Resume Evaluation: Appearance and Presentation

This is one of series of articles being written by Alpha Dog Resumes.com explaining how the online resume writing service evaluates the thousands of resumes that are sent to it each year.

One of the ten criteria that is reviewed is Appearance and Presentation.  The resume is given a score of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest score.

A score of 3 or lower indicates that your resume needs an appearance change.  Overall appearance and presentation are crucial in a resume that is fortunate enough to actually get reviewed by a real person.  The design must be clean and simple, with visual clues directing the reader to key elements of your skills and background.  Margins, fonts, headings, and a myriad of other design elements should work together to do one thing:  Sell You!

For example, is it useful to have a section entitled “Skills” at the top of resume for a CEO candidate?  Or should that heading be “Qualifications”?  Or should there be such a section but with no heading?  Or should there be no such section at all?  It makes a real difference depending on your target job and industry.

Also, did you know that many employers now use resume management software that will not detect key information included in certain portions of your resume?  If the computer cannot read it, that information might as well be invisible.

How Does Resume Service AlphaDogResumes.com Evaluate a Resume?

One service that we provide here at AlphaDogResumes.com is a Free Resume Assessment for any and all job seekers.  We receive many requests for these reviews from all sorts of people seeking all types of jobs in many industries and experience levels.  After our free review, some hire us to rewrite their resumes and some do not.  However, they all have one thing in common:  we can give an initial, rough evaluation of their resume within 30 seconds.  Of course, our complete 10 point, 7 page Free Resume Assessment is much more detailed than that.

How is possible to give a resume evaluation in 30 seconds?  And why is that important?  It is possible because our resume experts are just like other Human Resources professionals and employment recruiters.  We see so many resumes that we know what to look for; we know what is going to impress an employer, and we see immediately whether the resume in question meets the standards or not.  Why is that important?  Because that 30 seconds or less is how long you have to impress a potential employer or recruiter.  If your audience does not see your qualifications within that very short timeframe, the qualifications might as well not exist.

For that reason, we at AlphaDogResumes.com are going to start a 10-part series of articles dealing with how we evaluate a resume and, thus, how employers and recruiters will evaluate your resume.  The articles will be published in this blog over the next couple of weeks.  Please contact us if you have questions or comments.  And, if you would like a Free Resume Assessment, click here.  We believe this insight will help you decide what you need to do with your resume in order to Dominate Your Job Search_®.

Financial Aspects of a Job Search

If you are like many millions of Americans looking for work right now, the financial aspects of a job search impact your daily life.  Your bills keep coming even if the paycheck does not.  Here are several suggestions for making the best of the situation:

1.    Prepare a budget that honestly lists your monthly expenses and any residual income like unemployment benefits, severance pay, interest, dividends, etc.  This means that you must start keeping track of all your expenditures, even down to your Starbucks coffee.  For help here, consider budget management software such as Quicken - click here for more information.  For help in California with unemployment benefits, click here.

2.    Reduce your expenses in each and every category.  Start with the major expenses first.  For example, if possible, reduce your mortgage or rent payment through refinancing or renegotiation.  A mortgage broker or loan officer (such as Stephanie Gossett at Bank of America - click here for more information) can help you evaluate your options.  If you work hard it, you are likely to be able to cut your monthly outlays by at least 25%.

3.    Consider your actual job search expenses such as resume preparation fees, job search travel, etc.  Many of those expenses are tax deductible - learn more here.

4.    If you get into a real financial bind, consider government aid sources.  For example, San Francisco Bay Area residents can get help by just dialing 211 on their telephones - click here for more details.  For Federal government assistance, click here.

Prepare now so that you can Dominate Your Job Search_®.

I Have a Job…Why Do I Need an Up-to-date Resume?

Okay, so maybe you’re earning decent money right now at a stable company; and from your current perspective, you think that you have little use for a resume at the moment.   In reality, now is the exact time that you should be updating your resume for several reasons.

Many people are unprepared for a job search when they lose their jobs unexpectedly…and just as importantly, many people are not ready with a great resume when a new job opportunity is presented to them while they are in their current jobs.  If you were fired today or if someone offered you a great chance at a new job, would you be ready with a current resume?

Updating your resume now is easier than when you are under intense time pressures.  You now have the opportunity to gather the necessary data at a reasonable pace.  Take a look at our AlphaDogResumes.com Background Analyzer, and you will see how much detail needs to be gathered to create an effective resume in today’s tough job market.  Also, the resume of today is vastly different than the resume of even three years ago.  Today, resumes must meet certain difficult parameters in order to pass muster with both Human Resources computers and staff.  Send your resume to us for a FREE Assessment, and we can tell you what needs to be done to your resume to make it fabulous….and ready for whatever happens.

Take the time now to prepare for the future…it is a good insurance policy that will make a job transition much easier.

This is another way to Dominate Your Job Search_®.

Keep Working on Your Job Search During the Holidays

It is important that you keep up your job search, or at least your preparations for your job search, during the holidays.  Otherwise, you might miss out of job openings available right now, and you might not be ready for the usual increase in hiring activity that starts in January of most years.

If you apply for full-time jobs now, you will be among fewer candidates applying for openings, since many others assume that companies are not hiring for full-time workers at this time of year.  Beat everyone else to these new openings.  The computers that review resumes these days do not take off for the holidays.

Also, it takes at least a couple of weeks to really prepare for a job search.  You need to prepare a resume package, including the perfect resume form (which you should modify for each job opening), cover letter, thank you letter and follow-up letter.  You cannot simply modify a resume sample or resume template.  Engage an expert to help you if you want the best resume possible.  It takes time to really think about what your background includes that will help establish your “brand” in this difficult economy.  Even after you have the perfect resume package, it will take hours of work to get your new resume posted on the major job search boards.  Consider hiring an expert who can distribute your resume to many search boards rapidly.

Also remember to get your references in line early.  You need to identify them, contact them to confirm that they will be good references for you and prepare a dossier of your references including all the pertinent information that potential employers will want to see if they get interested in your resume.  You will not have time to prepare your references if you wait until you get an interview callback.

Now is the time to prepare to Dominate Your Job Search_®.