How many times have you found yourself in the midst of writing your resume when you realized that there were some questions you simply had to have answered before you could move forward? Everyone has probably been in this predicament at least once during a resume-writing experience.

Of course, there are some questions that are more frequently asked than others. So before you put your fingers back on the keyboard, let’s take a moment to explore some of the more commonly asked questions regarding resumes.

How Do I Write a Great Objective?

For many, the objective is the most abstract and challenging portion of the resume to write. You may find yourself asking questions like “what does the employer want to know?” and “how can I describe myself in just one sentence?” during the process. But don’t let these issues deter you from continuing on, because in actuality, it is not hard to create a succinct objective that will entice the employer to read on.

First, take note that objectives can be more than one sentence long. Depending on your level of experience, you may want to include up to three sentences describing who you are and what career plans you have that fall neatly in line with the employer’s goals. Within the 1-3 sentences, you want to express your strengths, abilities and qualifications in your field, and how they match the specific employer’s goals. However, try to avoid using the word “I” in this section as it creates a self-centered image, something that can quickly result in your resume hitting the bottom of the stack.

What if I Haven’t Worked in a While?

If you haven’t worked for several years, or even several months, you may feel a little bit nervous about explaining your employment gap. But don’t worry; if you truly feel you’re qualified for the job, you can express this in a number of ways.

One is by using a functional resume style (as opposed to chronological) that focuses less on timelines and more on skills. Also, you can roll up all of your non-work experience, including volunteering, community involvement, consulting, or even your continuing education, to highlight the skills you’ve acquired over the years. If your gaps are a little smaller, you can make them less obvious by not noting months on your resume. In the end, you want to showcase your knowledge of industry trends, so be creative in explaining how this knowledge can enhance the position you’re applying for.

Should I Include References?

Typically, the rule for references is this: if they don’t ask for them, don’t provide them. However, if they do it’s a good idea to create a separate sheet just for them. On that sheet, you can include the references’ names, phone numbers, and their locations, as well as your personal/professional relationships. But before you add references be sure to contact them so they are prepared to offer information about you.

Writing a resume can be an exciting process if you remember that your hard work can result in a great job. So take the time to ask more questions about the writing process. You’ll find that the more you ask, the more likely you are to create a standout resume that may just secure the job you want.

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Heather Eagar is a former professional resume writer and is passionate about providing working professionals with current, reliable and effective job search tools and information. Compare the top resume writing services in the industry at http://www.resumelines.com.

Phil Rosenberg’s Interview like a Rock Star at Secrets of the Job Hunt gives 16 excellent points on coming across like a “rock star” candidate in an interview. He breaks the process down into two main sections: preparation and execution. Here’s a quick summary; click through to the full article for details.

Preparation

• Research
• Ask yourself what challenges the company is likely to face along the way. What problems are likely to arise that your Subject Matter Expertise can uniquely solve.
• Write a Rock Star resume - one that presents a solution to problems your target company faces. Throw out the old biographical resume.
• Bait your resume with a few partial statements, and leave your audience curious to learn more, helping you to control the interview by what you’ve left out of your resume.
• Ask questions to draw out problems and implications - of problems you can uniquely solve.
• Anticipate - What questions will the interviewer ask you? Practice answering questions in a positive manner, while still telling the truth.

Execution

• Dress the part
• Open - Stand tall, maintain eye contact, smile, and use a firm handshake.
• Initial impressions count - people form an initial impression of you in the first 30 seconds.
• Control the interview
• Eye contact - Maintain eye contact while talking.
• You control the interview and demonstrate both Subject Matter Expertise and leadership by asking questions.
• Turn negatives to positives
• Close - Closing techniques will take a number of future posts to cover. In general, close by gaining some sort of feedback, and time/action commitment to next steps.
• Re-Close - Send a thank you note.

Check out Phil’s ReCareered blog - great resume and job hunting info.

Here it comes… again. Every 6 or 8 years, it happens. But what about the labour shortage? What about the Baby Boomers retiring? What about our strong economy? Those are all true, but if the rest of the world doesn’t want what we have to sell, we’re going to suffer too. So take your favourite colleagues out for lunch now - there’s a chance they won’t be working with you for long. You, on the other hand, have a plan…

When your boss needs to lay people off, he’ll generally use a few rules of thumb to determine who goes first. Is it the newest employee that goes first? Sometimes, but not always. Is it the most expensive employee? Sometimes, but not always. Its always the people who contribute LEAST to the bottom line of the company, and the people who are least productive. Here are three easy tips to make sure you’re seen as a productive member of the company.

1. Actually be Productive
   Ok, maybe I’m being a little flippant about this point. But take it to heart: When the economy is in a rough patch, you can’t fake it for long. Find ways to do a little extra; go beyond your usual responsibilities; pick up the slack where others are leaving work behind, or stay late when others are watching the clock. When times are tough, those who stay late will notice that their bosses have been preparing for tougher times ahead by burning the midnight oil themselves. If you’re lucky, they’ll notice you too.
2. Get Connected
   Be sure to be seen around the office as a helpful and keen employee. Know the executive, say hello to people at every level of the organization, offer to help recruit new employees, volunteer for a social committee, start a recycling program, or find new ways to become known as a valued team player. The key here is simple, and underutilized: get connected, noticed, and useful to as many people as possible. Don’t be afraid to engage management and senior executive. When times are toughest, they want only the strongest work horses by their side to help them weather the storm ahead. Take a look around you - you might notice that the energy and morale isn’t quite as high as it was when the economy was on a high. This is your chance to infuse some positive energy into your job, and shine some light on your value.
3. Start Today
   Changing your diet AFTER the heart attack isn’t very useful. And neither is making these changes AFTER the layoffs have started. If your objective is to survive the coming economic slowdown and keep your job, make these changes BEFORE things get bad. Your boss will see right through your effort if you wait until the layoffs have started.

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Steve Baldwin is CEO of Officejobs.com. With dual head offices in Canada, Officejobs.com serves reputable employers nationally. Expert recruiters provide insight and advice to employers and job seekers alike, combining advanced online recruitment technologies with old fashioned wisdom.

The job interview is incredibly intimidating. There’s a job you really want, or need, and getting the job or not will affect your career, your financial future, your emotional well-being…

You dress up in your best clothes (please… dress up in your best clothes), practice all of the potential questions you may be asked, so on and so on.

And there’s an interviewer looking to find all of the worst parts about you: your inexperience, your poor work habits, the brother-in-law in jail (well, no, I’m making that up) - anything they can find so that they won’t hire you. This evil nasty person is standing in your way.

Actually, most interviewers aren’t looking for excuses not to hire you - if you made it to the interview, they’re looking for reasons to hire you. They aren’t going to waste their time in an interview if you don’t have something they’re looking for.

So, what are interviewers looking for? Here are a few things:

• Your personality. Having an employee fit into the organization is very important. Each company has it’s own in-office personality, and they want to see how you would fit that personality. Since you can’t know this before, just be yourself. You can also pick up clues to this office vibe by watching and listening to the interviewers.
• Your experience. Each job has its own requirements, and you can say only so much on your resume. The interviewer needs a more complete picture of your experience, and this is a big aspect of the interview.
• Your own needs. Salary and work type are a part of this, but good companies that care about their employees (there are more of these than you think) also need to know if the work will fit your life. For example, if the hours are incompatible (often not your fault), the job might not be a good match.

For both the employer and the potential employee, a job interview is like a blind date; you getting to know each other. Go in with a positive attitude, and show them what you can do!

Anthony Balderrama at CareerBuilder.ca writes about the big and little lies we all tell at work:

I hate to break it to you, but you’re a liar. We all are.

Little lies - and the occasional big ones - are part of workplace culture, just like boring meetings and gabby co-workers. A workday that’s 100 percent fib-free is a rarity.

1. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
2. “I’d be happy to.”

Read the rest of the lies at CareerBuilder.ca

Interviewing can be daunting. But here are three ways to help you get a leg up on the competition.

The “Dress For Success” Mystique

Human beings have a funny way of judging things very quickly. Likes and dislikes are subjective, and one thing we can’t seem to get a handle on is why employers tend to hire people they like. With that said, employers like people who dress well, make good first impressions, and appear to be professional - employers believe those people will make good decisions in their job. And they’re usually right. The best rule of thumb for dressing for success is to dress for the job you “want”, not the job you “have”. Dress for a job above yours - observe the dress patterns of the people you admire at work - those people understand the importance of dressing well to get noticed.

The “Tell Me About Yourself” rumour

Its the most commonly known interview question in the world. The reason most employers ask it is to break the ice with “something easy”. Trouble is, it’s not so easy when you’re nervous, under pressure, and unprepared to “just talk” for a couple of minutes. The best thing to do is to prepare yourself for a concise, but easy-going answer. Include personal (not business) information that might give the interviewer a chance to learn a little bit about who you are. You’ve already dressed to reflect some of your business goals, so now you might consider telling the interviewer where you’re from originally, what you do in your spare time, the sports you enjoy most, your favourite books or movies, and perhaps the name of the person you look up to most. Ideally, give them one or two irresistible nuggets of information that they feel compelled to ask you to elaborate on - it’s what they want, and it’ll help get the interview going smoothly. Your answer should, above all, be natural, unrehearsed, and honest. Nothing endears people to you more than honesty and integrity. And if you prove to be easy to talk to, you’ll be in their “good books” from the start.

The Importance of “Closing” the Deal

Do your very best to offer insightful answers throughout the interview. But when the interviewer has finished asking you all of her questions, it’s your chance to really shine: get her impression of how good your chances are. You’ve given your best answers, you were thoughtful and calm, and now you need to find out if the interviewer is likely to give you the offer. And here’s how you’ll know: Ask. “Is there any reason I would not be considered for this role?” If the employer does her job, she should try not to commit to hiring you during an interview. They will likely answer you by telling you they can not make a decision until she has completed the rest of her interviews. But that’s not your cue to quit: “If I were the last interview, would I be your first choice for this role?” If the employer answers with anything but “yes”, it’s your job to forge ahead with more questions. “Is there anything in my application that would prevent me from being your first choice for this role?” Above all, your job at this stage is to parlay your interest, eagerness, and preparedness for this role. These days, the right attitude and fit are the deciding factors in extending offers of employment. Make sure you stand out by “closing” your excitement about this job.

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Steve Baldwin is CEO of Officejobs.com. With dual head offices in Canada, Officejobs.com serves reputable employers nationally. Expert recruiters provide insight and advice to employers and job seekers alike, combining advanced online recruitment technologies with old fashioned wisdom.

Here are the top 20 things that annoy and irritate recruiters and other people who read resumes. And FYI, annoying people who could hire you isn’t a good idea.

From ResumeDoctor.com:

“ResumeDoctor.com undertook the immense project of conducting a survey of over 2,500 recruiters / headhunters throughout the US and Canada to find out their “Pet Peeves” with resumes. These recruiters stemmed from varied specialties and industries, (Engineering, Information Technology, Sales and Marketing, Executive, Biotech, Healthcare, Administrative, Finance, etc.). ResumeDoctor.com sought to find out what the recruiter’s likes and dislikes in a resume and what is going to get a resume read by them.”

Click on each item for more details.

1. Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar
2. Too duty oriented - reads like a job description, failing to explain the job seeker’s relevant accomplishments
3. Missing dates or inaccurate dates
4. Missing contact Info, inaccurate, or unprofessional email addresses
5. Poor formatting - boxes, templates, tables, use of header and footers, etc.
6. Resumes organized by job function as opposed to chronological by employer
7. Long resumes - greater than 2 pages
8. Long, dense paragraphs - no bullet-points
9. Unqualified candidates - candidates who apply to positions for which they are not qualified
10. Personal info not relevant to the job
11. Missing employer Info and/or not indicating what industry in which the candidate worked
12. Lying and misleading - especially in terms of education, dates and inflated titles
13. Objectives and meaningless introductions
14. Poor font choice or style
15. Resumes sent as PDF files, Zip files, faxes, or mailed resumes; i.e. not sent as a WORD attachment
16. Irritating Pictures, graphics or URL links
17. No easy-to-follow summary of skills and accomplishments
18. Resumes written with 1st person references, or in the 3rd person
19. Unexplained gaps in employment
20. Burying important info in the resume

You have a beautifully formatted resume on nice paper. You dress professionally for the interview. And the email address on your resume is pornstar69@(whatever).com.

Email nicknames that do not project a professional image:

• sexxxygirl
• sacktiger
• devotedtoChrist (it says too much about your personal beliefs - inappropriate for many workplaces)
• goody2shoes
• johnnybravo (if your name isn’t Johnny Bravo. A great cartoon, but not appropriate for the workplace)

It’s small details like this that can place you second or third in the job competition.

A cute, corny or, in some people’s minds, offensive email address can take away from the professional image you are trying to create in the hiring manager’s mind. Your email nickname can reveal quite a lot about you, and too much personal information is never a good thing when you are trying to get hired.

Advice: get a second email address based on your name. Email addresses and accounts are free; use a second account for professional correspondence. Check out Hotmail, gmail or Yahoo Mail for free accounts.

Use a variation on your name like:

• sarahsmith
• sarah.smith
• s.smith
• ssmith

and so on. It may be difficult to find a variation on a popular name, so try mixing a number in with it. Please avoid the number 69.

• sarahsmith23
• ssmith42

When you are job hunting, professionalism is very, very important. Make sure every element of your presentation, including your email address, lives up to the image.

It’s long been my contention that your attitude plays a bigger role in salary negotiations than your skill set. Here are the must-haves when you’re negotiating a better wage.

Have Some Back-Up
If you’re like most people who want a raise, you might decide to saunter into your boss’s office and wing it. And when your boss asks you why he should dip into the company’s money for your sake, you’ll stumble through the most common excuses for “wanting” a raise, not “earning” one. Tenure with the company or higher personal expenses are too easy for your boss to shoot down. Instead, your boss needs irresistible proof - with “back-up” - that you’re pulling your weight, or more. The more specific you can be, the harder it will be to dispute, and the happier you’ll be with your raise. Whenever possible, provide facts, dates, figures, customer names, or anything tangible that will prove you’re effecting the company’s bottom line. Do your best to show how you are directly responsible for saving the company money, helping it earn more profit, maximizing productivity for others, or attracting new customers. Again, it’s critical that you be specific with names, dates, and numbers.

Do Some Research

There are countless reliable resources available to you to help determine your financial worth at work (government or industry research are often the most reliable sources; but if you’re really serious, make several phone calls to find other top performers outside of your company and explain to them that you are in a similar position, and that you are interested in gaging the proper salary for your job). Create your own simple comparison of what you’re being paid compared to other top performers in your industry who are paid more. Be sure to carefully select those jobs that closely match the duties, responsibilities and competencies that you have in your job. It’s difficult for employers to responsibly defend a lower wage for doing the same job as everyone else. Remember, you’ll need to provide clear written evidence that you are doing the same work for less money. Seek fair wages that will pay you equitably for the same work others are doing.

Have Some Confidence

This is easier said than done. But we all know people who are less qualified than we are, but who are paid more. And there’s nothing more frustrating. Why does this happen? In many (if not most) cases, wages are subjectively assigned to people. And in my experience, people with the most confidence, and who are not afraid to ask for more, get paid more. For many of us, the first step to having more confidence is to know what your “fair wage” should be (see previous two paragraphs); the second step might be to have the willingness to find another job if your current boss isn’t willing to pay a fair wage.

Now, and for the rest of my lifetime, North America will experience a severe shortage of skilled workers. If you’re one of the valuable and productive ones, prove what you’ve done with some back-up, show your boss what “top performers” in your position are making elsewhere, and walk confidently into that corner office and ask for that much-deserved raise.

One Last Thing

Honourable mention goes to the fourth point, “asking” for the raise. It’s somewhat rare to hear of someone receiving a significant raise without having asked for it. Keep in mind that HOW you ask for it is just as important as the asking itself. If you’re serious about that raise, lay out the reasons for earning it (with back-up and research), and then tell your boss how much you feel you deserve. If you’ve done your homework, your confidence and poise will pay off.

Hiring Managers Share Top Ten Most Unusual Resume Fibs & Expert Shares Tips on Making Your Resume Stand Out

(from MarketWatch)

CareerBuilder.com asked hiring managers to share the most memorable or outrageous lies they came across on resumes. Examples include:

1. Claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family
2. Invented a school that did not exist
3. Submitted a resume with someone else’s photo inserted into the document
4. Claimed to be a member of Mensa
5. Claimed to have worked for the hiring manager before, but never had
6. Claimed to be the CEO of a company when the candidate was an hourly employee
7. Listed military experience dating back to before he was born
8. Included samples of work, which the interviewer actually did
9. Claimed to be Hispanic when he was 100 percent Caucasian
10. Claimed to have been a professional baseball player

Although only 8 percent of workers admitted to stretching the truth on their resumes, nearly half (49 percent) of hiring managers reported they caught a candidate lying on their resume. Of these employers, 57 percent said they automatically dismissed the applicant. This is according to CareerBuilder.com’s latest survey of more than 3,100 hiring managers and over 8,700 workers nationwide conducted from May 22 to June 13, 2008.

Read the rest of the article here and find out how to make your resume memorable