Career Goddess

Personal Branding - Be Yourself!

It’s no wonder Chris Brogan makes it to the top of the top 50 social media power influencers’ heap! He has great stuff to say. And he willingly shares his wisdom with the rest of us via his blog and social media outlets such as Twitter (where I follow him and am an unabashed fan!)

In his recent blog post 97 Ideas for Building a Valuable Platform, Chris reveals how to;
Start Somewhere. Embrace Brevity. Video, Video, Video. Ideas Drive Platform. Be Yourself. Humble Is Better Marketing. Your Three Roles. Overnight Success. What to Talk/Write About. What to Avoid.

The section of tips (41-50) on Be Yourself directly relates to personal branding, my passion. So of course I have to share these with you. Follow these tips when you want to express and live your personal brand every day. And you want to, of course, don’t you?

Be Yourself
41. The more I act like myself, instead of like what I thought the world wanted, the more successful I become.

42. Realize that there’s a “hot mess” line, meaning that you have to filter the “you” that you put out there a little bit. People don’t want to hear every woe and misery in your life. (Most times. Dooce not withstanding.)

43. Realize that being yourself means you won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Embrace that.

44. The “yourself” that most people want you to be is the one that they can learn something from. And yet, if that’s not what you want to be, disregard me and be yourself.

45. Part of being yourself is untangling from other people’s expectations. This is a very difficult matter, and yet important to building your platform.

46. “Be yourself” doesn’t mean be only about yourself. Connecting with and caring about others is always a trait that earns more attention.

47. It’s great to have a lot of passions. When displaying this via your platform, try to tie them to a larger storyline so that people understand how they connect.

48. Never let your shortcomings become your reasons why not. Richard Branson is dyslexic. Ryan Blair went from gang member to millionaire success story. Excuses are Band-Aids on wounds that don’t exist.

49. Marsha Collier said it best: “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”

50. Start where you are. Lots of people worry that everyone’s so far ahead. Those people? They started somewhere.

Design a Career You Can Love

Having changed careers myself several times before discovering my dream career as a career counselor/career coach, I know how daunting and frustrating it can be to figure out what to do next. Many times all we know is what we don’t want to do job-wise, but not what we actually do want to do.

So Nicholas Lore’s book, The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (updated, revised edition of the original), is a gem! Jam-packed with hundreds of pages of career guidance information, informal assessment inventories and exercises, and motivating stories, it describes a career design system that has worked for many individuals. A top 10 national bestseller, this book has been endorsed by Jack Canfield and Marianne Williamson among others.

Here’s the caveat: you must be disciplined to get through the book and exercises (it is detailed and long). If accountability to yourself is not your strong suit, then you may want to partner with someone else going through the same career-exploration and decision-making process. Or, for professional guidance and accountability, use the services of a certified career counselor or certified career coach.

While Mr. Lore feels most career counseling and career coaching is well-intentioned but ineffective, he does admit that the do-it-yourself method, even with the use of a good book such as this one, could be “insufficient to make the best career decision”. He goes on to say that the most effective programs include a “complete career design process that coaches you through the complex process of making the best choice”. An expert career coach can provide the structure, support, insight, and feedback you would never get in a DIY approach.

My recommendation: read this witty, smart book. Do the exercises (however many interest you). Then think about partnering with a careers professional to fully flesh out your best-fit career options. Otherwise, the flood of information your brain will generate after reading this book might overwhelm you and sabotage your efforts.

Let’s face it: you likely spend more hours researching and planning your vacations, where to eat out, and where to live than determining a career you could really love. Does that even seem reasonable to you?

Land the Job You Need with Expert Advice

Whether the unemployment rate in your state was 3.4% for November 2011, as it was in North Dakota, or 13% in Nevada (according to the Local Area Unemployment Statistics of the Bureau of Labor Statistics), your individual rate is 100% if you are unemployed. This means that every unemployed person has started 2012 with a daunting goal: landing a job in the face of stiff competition.

You can ramp up your job-search success by staying up-to-date with advice offered by professionals in the know. To that end, QLab’s Huntsy searched the Web for the best-of-the-best blogger articles to include in their free ebook “Handbook for the Recently Unemployed”. My Career Goddess blog post “Does Your Resume Have FLAVOR?” was chosen for the chapter on resume writing. I was honored to be chosen as one of 15 blogger authors for the ebook.

