Author: gvtadmin

A career objective, often listed as objective only on your resume, is a statement of your career goals. It sounds simple – you want to get a good job, utilize your experience and education, and get paid well. However, this is the most difficult part of the resume to compose, as you are limited to one to two sentences in which you are expected to convey your professional expertise, expectations from a job and an organization, as well as goals for your professional growth. Doesn’t sound so easy now, does it?

The most common mistake people make is not listing an objective. Most people operate under the assumption that the objective is not necessary to include in a resume because it states the obvious – your objective is to get the job you are applying for. However, this is a big misconception. Employers are looking for an objective; they want to know what it is that you are looking for in order to determine whether or not you are a good match for their company.

The second most common mistake is including a career objective that doesn’t actually express your goals and your qualification. For example, a statement like the one below is commonly used is resumes:

“To obtain a position where my experience and education can be utilized and expanded.”

If you examine this statement, you will find it doesn’t say anything specific about what you are looking for in terms of professional growth. Avoid using generic statements like this. They will hurt you more than help you in your job search, because your employer will be left with an impression that you don’t have a set a goal in mind.

Now that you know what not to do, here are some helpful tips on creating a winning career objective that will get your resume noticed and get your foot in the door. First, make your career objective personal. Think of your whole resume as a sales tool; your career objective is your opening statement. You want your employer to know what you want, not just restate what other people want. Second, you want to state your commitment to your career goal. If you are unsure of what you want, how is your employer to believe that you really want the job at their organization and you are not just applying because you want to get out of your current work environment? Don’t be afraid to state what you want from a job and from an organization. Third, while you want to state your commitment, you also want to show that you are willing to take action to achieve your goal. Indicate what direction or action you are willing to take in order to accomplish your career objective. Fourth and most important factor in a successful career objective is being specific about what you are looking for in a work situation. While you can say that you are looking for a “challenging” environment, this doesn’t mean anything to your employer, as people define challenges in various ways. Avoid using generic and broad terms. Simply state what you want, and what you are willing to do to get it.

Keeping in mind these criteria, let’s revise the above career objective statement so that it effectively states what you want.

“To obtain a position of a sales representative in a health insurance industry, where I can utilize my management and customer relations skills, with the opportunity for performance-based advancement.”

This statement tells a potential employer that you know what kind of job you want, what experience you have in order to get the position, and what you are willing do to become a successful professional with the company. Thus, you have just created a winning career objective for your resume.

One of the biggest concerns in creating a resume has to do with your professional experience. Before you begin your resume, consider the following questions.
– What is your career objective?
– Are you changing careers or looking for professional growth?
– What experience have you had so far that will help in meeting your professional goals?

To get started in developing your resume, list all of your previous experience, in chronological order, starting with your latest job on a piece of paper. List the dates of employment, your job title, the full company name and the location of your employment. Now, consider just how much experience you have had. In recent years, it has become more commonplace to change jobs more frequently and not build your career in one place. As such, it is possible that someone with ten years of professional experience following college has had over three jobs. That doesn’t seem all that much to include on a resume, right? Consider someone with over 30 years of experience. It is important to set limits on what you include and what you can freely exclude from your resume under your professional experience.

Ideally, your resume should not exceed two pages. Depending on the type of jobs you have held and your responsibilities, having only two pages doesn’t account for a lot of space. The best practice for listing your experiences is not to exceed the most recent five jobs you have held. Again, keep the mind the length of the resume when you are deciding on the number of jobs you will list – if your last five jobs and their accompanying responsibilities will take over one page alone, than consider narrowing the experience down to the three most recent positions you had. Also, consider the time you spent at each organization you have worked for – list up to the last ten to fifteen years of experience. It is not necessary to list every job you’ve ever had to showcase your qualifications and years of experience. If you have a long professional career, focus on the last three to five jobs, but use the profile or summary at the beginning of the resume to highlight the number of years you have spent working, or the number of years you have spent in a certain industry, acquiring specific skills.

When listing your experiences, it is important that you do so in chronological order without skipping any of the jobs you have held. While you may feel that certain jobs are not particularly complimenting to your current career objective you should not avoid listing them on your resume. Work on highlighting the responsibilities that are transferable across various industries. Leaving any unexplained gaps in your work history will raise questions by your potential employer – thus don’t create those gaps on your resume by listing your experience out of order or by skipping jobs you have had. Finally, make sure that your cover letter accounts for any additional qualifications you would like to bring to the attention of your potential employer that you didn’t include on the resume.

Your resume should be concise, well written, and sell you as the best candidate for the job. Just remember that it is quality over quantity that counts.

With every resume submission, you should have a cover letter that accompanies it and presents you as a positive and qualified candidate for the job. A cover letter should highlight areas of your resume which promote your professional experience, and should address any questions an employer may have about hiring you for the job. There are five common cover letter mistakes outlined below that you must avoid in order to get through the first round of resume review and move one step closer to getting the job that you want.

