Your New Year's Resume Checkup

Five Questions to Ask Yourself About  Your Resume:

1. Has your career objective changed since the last time you performed a job search?

2. Are still using the same tired resume format that got you your first job?

3. Does your resume feature accomplishments rather than responsibilities? 

4. Was your last job search before to 2000?

5. Are you getting positive or encouraging feedback from your resume?

Let's go through these one-by-one and provide that all important New Year's Resume Checkup. First, the objective or resume branding statement, needs to be up to date. This means that it accurately describes your current skills and that it has the most searched for keywords embedded within the text.   Your objective creates the lens through which a potential employer is going to view your entire resume. Be sure you spend some time crafting a quality one. 

Second, be sure to modernize the look of your resume. This is especially important if your resume is over 5 years old. As a professional resume writer I have to keep up to date with the latest trends. When the time comes to update your own resume you need to either seek out some help, or look at some resume samples from a reputable writer. This way you'll know what employers are expecting to see visually. However, do not go overboard. Some resume gimmicks go a bit too far.

Third, do not fall into the amateur trap of listing job responsibilities. In a competitive job market there will be hundreds of applicants with the same job descriptions as you. How did you perform these duties? What were your accomplishments. These are the things which make you stand out from the crowd. 

Forth, keep your resume current. Focus the most attention on the most recent 10 years of experience. It is OK to go further back in your history if there is something pertinent to it, but do not feel like you need to detail out 25 years worth of job history.

Finally, target a few key areas and send your resume out. See what kind of feedback you get. If you are not seeing results have a professional review it. Your resume is really just a glorified marketing campaign, and the product is you. If your campaign isn't working, try something new.

If you go through these steps once a year you are guaranteed to always have a quality resume ready to perform for you when the situation calls for it. 

How to Speak at Work

Here is the next entry in my continuing series on classical advice for the workplace.  

 

Prudent Words

We have all heard some form of the maxim, What you think, you say. What you say, you do. Well, we are at that mid point. Cultivating the ability to say the right words, to speak well, will directly inform who we are and how we act in our careers.

"Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may

hear from others twice as much as we speak."

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”

Epictetus points to the first step in speaking well here. In essence his advice is to speak less. No one likes a know-it-all, and we are all familiar with that particular person who just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut during meetings and planning sessions. (If you aren't, it is probably because you’re it. Note: Pay specific attention to this section!). In contrast, most organizations also have the quiet and thoughtful man. The one who doesn’t speak up often, but when he does, everyone listens.

The goal is to become the latter. By rushing in to speak up you do not allow your reason to fully digest what is going on, what the full parameters of the discussion entail. Therefore your comments are more opinion or repetition, not suggestion or evaluation.  A man needs to fully listen to what others are saying before he jumps into the fray.

Try this at your next meeting or informal business discussion. Say as little as possible; just listen. You’ll be surprised about what you may learn. Things like others’ true motivations, hidden agendas and possible leanings all become much more evident when you take a step back. Then when you do join in the discussion, your comments will be that much more targeted and useful.

 

The final entry in this series will come on Small Business Saturday.

How to Write a Resume Branding Statement

As a professional resume writer one of the most common questions I get from clients is about their resume's objective. In the past all resumes were required to have an objective at the top which stated the applicants desired position. While you still want a type of objective statement, the content and style of this portion of the resume has changed. Today, you want to create what is called a "resume branding statement."

Start by listing your desired job title, such as sales manager. Next, add an adjective that quantifies or qualifies your experience: expert level sales manager. This is your lead. Now you need a statement that brands you in your field. 

Think of the skills you bring to the table that help set you apart from other applicants. Are you a tactical planner? Have you created strategic partnerships? Are you driven to exceed quotas? Blend these ideas together to create your resume branding statement. Here is an example of a complete branding statement for someone looking to apply for a sales executive:

Expert level sales manager able to construct dynamic, top-producing sales organizations through proven leadership and management style, strategic partnering, design of tactical sales initiatives, and implementation of key account-management methodologies. 

Once you have created your branding statement use it as a theme for the resume of your resume package. This is the lens through which you want potential employers to see you, so stay on message. Include some of the same verbiage in your cover and thank you letters. Place it in your social media profiles like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Have the Right Work Attitude

Part two of our running series on career advice from classical Greece deals with our attitudes:

Prudent Attitude

Without the correct attitude about your job, it really won’t matter how hard you work. Sure, you may have some success, but it will not be truly satisfying, or lasting. If you approach each day- each project- with the right attitude, the rest can fall into place so much easier.

“There is only one-way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

How many times have you stayed awake at night replaying the day’s events or looking forward to some anticipated occurrence? More often than not, there is nothing we can do about these things. This is what Epictetus is talking about. There are events we have control over and events that we don’t. Wisdom comes in knowing the difference.

By zeroing in on those things that are under “the power of our will,” we can accomplish a lot more. No needless energy is wasted running around in circles nipping at the heels of projects or situations where someone else is the main driver. Speaking of other people, we also need to pay attention to how other’s attitudes affect us.

"Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others." 

Here is my modern version of this quote: Beware the break room. 

It is so easy to join in with co-workers in the inevitable bitch-session that often takes place in the break room. And while everyone needs to vent once in a while, a steady diet of this attitude will eventually poison your own work ethic. This attitude can lead to you not taking responsibility for your (occasional of course) faults and instead blaming it on someone else. The pass-the-buck syndrome was born in a break room bull session.

Don't be anti-social, just be sure that those who you spend the most time with share your general outlook.  Don’t sabotage yourself.

Classic Career Advice

A quick scan of Amazon’s best seller list in the career development section reveals some well known titles.

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity
• What Color is Your Parachute?
• How to Win Friends and Influence People

All of these books offer solid advice, and a man can get a lot of tips and tricks to become more successful in his job. In fact I am willing to guess more than a few readers own one or two of them. Here is a title you may not be a familiar with: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life by Epictetus.

I can hear you now, Epic-who?

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher from the first century AD who was a proponent of the stoic branch of philosophy. Stoics believed that what happened to a man was less important than how that man reacted to the event. Therefore the most important teaching of stoicism was one of self-mastery. Epictetus became one of the most well known teachers of this way of life.

Born a slave, he never wrote anything down but simply taught those who wanted to learn to become better men, much like his more famous predecessor, Socrates. What we now know of Epictetus’ teachings is thanks to his pupil, Arrian, who wrote them down in his collection Discourses.

OK, so he was a great Greek philosopher. How does that help me be a better sales manager?  

Glad you asked.

Just about all of Epictetus’ teachings are in the form of short sayings that embody some profound idea. Many of these can be directly applied to your career, no matter what you do for a living. For the purpose of this article I have grouped some of the best (in my humble opinion anyway) into three categories. Prudent attitude, prudent words and prudent action.

Over the next few posts I will be mapping out how focusing on these three areas can help you feel better about, and succeed in, work.