Taking The Resume Reader’s Needs Into Consideration

Before you write your own resume, examine professionally written resume samples to get ideas about writing styles and eye-catching resume formats. Then, write your resume with the reader in mind. If they are seeking someone with your background and skill set, be sure to make that the focus of your resume.

Do not use the resume templates that come with your word processor. They look like everyone else’s resume on the hiring manager’s desk.

Take the extra time needed to add visual appeal to your resume. If you are not able to do this effectively, you should seriously consider retaining the services of a professional resume writer. Be sure to ask them if they specialize in creating eye-catching resume formats in addition to their writing services.

Your goal should be to make a connection between what the hiring manager is seeking and what you have to offer in those select areas.

To get that message across at first glance, make your objective clear and highly visible. You can do this by creating a job title and positioning it prominently below your name and address. It tells the hiring manager what you are all about and sets the tone for the rest of the resume.

RESUME HEADING
Your resume heading should in bold and all caps such as this: REGIONAL SALES MANAGER

PROFILE
Your Profile or Summary section is a coutesy to the reader. It allows them to sum you up in short order. This important section sets the tone for the resume and highlights your key qualifications. This way the hiring manager can quickly get a sense who you professionally without having to read the entire resume.

Specifically, this section should list your number of years of experience, industry, credentials, and key attributes that are essential to the position you are targeting. For example, if the position is sales, your attributes would be strong communicator, strategic negotiator, and ability to establish and build key business relationships.

KEYWORDS
Keywords or industry jargon can be included in your Summary or throughout your entire resume (recommended) so you can communicate your select areas of skills by listing appropriate areas of interest specific to the job.

In the case scenario for a sales professional, these keywords might be as follows: relationship building, territory sales management, client consultation, public speaking, sales presentations, contract negotiations, value-added selling, client training and support. One of the best sources to find relevant keywords is in job ads.

ACHIEVEMENTS
This is no time to be shy and modest. You will want to toot your horn a bit by including your most impressive achievements. Your accomplishments should be presented in a factual or story telling way that gives the reader the sense that you do more than just your basic responsibilities and are not a clock watcher.

ACTION VERBS
Do not make the mistake of starting every sentence off with “responsible for”. That is understood. Try playing with action verbs such as led, directed, supervised, spearheaded, steered, guided, and executed. Instead of writing a sentence like this: Responsible for distribution operations throughout the Metro New York Area, consider revising it to read like this: Managed distribution operations throughout the Metro New York Area. Here is another example: Led the success of distribution operations throughout the Metro New York Area.

CONSISTENCY
Watch for consistency in present and past tense. If you are no longer with a company, be sure to make it past tense. Just as important, triple check for typos. Have someone else read your resume for misspellings, dates, missing periods and obviously poor grammar.

Again, review professionally written resume samples to get ideas about writing styles and eye-catching resume formats. But, make the effort to make it your own.

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How To Safely Bulk Up A Thin Resume

Many individuals starting out in the world of being an employee have to begin by pounding the pavement to find a job. Being presentable for an employment opportunity can be difficult, however, when you don’t have any work history.

Bulking up your resume to show potential employers that you do, indeed, have skills and assets their company needs really isn’t that hard, and with some initiative, filling up the employment history section of your resume can be done.

There are a lot of easy, mostly hassle-free ways to add to your work history. Volunteer work is a time-honored favorite, as it allows for work experience without needing any prior knowledge. Since most local and state government institutions are perpetually under-funded, they’ll assign drudge work to just about anyone. The tasks aren’t glamorous, but the experience is better than nothing. Keeping in mind that, when volunteering and also in general, good job references are important and you should avoid annoying or irritating your supervisor, regardless of whether you receive compensation or not for your duties.

Public events are another potential place to earn work experience through volunteering. Galas and tournaments to raise money for a cause usually require a sizable number of volunteers, and since these types of events last only a few days at most, there’s no long-term commitment required for work experience that looks good on a resume. If you can manage to land a volunteer position at one of these events that involves organization or management, even better – these skills are highly desired by potential employers.

Independent enterprise is another possible source of work experience. Any serious attempts and efforts you’ve put into a money-making enterprise, whether your own or someone else’s, show initiative and motivation. If you hauled speakers for your friend’s garage rock group during a public battle of the bands in your area, you can list that on your resume. If you wrote a poem that was accepted for a collection, even an unpublished small-press business, you can mark the information down on your resume as well. You can also make independent enterprise opportunities happen as well. Independent enterprise isn’t quite as easy to come across as opportunities to volunteer, but it’s a very good option for gaining work experience.

Though the really important, money-making diplomas will take years to earn, increasing your education section on your resume isn’t much harder than doing some volunteering or venturing into independent enterprise. Certification programs, from computer programming to private investigating, often require little more than forty or so hours of instruction and can be taken at most community colleges or similar educational facilities. Ideally, what you learn can be applied to the job you’re hoping to land, but courses and certifications also show initiative, something all employers are looking for in first-time job seekers.