With witty and highly useful introductory content for each chapter, the five chapters include:

1. It’s All About Who You (Virtually) Know – LinkedIn, Twitter, and QR Codes
2. Goodbye, Cookie-Cutter Resumes!
3. Scanning Job Sites Is NOT a Game Plan
4. 9-to-5, Just One Way to Make a Living
5. MIRROR, MIRROR On the Wall, Who Interviews Best of All?

Download the Handbook for the Recently Unemployed. Whether you are unemployed or employed and looking for your next great career move, check out the entire ebook. It’s a quick and enjoyable read, and you will be glad you spent the time. It could just make all the difference for your career in 2012!

Optimization - SEO for Resumes

Is your resume sitting in a “black hole?” If you have ever submitted resumes via online application or email and never heard back from the employer, this may be why. The employer’s applicant database can be a “black hole” for your resume.

There are three converging forces that have changed forever how resumes are processed and evaluated, and how applicants are chosen for interviews. Those three include:

1. Competition – there are more people applying for jobs than ever before. Whether unemployed or employed, located in the U.S. or globally, student or retiree, blue collar or white collar (some other color in between!), more of us have gotten into the job-search pool. In addition, what we search for are not only jobs in our current field, but also jobs in other fields (whether related or not). Consequently, one job posting online by an employer can generate tens of thousands of applicants...and more.

2. Time – with lean resources and staffing, employers are doing more with less. Human resources staff, which used to look at and evaluate all resumes submitted, has less time to devote to that task. They now have many other HR duties to perform as well, and often with pared-down staff.
 
3. Technology – Resume-screening software has evolved to be the most cost-efficient method of determining resumes to be further evaluated for consideration. Rather than having human beings plowing through vast numbers of resumes manually (which could take days and even weeks), resume-screening software enables employer to quickly make their selections.

The consequences of these three converging forces for you, the job-seeker, are critical. Unless your resume is found via an employer’s resume-screening software and scores enough points to make it into the cut-off number of applicants to be interviewed, it will not see the light of day*. Languishing in the employer’s applicant database, unseen by human eyes, is akin to the “black hole”.

* Note: there are other work-around methods for job search that are much more effective in landing interviews than simply focusing all your energies on online applications.

So, what can you do? First, be aware that your existing resume likely does not contain the right keywords (some call these buzzwords), and likely not in the optimum position, for the job you are targeting. Second, take action to improve your resume via keyword optimization.

Optimization means researching to discover the current required and desired keywords for your target job function and industry. As job functions and industries change over time, so do the keywords, which are nouns and noun phrases. The best place to research keywords is in relevant, up-to-date job postings.

Then you have to incorporate those keywords in ways where they can have the most impact in your resume. For example, first-page positioning (especially the top half of the first page) will often score more points for the same keyword than if it were located on the second page.

But keywords also have to make sense in the context of your resume. You cannot simply include a list of required and desired keywords; that is called keyword stuffing and will actually work against you. Employers are wise to that tactic.

Instead, you have to show how the required and desired keywords are relevant to your experience, training, and accomplishments. Well-written accomplishment bullets are the ideal place to showcase keywords and gain maximum impact.

Optimization is the fifth key to a resume with FLAVOR. See previous posts, listed below, for more tips:

FOCUS - The Starting Point for Resume Success

LEVERAGE –Showcase Your Best Assets for Your Resume

ACCOMPLISHMENTS – The Backbone of Your Resume

VALUE – What the Employer Really Wants to See in a Resume

VALUE: What the Employer Really Wants to See in a Resume

Question: What do employers absolutely need to see in your resume to persuade them to consider interviewing you?

Answer: Bottom-line ROI value you can bring to the organization. Then it becomes much easier to determine the payoff in investing in you versus other job-seekers (your competition).

For employers, bottom-line ROI value revolves around making money or saving money.

Making money (revenue generation) can be shown in many ways, such as:

• Producing direct sales of products and/or services
• Improving customer service, which leads to increased customer retention (sales) and referrals (sales)
• Enhancing market position by “owning” a niche or geographic territory, creating compelling marketing copy online and offline, strategically leveraging social media to reach new target markets, and more
• Engineering and rolling out a unique, competitive new product or service.

