RESUME/COVER LETTERS: Job Search Tools

In today's society, a job is not forever. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has determined that you can count on changing jobs from 4 to 20 times in your career. The only constant in today'sjob market is change. You need to be prepared. Keep your résumé updated even when you areworking at a job you love. You never know when the company you work for will fall on hard timesor decide to restructure like so many companies are doing today. Three million corporate layoffswere announced between 1989 and 1995. An additional 170,000 jobs were eliminated in the firstquarter of 1996 74% more than in the first quarter of 1995. Yours could be one of them, so be prepared for change.

A professionally prepared résumé is important because your résumé must speak loudly and clearly of your value as a potential employee in a few brief seconds. The average time a recruiter or hiring manager spends with a résumé is less than one minute. Something in that first minute must entice him or her to continue reading. A one-page résumé is best if possible. Good résumé writing focuses attention on your strengths and draws attention away from those areas that lack definition. Your résumé is your last and most powerful advocate. It helps the interviewer remember you.

The design of your résumé is just as important as the words you use. If the design of your résumé doesn't grab the recruiter's attention long enough to get read, then your words have little meaning. However, once you have your reader's attention, the words need to keep it. Potential employers want to know what you can do for them, which means they want to now what you have achieved before. Quantify   use numbers if you can. If you are in sales, then it is easy to say you exceeded your sales quota by 150% every month. Other careers are not as easy to quantify, but you have surely accomplished something that went beyond the call of duty. List accomplishments, skills, qualifications and not just job duties.

There are three basic types of résumés: chronological, functional and combination.

§         The chronological résumé is what most of us think of when we think of a résumé a chronological listing of job titles and responsibilities. This format is good for demonstrating your growth in a single profession. It is suitable for anyone with practical work experience who hasn't had too many job changes or prolonged periods of unemployment. It is not suitable if you are just out of school or changing careers.

§         The functional résumé focuses on the professional skills you have developed over the years, rather than on when, where or how you acquired them. It de-emphasizes dates, sometimes to the point of exclusion. This format is especially good for those making career changes or returning to the workplace after a long absence.

§         The combination formation is suitable when you have had several different kinds of jobs, you want to put equal emphasis on jobs held in the past or you want to make it very obvious where each of the accomplishments occurred.

After your résumé is completed, you need a cover letter. It should complement your résumé and encourage the recipient to read everything you have presented. A great cover letter says that you have the intelligence, experience and skills to be the answer to an employer's staffing problem.

Thank you letters are also one more important contact with employers after your interview. Because so few job hunters remember to send thank you letters, those who do stand out favorably in the employer's mind.

The Internet is another valuable tool in your job search. When you depend on classified advertisements to locate job openings, you limit yourself to only 7 to 10% of all available jobs, plus you are competing with thousands of job hunters who are reading the same ads. You can widen your job search using the Internet to locate and respond to job openings quickly. You can post your résumé on-line to be viewed by potential employers. You can go to a specific company's web site to post your résumé. You can also contact recruiters via the Internet.

If you plan to post your résumé on-line or transmit it via e-mail, you should make sure that it is compatible with the computer eyes it will be seen by. Essentially, this means that the résumé should be stripped of all the elements which make it attractive to the human eye, including boldface, italics and fancy type styles. Eliminating these extras will ensure that your résumé can be read by anyone who receives it via the Internet. Since there are many different word processors and computer platforms used by people on the Internet, the first concern in preparing an internet-compatible résumé should be to make certain that anyone can view it, regardless of their software or computer system. The easiest way is to convert your résumé to ASCII and remove non-compatible codes like curley quotes, em dashes or bullets. Be sure to delete all tabs and indents. You can replace each tab with five spaces to maintain some of your document's layout. Remove all bullets. Use an asterisk or dash followed by a space to replace them. Shorten all line lengths to 60 characters.

Another tool you will need in your job search is a scannable résumé. Most larger companies have implemented a computerized scanning system for résumés. Instead of a human reading your résumé and deciding how to forward it along or file it, a clerk sets your résumé on the glass of a scanner bed and the black dots of ink are turned into words that are then stored in a computerized résumé database. To be sure your résumé will scan clearly, you need to use plain fonts, use bolding in moderation, try not to use italics or underlines and avoid the use of horizontal or vertical lines.