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A majority of hiring executives recently responded to a survey where they concluded cover letters to be as important or more important that the resume alone when screening applicants.

With this in mind here are five tips for writing resume cover letters that will get the recruiter’s attention:

1. Fit: How would you fit into the culture of the organization? A small rapidly growing enterprise is different from a larger more stable company as is a government, educational or non-profit organization.

If you have the right basic qualifications how you position yourself to fit the organization’s culture should be emphasized. For the smaller company you can describe yourself as more “fast-paced,” you can “quickly adjust to changing circumstances.” For a more stable employer you are, “team oriented,” or are skilled at, “developing policies,” and “coordinating between different departments.”

2. Focus: In three or four bullet points list quantifiable achievements that will clearly demonstrate that you could make an immediate contribution. Frame the achievements to match how you would fit into the culture of the organization.

You might say for the smaller fast moving company, “…quickly developed customer service initiative that, in three months, reduced customer complaints by over 65%.” For the larger employer, “…developed program and trained customer service staff that, in first year, reduced warranty claims by over 22% saving over $72,000.” Both achievements are results from the same program, but how they are framed make all the difference.

3. Crisp Counts: Keep the resume cover letter to one page and about four paragraphs. Short sentences and action verbs work best. Start with an action sentence like, “You ad in the XYZ paper for an experienced customer service manger immediately got my attention.”

4. Referrals: If you are being referred to the employer by an employee, lead off the cover letter with the employee’s name. For example, “Mark Martin suggested I contact you as he is familiar with my abilities as a customer service manger and he thought you might have a need for someone with my skills,” is a good opening sentence.

If you don’t have a direct referral but have picked up through your research of the company that they may have need for someone with your experience you could lead off the cover letter with a question, such as, “Are you in the market for a skilled customer service manager with a successful track record? If so, I may be the person you’re looking for.”

5. Essence: Keep the letter professional. Avoid gimmicks. Impress the reader with the substance in the cover letter not the color of the paper or the use of creative fonts.

Your resume cover letter should position you with the right fit. Your focus will be on your skills and abilities. You rewrite to keep it crisp and short. And by avoiding any gimmicks you will move past other candidates with skills equal or greater than your own. This is the essence of a powerful and effective resume cover letter.

John Groth is a Career Coach and former HR executive. On his site find Career Planning Ideas, valuable articles and a Free seven day career planning guide.

Tags: resumes, cover letters

4 Ways to Boost Your Career During a Recession

Even tough times provide opportunities for savvy workers

With the economy weakening and layoffs edging higher, many Americans have begun to fret about job security. Yet even the nastiest recessions have way more survivors than victims — assuming your company doesn’t go out of business, of course. And if you play it smart, you can even thrive. Here are four ways to actually move your career forward in a downturn: Related News

Introduce you: version 2.0. Every change presents opportunity, says Lois Frankel, an executive coach and author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers. Frankel says layoff survivors need to get over their guilt pretty quickly. It’s not uncommon for employees who witness a round of job cuts to become immobilized or feel shell-shocked, but they’re missing a great opportunity to “rebrand” themselves.

When companies are flush, they’re able to create specialists among their workforce. But when profits and payrolls thin, employees who can serve as “utility players,” handling a variety of roles, are highly attractive, Frankel says. Lean times present an opportunity for niche employees to put other skills to work and rebuild their reputations as go-to multitaskers.

Seize what’s left behind. Now, we’re not just talking about filching that cool Herman Miller chair in a now-empty adjoining office. Rather, employees should actively try to pick up the work of their departed peers. “The people who get laid off make the most money, so you should just go take all their projects when they leave,” says Penelope Trunk, a syndicated career columnist, blogger, and author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.

Duncan Fuller of Framingham, Mass., is something of an expert on layoffs. He made it through about four rounds of job cuts at Genuity, an early Internet service provider, before getting the ax himself in 2001. Fuller says it was fairly common to see his fellow survivors swarm toward staplers, telephone headsets, and corporate knickknacks left in abandoned cubicles. But the real claim was abandoned sales accounts of good customers. Fuller incorporated the accounts into his own deck and worked to soothe the frustrations of clients who begrudged losing the sales rep they knew best.

Boost your market value. Frankel cautions that this isn’t the time to ask management for perks like the abandoned corner office or a better title. “It’s a little ghoulish,” she says.

But volunteering to take on new responsibilities can pave the way for a negotiation in six to eight months, when an employee can prove that the job has evolved and is now worth more on the market. It can also build an employee into a more attractive candidate for a job outside the company.

Remember, too, that a volunteer spirit can also make you look like a team player—like someone who supports the organizational change. Frankel worked for a major oil company in the 1980s, when the price of oil dropped and the company was forced to cut jobs. The resilient employees—those who really stepped up to the plate without seeming to dance on the graves of their laid off coworkers—found many opportunities during the downturn, she says.

