CV writing and Cover Letter

If you’ve sent out a number of resumes, but haven’t been invited to any interviews, it might be time to reassess what you’re doing. A poor resume or cover letter can harm your chances of getting the position you desire.

Here are the most common resume errors jobseekers make and suggestions for avoiding them.

1. Sending the same resume to every employer. Tailor your resume to each job opening. Employers want to see how your skills match the job’s requirements, and whether you’ll benefit the organization. Ensure your resume reflects a clear objective and summary statement, and focuses on accomplishments for a specific job. Scan employment ads and job descriptions to identify key words that can be used to describe your skills, personal characteristics and experience.

2. Sending a sloppy resume. Looks count. Don’t hand print, use colored paper or have smudges on your resume. Avoid typographical, grammatical and punctuation errors. In addition to using spell-check, ask a friend to proofread your work. Balance the amount of white space with type. Use crisp, dark type such as that produced by laser printers. Use white or light-colored 8.5x11 paper, printed on one side only. Match your cover letter and envelope stationery to your resume paper. Avoid unusual fonts and fancy treatments such as italics, underlines, boldface, shadows and reverse if you’re sending your resume by email.

3. Sending a resume to every possible opening. Take time to target jobs that really interest you, for which you’re qualified and have a chance of being interviewed. Make sure your experiences are relevant to the requirements listed. Get your resume to people you know so they can pass it on to interested employers. Don’t send unsolicited resumes, but you may cold-call employers to determine their needs, then ask if you can send your resume. Follow up with a phone call to schedule an interview.

4. Sending a resume without a cover letter. Don’t make people guess why you’re sending the resume. A well-crafted cover letter is an important marketing tool. It highlights your qualifications, demonstrates your accomplishments, and entices the employer. It’s short, concise, and conveys genuine interest in the position. It tells the employer how you can contribute to the company, and answers the question: "Why should I hire this person?"

5. Listing only titles and descriptions of positions held. Many applicants list job titles and responsibilities, but fail to include accomplishments. Use active verbs (advised, designed, investigated) to describe your accomplishments, with quantification such as numbers, percentages, evidence of quality and results.

6. Listing education at the beginning of the resume. Education listed on top or near the beginning of the resume is not appropriate for people with more than three years of professional work experience. Begin with a skills summary outlining your strengths for the position. List education and relevant training at the end.

7. Hiring an expert to write your resume. It’s important that your resume represents the real you. If you don’t have good written communication skills, it’s acceptable to get help from someone who does. Make sure your resume sounds like you wrote it, though. You’ll have to confidently demonstrate your qualifications and why you want the position during the interview.

8. Including negative comments. Don’t say anything negative about your employer or colleagues. Avoid mentioning why you left a job, such as "fired for no reason" or "didn’t get along with supervisor." If necessary, explain these situations in the interview.

9. Omitting dates of employment. Leaving dates off your resume will make employers wonder what you’ve been doing lately. List companies for which you’ve worked as well as dates you were employed. If you took time out to travel or study, state this, indicating what you learned or accomplished.

10. Including personal information. Don’t include age, race or hobbies. Most employers don’t care if you’re single, married or enjoy golf. Employers may, however, ask you personal questions during the interview.

11. Including jobs you had as a student if you’re not a recent graduate. Employers are not interested in the jobs mature workers held as high school or university students. They do want to know about relevant experiences in the past ten to 15 years. Young workers entering the marketplace, however, should include relevant part-time jobs.

12. Believing a dynamite resume will get you hired. Your application paperwork can only get you an interview. Acing the interview will get you the job. Once your resume and cover letter are fine-tuned, your task is to attain, prepare for, and excel during the interview.

Cover Letters That Count

Ever had a wince-worthy moment? A moment that you wish you could do over? One of mine came during a job search several years ago. I had learned about a hot job opportunity through a friend, and, convinced I had discovered my "dream job," I quickly dashed off a cover letter and resume. I still cringe today when I think about the hiring manager's parting words upon viewing my materials: "Well, Liz, we actually liked your qualifications, but your cover letter contained about ten spelling mistakes. You even misspelled the name of our company." The most upsetting thing about this experience is that if I had simply taken the time to carefully review my cover letter, I could have avoided this wince-worthy occurrence altogether.

As the saying goes, we only get one chance to make a first impression. In a competitive job market where human resources departments are flooded with applicants, a first impression may be your only opportunity to make an impact. When trying to land a first job or internship, a strong, succinct cover letter is one of the best tools you can use to get noticed. And unlike other first impressions, the cover letter puts the opportunity to succeed largely in your hands. To avoid wince-worthy moments and create a terrific first impression, read on for a couple of winning cover-letter suggestions.

