Resume Writing & Career Marketing Insider

10 Classic Resume-Writing Mistakes to Avoid

Is your resume generating disappointing results. Have you been sending your resume for positions that you know you are qualified for, but the phone remains silent? If so, you might want to check it and revise it against these ten common errors.

1. Including an objective statement that tells the reader what you want.

If there is one major rule to keep in mind as you write your resume, it is that all of the content should be written to be employer-centered. Objective statements that tell the reader what you want are inherently self-centered. The more modern way of providing focus for your resume is to include a summary or profile section. A profile is fundamentally different from an objective in that it is employer-centered, conveying to the reader what you offer them, rather than what you want from them.

2. Writing your resume to be intentionally broad in scope.

Many people will write a broad resume out of fear that focusing too precisely will exclude them from certain opportunities. Unfortunately, this strategy almost always backfires. Resume readers are notoriously lazy and give your resume only a few seconds at most before making the decision to screen it out or screen it in. If you are lucky you have 15 seconds to clearly convey your focus (level and type of position you are seeking) and how you would add value within their organization. If your focus is ambiguous and you haven't made it crystal clear how you will "fit" in the company, you certainly expect the reader to make the effort to figure it out.

3. Including a generic profile/summary statement.

While it has become common and even expected that your resume will include a profile/summary statement, far too often they are just generic statements that do nothing to differentiate the individual from their competition in the job market. What is it that differentiates you and make your contributions to the companies you have worked for better and unique than your peers? What is the value proposition that you are making to the reader of your resume? What sets you apart from the competition and what uniquely qualifies you to meet the needs and solves the problems of the employer? Additionally, it isn't enough to tell a reader that you have certain abilities or traits; you must show them through examples of past achievements. Prove impact! Forget about cliches and jargon. Soft skills are often important, but even those should be backed up by specific accomplishments that illustrate them.

4. Describing your job scope and responsibilities in detail.

Think about it: Being "responsible for" doing something certainly doesn't mean a person does it. What a person is supposed to do and what they actually do are two different things. Many people make the mistake of selling features (responsibilities) rather than benefits (achievements/results) in their resume. It is very important to place the emphasis on achievements, quantifying results whenever possible. Document the ways in which your work have benefited your employers and quantify whenever possible. By including past achievements and results, you demonstrate your future potential. Always remember, you won't get hired for what you know how to do, you will get hired for what you do with what you know how to do.

5. Focusing solely on the achievement and forgetting about the results.

Just telling the reader that you have achievements isn't very effective unless you present them in terms of the results and benefits they have produced for past employers. You should always try to think in terms of the "so what" of your achievement. What did you improve, save, increase, enhance, etc? What impact did the work you do have on the companies? At the root, every single job is designed to solve a problem, save money, make money, or improve efficiency. It is crucial that you understand and be able to communicate the impact of your performance. Whenever you can do so, you should use numbers to illustrate your results, but even if you are unable to quantify achievements, the emphasis should still be on the results/benefits of your work.

6. Writing an autobiographical style resume.

Your resume is a marketing document. It is not an autobiography. While the decision about how far back to date your resume really depends on the individual circumstances, generally it is standard to go back 10-20 years. If experience earlier than that is still relevant, you can always summarize it in a couple of sentences without the use of dates. Always think in terms of relevance and impact. Does a particular piece of data or achievement support your personal brand and value proposition? Does it help promote your qualifications in relation to your current career goals? If not, you probably should not include it. In fact, by including irrelevant data, you dilute your focus and make the recipient wonder if you truly understand the position you are targeting. If you feel really strongly that particular data may be relevant to at least SOME recipients, you can always create an addendum that you choose to use selectively.

7. Including personal information.

If your resume is meant for the U.S. market, it should not include a photo, your birth date, mention of unrelated hobbies or interests, info about your family, info that reveals your religion, or any other similarly personal data. Including such data in a resume meant for the U.S. market may actually eliminate you from consideration, as hiring decision-makers may be concerned about discrimination suits.

