I was recently part of a once in a lifetime opportunity. My daughter’s 4A Soccer team won the Texas State High School championship.  Her mother and I got to witness leadership, discipline, intensity, focus and, most of all, a team having a great time while enjoying the trip.

We witnessed every aspect of a great team that came together over 7 Playoff games, a State Semifinal and the Championship game.  I noticed a little something that every team could use and I would like to share my thoughts.

From the coaches to the senior girls and team captains, everyone was focused on the goal of winning a state championship. Egos were set aside to get the job done and EVERYONE bought into the end result. Here are few things to help you determine if everyone on your team is on board with your company vision and is playing their role.

LEADERSHIP

If you are a Leader, you must set the example and hold people accountable. In order to hold people accountable they need to know THE NUMBERS – Company goal of total consultants on billing by year end, revenue and gross profit, personal quota, number of calls/submittals/interviews/placements. Once some of these numbers are in place, the team members need to be held accountable to exceed those numbers.

 Sometimes you get only one shot to do something great. Whether it’s building a company, winning a sporting event or making more in commissions than you ever have before……buy into your leadership’s vision and focus. If you are not in agreement with your leadership’s goals or vision then “Get to Steppin” because you are wasting everyone’s time.

DISCIPLINE

 People have to show up on time ready to go. If you played sports in school and you were late or missed a practice, you didn’t play or your playing time was reduced. If you are in the staffing or consulting services business, Team members have got to “Show up and BRING IT”. If not, those individuals need to work on the Purple Squirrels and low margin deals until they are ready to get back in the game. Also, hit those numbers mentioned in the previous leadership paragraph – Calls, Submittals, Interviews, Client Visits, Placements. If you are not hitting your benchmarks, you shouldn’t need someone to tell you. If you miss those numbers one week, exceed them the next.

INTENSITY / FOCUS

Once numbers are determined, keep the team’s eye on the ball and maintain the focus of hitting numbers and benchmarks. Too often in the staffing industry, teams can become complacent after a great month. Mentally have everyone hit the reset button. Focus the group on working requirements that are hot and maintaining their benchmark activities until placements are made. Once the placements are made, move on!!

If you have team members that are not hitting their quota and activity numbers, you owe it to the team and the individual to make them aware immediately and get their focus back. This type of intensity is needed to maintain top performing teams but don’t let it burn them out. In order to keep them focused and intense you must…………………………

KEEP IT FUN AND HAVE A GREAT TIME

You have to keep things fun and interesting in our business. In our company we have TV’s all over the office playing sports, cooking shows, etc.;  There is a surround sound system continually playing music; A Kegerator and beverages on hand for after work; A Golden Tee machine to blow off steam. Now, I know that our environment is unique and not everyone has access or wants those things at work. As an employer or leader in our business, you must recognize the stress in maintaining a championship team and keep it fun.

 If you can find out how to balance the Leadership, Focus, Discipline, and keep it fun everyone will be excited about their personal and company numbers and you will have a championship season every year.

Shout out to Wakeland Girls 4A Soccer Team “How about that drive in?”!

Extra shout out to my Recruiting and Business Development Teams on an unbelievable year…so far!

The following is a post by Julie Julie Holmwood is the Lead Consultant at Churchill Brook where she offers both individuals and groups coaching on all manner of career issues.

Your interviews went well. You’ve met all the key people. Answered and asked all the questions. Done an awesome presentation and the Company have said they will let you know within the next two weeks whether or not you have been successful. If you are like me the waiting is the hard part (I even open my Christmas presents at just gone midnight, so it is officially Christmas Day, but…).

Well, the first thing I would say is don’t just sit and wait. Send a thank you email to everyone you just met at interview. Most companies have a standard email address format so if you know the names of the interviewers and the address of one, using the same format for the others should work. Thank them for the meeting, reiterate your interest and then state the reasons why this role and their Company really appeal to you;

I would like to confirm that I am extremely interested in this position. I gained skills in sales, marketing and business development during both my current and previous roles and I think that I have the right amount of knowledge to be successful over and beyond the key targets you specified of x, y and z. I find selling and all forms of marketing so stimulating and identifying and developing new markets is my main inspiration in my career to date. As a Company you have really sparked my interest because your moral code is identical to that by which I live my life; I too believe that delivering more than I promise and helping clients reach their goals are key to satisfaction for both us and them. I have given this opportunity a lot of thought over the last (length of interview period) and I really believe that we are a perfect fit for each other. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and decision on hiring me for your team.

