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Many job seekers include a short reference on career objective in the resume. Adding a career objective statement helps to reflect the position you are applying for, the type of company you prefer, the experience and qualification you have and the value you can offer to the company at a glance. Usually this power statement reference is only with one to two lines of texts.

Having a clear career objective reference in the resume will greatly improve the result of getting an interview. By providing a reference of your qualifications and profession identity, the hiring manager will be able to quickly match an appropriate position for you.

How to write an objective statement for a resume? Here are some guidelines you can follow when working on your career objective summary.

1) To improve the effectiveness of your resume, you need to consider how much you want to customize your resume to match with a particular job requirement. If you are responding to a specific position in the advertisement, you should integrate the exact job title and keyword phrases used in the ad into your resume power statement.

2) Being as specific as possible with the career objective reference and offer a high-impact summary of what you can offer to the potential employer.

3) Avoid the common mistakes made by many job seekers. The most usual mistake made in writing an objective statement is being too general and vague. You can avoid falling into this same trap.
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Let’s take a look at a few important things you might want to consider when creating an electronic resume.

Advantages

An individual seeking a job cannot succeed with the simple, traditional resume that is printed and handed over at the interview. It should not be the only tool in your kit. At least 80 percent of employers now place resumes directly into searchable databases and an equal percentage of employers prefer to see resumes received by e-mail.

80% of Fortune 500 companies post jobs on their websites and expect resumes to be sent electronically. These stats indicate that at least one resume needs to be there in a keyword-searchable database.

Sending your resume in a text-based format directly in the body of a mail message removes all obstacles to an employer’s placing your resume directly in a searchable database.

There are some employers who still prefer the formatted version of the resume attached to an e-mail message. There are some employers who don’t open attachments due to the fear of viruses and incompatibility among word-processing software.

Even so, a formatted version of your resume delivered attached to an e-mail is still considered a form of e-resume.

Keywords Are the "Key."
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Does Your Resume Have Game? By Butch Hawking

As a United States Air Force Academy graduate and former Division I Assistant Basketball Coach at the Air Force Academy, Cal State Northridge, and Kansas State, I’ve had the chance to work with and against some of the best coaches and leaders of teams in the country. I currently head up all Call Center Recruitment for Kaye Bassman International Corporation in Plano, Texas. My passion is coaching professionals, building companies and taking individual careers to the next level. Kaye Bassman International Corporation is the #1 executive search firm in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and among the top 10 retained executive search firms in all of North America.

Ever hear the old adage, "If you don’t sell yourself who will?" Having been a talent scout for the past 9 years, I am here to tell you that you have 20-30 seconds to sell yourself via your resume be it to Human Resources, the hiring manager, or a recruiter. Yep, that’s it! Does your resume read like a job description/consultant jargon or have you truly taken the necessary time and effort (an investment in your future) thus yielding a tremendous return on investment? Is it jam packed with powerful, results oriented information that best describe your well-rounded abilities and achievements? That’s a rhetorical question.
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Life can be ridiculously stressful at times, especially in this modern age when we all seem to be pulled in a thousand different ways at once and when we all seem to wear many hats over the course of the day. In addition to the little everyday items that cause us stress, there are sometimes, too frequently, bigger life events that contribute to our overall sense of angst. The top big life stressors include the loss of a loved one, divorce, severe health issues, and get this - the need to look for a job or career change - even if such a need is not due to being terminated.

Looking for new employment is so stressful that many people have been known to keep the same position for twenty or thirty years even though the thought of going into the office every day makes them want to vomit. Think about your father for a moment. Was he one of those men who went to work for a company at age twenty-five and retired from the same organization thirty years later, gold watch in hand? You may have thought he had a very loyal nature, but the chances are just as good that he simply detested the thought of doing all that is involved in changing positions.

Of course, some people have no choice in the matter sometimes, especially during tough economic times like we are currently facing. Downsizing and company closings and plant closings are forcing some people into the world of resume writing and interviewing.
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Closing the gap on your resume

The business world was surprised in August 2007 when Robert Nardelli landed the top job at Chrysler LLC after being shown the door as The Home Depot’s CEO in January.

Not all out-of-work employees bounce back so easily.

With unemployment in the United States at a five-year high - the latest Labor Department’s report says 605,000 jobs have been lost this year - job seekers may have longer searches ahead.

However, experts say a stretch of unemployment is not the black mark it used to be.

A layoff, or time off to deal with work-life balance issues, won’t keep you from getting an interview or a job offer - if you know how to handle it, say executive recruiters.
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Don’t send a common job cover letter to different companies. The letter must be tailored to a specific job requirement and employer. Generally there are 3 types of cover letters used by job seekers in any job searching process.

1. The networking cover letter is used to inquire information and guidance from a contact in a chosen industry with the purpose of getting notification for any job openings. Networking letter is written to ask for a person’s advice and not to aim for a job. In the first paragraph of the letter, you need to state clearly what you are looking for from the contact. You need to state your job interest clearly and provide the contact with information on the job level, the position and the working field that interest you. Many important job openings are not advertised but were filled up through networking.

