Resume Digest Blog

In the job market what is your unique selling proposition? What would make you stand out of the crowd? What sort of problems can you solve?

If you would care to look at it from the employer's side - hiring somebody is quite a risky business. No wonder bosses want to play it safe and shy away from "I can do it" con artists.

Instead of being reduced to a bunch a metrics (2 years in skill A, 5 years in skill B) why don't you tell a compelling story about your achievements? The problem is recruiters don't have time to play your 10 minutes You Tube video to shortlist you for an interview.

You can take either of two approaches: if a job is being advertised you should reverse engineer the requirements for the position and produce a custom version of your resume to match exactly those must-have features.

If you know a company where you would like to work, why not do your homework and find someone who already works there and could give you an introduction to the manager in charge.

You can actually combine the two approaches and ring up to ask more details about the job being advertised. Even if you miss out your efforts won't be wasted in case another position becomes vacant in 3 or 6 months time. If you cultivate this approach with 10 to 20 companies of interest to you the chances are something will come up that might be a good fit for you.

See your job hunting activities as a marathon, not a sprint. Each job post, each interview, each phone call gives you some feedback as to what people are after and how to present yourself in response.

Do not waste your time with recruitment agencies. They will not give you the feedback you need and they are working for the employer, not the employee. If a company refuses to talk to you because they use an agency they should at least give you the name of the consultant working on their account.

In a fast paced world where everything is timed, measured and categorised employers have become very picky. If there are far too many applicants they raise the bar by asking for a combination of skills that maybe nobody has.

People will speed-read the top third of the first page of your resume and make a snap decision on that. In response you need to come-up with a slogan describing you as the uniquely gifted individual they are looking for. For each work assignment listed (in order of relevance for the role, not chronological order) you must use action verbs to capture what you actually did and how it impacted your workplace.

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