Introduction

You Got the Look: Crafting the Right

Resume Appearance by Jeff Melvin
Your resume or CV: your career history, your years of education, your
commitment to your employers, your dreams, all ascribed on a sheet of white
or ecru paper titled, at the top, with your name. Remember that a resume is
essentially an advertisement - a marketing piece - a personal sales pitch.
Resumes are NOT autobiographies! They are personal marketing documents
meant to sell you as the ideal candidate for a particular position. Everything
about the content, the structure, and the design of your resume should be
strategically and selectively included, excluded, highlighted, or de-
emphasized.

 To be effective, a resume must adhere to one rule: information must be

delivered in an attractive, efficient, and easily accessible manner.
 The properly prepared resume of a less-experienced candidate can trump a poor
resume from a more-experienced candidate.

 The difference between a good resume and a bad one is the difference
between a new job and continued unemployment.

 But armed with the proper instruction on how to negotiate the art,
writing a powerful, clear resume can be as easy as filling out a form.
Here are a few simple rules about a resume's basic look. You can use the
weblinks given on the pages below to surf the web and link up with
specialist information on creating resumes

. One of the best places to download a free resume template is at Microsoft’s website located at
http://www.microsoft.com. Click on “Office” located on the left side menu panel under the heading
“Product Families,” then click on “Templates,,” scroll down and in the main body of the website
will be a heading named “Your Career.” There you can download a variety of free resume
templates formatted in Microsoft Word.

Copyright Effective-Resume-Writing.com.
 Fact sheet

Writing that CV
The average employer spends approximately 30 seconds reviewing each
resume. Therefore, it is critical for a resume to present its information in a
clear, concise, and easy-to-read format.

Job seekers need all the tools they can use in today’s competitive job market
and free resume templates are one of those tools. Templates are pre-existing
forms or formats that often include preset margins, graphics, fonts, and other
information pertaining to the layout of a page. They are a valuable resource to
use when creating a resume. Many of them are simple to use, just fill-in-the-
blanks and your resume is ready to print.

Free resume templates have received their fair share of negative press with
many critics stating they are too common and present a cookie cutter
appearance. These critics are in the minority with the bulk of employers
stating they are more concerned about content than they are about style
and flare.

A person can have the best looking resume and still not be qualified. Content
matters!

The use of a template helps to minimize some of the extraneous tasks

associated with creating a resume and allows the writer to focus on the
content.

A resume template is a valuable resource because:

* it can save a person time

* it presents their information in a standardized, professional manner
* it is easily customized to the individuals unique skills & qualifications!

Download a Free ebook on the "Top 10 Secrets to the Worlds Greatest Cover Letter" at

http://www.effective-resume-writing.com/resume-cover-letters.html
 Checklist

The six steps to develop or refine your own resume

Step #1 - Know your goal

What is your current career goal? What profession? What industry? What
professional level? Knowing your objective and your goals for a job search is the
foundation of not just your resume, but of your entire job search.

Unless you know where you are going, you will have no idea what the focus of
your resume must be and you won’t even have a clue how to begin writing it.
Don’t expect a busy employer to figure it out for you. Your resume must have a
precise focus and it must
convey that focus in five seconds or less. If it doesn’t, it will be discarded. It is
that simple.
Step #2 - Know audience your

Now that you know your goal, you are in a position to begin thinking about the
recipients of your resume. What are the expectations and requirements of a
candidate for the job you are targeting? What are the problems that a person in
your ideal position is likely to be faced with?

Remember (speaking of problems) that the person doing the hiring has
problems that they are hoping their new-hire will solve. What are those
problems? Do they need to increase sales? Reduce costs? Increase productivity?
Improve efficiency? If you clearly identify
the problems of your target audience, you can construct an entire resume
focused on how you are the ideal candidate to solve them.

Do that effectively and whatever issue you are dealing with in your troubled
work history will suddenly become a non-issue.

An employee is an investment, and if you can create a resume that proves you
will produce a better RETURN on that investment than the next guy (even the
one with the squeaky clean work history), doors will swing open to you.
Step #3 - Know your competition

Who is your competition in the job market? What qualifications might they have
that you don’t have?

What qualifications might you have that they don’t have? For most situations, I
am not referring to specific individuals. Obviously you wouldn’t want to violate
the privacy of any specific person competing for the same type of job. But,
there is definite value in trying to define your competition in generalities.
What types of qualifications does the typical candidate have for the job you are
targeting?

Knowing your competition is a key part of Step #4...

