, you are armed to explore and create unconventional ways to get to your end goal.  Volunteer or work for free to get more hands-on experience in an area where you want to work.
Reach out to a larger competitor who doesn’t have the time (or desire) to support clients that are “too small for them” but just right for your start-up business.  Take a class or teach one to network with both instructors and peers who are currently doing the very thing you dream about.  

Almost every great “empire” started as a side hustle, so today do one small thing to jumpstart yours.  In doing something unconventional, I promise you that not only will it pay off but it will get you several steps closer to life and career that enables you to do what you love.