Bulking up your resume using these ideas involve stealth opportunities – easy to overlook yet potent, if applied properly. Doubtlessly, there are other ways to improve a resume when you have no prior employment, but in truth, anything that shows that you have dedication, initiative, motivation, and ambition is good to add to your resume. With that in mind, go out there and see what opportunities you can come up with – there’s always something better than nothing.

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John Edmond owns and writes regularly for Careerbuilder Jobs where you can find more information and advice on all aspects of a writing a resume and job searching.

Writing a Nursing Resume – What You Need to Know

Whether you’re still in school or you’re finally done and want to get a job, you want to start thinking about your nursing resume. This will be a document that showcases your skills and expertise thus far and will help you get into the best hospitals and nursing positions. If you have aspirations to further your nursing degree and enter a management position, you may want to start building a resume that is going to help you in the future.

When You’re Still in School

If you’re currently a nursing student, you have ample information and activities that you could include on your resume. Including information about your education, experiences, and outside activities will create a resume that sells your skills as a nurse when you’re out trying to get your first job. Here are some things that you need to include on your nursing resume at this point:

• The details of your college background
• The details of your nursing education
• Any additional classes you may have taken outside of your nursing curriculum
• Any volunteer work that you have done related to nursing
• Any groups or organizations you are a part of
• Any leadership positions you have held

What you’re trying to do at this point is show that you are committed to being a nurse and a good one at that. Prospective employers want to see that you are educated, that you are interested in learning more, and that you are responsible. Of course, you don’t want to take on so much responsibility that you are overwhelmed and not getting anything out of these tasks.

When You Have Graduated

If you have already graduated from nursing school and are looking to find a new job, you can still include all of the same information that appeared on your resume as a nursing student. Your resume should look professional and be absolutely clear as to what background you have and what you are interested in.

Some other points to keep in mind for your resume:

• It should be typed on professional paper
• It should be free of grammatical and spelling errors
• It should have your current address and contact information
• It should include your nursing school transcript
• It should contain a goal for your nursing career – i.e. I see myself

working with children. This will focus your resume and depict which positions interest you.

As you gain experience in the nursing field, you should add onto your list of accomplishments as a nurse, including any specialized training you have received or additional courses and degrees you have achieved – i.e. RN or BSN. This will further prove to those that read your resume that you are the best person for the job.

When You Have Management Experience

If you are looking to extend your nursing degree to a management or supervisory level and you have other management experience in other career paths, you might want to include this on your nursing resume. This will show that you are capable of managing others and that you can combine past experiences to help you in your new career.

Building a nursing resume is just like building any other resume that you may have had in the past. However, you want to prove that you are qualified for each health care position that you apply for.

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Does Your Resume Writing Make The Grade?

When a job vacancy attracts a popular response, the recruiter simply may not have time to read each and every application in its entirety. That’s why it’s so important to have a resume that catches the reader’s immediate interest and gets your application the attention it deserves.

If you fail at this stage, you run the risk of having your resume consigned to the pile marked ‘regrets’. But because time is at a premium, it’s also difficult to get feedback about why your application didn’t make the shortlist.

So if your resume isn’t getting you through the interviewer’s door for the jobs you want, it’s time to re-think your strategy. Here are three questions to help you give your resume a quick assessment test:

1. Do you know enough about your prospective employer?

These days, it’s easy to find out details about almost any company by doing research online. Enter the name in the search engine of your choice and look for the company website. If they have a section devoted to press releases or other media information, you may find freshly updated news about recent developments.

You may also be able to obtain company brochures and reports. Check to see if these are available as PDF documents which you can download to your computer. This will be quicker than ordering them to be sent by mail.

You can also visit the websites of local or national newspapers to look for articles which refer to the company.

The information you find will help you to fine tune your resume and highlight your appropriate strengths and assets. It’s also very helpful to show your familiarity with the company in your cover letter, follow-up correspondence and interview discussion.

2. Have you written a summary statement or profile that is geared to the employer’s immediate requirements?

The beginning of your resume (under your contact information) is a great spot in which to put your most persuasive selling points. This is where you can mention your current job level and the field in which you’ve gained the bulk of your experience. Make sure to mention the results of your activities, not just a list of the duties your work comprises.

Analyze the job advertisement or description to find basic competencies that the employer wants and map your own skills against these requirements. Make sure to include appropriate keywords in this section that will help to score a match in resume scanning software.

3. Do you back up your claims with convincing evidence?

Avoid casting doubt on your attributes by being vague on key details. Measure your accomplishments wherever possible to validate your skills. You can use figures, percentages or other data to quantify aspects such as:

* numbers of personnel managed
* successes in financial or budgetary management
* achievements such as improved performance against targets or a time-scale

Avoid weakening your credibility by including anything in your resume that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in an interview. Make sure you can justify every detail with solid evidence.

If your resume isn’t getting you results, maybe it’s time to redraft. A powerful summary backed up by persuasive evidence can help your resume to pass the ten second ’scan test’.

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Resume Writing Success – The Five Secrets to Working Smarter, Not Harder

Are you are working harder than you should be at your job search? And are your results are too low? Let me show you five ways to make it easier while ending up with better job offers for a lot more money. What I’m about to tell you has helped hundreds of job hunters who have been able to work smarter, not harder, and get better results in the process.

