If you’ve spent a good deal of time working on your resume but you’re still not having much luck getting interviews it may be time to take a step back and assess the situation from another perspective.  In times like these it is important to have a clear game plan and to stick to it.  You need to identify specific companies that are currently hiring, find out what they need and what you have to offer them, and to let them know how it is your skills will add directly to their bottom line.

Customizing your cover sheets and even your resume on a per employer basis is a very good idea.  Where you may have had 20-30 people competing with you for each job you applied at before, even a 1% increase in the unemployment rate can make that number jump 5 or 10-fold.  Instead of standing out among a couple dozen applicants, you may be competing with 200-300 now.  This of course depends on your industry and your location, but there are almost no sectors of the economy which are not being impacted by the recent downturn.  While the financial and automotive industries are being hit the hardest today, the loss of that many jobs at one time will have a domino effect.  All those unemployed will quit buying products and services that they did previously, which will impact all areas of the economy.

Now is the time to invest in your resume.  Go to the library or bookstore and find some books on resume writing. Tighten your belt, actively network among friends and professional acquaintances, and make sure your resume is as awesome as you are.  Jobs are more difficult to come by right now, so a positive attitude and determination are more valuable than ever before.

Motivations for getting a job

• Material needs and desires
  1. You need food. If you don’t have money for food, you can’t buy food, and as a result you won’t be in possession of food to stuff in your face and chew on, swallow, and subsequently digest.
  2. You need a place to live. If you don’t have a job you won’t make enough money to pay rent or afford a mortgagee.
• Philosophical reasons
  1. Why not? That’s just what you do. You go to school, you graduate, you find a job, and you go on with your life just like everybody else.
  2. As a person who has mooched off of the system your whole life, you now feel the need to pay your keep.

An anecdote

An old man and a young man are sitting on a bench at a bus stop. The old man has perfectly groomed hair, wears an expensive suit, and carries an ornate cane and a briefcase made of alligator skin. The young man hasn’t bathed or shaved in days, is still slightly intoxicated from the night before, and is listening to noise on his iPod.

After waiting for more than 20 minutes, the young man pulls his headphones off and demands the time from the old man. As the old man pulls back the cuff on his left wrist to reveal an expensive watch, the young man pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “9:27,” answers the old man as he studies the countenance of the young man. The young man grunts and lights his cigarette.

“What are you doing with your life?” the old man suddenly asks.

Taken aback, the young man becomes defensive and scowls, “What business is it of yours, old man?”

“I’m making it my business,” the old man immediately responds, with an unwavering and calm voice. He then strikes the young man’s shoulder with his walking stick. “Show some respect. Do you know who I am?” he queries.

As the young man recovers from the blow to his side, grasping his arm, he shrieks and begins to cry. The old man looks on with disgust. The bus arrives shortly afterward and the two seat themselves far apart from each other once they board the bus.

The following day the two men find themselves perched on the same bench. They ignore each other. For weeks the two men find themselves at the same bus stop, but never utter another word.

One day the two of them board the 9:30 AM bus to find that it is full, save two seats in the back. The young man, having jumped on the bus before the old man, seats himself next to the window in the rear of the bus and looks out the window. The old man, with but one choice, eventually finds his way to the back and seats himself next to the young man. They briefly look at each other, but the young man breaks his gaze and looks out the window for the next ten minutes.

“What are you doing with your life?” the old man again asks.

“What’s your problem, old man?” the young man immediately shoots back. “What are you doing riding the bus if your life is such a success? You’re as old as my grandfather and you can’t even afford a car.”

The old man’s eyes begin to twitch, and soon thereafter he begins to weep quietly but uncontrollably. His body heaves as he gasps for air between his quiet sobs.

When the bus arrives at the young man’s stop, he pushes the old man’s knees out of his way and hops off the bus. The old man looks out the window as the young man trudges down the sidewalk. The young man turns his head and glances as the bus at it accelerates away. The old man waves to the young man, who is quite taken aback. The young man can see that the old man’s face is stained with tears as he catches one fleeting glimpse.

The following day the young man arrives at the bus stop to find it empty.

The end

What does this anecdote mean? Why did the old man begin to weep? Why was the old man dressed well but riding the bus? Was he formerly wealthy only to have bad luck or tragedy befall his successful life?

I have no idea. That’s the whole point… the anecdote doesn’t mean anything. I just made it up and despite it taking up a few minutes of your time, it was ultimately without any meaning at all. You just took for granted that there was some important nugget of knowledge or something interesting to be gleaned.