Indicate the key points for both sides; what they are looking for, what you have and where you see the match to be. Then state why you want to work for them. Every Company I ever worked with during my twelve years in recruitment, was looking to hire the person that could not only do the job and fit within the team but the person that wanted to do the job and who would bring passion, excitement and desire to the role. It is a big investment of money but mostly of time to hire someone new and the key decisions post interview are;

Will this person fit with us as a team and Company? Will they be able to do the job well? Will they want to do the job well? Will they stay working for us (or is this something to pay the bills in the short-term)? If you believe that they are the right Company for you and you are therefore the right person for them say so. Tell them why you think that. State your positives both in what they will get and in how it will be perfect for you (although stating; this is the ideal job for me because your office is right next to my daughter’s school is probably one to avoid listing)

Now, sit back, accept that you will know on the date they have given you. Mark it on your calendar and get on with doing other things. Before you know it that phone is going to ring!

For help with the interview process or making the transition from where you are to where you want to be please contact one of our Consultant Coaches at churchillbrook@gmail.com

Julie Holmwood is the Lead Consultant at Churchill Brook where she offers both individuals and groups coaching on all manner of career issues. A qualified coach with twelve years as an international headhunter she is ideally placed to help you with any career challenge you might be facing. She has also worked extensively with clients on programmes of career enhancement, so whether you are looking to find a new direction, find a new job, get that next promotion or just fall in love with the role you already have she is able to help you get there faster than you would on your own.

The following article was written by Mauricio from Recruitingblogs.com. He is a Global Talent Acquisition Recruiter for an Energy Services company in Houston. This is a great article from the point of view of a Corporate Recruiter.

I was a “Head-hunter” (on contingency basis) for over 11yrs and have been on the “other side of the desk” for over 5yrs. Having worked on both sides, I can understand the frustrations both agency recruiters and corporate recruiters feel when dealing with each other.

Ironically, some of the frustrations are similiar such as response time, communication, content of requested information, etc. We both have the same complaints in many cases, the difference is from which side it comes and who has it first. Either way, it can develop into a real quagmire of frustrating issues that eventually get resolved either by Agency pouching from their client (because they decided that it was more valuable taking out of them than working with them), or Corporate Recruiters black-listing the agency (usually done discretely by consistantly telling them that they don’t have any job orders to give them until they fade away…and probably end up pouching from them anyway).

Just as a gentle reminder, Corporate Recruiters have more than just sourcing, qualifying and placing the candidate. We also have to deal with Compliance issues (internal/external), Corporate Initiatives (e.g. Diversity), Constant Meetings with Stakeholders, Training, Posting jobs and documentation on ATS’, “special projects”–lovely term for “more work, more hours, zero reward”, etc. , etc, ETC!

Because we (Corporate Recruiters) are over-worked beyond belief (especially with downsizing recruitment depts to bare bone), this creates a need for what I call, “Recruitment PARTNERS”, not “Vendors”.

So as my Post Title suggestions, I’d like to let all the Agency Recruiters know a particular area that can “set-you-apart” from “Head-hunters”.

The primary value is information. Since our days are spent (including but not limited to) handling 100+emails, managing the recruitment process, creating and explaining endless spreadsheets for each of our 40+Hiring Managers, the last thing we want to have to do is spend hours qualifying ONE candidate for ONE position (of +40 positions we have to fill YESTERDAY)…especially when the candidate comes from an Agency!

“Head-hunters” to me is defined as a recruiter that sends a SANITIZED CV with little to no extra information other than the typical 4-5 bullets such as availability to interview, salary expectations, etc. and doesn’t do any more work except when requested (piece-mealed!).

What a “Recruitment Partner” will do is send their INTERVIEW NOTES TO THE CORPORATE RECRUITER! When you’ve invested the time to FULLY INTERVIEW YOUR (I REPEAT, YOUR) candidate, AND SENDS THOSE INTERVIEW NOTES to the Corporate Recruiter, it saves us:

1) Time
2) Gives us a wealth of information to process in little to no time, and
3) We can then make an informed decision (collectively with the Hiring Manager or with the Recruitment Partner themselves) as to which direction we want to go in with THEIR candidate.

