All About Jobs

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Blog reader Amy asked me the following question, “Should I use colored paper for my resume and cover letter? If so, which color is best?”

Here’s my reply:

Using coloured paper for your resume or cover letter won’t make a great deal of difference. In fact coloured paper, especially the darker colours, is difficult to photocopy. As your potential employer will most likely want to make copies of your documents, it’s better to use crisp, white paper so that any copies will look crisp too.

What’s more important is how well you have prepared your documents. For example, good grammar, spelling, typography, layout and attention to detail demonstrate skills for doing good work. Conversely, if a person can’t produce a decent resume and cover letter to get themselves a job, what chance do you think there is of them doing good work for their employer?

Where you can use colour or preferably embolding, is for keywords in your resume. This will draw attention to them when they are read by recruiters. After one reads 10-20 resumes, it’s easy to miss important details. Highlighting with colour or embolding will help.

There it is. Any comments about my advice will be appreciated. What’s been your experience with coloured documentation? Let us hear about it.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”

How would you like a free review of your resume? Send it to me by 28 November 2008 and I’ll choose five resumes at random to review and provide feedback.

Obviously I can’t review and give feedback on 200 resumes … not that I expect to receive that many. However, if you want to be in with a chance, send your resume now to me at emujoe@gmail.com in either Word, Txt or PDF format and on Friday I’ll draw five from the pack and do a full review. During the week the lucky five will receive feedback.

You don’t get an opportunity like this every day, so send yours in now.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”



 

When you post your resume online, do you increase its likelihood of being found by using search engine optimization methods?

You have no idea what this is? Well, tune in … this could make the difference between your resume being found or languishing for years on some dusty old database.

Search engines, like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc work on keywords. When people want something, they enter a keyword or a keyword phrase eg, “selection criteria ebook”. The search engines then cruise through all the stored Internet data looking for anything with that keyword phrase. When they find it, they present lists of their findings. You will be familiar with this approach to finding information.

Here’s what you need to do to optimize your resume and increase your chances of it being found when someone searches the Internet.

1. Identify the keywords for your job eg, “accounts receivable clerk”
2. Identify other keywords associated with it eg, “accounts receivable”, “accounts receivable jobs” etc
3. Use ONE keyword phrase numerous times in ONE resume and upload it to a place on the Internet
4. Use ANOTHER keyword phrase numerous times in ANOTHER resume and upload it
5. Do this with up to say, 10 resumes

If this works for other activities on the Internet, it figures that it should also work for your resume making it much more likely to be found. Why not give it a go? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”

PS: If your resume is in need of an upgrade, why not take a look at the Amazing Resume Creator?

Technorati Profile

Believe it or not, but most of the recruitment people I have met don’t have a good command of grammar. Many are not that good at analysing job documentation and writing an advert that accurately reflects what is required of job applicants.

What are the implications for you?

Simple, if the advert says that the “successful applicant will have five years experience”, don’t be put off applying for it if you have only two or three. Consider this: a motor mechanic who had five years experience balancing and aligning wheels might say he has had five years experience as a motor mechanic, but really have little experience at tuning cars with electronic systems.

In your case, you may have learned much more in two years than Debbie has in five years because of the variety of work. Therefore, when you responded, you would detail the things you did to get that experience.

There are several scenarios that could make you more successful than someone with five years experience:

1. Your listed experience may be just what your potential employer wants even though it’s less than five years
2. Other candidates might have just stated that they had five years experience and recruiters don’t really know exactly what that entailed
3. The employer might realise that it is not essential to have five years experience, that two or three would have been sufficient
4. There may be no other applicants with five years experience

The only time you need not apply is when there is a regulated/licensing requirement eg, if you had to hold a trade certificate and didn’t have one, then there’s no need applying.

The rule I would use is this: if you feel that you have the overall skills and experience for a job despite the advertised requirements, apply. After all, it will only cost you a few sheets of paper, an envelope and a bit of postage.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”

A Resume that Gets Attention will help you stand out from the crowd and get the job you want.

What do you think would happen if you produced a resume that was different from the average, run of the mill resume? That’s right, you’d stand out. Isn’t that what you want to do? Yes, of course, so here’s a clue.

Instead of submitting the standard, boring looking resume that has your personal details at the top, your qualifications, previous employment and so on (ho, hum, I’m getting bored just thinking about it), why not try something different? Like this:

“Robin Henry - Accounts Receivable Team Leader
Mobile: 04042313861

Benefits I can Bring to Acme Finance

1. Improved customer satisfaction
2. A more motivated work team
3. High levels of accuracy with accounts
4. A reduction in the aging of debtors account

These benefits are discussed in order on page two.”

On page two you address each of the issues using the STAR method ie, describe a Situation, Action you took and the Result. Like this:

“2005-2008 West Wing Aviation, Mount Isa, Queensland(Heading)

Between July 2005 and May 2008 I worked for West Wing Aviation in charge of a small Accounts Receivable team. When I took over, we had 320 accounts and averaged 3.6 customer complaints about accuracy of accounts each week. (The Situation) I undertook to improve accuracy of accounts and to improve customer satisfaction by providing training to my team, establishing standard procedures for proofreading and cross checking, and ensuring that quality existed at every stage of our work. (The Action) Within three months I had changed the average customer complaint to one in three weeks and improved accuracy with accounts by almost 98%. (The Result)

Isn’t this what an employer wants to know? What you can do for them … what’s in it for me (WIFM)?

If you keep doing what you have always been doing, the results will continue to be the same. The ball’s in your court. The way you write your resume doesn’t have to be the same as every other Tom, Dick and Juliet.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”

Recently I contacted a university about casual instructional work. The person to whom I wrote emailed and said the university was interested and asked me to send a copy of my resume. I replied by email and included a link to my Career Portfolio.

Online and protected by password, I have a Career Portfolio site that has my resume, a summary of my life and career, copies of my degrees, and examples of work I have completed.

Now, anyone involved in recruitment can simply click on the link and read all about me. Much more than what would be in a resume.

There are sites that provide visual CV services with audio-video snippets and more. One of them is here. You can create your Visual CV and then simply point interested people to it.

Call in and have a look, it’s very interesting.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success’

When you posted your resume and personal details to various job search sites, did you check out their privacy policy? Did you think about who might access your details and what they would do with them?

If you did neither of those, maybe you should read the informative and important article by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse here.

Robin
“Think success - Achieve success”