2. The application cover letter is written in response to a job advertisement and job requirement. You have one full page to write a convincing cover letter to promote yourself, your competencies, and the contributions you can offer to the potential employer. In this letter you will request for a job interview and mention that you will contact the company to follow up the case. This will improve the opportunity to be called for an interview. If you are having difficulties to get started, you can seek professional help or refer to the proven example of cover letter to get ideas on the appropriate format and contents.
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Hiring practices, from job screening to interview construction, have undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade. Despite all the changes, common resume myths continue to plague job seekers’ strategies at all levels. This article attempts to debunk some of these myths.

Myth 1: It’s all about the number of pages.

The one-page rule is probably the most common resume myth. Candidates, even senior executives, use microscopic fonts, leave off important information, use 0.1 inch margins, and resort to a myriad of unhealthy practices — all in an attempt to restrict their resume to just one page.

Many well-meaning college counselors advise their students to be concise and limit their resume to one page. That was important when you were a student with little or no experience, but why subscribe to the same wisdom after rising to the ranks of senior executive?

However, there is an opposing viewpoint. Some job seekers mistakenly believe that if they can somehow balloon their resumes to four or five pages, then they will be considered for higher-paying positions. What? Will someone offer me $250,000 simply because my resume is ten pages and redundant?

No. In every instance, content rules. The quality of experience should influence the length of the resume. If you have held only one job, then don’t try to create a five-page resume. If your background merits a lengthier resume, then don’t use eight point fonts in a desperate attempt to fit everything on one page.

Myth 2: Make up that degree - no one will know.

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If you’re in a job hunt, nothing will negatively impact your success more than filling your resume with your duties, focusing on overused phrases, and spelling out a dry list of your jobs. The reason?

Employers want to hire not only a person that meets the qualifications for a particular role, but a SOLUTION–a candidate that can help solve business problems, lead work teams to productivity, or deliver cost savings to the organization.

All too often, job hunters commit a cardinal error by loading up their resumes with the wrong kind of information, meaning that the document fails to answer the “So what?” question for hiring managers.

In effect, this writing style will put your qualifications into a category whereby your background is seen as identical to other candidates vying for the same job–and that can’t be a good thing.

To correct this problem, start with a fundamental shift in the way you view the purpose of your resume-changing your focus from a dry list of “here’s what I did” to “here’s what I can do for YOU.”

Here are 3 main clues that your resume needs an overhaul in order to move an employer’s response from “So what?” to “Call for an interview:”

1) You forgot to emphasize results.

Today’s hiring managers are looking for consistent proof of performance. So how can you provide it? Start with a list of your contributions to the team and the company, then describe the effect on the employer’s bottom line.

The idea, of course, is to RID your resume of the obvious (everyone knows that an accountant manages the general ledger, managers supervise, and network administrators monitor servers), while giving employers a clear picture of the extent of what you can do.

Many people think that employers are focused on job duties and don’t want more details, while just the opposite is true. It’s of utmost importance to give the outcome of each task that you’ve initiated or completed while at work.

To do this, take EACH resume sentence and scrutinize it for results. Does it present just the facts, or does it convey what happened?

Rewrite each sentence with a clear focus on what happened after you took on that project, led a new team or developed new policies. You’ll be amazed at the difference in the responses to your resume.

2) You failed to be specific about your achievements.

This is probably the biggest problem found in most resumes circulating the Internet. It’s concise, focused description of your accomplishments that lands the interview.

For example, say you increased sales - by HOW MUCH? You implemented changes for efficiency that reduced hiring - by HOW MANY PEOPLE? If you increased new business - by WHAT PERCENTAGE?

“Grew revenue by 435% to $5 million by winning major contracts,” for example, drives your point home better than “Provided contract negotiation support.”

The best way to come up with these figures is to review each sentence in your resume to see if it can be quantified. Make a list of questions such as the ones noted above, and ask yourself for additional detail as if you were at a job interview.

Remember that figures in this case speak much louder than anything else you can use. Quantifying your contributions is an absolute MUST in order to make your credentials stand out above others, and to make the case that you bring verifiable strengths to your next job.

3) You copied or re-used phrases.

It seems basic, but many candidates bore hiring authorities by using the same wording repeatedly, or re-use what they’ve seen elsewhere.

For example, how catchy is the phrase “Responsible for…?” Yet, it populates the average resume at least a half-dozen times. Essentially, if you don’t use interesting verbiage on your resume, then don’t expect much interest from the reader.

A resume should be written to engage the hiring audience so that they want to know MORE about you, not less.

The good news is that there are more than 170,000 words in the English language, meaning that you have a lot of choices.

For example, “managed” can be changed to “directed,” “spearheaded,” “oversaw,” “championed,” “led,” etc. As you can see, there’s no need to re-use the same information to convey your point.

Revitalize your resume to deliver a powerful, compelling message, using what professional resume writers call “Power Verbs”, by consulting a thesaurus.

