Writing a Killer Resume

How do you get your resume past the reject pile and on the top of the interview or hire pile? There are things you can do to a resume to make certain that you get past the resume stage and into the job. The best thing you can do for a resume is writing about things a hiring manager will care about.

These are 10 things you can do to make a killer resume

1.       Make your resume about something other than you. Your resume is about how you fit into the job or position, not about you. Always organize your skills and experience. Focus on a job title and address the employers needs

2.       Your resume must sell you to the employer in a matter of seconds. An employer needs to review your resume and know you are not like everyone else in a matter of seconds. At a glance you need to show what you bring to the table.

3.       Your resume is a marketing tool to sell you for the job, keep it professional. Don’t add personal information that convolutes what your job skills and experience are. Keep your resume professional and sell yourself for the position

4.       Your resume should focus on the future not the past. Don’t become an historian. Make your resume show your future with the company. Be careful how you word information included.

5.       Highlight skills you enjoy. This is something many would be applicants leave out. If you have skills matching the position that you enjoy, you can find these easy to write about with flourish. Add this to your resume.

6.       Don’t make a resume a confessional. You never have to tell it all. Many people that have been in the workplace for 20 years want to tell it all. A 20 page resume will not get a second glance. Be careful how you work it. No one wants to know about your 8 kids, believe it or not.

7.       Perfection for grammar and spelling will sell a resume. Edit and correct. Make certain you don’t let a misspelled word allow you to miss out on a job.

8.       Make a clean layout for your resume. Make it easy to read. Keep it short and simple.

9.       List important facts first. The hiring manager won’t read through 300 words to find out how the story ends. List important facts first.

10.   Stick to what is important, marketable and relevant. Don’t allow your resume to tell how you bowl on Wednesday nights and do PTA at your child’s school, they don’t want to know.

These are things you can do to make your resume a killer resume and make it stand out from the rest. Get your interview by making your resume all that it can be.

pic is courtesy of swakfox.com

Guest Blog from Nancy Karidan- Startups Shouldn’t Hire People with Graduate Degrees

Graduate school can make many people have a difficult time translating their strengths into a strong workplace performance, especially startups. Graduate degrees and startups are usually not a recipe for success for several reasons.

Almost everyone that went to grad school did it to actually prolong adolescence or getting into the workplace for serious employment. This particular analysis was produced from writers at the Chronicle for Higher Education. The grad school model is really outdated for today’s workforce. High performers will generally identify this before they enroll in grad school. Those that are afraid of holding their own in the workforce see grad school as a way to delay the inevitable difficulties in finding a job that you can enjoy or could realize as a place to lay down roots and stay for an extended length of time.

These are several reasons why a startup is not the ideal setting for grad school degree candidates;

Humanities are for people afraid of the responsibilities that come with being an adult.

Numerous grad school students will attend and major in degrees such as English. One example was a student that majored in English and admitted she went because she couldn’t figure out what she was qualified to do. The kicker is she wasn’t qualified to do any job before attending grad school, but grad school didn’t prepare her to do any job either. She had the same qualifications before attending as well as after graduation.

Humanities PhDs suck up a lot of time and money with little in way of returns. Many students will defend attending grad school by admitting how much they love the topic. However, if you love your topic you can certainly enjoy it after work. Open a book and read it on your own. Save the money and the time and don’t invest in Humanities for grad school thinking it will certainly open every other door for a job and security. Even before the economic crisis you had a better chance of surviving the Titanic than getting a job as any type of Humanities professor.

Business School is for those people that lack ideas as well as initiative

Business school graduates should all be asked “if you are a business grad school student, why did you dump $100,000 into a degree when you could have dumped it into your own company or business venture?”

If business school grads really would like to work for a startup company, wouldn’t they have launched their own? Money wasn’t the barrier because the invested tons of money in their education at grad school. Did they lack something else? If so, grad school didn’t provide it.

Many believe business school grads are lacking in ideas and creativity. In some cases they do have ideas, but doesn’t have the confidence or believe enough in their own ideas to give them a shot. This is someone that shouldn’t be involved with your startup.