1. Addressing the cover letter using a generic greeting, or misspelling the name of the personal contact or the company. The address line is the most prominent part of the cover letter; it should be included even if the cover letter is sent via email. Generic greetings are not favored; they make it seem like you have a template for your cover letter and you simply send it to all employers you are interested in working for. Do the research and find out who the appropriate contact is for the cover letter. However, make sure that they name and the company name is spelled correctly. If your address line contains errors, your cover letter is likely to never make it to the hiring manager.
2. Telling the company what they can do for your career. Simply stated, employers care about your qualifications and what you can do for the company. Do not spend your time telling the company how working for them can be great for your career. While that could be true, it certainly is not what the employers want to hear. Your potential employers want to hear how you can benefit their team; they want to know what you can bring to the table that is innovative, and focused on results. Make sure that your resume lets your employer know just why you are the best candidate for the job.
3. You re-state your resume. Do not go over the information that is in your resume in your cover letter. Your cover letter is meant to entice, and provoke the employer to review your resume in great detail. Re-stating the information in your resume doesn’t address what the employers want to know, which concerns reasons why you are the best candidate for the job. Highlight certain areas of your resume but do so in the context of your career goals and how such qualifications benefit the company.
4. Starting every sentence with “I”. While your cover letter is about you, starting each sentence this way will make your employer believe that your communication skills are not up to the level of your professional background. Discuss your qualifications, your goals and what you bring to the table in terms of the company, and your professional attributes.
5. Asking the employer to call you at their convenience. The most generic closing statements in cover letters ask the employer to contact you at their convenience. If you are truly excited about the opportunity with the employer, you won’t want to wait for them to call you back whenever they feel like it. What you should do instead is let them know when you want to follow up – and then do follow up. Close your cover letter by letting your potential employer know that you will contact them, as well as the manner in which you will do so. This shows your interest, and your take-charge attitude.

People think of their resume as a collective of their education, skills and professional experience. Many employers rely on resumes as form of job applications for the open positions within their organizations. Thus it is very important that you have a well-written resume prepared when searching for jobs.

Creating a resume is not an easy task, even if you are a professional with years of experience and many skills. However, composing a resume when you are looking to completely change careers, or when you are fresh out of school is much more difficult, because you do not have any experience to highlight.

If you are changing careers, and nothing from your past professional experience qualifies you for the new job you are seeking, highlight those qualifications that can be transitioned along the various industries. For example, if you’ve managed people, no matter the type of business, you should highlight this under your experience. Rather than not highlighting your professional experience, even if it is not directly related to the job you are seeking, you should consider writing a professional profile, or summary at the start of your resume. The summary will allow you to address the career change by highlighting your skills and how they relate to your career objective. In addition, this is one situation where it is ok to reference any volunteer or community service work that you have done if it can help promote your qualifications for the job.

If you are fresh out of college, and don’t have much to bring to the table in terms of full time professional experience, don’t get discouraged in creating your resume. Focus on highlighting your skills and your education. Avoid using a professional profile, or summary. Rather, list your career objective and start the resume by listing your education. Make sure to mention any awards or honors you received while in school. Following your education, list all the skills that will qualify you for the job you are seeking. Make sure to mention any courses, such as project management or business communication that you have taken and can apply at work. Instead of listing any experience, title the section “Pre-professional Experience” and divide it into categories applicable to your career objective. For example, instead of say that you spent a summer working at the Gap, use a sub-heading of “Customer Relations” and list any responsibilities where you have provided customer service. Tap into any community service, volunteer, or school club positions you have held in order to highlight your abilities and showcase that you are the best candidate for the job.

Don’t be afraid of not having the right experience, or not having any professional experience to include in a resume. Focus on what you can do rather than what you don’t have the experience in doing and you will have a winning resume.

Many professionals spend hours writing and re-writing their cover letter. With each resume submission, we tend to revise our cover letter to make sure that it is personalized for the position we are applying for. While we spend so much time on the content of the cover letter, we seem to disregard a very important and prominent area of the letter – the address line. Most mistakes in the cover letter are made in the address line. This is very problematic as this is the first piece of information that the potential employer sees on your resume. If mistakes are made in the address line, it is likely that the potential employer will discard the letter and you will lose an opportunity to be considered as a candidate for the job that you want. The following three mistakes are most common in addressing the cover letter and should be considered before your cover letter is sent to the employer:

1. Not addressing the letter to a person. This is a big mistake in the world of cover letters. Generic greetings, such as “To whom it may concern” or “Dear Human Resources Team,” are not favorable. If the job description or posting does not include the contact person, you will need to do some research to find out who the appropriate contact is for the job you are applying for. Additionally, avoid addressing the letter to a job title. Call the organization and find out who is the hiring manager or the recruiter for the job, and address the letter directly to them. In case it is impossible to find out who the appropriate contact is, it is often recommended that you leave off any generic greetings and simply begin the cover letter.
2. Misspelling the name of the organization. Even if you are addressing your cover letter to a specific person, you will still need to include the name of the company and their address. Always make sure that the company name is spelled correctly. Hiring managers and recruiters know from experience that misspelling the company name is a common mistake, but it’s the easiest one to avoid. Triple-check the company name on your cover letter. If your potential employer receives the letter with the incorrect company name, your letter will never make it past the first person who receives it.
3. Your first sentence doesn’t explain why you are contacting the company. This is a common mistake as many people assume that stating that you are contacting the company regarding employment, as you are including your resume, is unnecessary. However, this is not the case. Let your potential employer exactly why you are contacting them; state the title of the job you are interested in, and how your qualifications make you an ideal candidate for the job. Your first statement needs to be straight forward, energetic, and positive, and it should invite the employer to read through the rest of the cover letter. Bland and generic opening statements will result in disinterest on the part of your employer, and your resume will not get pass the first review.

Your resume, in addition to listing your professional experience, education and qualifications, is a reflection of who you are. When you take the time to compose your resume well, make sure that there are no errors or gaps that would raise questions, and highlight the qualifications that present you as the best candidate for the job, you show your employer that you are a polished, detail-oriented professional. In addition to having your professional life presented in the best light, you want to make sure that your resume and your cover letter showcase your ethics and your sincerity. This is a difficult task, as it is hard to convey honesty and your good intentions in a form letter and a resume. But many employers hold a strict no tolerance policy against dishonesty. Thus, you have to take extra care in making sure that all of the information on your resume is authentic and truthful. Intentional lies on a resume are not acceptable. However, there are certain areas of your resume may cause you to unintentionally list incorrect information. Pay attention to the following aspects of your resume to assure that you don’t find yourself appearing untruthful to your potential employer:

– List your exact title under professional experience. Many professionals have titles that are company specific and may not make sense outside of the organization where they work. Always list your exact title, but feel free to add a few words that explain what you do in the realm of the industry. This way, when your potential employer calls your employer for a reference check, they will confirm your exact title but also know the scope of your position as it applies outside of that specific organization.
– When in doubt, don’t guess. For example, if you are unsure when you started or ended a job because it has been a long time since you worked for that company, simply call the company and ask about your employment dates. Do not make assumptions about dates, titles of your references or their contact information, certification dates, etc. Always take time to verify the information you are unsure about before including it on your resume.
– Don’t cover up your employment gaps. It is ok to have gaps in your employment; most professionals have gaps in their experience for various reasons. Do not try to hide this from your potential employers. Address the gaps in your work history in your cover letter, and be honest regarding the reasons you were not working during a specific time.
– Be honest about your accomplishments. Rather than worrying about the qualifications you may not have, be confident and highlight your work experience and achievement in a truthful manner. Do not exaggerate skills, professional roles, or stretch the employment dates. Work on presenting yourself and your qualifications in the best possible light; take the time to quantify your accomplishments, and compose a positive professional summary for your resume.

Revise your resume until you feel comfortable that all the information included is truthful and will not raise any questions by the employer that you have not addressed in the resume or the cover letter. The rule is – be honest on your resume. Don’t break that rule.

As a business owner, you may think that having an up-to-date resume is not as important as it would be if you were actively seeking a new job. However, having an updated resume is critical for any professional, even if you are not looking for a job. Small business owners should have an updated resume in order to be able to share their professional experience with potential investors, vendors, clients, etc.

If you have a viable business idea and are looking to start your own business, it is important that you have a very well written, polished, professional resume. You will need to use your resume, along with your business plan, in order to gain investment opportunities for your business and gets started. Your resume should be written as if you are applying to be a business owner of the organization you wish to start. While this may sounds silly, as you would of course be working for yourself, it is important to show your investors that you have professional experience to run the business you are proposing. Your qualifications, career goals, education and prior experience should all be aligned with your business venture.

Once you have started your own business, you will come in contact with vendors, independent contractors, and clients who will want to know what you are about before they decide to do business with you. While you can promote your business through a web site, or other advertising mediums, if you are new to what you do, people will want to know about you. To help assure then in your abilities, you can use a resume to let them know of your qualifications. You can use the same resume for your vendors or clients as you used you’re your investors. Keep in mind that any financial goals pertaining to the business, that may be necessary for your investors, should never appear on the resume or personal letter you send to your clients or business partners. Your professional summary should be changed to show how you would service your clients or your vendors; a statement about client satisfaction would be necessary in a resume you are to share with your clients, for example.

Additionally, as a small business owner, you may have an opportunity to branch out into another business, start a new location of your existing business, partner with another company, or even have an opportunity to go work for a larger company in your field. In each of these scenarios, you may need an up-to-date resume highlighting your professional and entraprenureal experience. It is best to have a prepared resume, and keep updating it or customizing it for specific audiences as necessary. Avoid finding yourself in a position of not having a resume when requested, or having to develop a resume from a blank page in a short period of time. This exposes you to appearing unprofessional, and not representing yourself or your business in a professional and serious light. Thus, you will want to have a well-written and a well-formatted resume even if you own your own business; marketing yourself well, in addition to marketing your business well, will assure your success as a business owner.