This is the problem people make in their careers and in lives

Most people live their lives with aimless determination. They never take the time to examine existence or what their purpose is. They get a job and bring home a paycheck every couple weeks. They buy food and eventually a home, start a family and then suddenly find themselves aged and confused.

How can you avoid feeling like you’ve missed out on the opportunities of life?

1. Have goals.  This seems like a no-brainer, but despite its simplicity it is very important.  If you just have some vague idea of success but you have not mapped out points along the way, you will never be successful.
2. Audit yourself.  If you start to slack off or become lazy, and you are never any closer to achieving your goals.  You need to have set days each week, month, and year when you gauge your progress and adjust your goals.
3. Work hard.  There’s no way around working hard.

For most other professions there’s really no legitimate reason for an employer to see what you look like. In many countries it is illegal to discriminate in hiring based on the race or gender of an applicant, so many employers would actually rather you didn’t include your picture as it can lead to allegations of impropriety. Because of the social norms that determine whether or not a picture is acceptable, employers may actually be suspicious or turned off by an applicant who feels their picture will help them get a job. It seems superficial, and many employers would rather have an average looking, hard-working employee than a good-looking, lazy employee. The fact that you felt your picture was relevant may give the impression that you need to use your looks because your skills are lacking.

While this limited picture policy is the norm in most countries, there are exceptions elsewhere. In fact, in some parts of the World it is not only acceptable to put your picture on your resume, but encouraged. In these job markets, unfortunately, good looks and the “right” race can make all the difference.

Despite all this, it’s easy to imagine the curiosity of an employer as they read a resume. Sight is the strongest of all our senses, and it plays an important role in forming a first impression. Most of us use a person’s appearance to help gauge their trustworthiness, character, hygiene, and other important factors that an employer is very interested in. These impressions may not be the most accurate, but they are something we rely on heavily.

While your picture probably doesn’t convey much of importance about you, it’s definitely something that human nature drives us to have a curiosity about. If you put your picture on your resume, the employer will look at it. Whether it plays a role in you getting an interview or not depends on the employer.

This brings us back to the original question. Should you put your picture on your resume? The long answer: only if you’re applying for a job where it would be appropriate, or if you look like a super model. The short answer: no.

If you do decide to flaunt your visage on your resume, you’ll be happy to know that the MyResume resume builder allows you to attach images and other documents to your resume! Register for your own online resume now!

Problems with your resume

• Double the contact information on your resume and cover letter. If you put the wrong phone number or email address on there, you may be missing out on some job interviews. Correct this immediately unless you don’t really want a job. This is the awesome type of advice you come here for!
• Make sure your resume is in tip top shape. If the calls aren’t pouring in after you’ve distributed several resumes, it might be that you’re not selling yourself effectively.
  • Read it again. If it has been a few weeks since you last revised your resume, you probably forgot what’s on it. Your mind will have cleared and you might pick up on some errors in grammar or, more importantly, things that just don’t make sense or seem appropriate. When you read through it put yourself in the shoes of a potential employer. What’s your impression of yourself based solely on your resume? Why wouldn’t you want to hire this person?
  • Small things can make a big difference. While a misspelled word or two probably isn’t the reason for your silent telephone, little things you unintentionally reveal about yourself can.
    • Their / There / They’re: If you’re not certain which means what, you need to have somebody proofread your resume who does. Some people are really bugged by this.
    • The same goes for other commonly misspelled and misused words. Your / You’re and It’s / Its are a couple other biggies. If your transposing these words and contractions it reflects poorly on you’re resume. If you’re a little hazy on these or any other words or grammar for that matter, you should definitely have somebody else look your resume over. Even if you don’t take it to a professional resume writer, having somebody with a strong handle on the written word help you edit it can do wonders for its readability.
• Is there too much fluff in your resume?
  • If your resume is too long or too descriptive, busy managers may not want to tackle it. They’re generally busy and want things in easily digestible chunks — especially if they are reviewing hundreds or thousands of resumes for the position you want.
  • Remember, the purpose of a resume is to get an interview. If you leave out some of the specifics but give the employer enough to make them interested in hearing more, you may have more luck getting an interview than if you tell them everything up front.
• Did you lie on your resume?
  • Just because your resume is well written, that doesn’t mean employers believe everything in it.
  • If you told some fibs in your resume, they may be costing you a job that you might have gotten if you were honest.
    • Remember that there are other fish in the sea — because that’s what employers are thinking when they read your resume. If you sound too good to be true, they may not want to take the time to find out. Don’t toot your horn too much unless you absolutely deserve it.
    • You don’t have to get every job you apply for — just one. You don’t have to impress everybody beyond their wildest dreams. You are looking for a job after all, not a life partner.
• If you sell yourself too well, employers may not think they can afford you.
  • As you well know, you never want to be the first party to name a salary. Don’t boast about previous salaries or invent previous job titles that typically command salaries far higher than you can realistically get.
  • Because your resume is generally the only information they have before interviewing you on phone or in person, they may weed you out if you sound like you think too much of yourself.
  • This is also one reason why it’s generally unwise to lie about your previous salaries once you get past the initial interview stage. They may call your bluff.