Saving money (cost reductions and cost savings) can be attained via methods such as:

• Streamlining and/or automating processes to capture money-saving efficiencies
• Reducing overhead via new approaches including online member / customer newsletters versus printing (and mailing) newsletters
• Training team members in cost-saving best practices
• Negotiating favorable vendor and supplier contracts

Demonstrating your value to the potential employer in your resume is essential. The proof of that value is most easily conveyed via quantified accomplishments and a prominent Brand Value Proposition (personal brand statement) located in the top quarter of the first page of your resume. Here’s an example:

Operations Director - Transportation and Logistics
~ Champion of Cost Savings Without Sacrificing Quality ~

• Cost Reductions: Cut costs by $10M+ over most recent 10 years via continuous process improvements, while delivering high-quality business solutions.

Showing Value is the fourth key to an interview-winning resume. Value takes you out of the category of a potential risky job applicant to a must-have employee on any hiring manager’s team!

Previous posts have discussed the first three keys for a resume with FLAVOR.

Happy Birthday Reach Personal Branding!

My professional association with Reach Personal Branding began in 2004 when personal branding was still a relatively new concept with the general public. Despite Tom Peters’ seminal article The Brand Called You! in Fast Company magazine in 1997, the idea of being the CEO of your own personal brand was still in its infancy.

William Arruda founded Reach on Nov. 1, 2001. The impact of his efforts has been profound, with Certified Personal Branding Strategists, Certified 360Reach Analysts, Certified Online Identity Management Strategists, and Master Personal Branding Strategists worldwide.

Personally, my career services business as the Career Assessment Goddess would not have existed had I not discovered and leveraged my personal brand. With all the certifications that Reach has to offer in my toolbox, I have focused on helping career professionals and executives achieve their career targets. So, thank you William for the spark that has made this all possible!

To aid you with your job search and career development, here are some resources brought to you by William Arruda as part of the Reach 10th Anniversary Celebration ...

Nov 1: http://360rea.ch/uWBpeb - Ten Things You Probably Don’t Know About Reach Personal Branding
Nov 2: http://360rea.ch/scJXx1 - Top Ten Videos from Personal Branding TV
Nov 3: http://360rea.ch/u6HZ2I - Top Ten Social Media Dos for A Successful Job Search
Nov 4: http://360rea.ch/u9ODlQ - Ten Ways to Give to Your Network
Nov 7: http://360rea.ch/sCNzxa - Ten Days to Establishing and Achieving Your Goals
Nov 8: http://360rea.ch/vga33R - Top Ten Ways to Unearth The Brand Called YOU
Nov 9: http://360rea.ch/vIUypt - Top Ten Most Viewed Commercial Breaks
Nov 10: http://360rea.ch/sypePN - Ten Days to Understanding Your Professional Reputation
Nov 11: http://360rea.ch/uh2jGN - Ten Ways to Build and Maintain Your Professional Network
Nov 14: http://360rea.ch/ukMm1F - Ten Days to Writing a Compelling Branded Bio
Nov 15: http://360rea.ch/vnHg1c - Ten Steps to Recession-Proof Your Career

Updates to Reach 10th Anniversary List (posted on Dec. 5, 2011)

Nov. 16: http://360rea.ch/rKEUe5 - Ten Most-Read Blog Posts from The Personal Branding Blog
Nov. 17: http://360rea.ch/tyOUFJ - 10 Days to a Perfect Linkedin Profile
Nov. 18: http://360rea.ch/rOIBug  - 10 Tools For Creating a Website That Exudes Your Personal Brand
Nov. 21: http://360rea.ch/rJFvaF - Ten Days to Creating Your Personal Brand Identity System
Nov. 22: http://360rea.ch/uY99hm -  The Ten Most Re-Tweeted Tweets
Nov. 23: http://360rea.ch/tfRBCo - Ten Tips Towards Career Reinvention
Nov. 24: http://360rea.ch/t1E9sZ - Ten Days to Positioning You and Your Brand
Nov. 25: http://360rea.ch/tmE9Jw - How Not to Build Your Personal Brand
Nov. 28: http://360rea.ch/t0l7A0 - Ten Most Listened-to Audios from the Reach Personal Branding Interview Series
Nov. 29: http://360rea.ch/u60eBi - Ten Reasons to Make 2012 The Year of Your Brand
Nov. 30: http://360rea.ch/u1nKyk - Top Ten Willisms – William Arruda’s thoughts on Personal Branding

 

Boost Your Job Search via Job Action Day

Guest Post: Job-Seekers Urged to “Skill Up, Start Up, and Speak Up” for Fourth Annual Job Action Day

Today, a coalition of bloggers, authors, and career experts is offering job-seekers empowering articles, tips, and blog posts with information, ideas, and concrete steps that they can take to secure their futures -- both in the short-term and in the long-term.