Embrace a new age. Suppose you’re already out of work. Take advantage of it. The old thinking was that workers could only gain and expand skills at a regular job. The new thinking is that there’s plenty of growth to be found elsewhere, and a traditional job can even prove stifling, Trunk says. Generation Y-ers are driving this new concept of success, Trunk says. They’ll live in their parents’ basements, reject job offers that don’t meet their criteria, and work freelance gigs or flip websites—meaning they buy them, improve them, and sell them for a profit—to make some money.

It works for other generations, too. Instead of holding to a rigid idea of what work should be, Fuller worked as an electrician’s apprentice between jobs. That proved key in nabbing his current gig as a regional salesman for an upscale landscape lighting company.

 By Liz Wolgemuth UsNews.com

10 Job Interview Mistakes that Would Cost You the Job

Ah, job interviews. A lot of people don’t know is that there’s an exact science behind job interviews. Each of the questions thrown at you has a rationale behind them. They’re not only designed to get more information about you, they’re also designed to see how you approach certain situations and how you can fit in an organization. Most experienced interviewers can spot a “winner” even if they’ve only gone a fourth of the designated questions. But with a lot of job applicants, they trip into these common pitfalls during their interviews. Here are 10 of the most common job interview mistakes that can cost you the job.

1. Being late - Two things - 1) first impressions last and 2) no one wants to be kept waiting. Being on time shows a lot about your time management skills.

2. Poor appearance - Not dressing up in proper business attire communicates sloppiness. Be sure to wear your clean and crisp business suit. Make sure you clean your shoes too. Look professional.

3. Poor track record - Not everyone can be won through flair. If you don’t have the credentials to back your self up, then expect some tough questions thrown at you.

4. Being a know-it-all - While you’d like to come out as a very knowledgeable person, don’t act as if you know everything. Keep a humble yet confident tone when answering questions.

5. Inability to accept criticism - You can’t please everybody and do expect some things to be pointed out even if you have a great resume and given a great interview. React positively and proactively. Thank the interviewer for those comments.

6. Unable to effectively communicate thoughts - An interview relies heavily on how well you communicate your thoughts. Practice in front of the mirror and try to create answers to the most common interview questions .
7. Extreme nervousness/lack of self-confidence - Freezing up is the last thing you’d want to do. Look the interviewer straight in the eye and be forceful in your language.

8. Focusing too much on compensation packages - Sure you’re out for a job that pays. But remember that it is not the venue to negotiate the pay.

9. Trashing former employer - This is a test of you business ethics. Will you lowblow people just because you’re not affiliated with them anymore.

10. Doesn’t ask questions - Remember that interviews isn’t just a one-way street. They are exercises of two-way communication. So be sure to ask questions too.

Posted by Alex as Attitude and Outlook, Business, Communication, Work and Career in Lifespy.com

Who doesn’t want a better salary? We all could use a pay raise, but the problem is—how to get it? How should you approach the boss? What should you say? And—equally importantly—what should you avoid saying in order to plead your case in the most effective way possible?

The first step to making sure you make a good case for yourself is to have all the knowledge you can gather up. How much are other employees in your position making? Try to obtain this information discreetly—don’t just ask your coworkers what their salary is. Be sensitive to the fact that others may not want to tell you how much money they make, and be respectful. Above all, try to make sure that any knowledge you have on the matter is as accurate as possible, so you can use it as leverage in your negotiations.

But don’t be too quick to use your coworkers higher salaries as justification for your own pay raise. You need to think about why you may be getting paid less. Is your performance weak in any way? Are you substantially newer at the company? Do you work fewer hours than others in your same position? Do you contribute less overall? These are all factors that may affect how much compensation you get for your work.

If you think your lower-than-desired salary may be attributable to a weak performance, the obvious answer is to step it up in terms of your workplace accomplishments. Make it obvious to all those around you that you deserve more money. Always arrive on time, stay late if possible, and don’t goof off during work hours. Don’t just do the bare minimum, but rather go above and beyond the call of duty at every opportunity you are presented with. It’s the overachievers who generally are given the greatest rewards.

When you go into your negotiation, arrive armed with a list of your accomplishments to prove your work ethic to your employer. This is especially important if the employer is not someone you work with closely on a daily basis. You need to show him/her that your contributions are significant and valuable, as that is the key to making him/her want to reward you with a higher salary. It’s especially beneficial to show how your work has increased revenue, decreased expenses, made the company more productive, created greater overall accuracy and minimized error, and so on.

And what if your employer still won’t budge on the question of salary? There are other ways you can be compensated, so don’t give up yet. Asking for additional benefits is one great way to make sure you are getting what you deserve. For example, an employer may be much more willing to give you an extra week of vacation or free night courses to enrich your skill set.

