The MicroTrain Blog

Goodbye Objectives, Hello Purpose

Still dusting off that old resume every time you apply for a job? You know, the one with the rusty objective statement, about one hundred bullet points, and two paragraphs about your love for Victorian teacups?  

Well, it's not doing you any favors. It’s time to reboot your resume.

As the market is flooded with a glut of job seekers, not only does your resume have to make it through the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), which filter out “incompatible” applications before they even reach human eyes, but it also has to impress the increasingly picky employers on the other side.

To do this, you’ll need a new kind of resume.

Ground Rules

Above all, your new resume should adhere to one rule: everything must have a clear purpose that demonstrates your potential value. If you don’t know why something is on your resume, it shouldn't be there. If a piece of information doesn't sell your skills or show the employer why they should hire you, it shouldn't be there.

Updating your resume is a complex process, but this list of the five biggest mistakes of an old-fashioned resume will help you identify ways to turn your dated resume in the kind of dynamic document that employers love. 

Objective Statement

Join me in bidding farewell to the objective statement. Once a staple of the professional resume, it's become a relic of the past and an immediate red flag for employers. Employers just aren't interested in your career objective, especially if that objective something like “securing employment that challenges me to develop professionally.”

The solution is simple: turn your objective statement into a professional summary. A professional summary is just a summary of your relevant skills and experience and the industry that you work in. Your professional summary gives you a chance to introduce yourself and—more importantly—show how your skills and experience can benefit the company.

Need help coming up with a professional summary? Use the elevator pitch generator on TheProfessional.me to generate a benefit-based statement that speaks volumes.

Specialties & Technical Skills

Remember those Applicant Tracking Systems? One of the ways they measure an application’s compatibility with a job posting is to compare the keywords in common between the job posting and your resume and cover letter.

A great way to take advantage of this process is to create new sections in your resume for your specialties and technical skills. Think of these sections as word banks that include keywords found throughout the job posting (as long as they’re actually applicable). 

Job boards like LinkedIn, and Monster.com index your resume based on these keywords. So not only will employers understand at a glance whether you meet the requirements of the position, your resume will also rank higher in search results for these specific skills.  

Formatting & Styles

Many applicants add all sorts of font weights and sizes, bullet points, horizontal rules and other formatting gimmicks to their resumes without a clear explanation of why they’re doing so. Unfortunately, excess formatting like this actually distracts the reader away from the content by forcing them to focus on the style.

The ideal resume has as little styling as possible. Text styling and page formatting should be used for one purpose only: to make the core message of your resume easier to understand. That means every stylistic choice should have a clear purpose and be consistent across all similar elements.

For example: it’s acceptable to make your “Experience” headline bold and all caps. This helps the reader identify the headline and differentiate it from the content direct above and below. Just remember, to keep this decision consistent across your entire resume. This means your “Specialties”, “Professional Summary”, and “Education” headlines all must be bold and in all caps.

Education

In the new, purpose-driven resume, you can’t afford to waste precious space on things your audience isn’t interested in. Case in point: education. Your employer is only interested in your high school education if it’s your highest level of education. If you graduated from a technical school or four-year university, go ahead and remove your high school from your education list.

Just be sure to include all post-secondary education (e.g. Undergraduate, Master's, and PhD programs).

Personal Information

Finally, while it’s great that you love golf—I mean really love golf—there’s absolutely no reason to include it in your resume. If you feel the need to talk about your hobbies or personal philosophy, you should do so in the job interview. Some employers view personal information like this as needless filler. Keep your resume professional and skip the Hobbies & Person Interests section.

Make it easy on yourself

This is a lot of information here to remember. And it’s is just the beginning. If you’re serious about crafting a winning resume, give the resume builder on the TheProfessional.me a try. This free tool takes all the guesswork out of creating the perfect resume.

When you’re finished be sure to show your resume to someone you trust. They’ll often spot any mistakes that escaped you during the writing process.

Everyone's heard that getting a job is all about who you know. But is online networking really the solution? How do all those connections you make online actually help you find a job?

You probably already have hundreds, if not thousands, of connections spread across Facebook, LinkedIn and beyond. But when it comes down to it, what benefit do these connections really offer? What practical value do they add to your professional life and how do they help you to find a new career?

The short answer is: They don't, really. Yet.

Think of your list of connections as a handful of seeds. Each seed has the potential, if well-nourished, to grow into a healthy plant that bears delicious fruit. This fruit is what you’re after. Your online contacts themselves hold little value outside of their potential for growth.

So how do you grow your contacts from tiny seeds full of potential to mature relationships bearing the fruit of professional success? 

Keep in contact

Think your work is done after your contact accepts your friend request? Think again. Just like a plant, if you don’t tend to your contacts, they’ll wither away.

You need to stay in touch with people you feel hold the potential to develop into beneficial relationships. You don’t have to message them daily (if fact, too many messages might annoy them), but you also don’t want to contact them only when you need something.

Just remember: you have to give love to get love. Like one of their posts or comment on their profile every once in a while. Send insightful articles or links. this shows them you’re not only interested in them for favors.

When you’re ready, one of the most significant steps you can take in an online relationship is to offer a recommendation. This public display of confidence is a great way to engender goodwill, as it bolsters your contact’s online reputation.

These frequent, micro-contacts lay the foundation of your online relationship. The more times you pleasantly remind someone of your existence, the more favorably they’ll think of you.

Keeping up with someone regularly online is great, but if you really want to take advantage of the full potential these relationships offer, you have to go one step further.

Take it offline

This is a huge, but important milestone in any online relationship, so it’s best to take it in small steps. Your goal is to expand the scope of your relationship and people to think of you as more than just an online friend. This means getting off social networks altogether.

Start with email—just be careful not to spam their inbox—and progress to telephone conversations if all goes well. Just remember to always be purposeful in your messages. If you're messages are useful and important, people will start looking forward to them.

Gauge your contact’s reactions before trying to escalate things. Some people won’t be interested in anything more than online interaction. There’s nothing you can do about that. In these cases, it’s best just to move on and focus your time and attention on relationships with more potential.

Let’s do lunch

Ah, the business lunch: the holy grail of networking. Take someone to lunch and they’ll be putty in your hands. All of your communications should be leading up to some kind of face-to-face meeting. Whether it’s lunch, coffee or something in between, meeting someone in person gives you an unparalleled opportunity to harvest the fruits of your labor.

If you do succeed in meeting in person, it’s extremely important to follow up with that person a day or two later. I could be considered rude, or at least impolite, not call or email a message of thanks to your new friend. Especially if you've asked them for a favor. Once again, this signals your intention to continue the relationship and not just cut and run.

When it comes down to it, online networking is only the beginning. The real value of online networking is in the potential it offers to form more meaningful professional relationships. To truly take advantage of the potential that these connections offer, you have to not only maintain your online relationship, but also grow it into the real world as well. Tweets, likes and shares may brighten your day, but nothing beats the power of a good handshake.