8. Using a template design for your resume.

You should never use a template to create a resume. Your resume should be uniquely designed to highlight your unique qualifications and selling point and to set you apart from other candidates. If you use a template (or a format that looks like a template), you ensure that your resume will simply blend in with all the rest. To really compel action, your resume MUST attract immediate attention and present an unquestionably professional appearance. Create an eye-catching design, but forego the templates!

9. Using the same structure and resume writing techniques that you were taught in college ten years ago.

A common error made by experienced professionals is overemphasis of education. As an experienced professional your history of accomplishments and proven ability to produce and deliver results is far more important than your degrees. Only new graduates with very little or no experience should list education at the beginning of the resume. The most important thing is that you prioritize and organize your selling points, listing categories of primary importance first. The best structure in almost all circumstances is a combination reverse chronological order. This includes a profile/summary section, a reverse chronology of your work history and achievements, education, and other qualifications such as professional affiliations.

10. Listing all your achievements in a section separate from your career history.

It is critical to show progression and a consistent, repeated ability to produce results. By listing your achievements separately from your career history, you lose this. Go ahead and use specific achievements to illustrate the value proposition and personal branding that you convey in your profile. In fact, it is crucial that you do so. But, for the most part, the majority of your achievements are best presented within the chronological and situational context in which they happened. In other words, go ahead and include a SUMMARY of achievements that are selected to illustrate your value proposition and brand, but the body of your resume should also include achievements and results that illustrate your impact in each company or each position.

Do you still feel at a loss about how to improve your resume, even after reading these tips? If so, consider hiring a professional resume writer. Hiring a resume writer is an investment, but it is an investment that will often pay you back many times over by dramatically shortening your job search, positioning you to win coveted positions, and preparing you with the pitch you need to negotiate top compensation.

Do you want to use this article in your ezine or website? You are welcome to as long as you use the following text with it:

Nationally certified resume writer, career marketing expert, and personal branding strategist, Michelle Dumas is the founder and executive director of Distinctive Career Services LLC. Through Distinctive Documents http://www.distinctiveweb.com and her $100k+ Executive VIP Services delivered through http://www.100kcareermarketing.com  Michelle has empowered thousands of executives, professionals, and managers all across the U.S. and worldwide with all the tools and resources necessary to conduct a fast, effective job search. Michelle is also the author of the popular e-book 101 Before-and-After Resume Examples found at http://www.before-and-after-resumes.com To learn more about her job search products, resume writing services, and career marketing programs, and to sign up for many other free resources, visit her websites.
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

How-to Create a Compelling, Branded Elevator Pitch for Your Job Search

The elevator pitch. You are probably familiar with the term. It is most commonly used to describe the concise 60-second speech that business owners and executives, as well as salespeople, use to describe their business, product, or service to others. More importantly, it is a speech that is delivered in a compelling way that describes what is unique about the business (or offering), describes the benefits to the target market, and excites interest in the listener.

So, why should you--the job seeker and career professional--care about the elevator pitch? If you are familiar with the concept of personal branding, and the idea of leveraging your brand to advance and promote yourself in your career, I’m sure you immediately recognized similarities between the above description of an elevator pitch and a personal brand statement.

Personal branding allows you to make a name for yourself. It differentiates you from your peers and helps to position you as a leader in your field – as a specialist and an authority who knows how to do a job and fill a particular niche in the workplace better than anyone else. A personal brand statement is a succinct statement that clarifies and communicates what makes you and your unique value proposition different and special.

Your personal brand statement will play a large role in your 60-second elevator pitch as a job seeker and career professional. Your entire elevator pitch will be a mini presentation that you are able to give on the fly in response to those all-too-common questions “what do you do?” or “tell me about yourself?”  With precision-like focus, an effective elevator pitch will immediately convey to the listener who you are as a professional, and will do it in a way that addresses not only your unique value proposition, but in a manner that addresses the concerns of your listener. Of equal importance, while your pitch is planned and rehearsed, when you actually speak it, it should sound completely natural and spontaneous, yet it should leave the listener with a lasting, positive, and memorable impression. You will use your elevator pitch frequently, in networking situations and during interviews.