Ken Anczerewicz is an author and publisher devoted to providing time & money saving resources designed to help career & job seekers of all ages achieve their financial goals.

It may sound crazy but, yes, you should send a thank you letter when you are not the candidate selected for the job. It’s not going to make any difference in their hiring solution today but it may have a dramatic impact on future hiring decisions.

I have had a number of clients who were offered another job at the same company because they sent a thank you letter. In a couple of cases, they were even hired for the same job when the initial selection didn’t work out.

Unlike a normal thank you letter, which goes to everyone you spoke with, this one needs to go only to the decision maker and/or the human resource department representative you dealt with. If the letter you received is signed by the HR person, than you thank both of them. If it is signed by the hiring manager, you need to send a thank you note only to that person.

So what do you say in this strange kind of thank you letter? Basically, you thank them for considering you for the opportunity. Tell them something you were impressed about by the company or the department you were being considered for. Let them know you would like to keep in touch and would like to be considered for future openings.

What does this get you in the long run? In addition to the possibility of a job in the future, you have a contact you can follow up with later in your career because you didn’t burn you bridges.

From Jane Trevaskis and Success-Catalyst.com.

No-one can deny the importance of a resume in a job search. Despite the invention of web portfolios, online applications, and leadership profiles, you will find that a well-written resume is still a highly effective tool for interviewing, networking, and relationship building purposes.

For executive jobseekers, the job search arena is a whole different playing field. The compensation is higher, but the competition for C-level positions is fiercer than that of the average jobseeker. As senior-level executive positions shrink, a powerful executive resume /portfolio can give you an edge over your peers.

When taking a close look at resume s on the whole, there are distinctive features that are unique to the executive resume. While information like job responsibilities, areas of expertise, accomplishments, and technical skills will always apply to any jobseeker, the executive must also demonstrate leadership capabilities, industry insights, revenue-enhancing performance, and staff management in his or her resume. In addition, the executive resume should be targeted, highly-customized, and clearly describe the executive's personal attributes.

Sounds like a tall order, right? So how exactly do you begin to put the pieces together?

Building Block #1: Know Where You Are Headed. Regardless of what circumstances bring you to a job search, you must be clear on the type of positions, companies or industries you will be targeting. Before I even critique a client's resume, I always begin by getting a solid understanding of what positions they are considering and the companies that interest them. It cannot be stressed enough that a one-size fits all resume does not work, it makes you appear unfocused and the reader is left to guess about your career aspirations. Bottom-line - it ends up in the trash pile.

Building Block #2: Decide How You Want To Be Perceived. This portion of building the resume is especially important for individuals seeking to advance from general management roles to senior-level or C-level responsibilities. What personal strengths and career-defining achievements are most valuable to your target audience? Do you want to be perceived as the finance guru or the innovative leader? Each person is different and those distinguishing features and unique value propositions have to be reflected on paper. This is generally very thought-provoking, but the information you can extract is well worth the effort when it is translated into your executive resume. Take the time to develop a list of your personal attributes - enlist help from your mentors, colleagues, peers, and family to help give you feedback on those areas. A company is interested in hiring a real person, not just education, credentials, and technical skills.

Building Block #3: Include Only Relevant Information. Gone are the days when creating a resume meant rehashing every job you held in your life. Most likely, as an executive you will have a minimum of fifteen years or more experience. Do all those experiences relate to your target market? Are you still holding on to your first position or internship since college? Understandably, having consistency and longevity on your resume will work in your favor, but the goal is to have a two-to-three page resume , not a book! In addition, if you have done a variety of training courses, list those programs that would highlight your knowledge and proficiency in areas that your target market wants.

Building Block #4: Gather The Facts, Get The Numbers. Your executive resume must tell the reader what you have done, but in "big picture" snapshots with active words that bring the resume to life. There is a huge difference between saying "Manage daily activities for real estate portfolio for investment management company and supervise staff members." and saying instead "Challenged to deliver 10% return on $700 million investment portfolio in unpredictable real estate industry. Oversee all daily activities including ROI maximizations, client relations, loan negotiations, and investment dispositions. Recruit, train, and coach 50 employees. In three short sentences, without going through the painful step-by-step details, the reader is able to capture what the jobseeker does, the breadth of the work responsibilities, the challenges, and the overall scope of the desired outcome. Being able to incorporate quantitative facts and figures can really enhance the executive resume. You probably won't remember intricate details from ten or fifteen years ago, but do some research, make logical estimates, and call up old co-workers to get the facts.

