Archive for category Resume
Nurse Resume Sample
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on January 12th, 2010
Has that time arrived? It’s something less fun then changing bed pans. You’d probably rather pull a shift at the VD clinic. I’m talking about writing your nurse resume. Don’t fear oh honorable medical professional. Here is a video that shows you how to craft a kick butt nurse resume. Don’t forget to download a copy of the nurse resume template.
Job Search 101 – Notorious Blunders & Errors You Can Avoid
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on June 30th, 2009
Your job search is serious business. For many it is one of the most stressful and unrewarding experiences. To make life easier, we are going to focus on eliminating the unproductive activities. As a result of knowing what is truly not working, you can now focus on what does work instead. When you are stuck at a dead end job, have a bad boss or just need employment again quick this will be most enlightening. Let’s face facts folks often addition by subtraction is the solution we all need. Avoid the following mistakes, errors and blunders. Spend your time, and effort focusing on getting interviews.
- Leaving your resume in the copy/fax machine at current job, so your current boss gets it.
- Leaving your cover letters in the fax at work so your boss can find it.
- Posting your resume on the internet so your employer can find it with your name on it!
- Responding to blind employment ads/fake/suspicious employment ads. See above.
- Disclosing your SS# & DOB to unconfirmed/suspicious sites, especially as a result of an email.
- Think about using a pro resume writer for your resumes and cover letters if yours is merely average.
- Not adding “do not contact current employer” on the application, Use April 2002 – Present on resume if currently employed so clericals know not to verify this employer.
- Emphasizing self employment success – proving you don’t need a job or won’t stay long ever!
- Unflattering Google search results on your name. Also check Blogs, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn.
- Most pro resume services offer free objective resume reviews, why not take advantage of this?
- Don’t forget all the free research done for you on job hunting in online job hunting info articles.
- Don’t show hatred or dislike of your previous employers in interviews.
- Don’t wait till you are unemployed to build and maintain your network of connections.
- Don’t forget about powerful free job searching and networking tools on LinkedIn.
- Don’t hesitate to use quality professional recruiters and job search coaches as your allies.
- Don’t forget to keep focused on the positive. Your attitude is easily read by others.
- Do swim with the current, always follow the mega-trends. If the mortgage industry is dead. Slide into the insurance business and take advantage of the clientele you have built up over the years.
- Yes, stay flexible, changeable and adaptable. You may have to relocate to a better job market.
- Take advantage of telecommuting programs now widely available at many employers.
- Forget about lying – education can and will be verified, jobs, credit, reputation etc…
- Only use job postings for less than half your job search time if that. Be pro-active instead.
- Don’t reveal all your weaknesses in interviews either. It is okay to say I left for personal reasons.
- Never use your work email for job hunting communication, even if they say it is private. It is not.
- Use Twitter only as if your boss was always included in the conversation, if you want to keep your job.
- Always keep a job hunting log to track your results and make follow up a lot easier.
Maybe you have lost weeks or months to a mistake. Then start your addition by subtraction right away. Don’t listen to the media talking about layoffs, outsourcing and more layoffs. Turn off the boob tube and any other sources of bad news, and start focusing on getting hired, positive interviews and results instead. It is amazing how powerful your subconscious mind is when peace and tranquility is restored. The answers to all your challenges will just come to you, simply by asking yourself questions.
(c) 2009 by Darrell Z. DiZoglio of http://RighteousResumes.com.
Seven Boneheaded Job Search Mistakes
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Job Search, Resume on June 29th, 2009
This is an article on job search mistakes. Number three is one that I see all the time. You must target your resume to a specific career. People that are all over the map with their job search don’t get results.
Don’t Let This Happen to Your Resume!
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on June 23rd, 2009
This article cracked me up. Don’t make these mistakes with your resume. Here a quick tip have someone review your resume. You can have have a professional review it for free!. You can also ask a friend of family member do it. Just make sure that someone reviews your resume before you send it into the wild.
How to Advance Your Programming Career
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume, Uncategorized on June 14th, 2009
Here is a tip for all you computer programmers out there (get rid of that pocket protector, yes I’m talking to you). If you want to develop your programmer career,or even break into the profession, what can you do?
One thing you could do is get involved in a programming community. There are thousands out there but the one I recommend is called Stackoverflow. This is a programming question and answer site with some cool twists. For example answers are voted on by the community. Because of this the correct answers to the questions are almost always positioned at the top.
The feature that make this site useful for a programming job search is reputation. Stackoverflow’s reputation is a rough approximation of how much the Stackoverflow community trusts you. You gain reputation points by having your answers voted up by the community. As you gain reputation you gain more the ability to do things on the site like edit questions, leave comments, or even delete duplicate questions.
Success in building reputation is evidence of a talented developer. This is something that you could even put on your resume. I even know of tech recruiters that use the site to locate tech talent based (at least partially) on reputation scores.
In closing if you want to develop your programming career you should consider getting invovled with Stackoverflow.
What About a Video Resume
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on June 13th, 2009
I sometimes read about video resumes and how they are the wave of the future. Trust me thay aren’t. Check out this Time article for more information on the subject
Are Resume Distribution Services Worth It?