Law school is a place for people who lack creativity and will likely fail in the average or normal workplace

This is an enormous generalization when it comes to describing those that have followed the law to earn a living. There is evidence to support this generalization.

Most attorneys or lawyers hate being an attorney. There are several myths about being an attorney, but it boils down to be accepted for law school you need to perform great with reading, writing, and regurgitating back to professors information they want or need and great at taking tests and the stress involved.

Basically law school will select people that are rule followers and like being told what to do. This makes it very difficult to apply your strengths and skills at a startup. Unless the startup is totally surrounding the legal profession or you are working as legal counsel, this is not the place for you.

People that have multiple degrees are generally a pain in the butt

Why would anyone get two degrees? It’s like being a triple major as an undergrad. If you have two degrees you certainly enjoy school and more than likely you enjoy school more than the workforce.

There is no good reason to have a triple major unless you are insecure in your identity and trying to impress. In a world where it is certainly clear that an undergraduate education does not teach you anything about your major anything. Remember that nearly 70% of all college graduates don’t work in their field or major. That says a lot about the importance of a triple major or multiple degrees.

The best hire is someone that is ready to face the world and workplace head on without the “benefit” of graduate school. A prospective employee that has taken the time to develop social skills and test their own ideas along with taking risks that may seem scary, but are certainly necessary for growth.

Startups and grad school degrees just don’t happen to be a good fit. If you have the time and patience to pursue a graduate school degree, more power to you. However, if you find one of these three prospective employees sitting across from you at the interview table, don’t hesitate to advise them that a better fit could be had elsewhere.

Research Suggests It’s Better to Be Confident than Right

Resume Lady is a blog with posts centered around working and getting a job. However, every once and a while I will present a post that is touching on the fringes of our niche. This is an interesting little tidbit concerning confidence. Confidence is outlined with several posts featured on interviewing, building resumes and other work related material and should not be diminished in it's importance.


This happens to be scientific proof of what confidence can actually provide to a person.

For those of you that are “know-it-alls” a recent study has revealed that it’s better to be confident than right. Therefore, if you go through life with an inflated sensibility of being correct all of the time may actually benefit more than their peers that actually are right or correct all of the time. A study out of University Edinburgh and the University of California in San Diego has recently published these findings.

The scientist at these universities reviewed the effect of overconfidence in people of different generations. Evolutionary biologists have historically known that humans have a tendency to be over confident, but failed to know how this information could be useful. Men will exhibit more false confidence than women, presumably (in evolutionary provisions) because it will supposedly help them find a mate. However, some scientists believe it also is useful for establishing a pecking order or who is the alpha in the male relationship scenario. Overall the new research does establish that overconfidence will help in a variety of different settings.

Researchers work was based upon mathematical models that predicted how well overconfident, under confident and realistic people performed in different circumstances and situations. They reviewed the prospects of two people battling over a prize which could be anything from money to an attractive mate. Situations were modeled after two opponents on diverse levels of confidence and differing abilities to tell how formidable the opponent was.

The results have been published in the journal Nature and reveal overconfidence was more often the best strategy to win the prize whether or not the person was right. An interview was provided to the National Geographic  by study author Dominic Johnson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh. Dominic Johnson stated that as long as an uncertainty existed for the outcome of the prize or resource which was valuable compared to the costs incurred or fighting for, the best strategy was overconfidence with one exception. The exception to delivering overconfidence as the best strategy was when the conflict or competition was high and all for a fairly worthy prize, caution is better than overconfidence as a strategy.

The study also provided another insight that many people will appear overconfident when they don’t feel very confident at all. This was especially true the more difficult the situation or circumstances. In other words these individuals are bluffing. Though in general the study did discover the old saying “fortune favors the bold”.

Overconfident people should also be more willing to approach the opposite sex to find a mate because they are likely to succeed with mating and had more children than their shyer or more insecure counterparts.

pic is courtesy of the wing girl method