Building Block #5: Accomplishments: The Icing On The Resume. Once you have communicated to the reader what your responsibilities are in a three-to-five line paragraph, it's time to show how you made a difference. In every consultation I conduct, I find that clients can underestimate what they have done. Sure, they can tell you their responsibilities or the company's annual/quarterly goals, but when it comes to summarizing the level of impact they have made - they sometimes stumble. An accomplishment or an achievement can be identified by those actions you took to overcome a challenge or resolve a problem that your company was facing. An accomplishment does not always mean you scored $1 million in sales. While more impressive accomplishments relate to revenues and profits, your accomplishments can relate to customers, work productivity, cost reduction, and business expansion as well. Again, if you can quantity or qualify those accomplishments, they add more zest to the final document.

Building Block #6: Compiling Your Core Competencies. In this section of the resume, you will pull together a list of keywords relevant to your target industry, your direct experience, your leadership capabilities, and your technical/business skills. Incorporating keywords throughout the resume in addition to the core competency section helps you to "speak" the same language as the hiring company. For assistance with finding the right keywords, visit association websites, talk to contacts in the industry, and research company literature and websites.

Building Block #7: Handling the Dates. Anyone who has more than 20 years' experience has to address the issue of age when seeking new employment. A general (and safe) rule of thumb to follow is to avoid listing any employment or education dates from the 60's and 70's. When making reference to number of years of experience instead of saying "30 years' experience in government relations" say "20+ years' experience or even 15+ years' experience." You have to be prepared to answer in an interview exactly what the "+" equates to in years.

Building Block #8: The Final Layout. After hours of hard work and information gathering, you begin the final assembly and layout of the resume. In general the sections should go in this order: Name/Contact Information, Title Header (indicating your job title), Executive Summary or Profile, Core Competency Areas, Career Progression, Education & Training, and Memberships.

Getting prepared to develop a new resume is never an easy task especially if you haven't done a one in a long time. Don't overwhelm yourself with the entire process - start by working on one section at a time before pulling it all together.

Abby M. Locke is a nationally certified resume writer who has been quoted and featured as an executive career services expert in the Washington Post, Washington Post Express, Wall Street Journal, CEO Update, Monster.com and the Society for Human Resource Management.

Online Reputation Management for Individuals

Recently I've had several discussions with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal on how small businesses can effectively use blogger relations and PR to market themselves. Out of that conversation came another topic about Online Reputation Management - not for companies, but for individuals.

There's a tremendous amount of content and in some cases debate, being generated in the search marketing and public relations communities about the need to measure brands and reputations online. The first step in a ORM program is to start monitoring and there are some pretty incredible and often times costly software tools emerging to do that.

That's all fine and good for measuring brands or companies, but what if the brand is you?

For example, there's no doubt that both companies and candidates do a bit of "Googling" on each other to get a sense of what they're getting in to before an in-person interview. I'm sure you've heard of stories where a company either didn't hire or in some cases fired employees because of what was discovered on Facebook or MySpace.

Alternatively, candidates use search to look up companies they might want to look for and the top ten search results on the company name are distinctly influential in the mind of the searcher. Are the results littered with complaints, law suits and "yourcompanysucks.com" entries? Or are they displaying social profiles, blog, press releases and news coverage of the company?

There's a case to be made for individuals that anticipate working or being involved in an industry where their "online persona" could significantly affect (positive or negative) their ability to get work or maintain employment. Whether a person is starting out on a job search after college or a tenured executive is making a career change, it is without question that the ease of being able to type a person's name into a search box will drive some queries. The question is, what will come up?

Monitoring one's own personal brand (whether it's your name or an online user account name) can easily start with Google Alerts. You can also subscribe to the search results on a blog search engine like Technorati or to something like Google Video search results.

Let's assume we've made the case for taking charge of our online persona. What can a person who's not savvy in the ways of SEO, social media and online public relations do to make sure they are represented positively and at least accurately online? I could spend another 500 words answering that topic but what I'll do is update this post when the WSJ article comes out and point to that. Awwwww, you say? OK, I'll put a few ideas below:

* Be smart about what you allow strangers to see on your Facebook and MySpace profiles or blogs. There's a reason you have a network of friends and why some people are in it and the rest of the world is not.

* Create business profiles on social networks like LinkedIn as well as niche social communities according to your interest such as YouTube, Flickr, Digg or any of the other many social media sharing and news web sites.

* Start a blog. Register your own domain name and use the Blogger.com service to host the blog itself. The domain name costs $10/year and the Blogger.com service is free. You could also spend just a little more and use WordPress.org software on your own hosting account.

* A domain name that uses your own name is important so your dopleganger doesn't get it and also because the likelihood of others linking to it will use your name as anchor text. Use the blog to cross link to your social profiles and embed any videos, audio or images - even your resume - that you would like people to find.

* Find the good stuff that's already out there about you that might not yet be ranking on the first page and get links to that content. Cross linking between profiles is one way to do this, but promoting your interests and even content that you've created online with links to the pages that represent your accomplishments can also work well. A few social bookmarks on anything that presents you accurately and positively isn't a bad idea either.

