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Free Resume Help
from a
Corporate Recruiting Insider
John Gates, founder of Free Resume Help, shares his insights as a Corporate Recruiting Manager and resume expert.
"If your phone’s not ringing, your resume may be the problem. It’s time to find out what’s wrong. You could be unintentionally annoying your reader with a bad resume."
Fundamentals of a Strong Resume
by John Gates, Founder of Free Resume Help
There are many people in the world, and on the web, who claim to be resume experts. There are professionally trained resume writers, book authors, and search firm recruiters. Even temporary services claim they know the secrets to resume performance. With so many advisors out there, who should you believe? Who can you trust to give you free resume help that is trustworthy?
In the world of resume success, the most qualified judge of good and bad, successful and disastrous, is the person who reads piles of resume every day. The person who separates the yes from the no. The one who lines his trashcan with most of the resumes he receives while picking up the phone to call those few who remain.
That person is me.
I’ve been a Recruiter for 15 years, and a Corporate Recruiter for the last 10. When you see an advertisement for your dream job and you e-mail or fax your resume for consideration, it lands on my desk. My job is to judge the talent represented there, decide who I will call and interview further, and who will get access to the hiring manager. If your resume can’t impress a Corporate Recruiter in 10 seconds or less, you are just wearing out the office shredder. If you’re sending out dozens of resumes and getting little to no response, your resume may be terminally ill, and this article may help you to discover a cure.
I’m going to share a few gemstones of information that should help you along. It’s frustrating to see so many resumes failing their authors. Every day, I see it. If cheap resume writing programs and services are useful, why am I throwing away 97 out of every 100 resumes I receive? That’s right…
…on average only 3% of the resumes I receive will ever get a call.
It’s painfully obvious to me that the vast majority of the so-called resume experts out there are WRONG. They don’t seem to know:
- What will appeal to a Corporate Recruiter
- What will irritate and annoy a Corporate Recruiter
- What will hook your reader
- What will get your resume immediately tossed
- How to differentiate from the crowd in a tasteful and intelligent way
- How to design a resume that appeals to humans and automated resume systems alike
A word of warning:
Read this entire article and the included linking articles, as I've included tons of free resume help and resume tips, insider secrets, critical clues, resume tips, and examples of typical resume mistakes. I hope I can help. I could write an entire book on this stuff (in fact, one is underway), so what I’ll do here is outline some basic principles.
Resumes are as individual as the stories they represent. Take care to apply your brain to this article, because what is right and best for a new college grad is not the correct course for a seasoned executive. I’m giving general advice in this article. If you feel you need more help and some individual attention, I’m happy to recommend several services that provide excellent value and individual consultation. I’ll make those recommendations at the end. Believe me, having a strong resume is well worth the effort and will pay huge dividends throughout your life.
OK, on with the advice:
Free Resume Help Tip #1: Always, ALWAYS include a specific "Objective" or "Summary" at the top of your resume. Without it, your resume is probably doomed.
Show me why!
Free Resume Help Tip #2: Make your resume speed-readable. If your resume doesn’t wow your reader in 10 seconds or less, it’s going in the trash.
Show me why!
Free Resume Help Tip #3: Build a Performance-Based Resume. Your resume should not only show what you’ve done, but how well you’ve done it. Be valuable. Show Results.
Show me how!
Free Resume Help Tip #4: Avoid standardized resume templates, cheap resume writing software programs, and inexpensive resume typing services or you’ll be lost in the crowd for sure.
Show me why!
Free Resume Help Tip #5: Design a resume that will not be butchered by the automated recruiting systems of large companies. Show me how! (article coming soon)
Free Resume Help Tip #6: Present a unified, cohesive, and persuasive sales argument for YOU. Show me how! (article coming soon)
The Cost of a Bad Resume
Now, I realize all of this is very hard to digest in one sitting. Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg in this HUGE subject area. After you apply the above, if your resume is still not producing phone calls, you may be in need to some personal counsel from an expert in the field. While consulting can be costly, imagine how much you’ll save if you can get a job just one week earlier. Yup. You’d save a week’s salary. What if your mediocre resume delays you by three months? Can you afford to go on that long? We’re not even considering possible gains in negotiating leverage when you receive an offer. Well, you get the idea.
The cost of having a poor-performing resume is much higher than the cost of obtaining a great one. Great resumes cost time, money, and sometimes both.
Still need more resume help?
If you’ve examined your situation and believe it’s time to call in an expert, I can recommend one outstanding source:
The Resume Doctor
is famous among recruiters for providing excellent product and service. When they are finished improving your resume, it will be much more productive.
Resume Doctor is not a resume writing service. What they provide, in my opionion, is infinitely more valuable.
Skilled analysts will examine your resume, offer their specific suggestions, begin building a new resume in a suggested format, and then return it to you for correction and completion. Once that’s done, they’ll even review your final draft for additional comments.
I love this service... Because it teaches you how to fish. A resume writing service will give you only one resume, but Resume Doctor will teach you to customize your own extremely effective resume while giving you individual counseling on what to do and why.
UPDATE! Special for Free Resume Help readers!
The Resume Doctor
has agreed to offer a 10% DISCOUNT to our readers! UPDATE!
TO GET THE DISCOUNT: Enter Eagles12 into the order page when you sign up for their service, and they will knock 10% off for you.
The service and associated knowledge is an incredible value at normal price. At 10% off, folks, it's a no-brainer!
Best of luck in your resume adventures,
John Gates
Founder of
Free-Resume-Help.com
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