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume, Uncategorized on June 11th, 2009
My company offers resume writing services. One of the easiest up-sells we could offer our clients is resume distribution. “Why don’t you give me $195.00 extra dollars and I’ll distribute your resume to hundreds of online job boards?”
So why doesn’t my company offer this service and pocket some quick cash? The simple reason why we don’t is the fact that blasting your resume to hundreds of job boards does not help you find a job. All it does is give you unwanted email and phone calls from people tying to scam you. (work at home and make $1,000 per hour stuffing envelopes).
Save your money and post your information on a couple of the top job boards. You should consider using a separate email and phone number to avoid spam. Remember that while it’s ok to post your resume online, your best chance of job search success will come from networking.
Job Search Lies Could Come Back To Bite You!
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on June 9th, 2009
Lying on your resume is very tempting, but please don’t do it. It can cause you so much heartache. Take the story of George O’Leary. Mr. O’Leary was a successful college football coach who finally landed his dream job as the head football coach at the University of Notre Dame. For non college football fans Notre Dame is the most storied college football program of all time, and being their head coach is a life long goal for many coaches.
George O’Leary was announced as Notre Dame’s new head football coach after a successful tenure as coach of Georgia Tech. Unfortunately, a few days into his new job inaccuracies in his resume surfaced. George had claimed on his resume to have earned a Master degree at a nonexistent University. He also lied about playing sports at the University of New Hampshire. The last straw was when it surfaced that he also falsified academic credentials. The University of Notre Dame asked for his resignation Mr. O’Leary was out as their football coach two weeks into his tenure.
This story is an extreme example, but I’m sure not a day goes by without someone getting caught lying on their resume. It may be tempting to enhance your resume a little but please don’t do it. In today’s world it is increasingly easy and cost effective to have resumes screened for inaccuracy. Don’t take the change of ruining your professional reputation.
Get Your Employer To Show You The Money!!
Posted by klowrey in Interviewing, Job Search, Resume on June 2nd, 2009
Have you ever seen a coworker resign his position only to suddenly change their mind? You know that the company counter offered and bumped his salary in order to keep him. This happens and it is infuriating to loyal employees that don’t make waves. When is the company going to reward loyalty?
The answer is never. If you are waiting around for someone to tap you on the shoulder to reward your hard work and loyalty you will be waiting a very long time. It just doesn’t work that way in what I like to call reality. In reality you must create a little tension to get your just rewards. You must cause a little friction. You must be willing to lay your cards on the table and clearly communicate what additional composition you are looking for.
Now before we continue let me point out the obvious fact that in order to be successful at requesting more money, you must be a valuable employee. If you have the feeling that no one would miss you if you left, then don’t bother. Just continue to sit back collecting paychecks until that inevitable day when your boss calls you into his office for a chat.
For those of you that remain congratulations! You are a valuable employee and your employer would not want to lose you. But how do you leverage this into an increased salary? This is a very tricky question with many different possibilities. Here is what I recommend.
First off you should quietly begin a job search looking for other career opportunities. You don’t want to start salary negotiations without having other options lined up. You also want to know with confidence what the current market salary for you skill set would be.
This kind of job search should be private. Don’t reveal your name, email address, phone number, address, or current employer. Contact a quality job search company to make this easy. Once you have a feel for the market place its time to formulate the message that you’ll be bringing to your current employer.
The first thing you want to do is get clear about what you want. Are you looking for a salary increase? If you are looking for a salary bump then how much do you want? You must never be vague when requesting a salary increase. Vague requests get vague responses. Think in terms of percentage increases. For example your goal could be a 10% pay increase.
Don’t forget that you could also negotiate other items including time off. I once used up all my time off due to the birth of my son and negotiated an extra paid week off. Employers will often give you extra time off a lot easier then they will give you a pay increase because time off is a soft cost.
Once you have a goal in mind you must set a formal meeting with your supervisor and lay your cards on the table. I recommend that you prepare an update to date resume and list what you bring to the table. This is not the time to be modest. Lay out your accomplishments out and remind your employer why you are so valuable. Then make your request and provide back up information. “I’m looking for a 10% salary increase which would put my salary in line with the current market for my skill set and productivity level.” Put it out there and shut your mouth. Let you boss digest your request and come back with a response. You might be surprised his response.
One thing that you should never do is to use a job offer to club your current employer. This is bad protocol and has a high likelihood of getting you escorted out the door next to Johnny the security guard with a box full of cubical crap including a squeeze toy and red stapler.
This whole exercise involves leaving your comfort zone, but if you are willing to put yourself out there you might be pleasantly surprised at the results.
Have You Updated Your Online Resume Today?
Posted by klowrey in Job Search, Resume on April 22nd, 2009
Here is an important piece of information about success in your job search. If you have your resume posted on some of the online job boards you must make frequent updates.
The reason for this is simple. Job boards rank resumes by how old the resume is. This means that someone who posted their resume today would appear on top of the search results over someone who posted their resume a year ago.
Job boards rank resumes this way because someone who posted their resume today is more likely to sill be looking for a job vs. someone who posted their resume last year.
The bottom line is that if you are using online job boards (and you should be) then update your resume once a week. This will reset your resume and move you to the top of the search rankings.
By the way you don’t have to make radical changes. Simply change around a word or two.
Cheers