There are many more things an individual can do to improve their online reputation but the important thing to remember is that whatever gets put online, is pretty much forever. Sometimes it seems like a good idea at the time and now it's not, sometimes it's simply not accurate and sometimes the information reflects a person's previous situation but is not an accurate representation now.

Whatever the situation, there are many individuals that would do well to make an effort to take control of how they're represented online before undesirable information gets published. As it is for companies, a proactive approach is insurance for individuals as well. If something does happen and a person already has multiple personal networks established with several different social networking, news and media sharing services, a blog and plenty of links coming in, it's likely to be a nominal issue.

That all sounds like a lot of effort but spread over time, it's not difficult or time consuming and networking/making friends is a good thing. Plus it's a lot better than being put into a reactionary situation and starting from scratch.

I'm curious what readers of Online Marketing Blog think in terms of the need for individuals to be aware and proactive about their online personas. Does it make sense? Have you experienced the positive or negative of being easily found online?

Recession-proof your life

Falling home values, rising unemployment, declining confidence among consumers and businesses and, lately, a swooning stock market. We may or may not be entering an official recession (defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic activity), but either way 2008 has gotten off to a scarier start than most anyone predicted.

To lower your anxiety level and devise your own coping strategies - all without resorting to prescription medications - read this special report. You'll not only learn how the economy and markets might perform if we're in a real downturn (Breathe. Remember that knowledge is the key to overcoming fear.), you'll also get timely advice on what to do about your finances, investments, job and home. The economy and the markets will bring what they bring. Keep reading and learn how to take it all in stride. Recessions: Learn the facts

Spend too much time with CNBC or The Wall Street Journal these mornings and you'll be dreaming about breadlines and "The Grapes of Wrath" at night. Time for some perspective.

For the most part, the U.S. economy bounces back from hard times quickly. The downturn in the early 1990s is instructive. It had a similar starting point to the rocky period we're in. Then, as now, a financial shock related to the housing market caused problems. Then it was the collapse of the savings and loan industry.

Today it's the subprime crisis. The 1990-91 recession lasted eight months, and unemployment eventually peaked at 7.8% - not a staggering number but still more than 50% higher than the current rate. Home prices in the top 10 metropolitan areas fell 8.3% during the downturn and its aftermath. Today they're off 5% from their 2006 peak. Recovery in the 1990s was slow: It took until 1996 for housing to start rising again.

The stock market moved faster. It dropped 21% but bottomed out in three months. If we did enter a recession this past December, as many economists think, a replay of 1990-91 would mean further market declines now followed by a rebound later in the year. Not a terrible scenario. Unfortunately, it's not the only possibility.

At times a confluence of events sets a trap from which the economy can't easily escape. Pessimists see that possibility in a subprime-induced credit crunch. In the 1970s, the trap was stagflation, a combination of high inflation and low growth. The U.S. was already burdened by Vietnam War-related inflation when the Arab oil embargo sprung the snare. The economy jerked to a stop, but energy costs kept the inflation rate up and made recovery painfully hard to come by.

The 1973-75 recession lasted 16 months, about double the typical one. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 40% from its pre-recession high, or more than triple the decline we've seen since October's top. Unemployment peaked after the recession ended, at 9.1%.

Before you reach for the medicine cabinet, take comfort in some important then-vs.-now differences. The Fed, and the feds, today act earlier in a downturn. The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates 2.25 percentage points since August. And Congress is putting money in consumers' pockets through tax rebates. Even more important, notes David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, is the absence of high inflation, the real standard-of-living killer. Energy prices notwithstanding, inflation remains mild. It ran at 11% in 1974 vs. 3% last year.

Bottom line: A debilitating recession seems unlikely, but that doesn't mean you should do nothing. Instead, set yourself up for the opportunities that will come if the downturn is short - and keep yourself safe should the hard times stick around. Shore up your balance sheet

Stock up on emergency funds. A good rule of thumb for a two-income couple is to keep three months of expenses in a high-interest savings account or money-market fund in case one of you loses your job.

In a downturn, which makes a new job harder to find, you'll want six months put away, says planner Mark Brown of Denver's Brown & Tedstrom. That's especially true if you're in an industry likely to be hit hard by a recession (say, construction or financial services) or if you're a one-income family. If you're self-employed, Brown advises you to stash as much as a year of expenses. "Everyone needs a lifeboat of liquidity, especially now," says Brown.

Slim down the debts. Your best investment in hard times is to pay down credit-card and other high-interest debt. Ron Roge, a planner in Bohemia, N.Y., says the way to do that is to cut discretionary spending - and start with big items. "This is the year to take one vacation, not two," says Roge. In good times, people will defer paying off credit cards to invest more in stocks and real estate. But those investments could have low or no returns this year.