Suggestion #1: Try the Convince ... That ... Because Method

A strong cover letter doesn't just create a good impression -- it helps you sell yourself. But selling yourself isn't always easy. So use a technique that marketers use to sell us stuff: the convince ... that ... because method. When drafting your cover letter, think about the following:

Whom do you want to convince?

For instance, you might be writing to a hiring manager who needs somebody with strong writing skills. By knowing your audience, you'll have the opportunity to specifically address the concerns or needs of your readers in your persuasive cover letter. One caveat: You may find job announcements that instruct applicants to send a letter to human resources, rather than provide a specific name of an individual. In these instances, you can try to track down, through company sources or networking, the name and title of a specific individual to whom you can address your letter. Otherwise, use the job description and knowledge of the company to best gauge your audience's needs.

What are you trying to convince them of?

Using the example above, you are trying to convince a hiring manager that you have terrific writing skills. You may also want the hiring manager to know about your ability to speak French and your mastery of PowerPoint, if these are skills that are relevant to the job for which you're applying. Be specific here: If you want to talk about your skills as a leader, be sure to mention a situation in which you demonstrated leadership skills. And remember to discuss the same skills that appear on your resume, providing additional information and detail in your letter.

Why should you be hired over someone else?

Here's your opportunity to make a persuasive, convincing argument and sell your unique abilities. Using the previous example, you want to convince a hiring manager that you have terrific writing skills because you've consistently written on a wide range of topics for your school's newspaper, providing valuable information to over five hundred students on a weekly basis for the past three years. Whatever your example, make sure you point out how your work made a positive difference, quantifying this difference whenever possible.

Suggestion #2: Look Sharp

Think of your cover letter as you, on paper. So you want to look your best and present a neat, professional package to your prospective employer. For starters, choose a quality paper (such as the kind used for resumes) in a conservative color (like white or ivory) to send your message, and make sure you use the same paper and font for your cover letter, resume, and envelope, since they are typically packaged together. Save the pink paper and funky font for another time, and watch smudges, crinkles, and other sloppy marks. Finally, make sure your letter is generally readable. If the font is too small (nothing less than ten points) or the letter too long (over a page, generally), you've probably alienated your audience already.

Writing a winning cover letter isn't the easiest task, but it's well worth the effort, especially when you know that it can make the difference between a good first impression and a bad one. After all, taking the time to write a great letter ensures you'll impress a prospective employer and practically guarantees a wince-free moment.

By Elizabeth Freedman

Will Your Resume Get More Than a Glance?

There's a lot more to landing your dream job than writing and sending a resume. But you know what? Your resume is usually how employers �meet' you. And their decision to interview you � or not � is often made after a quick glance at this all-important document.

Here's the challenge: Most resumes look the same, read the same and, quite frankly, they're boring. Most are cookie-cutter exercises in mediocrity, even though each candidate claims to be �driven,' �dynamic,' �creative,' etc. But empty assertions like these won't land you an interview. You must prove the claims in your resume to get an employer's attention.

Your resume is a marketing tool, plain and simple. Is yours so powerful that it grabs the attention of hurried employers, forces them to slow down, read on, pick up the phone and call you? It must! Because your resume has to get read to get you hired.

Warning! Just because you spent four hours writing your resume doesn't mean it will be read with care. As a hiring professional who's been at this for more than 20 years, I can tell you that your resume has less than 10 seconds to impress a reader enough to compel them to read it entirely. Ten seconds. Or less.

Since writing a resume ranks about the same as doing your taxes on the �Fun Meter,' many people create just one version to use in every situation. They stuff this all-purpose resume with gobs of �duties included' and �responsible for' language. Unfortunately, your resume can't be all things to all hiring managers. As a result, generic resumes fail to produce job offers.

Your resume is your personal emissary. It should provide a positive first impression and an honest summary of your skills and attributes. It must convince the reader that you are reliable, responsible, ready, willing and ABLE to do the job.

If the job you seek is worth pursuing, it's worth pursuing right. So send a resume that's carefully written, with one specific job in mind. Length is not an issue. Content is. People will read any length of resume IF the content is compelling. That's the secret.

Here is a portion of what I recommend in my book, Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters: A Guerrilla's resume screams, "Here's what's in it for you!" A Guerrilla writes resumes that are relevant to a specific reader. They target them to a specific group, if not an exact individual. Their resumes are always focused, never general. They are results-based, never wishy-washy. They are accomplishment focused, not responsibility laden.

There are four types of resume you can write: chronological, functional, value based, and Guerrilla. Let'ss look at each in detail.

