Career Flux - resume reference

Make Your Resume Shine

When wanting to get your resume noticed, it is imperative that you put the right stuff in it to make it stand out against the rest. You are not submitting your resume so that it can be put in the pile with all the rest – you want it on the desk of the person making the hiring decisions. In order to accomplish this feat, there are a few things that you should do.

Layout

You do not want your resume to be full of too much information in a format that is difficult to read. A resume should be something that a prospective employer should be able to glance at and know whether or not they want more information. Also, make sure that the resume has a professional appearance with muted colors that are only used to enhance the look of the resume. When printing your resume, make sure to use good quality resume paper to show your professionalism.

Content

There needs to be enough information to make someone want to know more, but not so much that you tell everything. Proper grammar and punctuation is a must in your resume. Nothing will kill your validity faster than a misspelled word, improper use of a word or poor punctuation, so don’t do it. Have someone proofread your resume to make sure that this doesn’t happen. What sounds and looks good to you may not make sense to someone else.

Parts of the Resume

There are some basic parts of the resume that you must include in order to get your resume noticed.

1. Contact Information:

Your name should always be at the top of your resume. Your email and phone number can either be placed under your name on the top or put into the footer. There is no need to include your address unless you want to. Make sure that your name, email, and phone number are located on all pages.

2. Objective:

This will follow your name. It should be at least one sentence and not more than an additional sentence or two after that. An objective should be a statement of what you are looking for in an employment position as well as what you can offer.

3. Education:

Whether or not you have education outside of a high school diploma, you will need to list what you have. Here you should list what school you attended, what you studied, what year you received your diploma and your grade point average if it was acceptable. If you do not have extended education, now may be the right time to go back to school in order to enhance your resume as well as yourself.

4. Work History:

Here, you will list any and all employment with a brief description of what you did. Use key action words like implemented, managed, transitioned, organized, and the like when describing your work experience. If you have a gap in employment, make sure that you account for it by listing what you did. If you were simply unemployed, describe it as a sabbatical and list the things you did during that time like volunteer work, helping family members, or any other productive activity you were involved in.

5. Skills:

Take the opportunity to list out everything that you are skilled at, regardless of if it is applicable to the position you are applying for. This list of skills will tell the prospective employer that you are capable of becoming proficient at things.

6. Volunteer Work:

List out all volunteer work you have done, regardless of how menial the task may seem to you. This will show that you are able to put others before yourself.

7. References:

You can choose to provide these with your resume or simply state that they are available upon request. The choice is yours. Regardless of when you provide them, make sure that you include professional as well as personal references. Designate which are professional and which are personal and provide the references’ contact information as well as what their professional title is (even for personal) and how long you have known them.

Cover Letter

The cover letter is part of the resume and just as important. Make sure that it has a professional appearance, includes the name of the person making the hiring decisions, lists the position you are applying for and where you found out about the position. Give just enough information in the cover letter to make the person reading it want to read the resume as well.

Going above and beyond with your resume will surely get it from the “maybe” pile to the “must schedule an interview” pile. Pay attention to detail so that your resume will stand out from the rest. Remember that the goal to a resume is to get yourself an interview so that you can talk more about what your resume describes. Making your resume shine will surly get you that interview you desire.

Kelly Prachett is a career counselor and in her spare time she blogs for superscholar.org a site she often recommends to those who are trying to figure out which online colleges have the best online nursing programs. They have information on everything from the top online computer science programs to the best online MBA programs.

Fortify References Cited On Your Resume

By Sandy Leave a Comment

A lot of people put real hard work in writing a resume and then tweaking it painstakingly to make a strong case for their selection for a job. Many a times, they finish it with a flourish by adding a final line at the bottom in italics saying “References available on request” and then promptly forget the next necessary step to take in this regard. Any job seeker, before and after writing those words, must make sure to fortify these references being offered to an employer. It has to be realized by all job seekers that employers are not taking any chances these days and more and more of them are seriously following these references for a feedback on potential employees.

Derek Sankey of The Calgary Herald cites a survey by Office Team in his article “Bad reference can cost you the job” published in The Vancouver Sun as revealing that “one in four job candidates are removed from a shortlist after speaking to references”. It is all the more heart breaking as employers contact your references only after your resume has been whetted to your advantage and you are actually on a very short list of potential successful candidates. But why does this happen? Because we fail to properly manage our references.

It can be a very serious mistake to just assume that Mr Goodman would automatically vouch for you, if an employer calls up to ask about you, because you worked for him a couple of years ago. The article suggests that you have not only to ask someone before you mention him as a reference but also discuss what kinds of strengths and weaknesses might come up during a call by an employer. And, of course, never forget to thank your references later, selected for the job or not. According to Sankey, “Solid references may include a past professor, a leader from a volunteer organization you worked with, an outside mentor, a peer in the same managerial group, your direct supervisor” and someone “who can speak to your strengths and weaknesses along with past experience.”

References have become very important in this day and age to verify your credentials because the job market is spread along a vast space now – geographically and job-categories-wise too. So it is all the more important to select good references for yourself by people whose authority and stature command respect and can render your job selection successful.

