Is your "Objective" or "Summary" boring to read? Well, you must pump this up!
After seeing literally hundreds of resumes in years past I see a disturbing pattern. That pattern is a boring Objective or Summary that's often meaningless. The Objective or Summary is too important to dismiss. This is your opportunity to "tell a story" so seize it!
I often see this canned content such as "Looking for an organization offering opportunity for advancement" or "Value an organization that recognizes and will utilize my talents". Boiler plate laden resumes simply will not work! Employers notice this pattern. You need to stand out!
This is really a no no! You don't want to state what you want. Remember, this is not about you! This requires some time and effort. You want to be talking about the needs of the company you're interesting in working for!
Here's a quick 3 step process in writing a really eye popping, attention grabbing Objective or Summary.
-
First, research the companie website. If they don't have one then "Google" their name. You're looking for something current about the organziation. Do they have a new widget? What are they doing now? Check their press releases section!
-
You can then say something that's relevant to the organization! Try to tie into what you've done before to their objective. Even mentioning you're aware of what's going in THEIR company shows you care.
-
Finally, be sure to state what skills you have that will help them succeed. This is really important because you'll be tying together your background to their CURRENT needs.
Follow this siimple formula and you will get eyballs to take a harder look at your resume!
The past two summers have each represented major milestones in my life. Last summer at this time, I was mired in unemployment and had been looking for work for around 8 months. This summer, I am mired in diapers and sleepless nights as I recently celebrated the birth of my first child. And while on the surface it seems there is nothing in common between a baby and a job search, funny how when you're sitting in a rocking chair at 3:00am how you can draw parallels between two seemingly unrelated events.
So how does that work? Here are a few common elements I see between looking for a job and raising a baby.
-
Hard work now pays off in the end. One thing I keep hearing from experienced parents is the importance of establishing a firm schedule with the child for eating and sleeping. It's tough at this young age, but from what I'm told it will pay off huge dividends down the road when my son sleeps through the night, is well rested and better behaved. Similarly, when I was looking for a job last summer, the value of the hard work didn't seem to pay off for the first 8 months, but slowly I started seeing the results of the hundreds of hours spent scouring for job postings, updating my portfolio, expanding my networks, and following up on leads and prospects, until eventually something clicked and it paid off. It was a lot of work, but it definitely paid off down the road.
-
Manage your time wisely. It certainly did not take me long to learn that with a baby, time is a scarce commodity. Feed. Change. Soothe. Repeat. When my son takes a nap for an hour or two, I know we need to make use of that time because it won't be long before he wakes up and needs attention. And while not nearly the screaming urgency of a new born, time management in my job search was very important as well. When I first was laid off, my natural inclination was to spend a couple hours of the day looking for work, then the rest watching TV. It didn't take long to realize that wasn't going to cut it - there is a lot to do each day and every week, and in a competition (which is what a job search really is), you need to stay on top or you will not succeed. Manage your time wisely, and treat a job search like an actual job.
-
Be prepared. I know when my son wakes from his nap, all hell is going to break lose. Screaming, crying, and seemingly inconsolable agony. And the baby is going to be unhappy too. But I quickly learned that if I am prepared with a few essentials - his favorite pacifier, a blanket, and a warmed bottle at the ready, I can turn the major volcanic eruption of anger into a mild tremor of unhappiness. Similarly, when in the midst of my job hunt, preparation was key. I tried to never apply to a job if I hadn't thoroughly looked into the roles and responsibilities so I could speak to that in my cover letter. If I was so lucky as to get a phone interview, I made sure to have notes at the ready with details on the company, pertinent questions I wanted to ask, and notes to help remind me of specific examples I want to cite based on what I knew about the position and the company. And if I got an in-person interview, I tried to find out who I was meeting with and research his or her background. I gathered everything I could about the position, the company, their products, and competition. In other words, I did whatever I could to appear to be prepared and gatheedr as much information as I could. They want to hire someone who is sharp and on top of things, and my being prepared with anything I might need at my disposal put me in a great position to be that someone.
-
Help is out there, so use it! With a baby, we have gotten a lot of offers of help - from people offering to baby sit, some offering to bring us dinner or offering to walk the dog to make things a little easier. Everyone loves a baby, so the help seems plentiful. But I also discovered that there were a lot of people willing to help with your job search as well, from past co-workers and former supervisors, to friends and neighbors who insights into job postings. One of the biggest helps I found in my search was an HR manager for a position I interviewed for, but didn't get. After learning I didn't get the position, I took her up on her offer to call with any questions and she sat down with me to help clean up my resume, offered some interview advice and job searching tips. People know that the job market is tough right now, so there are many people who are willing to help however they can. So let them!
Truthfully, these efforts apply as much to raising a baby as they do to job searching or even doing yard work or cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Have a plan, manage appropriately, work hard and accept help when offered. But the point here is that many people don't look at their job search as something they can impact with hard work, but in reality that is the only way it will work out in your favor. Stick with it, work hard, and in the end it will work out for the best. For me, after 9 months of hard work and applying for over 500 jobs (funny, 9 months?), I found the perfect job as Marketing Director for MicroTrain. If you stick with it, you will to.