The initiative is part of the fourth annual Job Action Day, founded by Quintessential Careers (http://quintcareers.com).
 
“Jobs are scarce. Many employers are not hiring; in fact, a number of employers are again laying off employees,” said Dr. Randall Hansen, publisher and CEO of Quintessential Careers. “We may no longer be in an economic recession, but we are certainly in a jobs recession – Job Action Day 2011 is designed to empower all job-seekers, from recent college grads to baby boomers.”

Job Action Day 2011 focuses on three themes:

Skill Up: The skills mismatch is a huge issue in the current jobs crisis. Thousands of jobs are going begging because employers can't find skilled employees. This theme focuses on what job-seekers can do to attain the skills that will help land these jobs (including retraining, internships, apprenticeships, lateral job moves, and more).

Start Up: While many workers during the recession have successfully tackled unemployment during the recession by starting small businesses, others have developed a whole new mindset of being the CEO of their careers -- having a portfolio of portable skills, a great network, flexibility, a project-mentality; not sitting at the computer visiting job boards, but getting out there and meeting people, knocking on doors, taking ownership of their career path.

Speak Up: Whether or not job-seekers agree with the strategies of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its spinoffs, they have the option to be more vocal and demand action from elected officials -- using the media to push a jobs agenda and demanding better media coverage of the jobs crisis -- as well as from business to create more jobs.

Job Action Day was founded in 2008 on the eve of the presidential election. “As we approach the next election, we haven’t made nearly enough progress in addressing the jobs crisis,” said Katharine Hansen, associate publisher and creative director of Quintessential Careers. “We need to continuing raising awareness among our leaders while also equipping workers to deal with a job market that will probably never return to its pre-2008 state.”

More information about Job Action Day can be found here: http://www.jobactionday.com/. Be sure to visit the Job Action Day site to see the full list of blog posts and articles. 
 

The Start-Up Mindset: 10 Tips to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

In the HVAC industry, the “comfort zone” is the temperature range where you feel environmentally comfortable and unstressed. It’s also known as the “dead zone”. Has your career become stuck in the dead zone?

While you may have been lounging at ease in your comfort zone, the world of work has changed dramatically. Employment has become more project-based and less stable. Temporary and contractual employment abounds and unemployment persists.

As early as 1997, Tom Peters originated the idea of your being the CEO of The Brand Called You, rather than relying on employers to develop your career path for you. Consider these tips to energize your Brand You strategy and move out of your career comfort zone:

1. Develop the ability to take well-researched, calculated risks. “Sure things” do not last anymore.

2. Uncover and promote your personal brand. It is the ultimate differentiator between you and your competitors, whether for jobs or for business customers.

3. Stay up-to-date on technology in your career field and industry. Technology has become pervasive in every career – you cannot escape it. Employers do not hire technology “dinosaurs”.

4. Eat the social-media elephant one bite at a time. Get a friend or family member already experienced in LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook to give you tutorials. Social media is the new form of communication that builds credibility and networks.

5. Learn a new, in-demand language, such as Spanish or Chinese. You do not have to be an expert in the language. Boost your added-value to your employer, even as your language skill level is developing.

6. Look beyond your present job to where it is evolving. This means reading industry and trade journals and periodicals, as well as online searches, to “catch the wave” of the next shift in your field.

7. Evaluate the best return-on-investment skills to acquire for the new paradigm shift in your occupational field or industry. Then go get them!

8. Expand your social network – constantly. The ease with which you will be able to change jobs or even careers is dependent on the quality relationships you build and nurture.

9. Identify your top 5 work and life values. Then ask yourself, “Am I living these values?” Being true to your personal brand also means commitment to your values – in action.

10. Examine your beliefs about yourself. Are you consistently stuck in “limiting beliefs” that hold you back from what you could achieve? If so, why is that?