Chronological

This is the most commonly used format and the one many employers like, because it's easy to read. Use it if you intend to stay in your current industry, as it shows the reader exactly what you've done and where you fit. It details your most recent experience first, then works back through your career history. A chronological resume highlights your job titles, places of employment, and dates of tenure by presenting them as headings, in order by date, under which your achievements are listed

Use a chronological resume if:

	Your career history shows consistent growth or promotions;
	The job you seek is clearly the next logical step in your career; or
	You intend to stay in the same industry or one immediately adjacent to it (example: moving from automotive to auto parts supplier).

Functional

A functional resume groups your accomplishments into skill headings or functions. Examples: leadership, management, sales, marketing, new product development, administration, finance, etc.

It presents your experience under skill headings, which lets you prioritize your accomplishments by how relevant they are to your target job, rather than by when they happened. In this format, your work history (job titles, company names and dates of previous employment) is listed concisely in a section that follows your achievements.

Use a functional resume if you:

	Are changing industries or professions and need to emphasize your transferable skills;
	Have a job title that does not accurately reflect the responsibility you have;
	Are a student with great potential but almost no 'real experience' and you want to demonstrate a track record of activities that would lead an em ployer to see your 'promise' and hire you for your first job; or
	Are reentering the job market after an absence.

Value-Based

The value-based resume, which I pioneered, is a cross between a chronological and functional resume. It's designed to answer the one question on every single employer's mind, "What can this candidate do for me?"

It uses a concise writing style that communicates your bias for action. The tone of a value-based resume is this: "I walk through walls on a regular basis. Look at all I've done in my career. Now, imagine what I could do for you!"

This resume resonates with senior executives because it portrays you as being just like them � you have passion and you get things done.

Use a value-based resume if you:

	Have accomplishments to back up your claims;
	Can't hide the fact you're a 'Type A' personality;
	Want to encourage an employer to move quickly to an interview stage;
	Are already a high-powered executive; or
	Are in a fast-paced, high-intensity occupation, like sales, law or entertainment.

Guerrilla

Now, let's break some rules with a Guerrilla resume.

Done correctly, a Guerrilla resume will get you an interview every time.

It's another hybrid, a cross between a functional and a value-based resume � but on steroids. This format should only be sent to senior executives. And let me warn you � if you use a Guerrilla resume, be prepared to back it up with facts and figures in the interview. So be sure to document your claims meticulously beforehand.

The Guerrilla resume includes a job objective, summary of accomplishments, and sections covering special skills, career history, and education.

But it uses bite-size phrases and brief statements in a less formal style that makes the resume quick and easy to digest by hiring managers. The statements provide compelling summaries of your skills and they empower your credentials.

For example, a traditional profile section of a resume might drone on for several sentences. A Guerrilla profile, on the other hand, gets to the point in one sentence. Under 'Profile,' a Guerrilla engineering applicant might write: Fifteen years experience in both technical and business aspects of the technology industry, with a demonstrated ability to deliver. Then, that statement is supported by a series of bullet points describing 'how' he delivers: Discover what the customers want; Drive design, development and deliver; Act as a technical evangelist where necessary.

Some Guerrilla applicants include a section called 'Career Driver,' in which the engineer might say: Inspiring and leading teams to develop breakthrough products, which solve customer demands and have real commercial value in the global market.

Under ‘Special Skills,’ work experience is further described by using action words. For example, the engineer might write: My experience has honed the following development know-how: Execution – regularly making deadlines against all odds; Experimentation – relentless probing for new R&D and product approaches; Expressive clarity – strategic development plans; Management – optimizing people and finances to meet objectives.

The resume then closes with 'Employment History' (job by job) and 'Education' (degree by degree). To see this Guerrilla resume online, go to GuerrillaJobHunting.com. In the right column under 'Categories' click on 'Resume,' then click on �John Walton after' in the second paragraph.

Don't make the mistake most job hunters do when looking for a job. They write a catchall resume filled with duties and responsibilities, ask friends and neighbors if they know of any job openings, respond to newspaper ads, reply to job postings online . . . and that's it.

But that's not enough. Not today. That's what everyone else does. Most job hunters are chasing a relatively small number of advertised jobs along with a huge crowd of hungry competitors. Good luck to them � they'll need it.

Instead, make 100% sure every resume you send is aimed at the specific job an employer wants to fill. If that seems like too much work, then ask yourself this question: How important is my future?

Any good headhunter will pre-screen and qualify you, then ask you to write your resume geared to the specific position. Follow their advice and write that specific, benefits-laden resume beforehand, and you'll have a tremendous advantage later.

By David E. Perry

David E. Perry is the author of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters and the Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters Blog. Kevin Donlin, creator of GetHiredNow.TV also contributed.