In summary, remember that your resume’s job is to give employers an accurate and powerful picture of your skills, and that going against conventional, outdated styles can be the right thing to do.

Since reading hundreds of resumes can wear down even the most energetic hiring manager, it’s best to leave the tedious resume wording for use by someone else, in order to market yourself as the PERFECT SOLUTION that will produce bottom-line results.

A unique resume authority, Laura Smith-Proulx, CCMC, CPRW, CIC is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, global resume award nominee, and author of “How to Get Hired Faster: 10 Proven Strategies to Tap the Hidden Job Market.” Visit An Expert Resume for Laura’s FREE E-Course on “The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes that Can Keep You from Your Dream Job… and How to Avoid Them.”

I recently had a discussion with a candidate that went for a interview at a well known insurance company. The initial contact was made through a friend of a friend who worked within the company. A week after the candidate had sent their CV in for review their mobile phone rang with an offer of an interview the following day. Excitedly the candidate said yes immediately, as soon as the phone conversation ended they jumped on the internet and started to research the company, when it was formed any recent news stories and financial reports. With so much info to sift through it was difficult to know what key points to remember just in case they where touched upon during the interview.

The next day the interview flew by, the candidate was confident that they had done enough to at least be seen again. They had also been informed should they be requested to return for a second interview the guy who would be conducting the interview was company man who’s life was dedicated to work. As such it would be a good idea to know as much about the company, in particular its CEO and its core principles. So the candidate went away and researched all these subjects further. Creating ways to remember the details should the need arise.

Soon enough as expected the phone once again range with some good news. The all important second interview. All that needed to be done now was to come back to each question with a positive answer and the job would be in the bag.

This is where candidates need to expect the unexpected. The second interview went fine. In fact it went so well the candidate was asked back for a third interview. They had been advised by other sources that as this was with HR the representative would only be asking the sort of question that would uncover what the candidate was like as a person. What made them tick. This is exactly how the interview went until the candidate mention they had done a lot of research on the company. At this point things started to go very bad. The candidate had spent the last week neglecting what the company actually did. They had been advised by other sources that these questions had been covered in the first two interviews and to now concentrate on question related to the person. Big mistake.

Luckily this article has a happy ending. The candidate went blank. Froze and couldn’t speak for a few seconds as their brain tried to search for the information that they had spent so long trying to remember. But nothing much come out. What little did come out was enough to secure the job offer. Although after this interview the candidate was convinced that they had blown it.

The moral of this story is to make sure you go into every interview armed with as much information as possible. Just because a question has been asked by one person it does not mean that it wont be asked again.

Good luck.

How To Make Your Resume Stand Out by Christine Hassler, Huffington Post

There’s nothing more disheartening than feeling like a tiny fish in a sea of hundreds of applicants. Sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw and knowing the right people that lands a job; however, there are several things you can do to make yourself more visible and a stronger candidate to a hiring manager that go beyond chance and connections.

My first tip is perhaps the most obvious, but the most necessary. Make sure your resume and cover letter are tailored to each job and are 100% error free, clearly organized and look extremely professional. You would be amazed at the number of applicants who neglect this vital step and whose resumes get discarded first. Consider even downloading a unique, yet professional font so your resume stands out.

While you are proofreading and drafting your application materials, really showcase your experience in short, powerful statements that pop off your resume like “increased sales by 75%” or “promoted to senior position in less than 6 months” or “supervised over 20 employees.” And make sure your resume has words and NUMBERS - people like tangible things. These small changes make your resume easier to read and thus more enticing to future employers.

Another important step is to become more than a name on a piece of paper. Do whatever you can to find some kind of “human” connection at a company; don’t just rely on submitting your resume on-line. Remember the six degrees of separation rule. I have a client who when she is applying for a job, sends an email out to her contact list asking if anyone has a connection at the place she is applying. This extra step will take you no time at all, and you would be surprised at how wonderful the “friends of friends” network can be. And even if you can’t find a connection, try to find a number for the HR department and call to speak with the hiring manager in charge of your desired position.

And finally, in addition to your resume, create a web presence. Consider keeping a blog which showcases your abilities and expertise in a certain area. For example, if you are applying for marketing jobs, blog about current marketing trends you are seeing. Be “Google-able” and include your blog page on your resume. This shows hiring managers that you are really passionate about your future career.

Now for a different voice than my own, listen to the expert advice of Misti Burmeister, author of From Boomers to Bloggers: Success Strategies Across Generations, and CEO and Founder of Inspirion Inc., a company formed to create partnership in the world through increased communication between generations. “First, recognize that over 90% of jobs are filled by referral. The vast majority of job seekers are searching through the same medium you are, so you have to be different to get noticed. There are three ways to do this: 1. Do your research about the company you are applying to and the individual you are interviewing with, 2. Tailor your cover letter and resume to each job, 3. Professionalize your social media while searching for a job (employers DO look at them!).”

You really only get one chance to make a first impression, and your cover letter and resume are your calling card so do some legwork and make them great. The more proactive and focused energy you invest in the way you go about your job search and present yourself, the more likely you are to stand out.