Notice I mention that the candidate is the Recruitment Partner’s candidate? Because the Candidate is YOUR ASSET, not the Corporate Recruiters. And some of you have experienced “Credit-Junkie” Corporate Recruiters but regardless if they want to take an ego trip and claim the candidate as their own, at the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter to you because it all comes out in the open. Did you forget that the candidate knows who placed them?? So don’t get caught-up in that mess. It’s a waste of time. Your stock will go up in the eyes of the Hiring Manager/Stakeholders no matter how political the Corporate Recruiter gets.

You see, the value of information is priceless to a Corporate Recruiter. The more you can do for us, the less we have to do, and the less we have to do, the more valuable you become, and the more valuable you become, the more we want to use you. So just because you work on a contingency basis, or you fear loss, the worst you can do is give limited information. You limit your ability to make a placement and build your relationship when you work with limitations. Don’t worry about the limitations the Corporate Recruiter places on you (e.g. gate-keeper to Hiring Manager), go with blind faith and SET EXPECTATIONS UP FRONT with them! AND REMIND THEM WHEN THEY DON’T MEET YOUR EXPECATION…gently (as you are probably aware that Corporate Recruiters can sometimes have “attitudes” with “HEAD-HUNTERS”). Its up to your savy ways to find a way to connect with your client.

I suggest that the main reason why Recruiters don’t divulge Candidates’ contact information up front, and hold information back is due to trust. My suggestion to you is:

IF YOU DON’T TRUST YOUR CLIENT ENOUGH TO DIVULGE ALL THE INFORMATION UP FRONT, THEN YOU HAVE A TRUST ISSUE. AND IF YOU HAVE A TRUST ISSUE, WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT TO ENGAGE IN A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM? THE SAME PHILOSOPHY APPLIES IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS APPLIES IN BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS. ESTABLISH TRUST FIRST, BUILD ON IT WITH SOME AMOUNT OF BLIND FAITH, AND GO FROM THERE. I can certainly assure you that if a Corporate Recruiter doesn’t trust an Agency Recruiter, believe me, you are of no value to them nor yourself. And at the cost of contingency, what dice do you want to roll?

With the ever shrinking talent pool of “quality” IT Resources becoming a reality for IT Staffing Agencies, Corporate Recruiters, Hiring Managers and HR. DFW IT Staffing is presenting a topic near and dear to our hearts – Job Postings. Now, before I receive emails and replies to my article about how the importance of direct sourcing, databases and building relationships with candidates is more important than Job Postings, I will agree with you and move on. This article is directed at getting the most out of your Job Postings on your Corporate, Job Sites and LinkedIn Job Posting groups.
The suggestions provided below are in no particular order of importance. I am also taking the liberty of sprinkling in a few Do’s and Don’ts.

The more information that you can provide regarding the position the better
If you are just posting skill sets and nothing else, you are missing a genuine opportunity to convey important information to prospective candidates. Additional information that you can provide include:
• Company info (Agencies will not usually divulge client info but can provide a generic overview)
• Project information – What business impact does this project provide to the company.
• Role – What does this position entail besides the obvious. Who does the prospect interact with, report to, etc.
Rember: Don’t just add a skill set. Selling the candidate on the position is how you get passive candidates.

Post the technical environment “As is”
Too often I’ve seen clients that are looking for a Developer and they will post something like this: Looking for a Developer candidate with any of the following skills: C#, Java, .NET, PHP, Ruby. It is understandable that, as a Hiring Manager/Corporate Recruiter/HR professional, you want to convey to the prospective candidate that you are willing to speak with them regardless of their technology but it is EXTREMELY important to the candidate to know the exact technical tools that they will be using. For example: You are a company with a proprietary technology but you have determined that people with C# or Java can pick up your proprietary development tool or language so you post a job looking for C# / Java talent. I can tell you that the talent will be disappointed to find out that they will no longer be utilizing a marketable skill set if they accept a job with your company.

Give a clear and concise description of your company or clients history and services
This is especially true if you are a staffing agency or consulting service. Provide your company services and a company history. If the candidate will be working for one of your clients, provide as much information about the client company without giving up your precious client name or contact. Remember, the earlier statement of “The more information that you can provide, the better”.