Step #4 - Clearly identify the problem(s)

Okay. Now that you know where you are going, know what your audience is
seeking, and
know what your competition brings to the table, you are ready to fully define
the problem or problems that your resume must overcome.

Some of those problems might be obvious. Work-history gaps, concerns about

age discrimination, and multiple job changes are among the most common.
But, having worked your way through the prior three steps, you may have
identified others. Are there key qualifications you are lacking? Educational
requirements that you don’t quite meet? Ways that your experience doesn’t
quite stand up to your competition? Whatever those problems might be, make
sure you define them. In the next step, we will begin to solve them.

Step #5 - Be willing to throw the rules out the window and think outside the
box

Now, take everything you have ever read or learned about resume writing and
forget it. Well, maybe not everything, but at this point you definitely do need
to begin thinking creatively and strategically.

Always be absolutely and meticulously honest, but be willing to think outside

the box and present your background in a format and structure that will be
most flattering to you in relation to the career goal you are targeting.

Do you want to be one of a kind? Or do you want to be one of many? Your

resume is meant to make you stand out and shine. You will NOT achieve this by
following some rigid template and structure that doesn’t have the flexibility to
showcase your unique
qualifications.
Step #6 - Reframe, reposition, reformat, and redesign

It is really all about how you frame and position your experience, your
achievements, your educational background, and any other qualifications. Once
you get to this step, you are ready to put pen to paper (or fingers to the
keyboard) and begin writing your resume.

Take what you know about the expectations and the desires of your target
audience; combine this with your understanding of the competition and the
problems you defined in Step #4, and start writing your resume.

Perhaps you are making a career change into a completely new profession.
Much of your past experience is transferable, but this might not be
immediately obvious to the resume recipient. How can you "reframe" your past
experience to selectively emphasize the
transferable skills and de-emphasize those that will no longer be relevant?

Is there a qualification you are lacking for the position you are targeting?
Perhaps some other experience you have had has helped you to develop this
qualification in a non-traditional way. How can you "reposition" that experience
to illustrate the qualification in
question?

What problems does your resume need to solve? What issues must you face to
transform your troubled work history into a job-winning resume? As you get
started, remember, it is words on a piece of paper. It is easy to edit and move
things around. Don’t be afraid to experiment (just do it BEFORE you use it in
the job market!).

If you aren’t sure what the best solution is, create several versions and ask
your friends and family for feedback before choosing the one you use in your
search. And, if you get stuck, that is what professional resume writers are here
for! We can often provide
solutions that you would never have thought of on your own.

From Resume Writing Solutions for Your Challenging Career History

By Michelle Dumas
USA 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 Executive VIP Services
delivered through http://www.100kcareermaketing.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. To learn more about her job
search products resume writing services and career marketing programs
and to sign up for many other free resources like this one visit her
websites.

resume's basic look.

Fact sheet

Resume Writing Solutions for Your Challenging Career History

By Michelle Dumas
Do you have a completely unblemished work history? Was writing your resume a breeze
because you are perfectly qualified with a model career and educational background?

Or, do you find yourself struggling to prepare your resume...struggling because of some
glitch or problem in your background that you don’t know quite how to overcome in your
resume?

· Maybe you are too old...or too young...· Maybe you have an obvious gap in your work
history...· Maybe you have changed employers too many times...· Maybe you are a new
graduate with little-to-no relevant experience...· Maybe you are an executive who
needs to explain what appears to be a demotion...· Maybe you are returning to the
workforce after taking some time off... · Maybe you are trying to change careers and your
past experience doesn’t relate...

Don’t feel alone! It is the extraordinarily rare job searcher who doesn’t struggle with how
to deal with some problem on their resume.
The truth is that the solution is often as unique as the individual. But, to develop those
solutions, there are six steps that I carefully think through prior to tackling any new
project for a client. As you work on developing or refining your own
resume -- as you try to come up with ways to transform YOUR troubled work history into
a job-winning resume -- it may be helpful for you to work through the same six steps
given in the checklist.

Remember that a resume is essentially an advertisement - a marketing piece - a personal

sales pitch. Resumes are NOT autobiographies! They are personal marketing documents
meant to sell you as the ideal candidate for a particular position. Everything about the
content, the structure, and the design of your resume should be strategically and
selectively included, excluded, highlighted, or de-emphasized.

USA 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 Executive VIP Services delivered through
http://www.100kcareermaketing.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. To learn
more about her job search products resume writing services and career marketing
programs and to sign up for many other free resources like this one visit her
websites.
 5 Resume Tips - Do What Most Job Seekers Don’t - By : Info