But, once you recognize that crafting an elevator pitch is essential, you might feel daunted at the prospect of creating and perfecting one. Certainly, this is a task that your career coach or the professional that you hired to create your résumé can assist with. However, with some introspection and honest self-assessment, developing your elevator pitch does not have to be difficult. To get started, ask yourself these essential questions:

1. What is the focus of your search? What is your job target?
2. Who is the person/people most likely to make a hiring decision about you?
3. What are the problems faced by your target audience?
4. What is it that you are offering that would solve these problems?
5. What is it that differentiates you and makes you different from your peers?
6. What are the benefits of your work as experienced by your target audience?

To create your elevator pitch, you now must put these elements all together in a brief presentation that you can deliver quickly—in the time it would take you to get from one floor to the other in an elevator.

As an example, here is my own “branded” elevator pitch that I developed to concisely describe my work as the executive director of Distinctive Career Services.

“You know how some career professionals miss out on really great employment opportunities, or don’t advance as quickly in their careers as they would like, or don’t get paid the compensation they deserve, all because they don’t really know how to differentiate themselves in their careers or promote themselves effectively in the job market?

Well, I am a career coach, personal branding strategist, and career marketing professional—one of just a few people worldwide with this unique blend of expertise. In my business, which is internet-based and global, I provide a mix of innovative products, programs, and services delivered to six-figure+ and aspiring six-figure+ professionals, managers, and executives. All my offerings are designed specifically to empower my clients to promote and market themselves effectively, opening doors and enabling potential to achieve their highest career ambitions and goals.

The benefits are that my clients dramatically reduce the time and money they spend job searching, rapidly advance their careers, boost their incomes, enjoy greater professional recognition, and overall, establish themselves in careers that are more professionally, financially, and personally rewarding.”

Once you have the answers to the six simple questions above, you have everything you need to create a similar elevator pitch for yourself. Do you see how I have taken my own answers to the questions and interspersed them throughout my pitch? I’ve clearly communicated who my target market is, have identified the problems and challenges that they face, have conveyed how my offering is not only unique but solves those problems, and I’ve described the key benefits that my offerings produce.

You can use this same model to develop your own elevator pitch. But remember; don’t go into too much detail. Your goal is simply to pique interest and make yourself memorable. Don’t spend too much time on the details of your qualifications. Just quickly highlight them and tie them back to how they benefit your target audience (current or future employer).

Once you have your pitch perfected, practice it, practice it, and practice it some more. Your goal is to have it sound completely natural. Rehearse in front of a mirror and be aware of your body language and eye contact, as these aspects of communication often speak even louder than words. Now, try your pitch out a few times and observe the response to the listener. Be open to the prospect of adapting and modifying as necessary to elicit the response you want to generate. And, of course, be flexible. If your listener interrupts with a question, be ready to pause and answer it.

Creating your elevator pitch may take some time and thought, but it is a wise career professional who invests in it! You will hear the “what do you do?” or “tell me about yourself?” questions over and over, both during your job search and throughout your entire career. Don’t wing it! Preparation is the key to confidence and the key to making a lasting, positive, and memorable first impression. The benefits to your career will be phenomenal. It is well worth the effort!

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Do you want to use this article in Your ezine or website? You are welcome to as long as you use the following text with it:

Nationally certified resume writer and career marketing expert, Michelle Dumas http://www.linkedin.com/in/michelledumas is the founder and executive director of Distinctive Career Services LLC. Through Distinctive Documents http://www.distinctiveweb.com and her $100k+ Executive VIP Services delivered through http://www.100kcareermarketing.com  Michelle has empowered thousands of executives, professionals, and managers all across the U.S. and worldwide. Michelle is also the author of the popular e-book 101 Before-and-After Resume Examples found at http://www.before-and-after-resumes.com and of Secrets of a Successful Job Search found at http://www.job-search-secrets.com