Provide compensation
This topic is a matter of debate but let’s bottom line this – Sooner or later compensation will be discussed and whether you are a corporate recruiter, hiring manager or agency recruiter, you know what your budget will be on an hourly or salary basis. Get it out in the open and discuss. When posting, give a broad range if necessary or your mid to high point.

These are just a few of many things that you can do to enhance the position. I have a feeling that I will be able to post on this topic again in the near future.

Here we are 12 days into the new year and I can tell you that the IT Contract, Consulting and Staffing market is absolutely going crazy! I have seen more Job Orders for IT Talent in the month of January than the following 3 Januarys combined. Since I am too busy to write a new article. I have reposted an article from Jessica Dickler from CNNMoney.com. 

New Year’s resolution: I quit!

By Jessica Dickler, staff writerDecember 23, 2010: 7:39 AM ET

 NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Employers watch out: Your workers can’t wait to quit.

According to a recent survey by job-placement firm Manpower, 84% of employees plan to look for a new position in 2011. That’s up from just 60% last year.

Most employees have sat tight through the recession, not even considering other jobs because so few firms were hiring. For the past few years, the Labor Department’s quits rate, which serves as a barometer of workers’ ability to change jobs, has hovered near an all-time low.

But after years of increased work and frozen compensation, “a lot of people will be looking because they’re disappointed with their current jobs,” said Paul Bernard, a veteran executive coach and career management advisor who runs his own firm.

Douglas Matthews, president and chief operating officer for Right Management, a division of Manpower, called the results “a wake-up call to management. … This finding is more about employee dissatisfaction and discontent than projected turnover,” he said.

Despite a disappointing jobs report last month, experts agree that the employment picture will likely improve going forward, although hiring will be slow.

Double life of the American worker

“A lot of people who have jobs are considering looking for new work this year,” said Charles Purdy, a career expert at Monster+HotJobs. “I don’t know if we’re going to see a huge uptick in the number of jobs, but I do think we’ll see a huge surge in the number of people looking for work, even among people who are already employed.”

Austin and Lauren will be two of them. (Both asked that their last names not be used.)

Austin has worked as the general manager for a small manufacturing company for six years, but he has his sights set on a job with the federal government.

0:00 /03:50Investment banker to master of wine

“I am definitely ready to make a move now,” he said. “I want to change because I feel that I would be more successful and have more challenges working in a Federal agency representing the interests of multiple private small businesses.”

Austin has applied to positions at the Department of Commerce, Homeland Security and the State Department. But until hiring picks up, he is maintaining his current employment while campaigning for his next career in the New Year, or what he calls “maintaining and campaigning.”

Lauren wants to leave the marketing position she landed soon after graduating in May. She said she feels lucky to have any job at all, “but it’s definitely not what I expected.”

“I’m currently in an environment where I’m not learning anything and am not challenged by any of my work,” she said. “It just makes me feel like I’m wasting my time.”

Even with less than a year of experience under her belt, Lauren plans to look for another opportunity in 2011. “What I’m hoping with the new year is that since most companies do their budgets around this time, they’ll have room for new employees,” she said.

The following is a repost of a previous article. The IT Job Market is back in a big way and it’s time to educate hiring managers, HR, Recruiters and anyone that will listen. We added a new section to the article – Shorten the Resume to Submittal Cycle.

I have recently heard from many DFW professionals in the IT Staffing and Solutions business that tell me their business is back in a big way and are seeing dramatic increases in Job Requisitions both on a contract and direct hire basis.

Recent articles by Staffing Industry Analysts point to a healthy increase in Direct Hire, IT Executive positions, in the DFW area. I believe it’s time to take advantage of this market by spreading the news to Job Seekers, HR and Hiring Managers. Sometimes they are the last to know that the market is picking up. I’m not saying that they are ignorant or blind to the market. Sometimes they are too busy with their companies and core business and, as IT Staffing Professionals, it is our job to make them aware that the recession is over (at least from an IT Staffing point o view in DFW). While we’re at it, we can also eliminate some misperceptions from IT Talent and people in hiring positions:

I know you’ve got a couple of hundred resumes but……
…how many candidates are a fit. One misconception that we have to overcome as staffing professionals is that a high volume of unqualified resumes from people that answer on-line ads or are sent by agencies do not equate to an abundance of talent in the marketplace. On the contrary, this is one constant in an up or down market and one of the reasons that good recruiters stay in business. This year, I am personally speaking with more candidates that have multiple job offers. Make your HR Contacts and Hiring Managers aware that the good people are interviewing and getting offers (quickly).