Savings accounts are safe, though yields will get stingier as interest rates fall. Roge says it even makes sense to pull money out of an emergency fund to pay off debt. Psychologically, that's hard to do in a shaky economy. Chances are you won't lose your job, however, and if you do, why not run up debt then rather than pay finance charges now? If you want a security blanket, apply for a home-equity line of credit, which will probably have a lower rate than a credit card anyway. But tap it only in an emergency. Shore up your portfolio

Regain your balance. If you had 10% of an otherwise S&P 500-like portfolio invested in energy stocks in 2003 and you never rebalanced, that stake would amount to 22% of your assets today. That's more than you want, especially after the big energy run-up and the possibility that demand will decline if the U.S. goes into recession. By rebalancing you'll be selling high and buying low, investing in assets that haven't done well recently.

Money's Michael Sivy recommends looking at topflight industrial, tech and consumer-staples companies that have gotten hammered, undeservedly so, in the early 2008 sell-off.

What should your balanced portfolio look like? Target-date funds, which set an allocation based on the year you plan to stop working, are a good guide. T. Rowe Price's target-date offerings are in the Money 70 list of recommended funds. The T. Rowe 2030 (TRRCX) fund - a sound choice if you're in your forties - has 64% of assets in U.S. stocks, 22% in overseas equities, 11% in bonds and the rest in cash.

Venture, carefully, beyond our shores. If you figure the U.S. is headed for a recession, you may be tempted to bulk up on international stocks. But now isn't the time to leap overseas without looking. Propelled by a falling dollar and strong economic growth abroad, non-U.S. stocks have delivered nearly twice the return of the U.S. market over the past five years. Those trends may be closer to the end than the beginning.

Yes, you should keep perhaps a quarter to a third of your equity holdings in foreign stocks. But don't get there all at once. Instead, invest a set amount each month in a broadly diversified fund like the Vanguard International Total Stock Market Index (VGTSX). That way, if overseas stocks pull back in the near term, your losses will be limited and you'll have the opportunity to pick up additional shares on the cheap.

Scared? Then embrace bonds. Do the market's gyrations have you wondering whether to sell stocks, go to cash and get back in later? Forget it. Trying to time an exit and a return to the market is doomed to fail. Instead of doing something foolish, do something cautious: Move more of your assets into bonds. A portfolio invested 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds fell 16% during the bear market that followed the pop of the tech bubble in 2000. That compares with a loss of 48% for an all-stock portfolio.

Over the long run, a conservative portfolio will return less than an aggressive one. But it'll almost certainly do better for you than an attempt to time the stock market. Work harder and smarter

Get to your company's core. The best way to blunt a recession's impact on your family is to keep your job. How do you up the odds that you'll survive the cost cutting? For starters, make sure you're working on a project that's core to your company's mission. If not, volunteer for one. Not sure where your job falls? Hint: Mission No. 1 is profit. "Your company will look at who is generating revenue and who is an expense," says Nancy Collamer, founder of LayoffSurvivalGuide.com.

Get to the office and stay there. Cut back on the work-at-home routine, even if it means being less productive. If your boss doesn't see you much, it will be easier for him to decide not to see you at all. "Those who have a daily presence and are seen before and after regular hours will be the ones who stand out as indispensable," says outplacement expert John Challenger.

Cozy up to a headhunter. Having a recruiter on speed dial can be useful in a downturn. Leslie Stern, a partner in the financial recruiting practice at Heidrick & Struggles, says he's more likely to take your call if he met you at an alumni association event or through some other networking group. It shows you're connected.

Collamer's advice: When you meet a headhunter in such a setting, offer to help find candidates for searches. Again, you're clearly connected. And when an opening that fits you comes across the desk of a recruiter you've recently helped, your name will be top of mind.

Get ready for next time. Switching industries in a downturn isn't easy. But if job security is important to you and is lacking now, lay the groundwork for a shift to an area with better growth prospects. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, health care will be the fastest-growing field in the next decade, followed by professional services.

That doesn't mean you enroll in medical or business school. But a course or two that shows your interest in a new field will look good on your resume. Search for a position in which your skills are transferable, but don't try to make too many moves at once. "Stick to jobs on the same level," says Jan Cannon, a Boston career counselor. "You probably won't be able to get a promotion and move industries at the same time." Security will be your reward. Focus on the home front

Be a picky buyer… Bear markets create bargains not only in stocks but in houses. If you're shopping for a home now, you have a lot to choose from. Nationwide there are 3.9 million homes for sale, up a third from two years ago. And homes are taking longer to sell, so you can afford to look around for what you really want.

When you find it, offer 10% below asking price, suggests Barry Miller, a broker and owner of Buyers Only America Realty in Denver. Some of his clients are getting that much of a discount, he says. More likely, the seller will meet you in the middle. Corollary for owners: The key to selling your home is pricing. A recent study of New Jersey sales found that houses priced too high eventually sold for less than similar ones initially priced lower. So be realistic. List your home for an amount that's slightly less than what comparable houses sold for over the past few months.