The 4th Annual Job Action Day is Monday, November 7. The theme this year is “Skill Up, Start Up, Speak Up”. Check out the many articles and contributions from well-respected careers professionals you will find there. Then begin to put what you have read into action. The future of your career depends on it.

Where in the World Is Susan Guarneri?

The past three weeks have come and gone in a whirlwind! With major presentations in Minneapolis, MN and Savannah, GA, I have been “on the road” and “flying the blue skies”. My blogging absence can be explained by the fact that there are only 24 hours in the day and only ONE of me (sigh!)

Denny Stockdale of Stockdale Resources Group and Elizabeth Craig of ELC Global invited me to speak to the Minnesota Coaches Association in the beautiful Burnsville Performing Arts Center on personal branding. In fact, I arranged for all the workshop participants to have access to and use the 360Reach personal branding assessment (upgraded version) prior to my presentation. They brought their 360Reach feedback results to the workshop – for many the report was 20+ pages long!

We explored the Reach Personal Branding methodology and approach to personal branding, which includes Extract (uncovering your personal brand), Express (brand communications), and Exude (living your brand). This interesting and engaging group of coaches had dig-deep questions and insightful breakthroughs about their own brands. Truly an energizing evening for everyone!

With barely a breath in-between, my mission to spread the word about personal branding and online identity management spread to Savannah, GA and the CDI Global Summit. Laura DeCarlo, Executive Director of CareerDirectors.com, and her team pulled off an even more fantastic conference than last year – and that is saying a lot!

Of course, there was a lot of professional networking at breaks and vendor booths, as well as during meals, the Pirate Party, the Trolley Tour of haunted Savannah, and even the Paula Deen restaurant dinner. Well, maybe a bit less networking while munching Paula Deen’s fab food!

The following selected tweets and video (see links) gives you a peek into some of my professional activities during the CDI Global Summit.

• The Bullet Train to Job Search Success: Best in Class Online Identity Model

Susan Guarneri, Master Branding Strategist & Online Identity Mgmt. Strategist – AssessmentGoddess.com and Laura DeCarlo, creator of the Certified Professional in Online Job Search & Reputation Management course – CDI

@ResumeStrategy - #cdi11 Simple model for online identity management: Diagnose the calibre of existing identity, boost it, ditch the dirt

@LisaRangel - Anyone doing a #jobsearch needs to be following #cdi11 now to learn 15 Ways To Boost Your Volume & Relevance Online with @susanguarneri

@InscribeExpress - Take action to become #digitally distinct #cdi11 for maximum social media marketing and your #job search. #jobseekers #jobs

@ResumeStrategy - #cdi11 Tools for diagnosing online identity: http://addictomatic.com and http://howsociable.com

@InscribeExpress - #CDI11 Google loves photos, video, audio, or dynamic content. Raise your results #online. Not all content is equal!

@LisaRangel - From @susanguarneri use your about.me profile as a landing page to guide people to all the
websites where you are online. #befound #cdi11

@kristinsjohnson - Modify profiles so that all of your sites are different. Don't just cut and paste. Otherwise Google might think ur spamming #cdi11

@ResumeStrategy - #cdi11 Tumblr - up and coming cross between twitter and blog #LatestHotestThing

@kristinsjohnson - Cool-->use http://goldmail.com to put voice in #LI profile #cdi11 boost #onlineidentity

@JobSearchCoach - Dynamic content will receive better search results than static content #CDI11

@Keppie_Careers: Check out Vizibility.com to improve your Google ranking. v @susanguarneri #CDI11

@ResumeStrategy - #cdi11 validation boost - testimonials on LinkedIn , BranchOut, Honestly, 360 Reach

@ResumeStrategy - #cdi11 - ditch the dirt by burying it: squeeze out negative results by filling up the first three pages with other stuff - volume, relevance

@Keppie_Careers - Remember: Co. called Social Intelligence is running background checks of your online history! #CDI11

VIDEO: Online ID Easy 3-Step Plan
http://youtu.be/lIi6GBdeXME

VIDEO:  Online ID Calculator Measurements
http://youtu.be/sfMfakdg_8Q

VIDEO: About.me Profiles
http://youtu.be/2RrnkGebuxE

• World-Class Resume Writing Secrets: Insider Tips from Award-Winning Resume Writers and Competition Judges

PANEL DISCUSSION: Susan Guarneri, AssessmentGoddess.com (recipient, CDI Lifetime Achievement Award in Resume Writing; TORI judge – 2010 & 2011); Sharon Williams, JobRockit (winner, World's Best & TORIs; 2010 TORI judge); Barbara Safani, CareerSolvers (winner, TORIs; judge, World's Best & 2010 TORIs); Jeri Hird Dutcher, Workwrite (winner, TORIs); Robin Schlinger, Robin's Resumes (2011 Director of Awards; judge - World's Best & 2010 TORIs); and Laura Labovich, Aspire! Empower! Career Strategy Group (winner, TORIs; judge, World's Best & 2010 & 2011 TORIs).