Shorten the resume submittal to interview cycle 

Candidates now have more options than ever. If you cannot turn around a great candidate and get them an interview within 24 hours, you are behind the curve and more options are being presented to the candidate every hour that goes by. It is your job as an account manager, recruiter, business development professional (whatever you call yourself) to be assumptive and get your candidates on the calendar. Notice I said “candidates”. It can be just as detrimental to only schedule one candidate at a time. Get your client/customer to schedule your best 3 within 24 to 48 hours of resume submittal. Tell your client that the candidates are in the process of reviewing their options and we need to get all of them on the calendar as soon as possible.

Afraid to check out those new opportunities in a tight job market because you need your current job
My answer: Then stay; however, you need to know that the market has picked up and it is time to start looking. Start passively looking at the job boards and call a recruiter that you trust. There are 5 staffing companies that I spoke to for this article, and based upon their feedback, we averaged that Job Requisitions were up over 20% from last year. Now is the time put your “feelers” out. You owe it to your candidates to explain that the market in DFW has, at the very least, improved over the last 2 years.

We have too many vendors on our current list and are trying to shorten the list
I gotta tell ya, I hear this no matter what the economy and hiring trends tell us. DFW IT Staffing speaks with over 15 local VMS Administrators on a weekly basis and, while most of them tell us they would like to shorten their vendor lists, the same people tell us that their current vendors are challenged to find the hiring managers perceived higher end skills and talent that eventually get farmed out or project/outsourced to IT Solution or Consulting Companies. Work with your VMS Administrators and Hiring Managers to determine their hard to find skill sets or projects that are outsourced and determine if you can find a solution.

Personally, I have a philosophy that no matter what the economy, unemployment percentages or staffing analysts tell me, Talented IT Professionals are always hard to find. Maybe that’s using ignorance as an advantage.

One of my favorite characters is Chance the Gardener from the movie Being There. The movie is about a simple-minded gardener (Chance) who ultimately becomes a presidential candidate because of his simple musings and his ignorance to the world around him. In the final scene, as the party elite discuss their choice of Chance as their preferred candidate in the upcoming presidential election, Chance is seen wandering over an estate. He comes to the edge of a lake and then proceeds to seemingly defy gravity by walking on the surface of the water, and not sinking into it. I like to think that Chance did not drown or fall into the water because he developed his own reality or maybe he was just too simple to know that he should sink.

My point is this: Develop your own reality and keep a positive mindset no matter the outside influences and remember that the market is what you make it. The best way to change market perception is to verbalize what’s going on for individuals that aren’t privy to the info.

Good luck and spread the word that IT Staffing is back in a big way in DFW and for some of you, it never left.

The following article was written by Phil Rosenberg. Phil is LinkedIn’s most connected Career Coach (21.5K+ 22.1M), Author http://reCareered.com, LION, TopLinked.com. You can reach him at his blog – www.recareered.com . Great article for candidates looking to find their next position and/or contract. Will help maximize your options.

Use A Fishing Resume When You Don’t Know The Target Company

Dec 7 2010 in Featured, Resumes, reCareered Blog by Phil Rosenberg

In many other articles, I recommend using a Fishing Resume when you don’t have information about your recipient (the target company).

Fishing resumes can help candidates who reply to blind ads, send resumes to recruiters (without knowledge of the hiring company), or send to their network (without having a specific company as the target).

What is a Fishing Resume?

A fishing resume is basically unchanged, because the candidate doesn’t know much (or anything) about the employer or hiring manager. It’s a static resume a candidate uses to respond to a blind ad, to a recruiter, or to a networking contact (if the candidate isn’t asking to gain inroads into a specific target company). It’s a fishing resume because the candidate doesn’t know who the employer is – so there’s no way to tailor it.