…And a savvy borrower. Interest rates are coming down. So now is a good time to refinance. The biggest savings may come on jumbo mortgages above $417,000 if Congress, as expected, temporarily increases the size of mortgages that can be bought by government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Lower rates, in turn, should spur housing - and help soften whatever blows the economy will have to sustain in the months ahead.

Resume advice for the over-50 crowd

Those with lengthy work histories must keep resumes brief and adjust to today's digital times, career specialist say.

Whenever Rob­ert Skladany conducts work­­shops for job seekers over age 50, he hears one word again and again: resumes.

Among the men and women in these groups – some unemployed, others reentering the workforce – a common concern predominates. "They feel they are not at all familiar with contemporary resumes," says Mr. Skladany, vice president of research at RetirementJobs.com in Waltham, Mass.

One man told him he had not written a resume for 25 years. In that time, resumes have indeed undergone a transformation. Paper documents, once read and filed by people, have turned electronic. Often they are screened by an employer's automated applicant-tracking system. These changes call for new approaches on the part of applicants.

"Older workers don't understand the environment they're putting their application into," Skladany says. "They still expect an acknowledgment."

By 2010, 1 of every 3 workers will be over 50 years old. To help them remain competitive in the job market, career counselors emphasize the importance of a polished resume. Rob­erta Chinsky Matuson, president of Human Resource Solutions in Northampton, Mass., advises over-50 job seekers to consider four questions: Does your resume look weathered? Has it grown to three or four pages over time? Is your first job after high school graduation still listed? Are you still displaying the date you graduated from college?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, she says, it's time to redo your resume.

Including graduation dates is the subject of debate among career specialists. "You shouldn't lie," Ms. Matuson says. "I am not advocating hiding your age. I'm saying, why broadcast it? The people who are screening resumes are 25 years old."

Yet others suggest that applicants include graduation dates. "If you're 50-plus, play it up in your resume," says Chuck Underwood, president of the consulting firm The Generational Imperative in Cincinnati. Still other job counselors call the use of dates "very individual" and say, "Use your good judgment."

Many career specialists advise older applicants to limit a resume to two pages and to include only the most recent 15 to 20 years of their work history. Earlier jobs can be summarized under a heading such as "Positions held prior to 1990," with a list of companies and titles.

Skladany avoids the word "experience." The emphasis today is on capabilities, qualifications, and achievements, he says, not previous titles, duties, and length of service.

Chronological listings on resumes have given way in some cases to formats that highlight skills. "In a chronological format, your most important or relevant experience might be three jobs back," says Shel Horowitz, a professional resume writer in Northampton, Mass. "Companies may not get that far in reading."

In an electronic age, Jeff Benrey, CEO of Trovix, an online job site in Mountain View, Calif., underscores the importance of a well-formatted resume. Many examples and templates are available on the Internet, he says.

He still receives an occasional mailed resume. "In one sense, it's charming. 'Oh look, somebody went to the post office and mailed this.' On the other hand, it begs the question, 'how computer savvy are you?' You want to make sure applicants are Internet savvy and connected."

Being connected also means having a cellphone and e-mail. "In the absence of a cellphone and an e-mail address, recruiters assume technological ignorance," Skladany says. "If your e-mail address is currently fluffykittens6, don't use it. It should be mundane and professional."

"Show that you are up to date on technology, terminology, and industry happenings," says Julie Rains, a certified professional resume writer in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Avoid references to out-of-date technology." As an example, she adds, "You might describe your computer knowledge as 'understanding of operating systems and electronic media' rather than 'proficiency with DOS and floppy disks.' "

For women over 50 whose careers have been interrupted by family responsibilities – child-rearing and elder care – Vicki Donlan finds that those experiences, properly described in a resume and interviews, transfer into the workplace today.

"A woman's resume must amplify her lifetime of experience – at home, in the community, and at work," says Ms. Donlan, author of "Her Turn: Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America."

She is currently advising a woman of 60 who owned a day-care center with her husband. He died suddenly, and she wants to parlay those skills into a corporate job. On her resume, simply stating "Ran a day-care center with my husband" doesn't sound like a transferable skill, Donlan says. But bullet points of skills required for that role paint a different picture: "Dealt with state licensing. Helped children transition from preschool into public school. Dealt with different levels of management."

Whatever an over-50 job seeker's resume does or doesn't include, Matuson puts it in a broader context. "You really have to focus on what your attitude is. Workers looking for new positions can come up with a million reasons why someone isn't going to offer them a job. They'll send out two resumes and not get a response and say, 'See, no one wants to hire me. I'm too old.' It's ridiculous. If you're 20 and send out two resumes, you're more than likely going to get the same result."