• Magic Bullet to Six-Figure Success: Strategies in Packaging & Pricing

PANEL DISCUSSION: Susan Guarneri, AssessmentGoddess.com; Don Orlando, The McLean Group; Janice Worthington, Worthington Career Services; Pat Schuler, The Gemini Resources Group; and Laura DeCarlo, CDI.

Martin Yate, of Knock’em Dead! book series fame appeared as a featured speaker on Friday morning and wowed the crowd with his wisdom. These two snippets of his inspirational message really resonated with me:

@knockemdead said, “We don’t save lives; we make lives worth living.” Well said! #cdi11

@knockemdead said, “Of all the groups that are out there, this is the most sophisticated in the career world” #cdi11

Preparing for and delivering professional presentations can be challenging, but for me, always a learning experience and FUN! You can be sure I learned even more from my professional colleagues and will be applying their valued knowledge in my professional services. Thank you to all who made the last three weeks stimulating and productive!

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: The Backbone of Your Resume

Question: What is the ONE thing you can do with your resume to guarantee that it looks exactly the SAME as 95+% of your competitors’ resumes?

Answer: List your job duties (from your job description) for each job you held in bullet fashion on your resume.

In effect, your resume (along with hundreds/thousands of resumes from others vying for the same job) becomes a tutorial for the HR staff and hiring manager on what the duties and responsibilities are for the job positions you held. Let’s face it: HR and department managers likely do not need to be educated on those job duties. They are relatively standard for each occupation/job. Having those job duties repeated again and again by the vast majority of applicants is not only repetitious, but downright boring.

What they DO need to know goes beyond job duties to accomplishments. Or, as one employer put it, “Job duties are what you were supposed to do. How do I know that you did any of that? What I really want to know is what you actually did, whether you were any good at it, and what results you achieved”.

Now here is where the groaning begins…many applicants believe they do not have accomplishments in their jobs. But, I have never seen a resume that could not be improved with quantifiable results. It can be done, no matter what your occupation or career field.

For example, here is an assortment of quantified achievements from various occupations and professions:

Insurance Sales – Territory Manager
* Sales Leadership: Quintupled premium accounts to $1.2 million within 5 years. Increased profitability 79% through market expansion, low loss ratio, and award-winning customer service.

Senior Research Biochemist
* Antibody Development: Improved production output of final serum products from animal studies by 50% and cut turnaround time from 6 months to 4 months with no loss of quality. Oversaw 20 concurrent projects within past 11 months.

Creative Director
* Catalog Design: Produced 3 catalogs @150+ pages each while saving client 40% of projected photography costs. Completed photo shoot of 60 automotive products on site in 2 days with no disruption to manufacturing process.

News Director
* Web Marketing: Increased web traffic from 100,000 to 35 million clicks per month (CPM) within 18 months of launch of revamped website and web marketing campaign. Gained 20% market share due to interactive web content and proactive social media outreach and engagement.

Mental Health Counselor
* Program Development: Initiated and led creative arts expressive therapy program for caseload of 35 high-functioning professional, young adults, and adolescents with chronic and severe mental health issues and multiple-diagnosed conditions. Program adopted statewide as prototype by counseling agency within 10 months.

Accomplishments are the third key to a powerful and distinctive resume. They tell employers and recruiters not only what YOU have achieved, but also point to what you are able to achieve in the future…in the job they are seeking to fill. That can certainly separate you from your competitors!

Previous posts have discussed the first key FOCUS: The Starting Point for Resume Success and the second key LEVERAGE: Showcase Your Best Assets for Your Resume.

During September, which is Update Your Resume Month, take a new look at your resume and evaluate it for Focus, Leverage, and Accomplishments. Make sure your resume is in the top 5% of job seekers who really stand out!