Applying for the wrong jobs

• Applying for a job as an accountant won’t do you much good if your degree is in nursing.
• Even if you are open to a wide variety of jobs, it’s best to have a resume that shows focus.
• You may consider writing two or three versions of your resume with each focusing on a different type of job (so long as you are qualified for each of them).
• Be realistic. Everybody has to start from the bottom; if you’re a new graduate or are changing careers, you can’t expect to start out half way up the ladder. Don’t spend all your time applying for jobs that you don’t have a chance for.

Applying at the wrong companies

• If you’re in your 40’s or 50’s and you apply for jobs at “young” companies, you may have some difficulty getting an interview. While age discrimination may not be legal in your area, you have to be realistic.
• Likewise, if you’re a hermit and you apply for jobs that demand outgoing personalities (sales, for instance), you aren’t going to have much luck.
• Apply to local companies or move to your desired destination. It is very difficult to get a job, let alone an interview, if you live a long ways away from the company. Not only is it difficult to organize a face to face interview, many employers balk at the costs of flying you to their location and/or potential relocation costs.

Other issues

• If your resume is excellent, you’re qualified for the jobs and there aren’t any other problems mentioned above, you may need to look at some other factors.
  • Do you give off a bad vibe in your resume or on the phone? You need to woo employers with your manners and mannerisms. They’re looking for somebody to join their team, and they want to know they can get along with you.
  • Is there something bad in your history? Whether it be a large gap in employment on your resume or a police record, you need to consider these things as you try to get to the bottom of your difficulty getting an interview. Take a look at our article about how employers research you on the Internet.

If you’ve covered all your bases and none of the above problems apply to you or your resume, send out some more resumes. The more jobs you apply to the, more interviews you’ll get!

Even after you land a job you should take a look at your resume from time to time, to add to it and edit it. When it’s time to start looking for a your next job you will find it is much easier to get it into shape if you’ve kept it up to date over the years. Your resume, in addition to helping you land interviews, also gives you a nice overview of your professional achievements; it serves as concise inventory of where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished and contributed in your life. Looking at it from time to time can serve as a motivational tool as you contemplate your life and set goals for the future.  Unless, of course, you fibbed on your resume, in which case it will be a constant reminder that your employment and possibly life in general are based on lies

If you’re like me, you find it hard to spend long stretches of time working on your resume and editing it to a point where you it reaches the point of perfection.  So, once you’ve brought it up to a reasonable level that you’re satisfied with, take a break.

• Distribute a few of them.  The sooner you start handing them out, the sooner you can gauge how well others see your resume.  Interviews are a good indicator that your resume is not only “pretty good” but that it is “pretty awesome.”
• Plan to come back and work on your resume again once you’ve had a few days away from it.
  • When you procrastinate and eventually convince yourself that your resume is “good enough” even though you know it is lacking, scold yourself and take a time out in the corner.  After 15 minutes of alone time to contemplate the disservice you’ve done yourself by neglecting your resume, return to your computer and get back to work.
  • You’ll find a renewed sense of urgency and interest in your resume, particularly because you know after the 15 minutes of deep transcendental meditation in the corner that if you don’t churn out an amazing resume you may very well spend the rest of your life working at a job you don’t like.
  • You’ll have come to the realization that if you don’t try your very hardest at this moment in your life to get the best job possible, you will one day be that old guy at the bowling alley with a huge gut and a penchant for quoting lines from Big Lebowski to friends from work who bowl a mean game but whose disappointing utter satisfaction with their current, very ordinary and mundane lives, will leave you in the throes of confusion over this very long run on sentence that doesn’t seem like it has a whole lot to do with resume writing, but nonetheless has made you very sad and given you a renewed interest in working very hard on your resume.  This brings up an excellent point — get one of your friends who is an English major to read over your resume.  You probably didn’t get an English major, and you may very well lack the ability to string together a coherent sentence.  That’s where your friends, with their English majors and unnatural repulsion to innocent but grammatically incorrect sentences will come in handy.  Despite being excellent proofreaders, don’t let your friends with liberal arts degrees give you career advice.  After all, they are probably going to end up with jobs that pay considerably less than you, which means they either lack a healthy sense of the important things in job satisfaction (enough money to enable you to comfortably ignore all the bad things about your job) or you are in fact the person with an English degree, in which case I apologize for saying what I did.  But the question is now hanging in the air like the incense that you are no doubt burning in your small efficiency at this very moment: why are you taking advice from me if you’re the one with a superior handle on the English language?  But I digress.
• Show your resume to your friends and get their input before you reach the point of mental exhaustion.  If you’re having difficult bringing your resume up from the “pretty good” to the “totally awesome” status, and feel like you’re just pounding your head against the wall, it’s time to ask somebody else what they think of your progress.  Make sure you get input from the friends of yours who are pompous egotists.  They’ll be happy to point out even the slightest of flaws in your resume because they are not very good friends.  While they have a knack for making note of your smallest flaws, they are really empty inside and are very unsatisfied with their own lives.  You can use their keen sense of criticism to smooth out the wrinkles in your resume, while at the same time stoking their overblown egos by making them think you came to them because you think they are smart.  You will have done a good deed for the day.  But I digress.