One way to counter age-related stereotypes is to accentuate your openness to learning, says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at DDI, human resource consultants in Pittsburgh. Mention courses you've taken and professional certifications you've maintained. "Companies want people who are willing to learn, adapt, and be stable, who aren't looking for the next job before they start this one." He finds that older workers are "not very aggressive" about emphasizing things they've done outside of work – volunteer work, travel, and diverse experiences.

Noting that the biggest obstacle older applicants face is discouragement, Skladany encourages an upbeat attitude.

"Be positive," he says. "You have no alternative but to be proud of your age and qualifications."

Advice for older job applicants

Last month, Melanie Holmes, a 26-year veteran with Manpower North America, started writing about various workplace topics in a blog called Contemporary Working (http://manpowerblogs.com/holmes/). She offers the following tips for over-50 job seekers:

• Flexibility is a big plus – emphasize that you can be open to a variety of scheduling, titles, consulting, etc.

• Experience is a given – provide details on your familiarity with processes, equipment, and systems.

• Past titles on your resume may or may not be useful. Be sure to include a brief explanation of duties and related accomplishments.

• If you've upgraded your skills via a short course or certification, make sure it shows up on your resume and in the interview.

• If you can work it into your cover letter, talk about loyalty, willingness to learn new things, and your comfort with technology.

• Try to limit your work history to what is relevant to the job for which you are applying. But, beware of leaving employment gaps – these can be a red flag to hiring managers.

Moving on after layoff not easy, but plan is essential

Make the most of your relationships with employers - current and prospective - family, friends and colleagues to implement steps to cope with trauma and find a new job

Being laid off from a job used to be one of the worst things that could happen to a person. In terms of trauma, it ranked up there with getting divorced or crashing the car.

These days it seems as if everyone has been laid off at least once, and some have been through the process several times. With that kind of frequency, the trauma loses its edge.

To some extent, that's good - if you're going to be laid off, why should you have the emotional turmoil too? The only problem would be if everyone got so relaxed that they forgot to take the necessary steps to move forward.

We'll hope you won't need this, but just in case a layoff looms in your future, here are a (baker's) dozen steps to take as quickly as possible after you get the news.

1. If you still have access to your work space, and if it's allowed by your employer, gather copies of your work to use in your portfolio. Also make copies of your company's internal directory, and of your business contacts, to help in your job search later. And ask to see your personnel file, to be sure that nothing untrue has made its way into the records. Disputing things will not be easy - if it's even possible - once you're outside the company. This is also a good time to get copies of your reviews if you don't have them.

2. Get the details of your severance package, if you have one. You may need an attorney's assistance if you're being asked to sign away rights before receiving severance. Most of these agreements are relatively harmless, but some can really sting. Be sure you know what you're signing.

3. Tell your support network immediately that you have been or will be laid off. This includes family, friends, business contacts, former schoolmates, neighbors . . . anyone who might have job leads for you should get the news. If at all possible, tell the story without much detail or emotion, so that you don't get etched in your contacts' minds as angry or bitter. Reserve those emotions for a few very close friends, but tell the rest of the world that you're ready to move forward.

4. Take care of the details: Sign up for unemployment benefits, ask your state workforce center to enroll you in a dislocated worker's program (for state-paid training and career counseling), see a financial adviser about your 401(k), clarify your health benefits …. These unfamiliar tasks can be overwhelming so it's best to tackle them one at a time. If you do one a day for a week, everything will get done.

5. Create a household budget that accounts for both the best-case and worst-case scenarios. Decide what you would do in the worst case, so you can at least have the comfort of a backup plan.

6. Keep your money close at hand. Don't give in to the impulse to pay off a debt with your savings account. During your transition, liquid assets are king.

7. Even if your budget doesn't call for it, get a part-time job, or at least a volunteer position. Anything from five to 20 hours a week will provide contacts and a reason to get out of the house, but won't substantially interfere with a job search campaign.

8. On your own, or with the help of a counselor, make a career change or job search plan. Include dates when key steps are to be finished so you can check your progress.

9. If called for in your new plan, sign up for training. If you're still at the company at this stage, try to negotiate tuition reimbursement into your severance package.

10. Create a weekly schedule. Include your volunteer or part-time job, your classes and your job search steps. Post the schedule at home so others can help keep you on track.

11. Write your resume to reflect the goal in your plan. Also, consider making business cards to help with your networking.

12. Reconnect with the network of people you first contacted in Step 1. Tell them your new plan and ask for specific help ("Do you know anybody who works in …?"). Now is the time to schedule brief networking meetings and to send out copies of your resume so everyone has it in hand.

13. Start working your plan, troubleshooting problems as they arise. Meet regularly with a job search buddy, career counselor or mentor to stay on track and give yourself rewards for meeting goals.

Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul.