There are plenty of jobs available – but only those who look hard and work hard are getting them.

First:  Have a great résumé.  With 95% of all résumés in circulation poorly written or poorly constructed, those few that are well done actually stand out and move quickly to the top of the pile.

Second:  Quit watching TV or playing with your toys.  If you spend 8 hours per day looking for work or responding to advertisements, you will get interviews and if you get interviews, you will likely get a job offer.

Third:  Just remember that employers know nothing about you until they see your résumé – heck, they don’t even know you are available.  With just 10 to 20 seconds to make a great impression, you can easily see why others (perhaps others less qualified) are getting interviews and you are not.

Fourth:  Read your résumé out loud to family or friends.  If they are not impressed, then it is likely that an employer will not be impressed.

Summary:  It is amazing how hard work brings good luck.

Dr. Jerry

719.447.1147

In this era of multi-tasking workers, smart phones, texting, and personal networking – is it any wonder that what was ‘normal’ for a résumé yesterday is ‘old school’ today?

With about 15% of the population either unemployed or running out of benefits or financial resources, the need to fight for attention today is the greatest it has ever been.  In life, style trumps substance.  With a résumé you’ve got to look great as well as sound great.  But that does not mean violating EEOA rules by including a photograph of yourself on your résumé or wasting time and a good deal of money on verbal résumés – frankly, the audience is still those who read documents.

Respect their time by making your résumé not only short and factual, but be certain that your résumé is not some cookie-cutter from a template.

Content must always be short and tight – much like Joe Friday and his great line “Just the facts, please.”

Engineer that write like engineers or IT professionals that can’t write without a long list of acronyms or other such gibberish are shooting themselves in the foot every time they send out a poorly constructed résumé for the résumé of today is not the old work history or biography of yesterday – they must be a marketing tool.

Look at the ads in the newspaper that grab your attention.  Its not the words that work, it is the white space.

The world is full of phony resume schemes, all designed to make the seller money and pretend to help the client, for example:

“How to write a resume in minutes.” – Sorry, but the typical professional needs about 4 hours to do a good job with a draft.  All you would get “in minutes” is a boiler-plate document that would look and read like almost every other resume in circulation.  How are you going to stand out if you look like everyone else?

“Great Cover(ing) Letters”  - A cover letter from a book is not you, only a professional who understands who you are – hopefully from a telephone interview and not some silly ‘questionnaire’ – can write a cover letter that collect introduces YOUR resume.

“$20, $30, $40, $50, $60…resumes.” Of course that is possible – when someone is sitting at home and just copying from a list of occupations.  While you would not got to a bargain ‘brain surgeon,’  you should not go to a bargain typist to have your resume created.

A good resume will cost between $150 and $300. A high price does not mean higher value – just higher marketing costs.

Good resume writers have 10 to 20 years of experience and have worked with people from all walks of life.

Give your resume writer these tests:

1.  How long have you been in business?

2.  How many resumes have you written?

3.  Have you ever worked with someone in the (insert your industry here)?

4.  What are some of the key elements to working with someone in the (insert your industry here)?

5.  Are you the person who will do the interview?

6.  Are you the person will write the resume?

7.  Do you charge extra for multiple pages?  (Note:  many that recommend 2-page resumes actually charge for the second page.)

8.  Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers? (Doesn’t prove anything except a desire to appear professional)

9.  Do you hold any Resume credentials (CPRW or CPCC)?

10. What are your academic credentials?

11.  What else qualifies you to write my resume?

12.  What was your most interesting assignment?

Bad, bad, bad.

The result is a poor reader experience.

It turns a short document into a violation of the reader.

It diminishes the credibility of the candidate.

So how do you get around this issue?   Under any word document, pull down the “File” menu and open ‘Properties.’  There you can stuff as many key words as possible without making your resume read poorly.

For months I have been contemplating how to answer this question – which is the most frequently asked question I receive.

There is hardly any simple answer but there are some logical answers:

1.  Most resumes are too long.  Employers are busy or think that they are busy and most just won’t take the time to read anything longer than one page.  One resume I received today to review was 5-pages and more than 2,200 words long, obviously too long to get anyone to pay attention; and

2. Many resumes provide too many opportunities to reject the applicant.  For example, put that you are a tennis player on your resume and already every golfer would reject you (or visa versa) and include information about your faith and the rejections will increase.  I tell my clients, that most resumes are rejected because of what data they contain and not because of what data was excluded; and

3. Most resumes I see today start with an “Objective.”  Frankly, the employer doesn’t really care what you want for what they want is someone that (a) will hit the ground running and (b) make the company a profit or (c) fix a problem that has been persistent.

Those individuals who write their own resumes often only do so once every 4-5 years while some Professional Resume Writers write that many every day.

Resume writers that stay in business are generally those that have proven, over the years, that their work performs.

Answer:  Depends.

People who regularly charge $50 to $125 and offer little more than a typing service are not bargains, especially if you have to pay for a cover letter and the resume in more that a single format. Most of the time you get someone working, part-time, out of their home that has little experience with various careers.

Dr. Jerry has been writing resumes for more than 25 years and his simple promise is “if you can offer a job that I have never faced before, I will write the resume for free, period.” Warning:  only once in the last 10 years has this happened.  The client was an MD, double Ph.D., and wanted to be a ‘ski instructor’ so she could meet and marry a rich american and get out of her present country.

Dr. Jerry understands that times are tough and a lot of people, with some really bad résumés are unemployed.  He decided that it was his responsibility to try to help people in that environment so he began offering a new résumé and cover letter for the unemployed at the price of $99.  In order to qualify for this “special” the client  cannot be currently employed nor in need of a résumé for a Senior Management or Executive Level opportunity.

What Dr. Jerry offer the unemployed is a shortened interview (saving him time) when he gathers the information necessary to write the résumé. He then sends you a draft and the two of you discuss any necessary changes, modifications, or additions; then he sends you the final documents in all 3 formats (MS-Word, PDF, and ASCII) plus a cover letter.  You should be able to easily make minor changes to the résumé and changes to the cover letter using the MS-Word version.  Note:  Dr. Jerry uses MS-Word 1997-2004 so that everyone can open, read, and make changes without problems.  He does not recommend ever using MS-Word 3007.

Answer: Depends.

First and foremost price does not determine value and just because something is priced dearly does not make it better nor does something at a low price mean inferior quality.

The key is to find someone that knows what he or she is doing and who operates without a big overhead nut that must be cracked every day.

When I first started in the business of résumé writing the ‘going’ price was $25 and today, I have seen prices from those that know what they are doing range from $99 to $2,500.

It is my considered opinion that NO résumé is worth more than about $300.

First a prospect should call the writer and if it is impossible to get the writer on the telephone, then it is likely that they are in the business only part time and that ain’t good.  For example, my office hours are between 7:30am to 5:30pm Monday through Thursday and between 7:30am and Noon on Friday.  Call outside those hours and you will likely get my voice mail.

That does not mean that I only work 4 1/2 days each week – quite the contrary, I work 7 days a week.  All that means is that I need some personal time to do those things we all need to do – go to the dry cleaner, supermarket, walk the dog, dine out, and have a life.

In summary:  If the writer has not been in business for more than 5 years you can assume that they know little more about the process than you.  If the writer charges less than $99 for a basic resume and cover letter they are little more than a typist.  If the writer charges more than $300 you are likely overpaying for what you get.

Jerry Bills, Ph.D., Doctor of Philosophy

Certified Professional Resume Writer and Certified Professional Career Coach

(719) 447-1147 (Direct line)

DISCIPLINE

Without discipline nothing is possible

Discipline is the bridge between employment and unemployment; between underemployment and meaningful employment.  Discipline means doing those things that others aren’t willing to do and hanging in there long after everyone else has let go. Discipline is the foundation upon which all success is attained.  An abundance of discipline leads to an abundance of job offers!  In reality, you have one of two life-changing choices to make; to employ discipline today to achieve your job objectives or neglect to employ discipline at the expense of your goals.

Discipline leads to reward.  Neglect leads to regret.  The great Vince Lombardi said, “Discipline and mental toughness are many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial, and most importantly, it’s combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in.”

The key is to choose discipline over easy.  You don’t get to the World Series or the Olympics by easy and you don’t become a successful sales professional, nurse, administrative assistant or CEO by easy.  There is no ‘easy button’ for landing a job in a tough economy.  You get there through discipline.

Tweet Jay @ jayblock101

Visit his website (http://www.jayblock.com)