The next time you meet one of your professional goals or do something exceptional, you should put it on your resume right away. Even if you don’t keep your resume in a final polished state while you’re off the market, this good habit will help you document things that you might forget when you begin the search for your next job.

Most companies out there use the following strategy to find new hires

1. Do nothing. That’s right, most companies don’t actively recruit for non-critical positions. It’s not uncommon for an “empty” position to go unfilled for many weeks or months.
   • This is especially true at larger companies where a few empty cubicles won’t adversely impact the company. As our economy continues to slump, we are going to see a lot of companies adopt this attitude to recruiting.
   • While some companies will simply stop hiring as they tighten their belts, others will take a receptive, but less proactive approach to finding new employees. That means that they probably won’t advertise heavily, but if the right person comes along they would be happy to take a look at what you have to offer.
2. Recruit from within. A lot of positions are filled from within companies. It’s very typical for companies to post ads internally. While a lot of these will be filled by employees moving from one position to another, many of them will be filled by acquaintances of employees. This is where where networking comes in handy. You should let your friends and family know that you’re looking for a job, and ask them to keep an eye out for anything that you might be interested in. The focus of this article is not on networking; while it can be very effective, you shouldn’t depend on it so much as use it passively in your job hunt.
3. Post a few job ads on the Internet. Small companies especially will start small in their forays into advertising their empty positions. It’s expensive! Putting an ad on most of the high traffic websites costs several hundred dollars for a single position. Since it typically takes weeks or even months for the right employee to come along, this can translate into several thousands of dollars just to fill one position. Newspaper advertisements are typically even more expensive.
4. Hire somebody now. The previous steps can take days or months, but eventually they realize they’re not going to fill the position without making a serious effort; now they will step up their campaign. This may mean more spending on newspaper or online advertisements, or even hiring a recruiter. When they get to this point they’re typically very eager to fill the position. They’re either unwilling or unable to wait any longer to fill the position.

You may be asking, “If this is the way it works, why do employers waste so much time? Why not just accept that it’s going to cost a lot to find somebody, and fill the position immediately?”

As it turns out, this is the most cost-effective strategy. The reason is that a lot of jobs get filled without significant spending on advertising or recruiters, so it makes sense to wait a while before resorting to these methods. While networking is responsible for a lot of the filled positions in the “invisible job market,” a lot of the new hires are complete strangers. They literally walked in off the street and asked for a job.

The big misconception is that companies will let everybody know when they are hiring. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most medium and large sized companies are always hiring. They may not be actively looking, but if the right candidate showed up at any time they would be very happy to make a job offer. Even with low turnover, companies with hundreds of employees almost always have one or two empty positions.

Don’t be timid. If you would love to work at a certain company, send them a cover letter and resume now. Even if they aren’t interested in hiring at this moment, they won’t just forget you. Human resources departments always like to keep a pool of potential candidates on hand in the event that the business decides it needs to fill a position quickly.

Taking advantage of the invisible job market has advantages over the traditional job market

1. Less competition. If you apply months before they planned to advertise the position, you may get the job without having to compete against anybody else.
2. More pay. By coming to the company before it spent a lot of money on advertising, they may be in a position to offer you more. Once they’ve spent several thousands of dollars and weeks of HR time cultivating and interviewing applicants, the company may feel like you’ve already cost them a bundle.