It should be your goal to send as few fishing resumes as possible – you’ll get more interviews from highly customized and targeted Response Resumes, tailored to a specific company and a specific opportunity. The odds are much lower that you’ll get interviews from sending blind resumes, because you don’t have access to company information needed to customize.

However, there will be situations where sending a blind resume is unavoidable – an effective fishing resume strategy can help you raise the lower odds.

In addition, a well written fishing resume can be used a template for later customization – it can be the base template for future response resumes.

What’s An Effective Fishing Resume Strategy?

There are a number of aspects to a strong fishing resume strategy, including optimum number of versions, clarity, information placement, format, audience focus, and sections. I’ll explain each one more fully, and include links to past articles for even greater detail:

1. How Many? 2 versions is ideal. If you can’t choose just 2, then absolutely no more than 3. Separate versions can communicate specific subject matter expertise, industry expertise, or job function. Today’s job search is most effective when highly focused – this applies to all levels of experience and most every job function (while there are some exceptions, they are few and far between). Using more than 3 versions spreads a candidate too thin, causing candidates to communicate they are all things to all people – rarely attractive to most employers.
2. Clear Intent: An effective fishing resume tells the reader in a crystal clear and extremely concise manner the job function sought and why the candidate is superior to hundreds (or thousands) of competitors. The best resumes do this in a single headline underneath the contact header, called a personal branding statement. See “How A Personal Branding Statement Can Help Job Seekers“ (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/01/26/how-a-personal-branding-statement-can-help-job-seekers/).
3. Resume Real Estate: Since Hiring managers/Recruiters/HR reps spend an average 15 seconds determining if you’ll be interviewed or not, you’ve got to make a great first impression … very quickly. In 15 seconds, your first impression is made on the top ½ of your first page – your most valuable resume real estate. In order to maximize the impact of your resume real estate, it’s important to get information the the screener/sourcer/HR rep and the Hiring manager is looking for, with the key words they are looking in the top ½ of your first page … because resume readers often don’t go any further. Read more about effective resume real estate tactics at ”10 Ways To Manage Your Resume Real Estate” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/02/16/10-ways-to-manage-your-resume-real-estate/).
4. Format: Format should also recognize the principles of resume real estate. In addition, resumes should be in a MS Word .doc (97-2003 compatibility mode) format, not .pdf, not .docx, not .dot formats. Recruiters, employers and HR reps overwhelmingly prefer .doc formats, but there are a few notable exceptions. Learn more about why your audience wants to see your resume in .doc format and what typical exceptions exist at ”.doc vs .pdf – What Resume format do HR departments & recruiters prefer?” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/10/05/doc-vs-pdf-what-resume-format-do-hr-departments-recruiters-prefer/).

Also, resume fonts should be simple for most job functions. Using a single font in your resume assures that it won’t look sloppy – most resumes with multiple fonts are confusing to the human eye. Unless you are in advertising or in graphic arts, use a simple font. I recommend Times New Roman for Finance, legal, management and technology positions, Ariel for creative positions or for senior candidates who want to appear younger. If you want to look really old and out of date, use courier. For more information on fonsts, see ”What Font Type And Size Should I Use For My Resume? Job search question of the week” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/02/19/what-font-type-and-size-should-i-use-for-my-resume-job-search-question-of-the-week/).

1. WIFT: WIFT stands for What’s In it For Them – In respect to resumes, WIFT refers to emphasising what the employer will feel is important. This is opposed to WIFM (What’s In it For Me) – What you are most proud of. WIFT is helping to make the employer money, solve their problems and break through roadblocks. An employer doesn’t care about your past responsibilities, descriptions of your past companies or listings of past job descriptions – that’s all WIFM. Your next employer won’t care about these statements because they fail to describe how you provided value for your past employer – used as a proxy for how you’ll provide value to your next employer. See Job Seekers – Tell your readers WIFT (What’s In it For Them)” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/03/17/job-seekers-tell-your-readers-wift-whats-in-it-for-them/).
2. Objective: Objective statements may be a traditional part of resumes, but they don’t solve employer information needs. As much as you might like to think otherwise, employers don’t really care what your objective is – they care about how much value you’ll provide to the company. Objective statements are WIFM, so why take up your most valuable resume real estate talking about what you want? Why not instead use a personal branding statement to tell the employer how you provide what they want?
3. Summary Section: Summary sections are also a traditional part of resumes that don’t work well today. Summary sections are WIFM and employers view them as “seller’s fluff” – Employers believe what they see within the bullet points under each employer’s work experience. Summary sections don’t show recency – it makes a big difference to an employer if you’ve accomplished something within the past year, or 20 years ago. Worst yet, summary sections take up most of your most valuable resume real estate.

I recommend that fishing resumes have the following components to increase their effectiveness.

Components of a Fishing Resume:

• Personal branding statement: A personal branding statement is a clear concise statement describing the anticipated job function you seek, and one or two subject matter expertises to demonstrate the problems you are best at solving. Your personal branding statement should tell the reader why you are superior to the hundreds (or thousands) of other candidates … all within a single line headline for your resume. More details about how to construct personal branding statements can be found at “How A Personal Branding Statement Can Help Job Seekers“ (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/01/26/how-a-personal-branding-statement-can-help-job-seekers/).
• Paragraphs vs. Bulletpoints: Short bulletpoints win – paragraphs just aren’t effective in a resume. The human eye just doesn’t pick up details from paragraphs well during a 15 second scan. I advise my clients to break up paragraphs into bulletpoints that are no more than 2 lines in length – Any longer and your reader won’t see the detail you want them to see. Learn more about why bullets work best at ”Which Are More Effective In A Resume? Paragraphs vs Bullets” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/09/29/which-are-more-effective-in-a-resume-paragraphs-vs-bullets/).
• Employer Value Statements: Use bulletpoints that demonstrate the value you’ve provided to prior employers. Listing responsibilities demonstrates how you spent your time, but is your next employer really interested in a time sheet? You’ll find that most employers are more interested in gaining an understanding if you’re likely to make the employer money, increase revenues, cut costs, increase profits, or solve pain. Examples of how you’ve provided value to prior employers is the best indication to your prospective employer that you’ll provide value to them. Learn more about employer value statements at ”Employer Value Statements Make Your Resume Sizzle” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/03/09/employer-value-statements-make-your-resume-sizzle/).
• Industry Keywords: Even though you don’t know the target company when you send a fishing resume, you can still increase your interview chances by including industry keywords. While this isn’t as effective as customized keywords for a specific employer or opportunity, it beats not considering keywords at all. Your fishing resume keywords can be found by combining the responsibilities/criteria/qualifications sections of 10 job descriptions (all close to the type of jobs you’re applying to), then running this combined document through a word cloud tool.

The result will show which are the most important words in that document – the ones most likely to be keywords for this type of job. Make sure your resume includes the most important 10-20 keywords, with as many of these keywords above the fold as possible. See the profile section of ”How Are Profile Keywords Different Than Resume Keywords?” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/11/04/how-are-profile-keywords-different-than-resume-keywords/).

• Selective Bolding: Be careful what you bold – most resumes over-bold and generate resumes with much lower bolding effectiveness than what’s optimal. When bolding is done well, it pulls the reader’s eye to specific words, the words you want your reader to see in a quick 15 second scan. To learn more about effective and non-effective bolding techniques, see ”Is Your Resume Over-Bold?” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/07/13/is-your-resume-over-bold/).
• Education: What’s more important to your employer, your education or your experience? Whichever is more important should be listed first.

If you’ve just earned your undergrad, your education is more important – list your education at the top. If you graduated from school more than 2 years ago, your experience is more important – in this case, list your education near the end. If you just graduated from graduate school – your education might be more important if you’re changing careers or if you went to a top school … otherwise, your experience is more important.

• Skills Inventory: At the very end of the resume, as an addendum, include a skills inventory. A skills inventory is a listing of 30-50 skills (50+ skills for tech professionals). I recommend listing skills as 3 word “sound bytes” and using a 3 column format. A skills inventory helps a candidate match the requirements that never made the job descriptions, the changed criteria, and the “nice to haves”. Include technology skills, functional skills, industry skills, management/leadership skills, and soft skills. To get more details on constructing a great skills inventory, see ”Resume Ideas – Add A Skills Inventory To Get Noticed For More Jobs” (http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/02/10/resume-ideas-add-a-skills-inventory-to-get-noticed-for-more-jobs/).

So how will you reconstruct your fishing resume?