Read the full text of the article quoted here:

“Bad reference can cost you the job” by Derek Sankey of The Calgary Herald – The Vancouver Sun

Filed Under: Career Flux Times, Resume and Cover Letter Tagged With: Resume, resume reference

Seven Things To Deposit In Your Resume Reference Bank

By Mona Samar Leave a Comment

Many of us remember ourselves or are told by others that there used to be times when everyone knew everyone else in a given community. While that might still hold true in smaller communities, the big urban centers, that a majority of the population lives in now, are pastures of a different kind. Global economic growth has made job markets to expand bringing in an ever widening work force in numbers. As a result, gone are those days when everybody new everybody else in the job market. This has necessitated employers to look for solid and valid references from applicants. Unless you are applying from within a company to an inside position, you need to have a resume reference bank of your own.

It is with a very easy stroke of a pen, rather with a few keyboard keys, that we assure potential employers that “References available on request”. However, before assuming a complacent stance that your impeccable credentials would be approved as per your desire by the references cited by you, make sure you do a little homework to create this reference bank.

1. Make A List Complete With All Details

The first important thing to do is to make a list of your solid potential references. These will include professional people like a former boss or co-worker if you have worked before and a teacher or mentor if you are new to the workforce. You may start by making a list of potential references and start contacting them one by one to make a final list to your satisfaction. In this list, you must include clearly all names, designations or titles, company names, addresses, email addresses, social media accounts, and phone numbers of your reference contacts. Remember that work places are dynamic and so are professionals so you have to keep this list current by making timely updates about them.

Number of references: It is common knowledge that usually employers ask for three references. I would suggest that you keep a list of at least five references handy. You never know when one of them might decide to take off to Hawaii for a vacation and leave you in the lurch. The other reason is that you might have worked in different industries and one of them might give you a more relevant reference over others, relative to your present job search area.

2. Ask Them And Take Their Permission

After you have finalized a list of your solid contacts, you have to inform them that they are in your list and whether it is okay with them to be in it. Most would readily agree if you had a good rapport with them in the past. But that’s not all. When a new job application starts from you and you decide to cite certain references, you have to ask them again and get permission to do so. Doing this gives you a two fold advantage. Things might have changed at Mr. Smith’s organization and he might not be working there anymore like pointed out in #1 above or he might still be there in a new position. Second, your current communication prepares him mentally to be ready to receive a call about you. It will be very unprofessional on your part to let them be surprised by a call about you out of nowhere. In addition, asking permission makes it clear whether they have a professional confidentiality policy and might be limited in their description about you to others.

Sometimes, it is useful to get a reference letter from your past employer. Now this depends on place to place. If you have worked there or if it’s an educational institution, go ahead and get one. The only problem with letters might be that they get dated after a while but they are still are good testimony.

3. Discuss About What They Think Of You

It is always useful when you are asking permission as explained in #2 above, to discuss with your professional reference contact about what your new employer may ask in an interview. This way, you’ll find out what light your reference sees you in. You might discuss things like how you were useful in certain areas while you worked there – things like customer service, production schedules, increasing sales, designing custom software among others. You might have assumed that your contact holds similar opinions about your capabilities and skills as you do for yourself, but discussing such issues will give you a fresh perspective as to where you stand with him/her. It will also prepare the other person to give relevant information to your new employer if called upon to do so.

4. Online Presence

The employment world has changed since you and I applied for our previous jobs a few years ago. Now words like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have started to shape our work (and for many, personal) lives. It should be safe to assume that if you are keeping in pace with times in the job market, you already have accounts on at least the most prominent social networking platforms by now. If so, it is sincerely hoped that none of these accounts is gleefully displaying some of your ‘misadventures’ in their full glory. In present times, your online presence is a reference in itself. Google yourself and find out for yourself what a potential employer might see about you as most of them are taking this route now.

5. Don’t Go Overboard In An Interview

While it’s nice to take pride in explaining how your references will vouch for your credibility during a job interview, avoid going overboard. If such a discussion comes around in an interview, do not go on and on about how your references would jump over each other to hire you back at any cost. Remain dignified in keeping with the occasion and cross your fingers (not literally though). It is because your references are, without doubt, in a position of authority. When called upon to talk about you, they’ll almost certainly use their words very carefully in keeping with their own position versus when you had a heart to heart with them. So it is not advisable to raise outlandish expectations of a potential employer but at the same time firmly maintain your credible qualities.

6. Never Forget To Thank Your References & Contacts

Your references do not stand to gain much from making you look like the last surviving perfect candidate for any job, yet they do their best to make you look job worthy. On the other hand, you have to gain a lot from their testimonial that might help you put bread (and butter) on your table. The least you owe them after your interview is a nice warm handwritten thank you note or card. That’s in addition to any email if you have already sent one. Make double sure that you do it even if you were not able to land that job. An important reference is for keeps for your whole work life. Also, how about sending a relevant best wishes card once a year – like on Christmas or any other occasion that they celebrate? After all, you still go to the pains of sending a card to Cousin Maggie each year and she responds only once in a while.

7. Maintain Network For Future References

Never underestimate what a difference your reference made in your job selection if you were offered one. The job market being in its present state, it won’t be far fetched to assume that you might consider another career change (or are forced to) sometime in future. That will take you back to the whole process discussed above. But would you do it only when the need comes along? Certainly not, because you have to maintain you professional references network on an ongoing basis – else you would be seen as a self serving person only. On a positive note, if you have a ‘healthy’ online presence on social networks, send requests to your reference contacts to connect with them. It will become the most convenient way for you to get updated about them – as for them to know more about you – and also to keep you in constant touch with them.