When it comes down to it, the fact is you need a job.  You need to put food on the table and a new 48″ plasma TV with hi-def and all kinds of other features you couldn’t possibly live without.  So instead of reading this website or casually browsing the help wanted ads on the ‘net and in the newspaper, you should be hitting the street and finding the job you deserve.  It’s already out there on the invisible job market; it’s yours for the taking… you just have to ask for it.

Our current version has the following features:

• Your own subdomain of myresume.org!
  • E.g. If your name is Bill Jones, you could have your resume located at http://billjones.myresume.org
• Attach up to 5 files to your resume. You can currently upload images {JPG and GIF} and documents {PDF, DOC, TXT}!
• Awesome interface designed by yours truly. Okay, so it’s not *that* awesome [yet], but my mom says it’s cool… and she would never lie to me to protect my feelings!
• Free technical support! (okay, so this isn’t really a feature but, hey, it is free)
• 200% more exclamation points

Please note that the editor requires you to have a JavaScript enabled browser. 99% of browsers have this feature enabled by default, so if you’re not sure you should be fine. If the editor doesn’t work you can either enable JavaScript or get the newest version of Firefox if your current browser doesn’t support it.

We have several additional features in the pipeline, but if there’s something you would like to see just let us know.

If you have any problems, questions or comments, please leave a comment below!

A: You search for their name on Google.

What happens when you search for your own name?

Do you like what you find? If you’re like a lot of younger people today who are entering the job market, you may have some embarrassing things out there that you probably regret.

Whether it be a risque photo on Facebook or a post from years ago on some forum from your younger days, the Internet does not forget.

What can you do?

Find everything that’s out there. Inventory all the locations on the Internet that could conceivably be linked to you. This means searching for your name and email address on the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN). A lot of times you will find things on one search engine that the other two don’t have.

Don’t forget to search for several variations of your personal information:

• Search for your full name: First Middle Last
• Search for your first and last names: First Last
• If you have an uncommon last name, search for it by itself: Last

If you get back a lot of results (100+) and they’re not all about you, then you need to refine your search. Repeat the above searches but put quotation marks around them. This will restrict the search to sites where your information has appeared in that exact order.

Here are some other searches you should do:

• Email address
• Telephone number
• Any monikers that are linked to your name. E.g. if your email address has a unique word or phrase in it that you also use to post on forums, search for this as well.

This is probably as far as most employers will go. However, these days it is important that you also look on the major social networking sites; search on Facebook and MySpace, if nowhere else. Even if you don’t have a profile on these sites, it’s important to find out if anybody else has written anything about you.

Cancel or make your social networking profiles private. Unless you set up your profile specifically for the purpose of job hunting, you really don’t want to expose too much of your personal life to potential employers.

Now what?

That depends on what your searches turned up. If your searches returned nothing, then you’re in the minority. Most people in their teens and twenties will have results from their school or college websites at the very least. These won’t hurt you, and they can in fact help you if the information is positive. Honor roll or extracurricular news on your school’s website is what you want to show up when employers look up your name.

If your searches came back full of things you’d rather forget, then you have some work to do in getting it removed.

• If your friends have a lot of photos of you on their social networking profiles, you should ask them to remove the risque ones immediately. Also ask them to remove any other information from their profiles that you would rather keep personal.
• If your name graced the headlines in a police blotter on a newspaper website, that’s not the first thing you want employers to discover about you. If such an incident occurred a long time ago but is still in on the newspaper website, you’ve got some work to do. Some newspapers discard old news stories after a certain period of time, meaning your brush with the law (if trivial) will probably disappear after some time. Unfortunately a lot of newspapers are beginning to archive everything they ever printed. If this is the case then you have a couple options:

1. Call them up and politely ask them to remove the article or police blotter entry. If you really are innocent and didn’t do anything wrong, you can truthfully explain to the newspaper that you were found innocent and that it is harming your reputation.
2. If you were found not so innocent, and they refuse to take your name off of their website, then you’ll have to get creative. One way is to put your name out on the Internet in a lot of positive places. Start a blog about your industry and post some clean and helpful material on forums and others’ blogs on subjects you are interested in. The more positive things you have contributed, the better, because not only will it give employers the “other side of the story” about you, it may even prevent them from finding that negative stuff. If the negative mentions of you get pushed to the second or third page of the search results, you’re probably home free.

Regardless of what you searches turn up, putting your resume on the Internet is a good idea. Not only can it crowd out some of the potentially negative things out there, it gives employers an up to date version of your resume. It’s also a lot easier to distribute than a traditional paper resume! Get started now by registering for our online resume service. Doing so will give you a simple address (e.g. example.myresume.org) and you can make changes at any time.