That’s the key. You need to take steps to work smarter – to cultivate an attitude that makes things happen. Here are the five secrets:

1. Job Hunters who work smarter, not harder, position themselves as problem solvers.

How would you respond if you went to your doctor with a complaint and he or she immediately, without an examination or explanation, ordered surgery?

Sounds incredible, I know. But it illustrates a common mistake you may be making.

If you are marketing yourself to an employer, you are like a physician. You must first be credible. An important way to do that is to thoroughly “examine” your prospect – with intelligent questions – before you make a “diagnosis” – suggest a solution.

Remember, your interviewer is likely overwhelmed with a barrage of resumes, interviews, and more. They don’t want mere information from you, they get plenty of that. What they really want is a problem solver who inspires trust.

As smart job hunter, you do everything you possibly can to win your client’s trust by positioning yourself as an expert consultant.

2. Job Hunters who work smarter, not harder, realize that the smart way is the best way – 20 of their results, so by working smart – and actually working less – they can actually achieve much more.

Mass mailing and email blasting are tried and true methods of getting your resume out. But beware; you will get the chaff along with the wheat. Companies trolling for cheaper help will interview almost anybody while looking for people feeling desperate enough to work for less than they are worth. You may get also get interviews by companies always looking for help because they chew up and spit out management and sales people on a regular basis. Yes, there are a lot of low-level, poor quality interviews out there. If you are the type who doesn’t like to spin your wheels on these things, there are other options.

One way to work smart is to stop sending you resume to anyone and everyone. Instead, concentrated on finding prospects that are, in marketing terms, ready to buy.

In the long run this is easier, less time is wasted in poor quality interviews, and the rate of interview offers will skyrocket. And with higher quality interviews, better job offers will follow.

3. A Job Hunter who is working smarter, not harder, will focus on reaching milestones rather than the overall result.

Much like an entrepreneur starting a new business, a job hunter can be overwhelmed. The key to getting through this is breaking the job search into a series of steps. The first step might be to go through the resume writing process. The second might be to find employers experiencing difficulties you can help them with. The third is contacting these employers by getting your resume in front of decision makers. And these steps can be broken down into smaller steps.

By having the first step completed, a job hunter is positioned to get those interviews that he really wanted.

By breaking the job search down into a series of discrete steps, and reaching milestones for each of those steps, the job hunter has taken control of the job search process. You need to do the same thing for your job search: break it down into small steps, and focus on reaching a do-able milestone in each step.

4. A Job Hunter who is working smarter, not harder, will do things differently than others in their field, especially follow-up.

A company I was working for put me in charge of purchasing what was for us an expensive computer upgrade including networking, broadband connections, software, etc. – about $30,000. We called the leading firms in the area and tried to get salespeople to visit us. We found it very hard to get a phone call returned. What was worse, the salespeople who eventually came out were poorly prepared. And when they promised us references and proposals, they rarely followed up.

But one salesperson broke the mold. He followed up. He spent time with us. He was knowledgeable about his competitors’ as well as his own product.

One day when our company had opened a new office and it got a small notice in a business journal. He stopped in to congratulate us. We bought from him, simply because we did not have the time to figure out what the “best” solution was for our needs, and we trusted him. He did things differently from the rest and he got a sale as a result.

In my work with hundreds of job hunters, I find that the best ones ALWAYS do things differently than the rest. They get interviews differently, they network differently, they make their calls differently. In today’s world, doing things differently will prove to be a major ingredient in your success.

One thing that stands out among the successful job hunters is that they consistently and sometimes creatively follow up. Follow up is rare. In fact, studies have claimed that only 1 of job hunters follow up. Therefore, when it is done, it gets noticed. Following up after an interview is a great way, and the smart way, to build trust.

5. A job hunter who is working smarter, not harder, will listen more than talk

Here is an undeniable truth of job hunting: The more your interviewer talks, the higher your chances are of getting a job offer.

It’s really that simple. Sales people will tell you that even if they do a tremendous presentation, they seldom make a sale if they do all the talking. It is imperative that the prospect speaks — and the more the better. If you do most of the talking, they will usually not offer you the job – and the irony is, you will never know why because you were too busy talking to find out!

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that listening is a passive activity. It is not – it’s active. And listening is not an easy habit to acquire, because we are all so preoccupied with our own concerns that we find it hard to shut our minds down and really listen.

But if you learn to listen, it will pay huge dividends, in a better job offer and in a better life.

The way to listen is to pay close attention to what is being said by using your whole being, not just your ears. You direct your full consciousness to the persons or people who you are with. When your mind occasionally wanders onto what you will do tomorrow, or what you did yesterday, or on some fantasy or problem, you simply direct your focus back onto what your interviewers are saying. There is a lot to listening and if you become a master listener you will become a master job hunter.

By really understanding these five secrets and acting on them, you will work less while achieving significant increases in your results, starting today.

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Get the job you want now!

Notus Career Management can help you land your next job. Career change? More money? More time off? We know what works and can help you get the job you want! … job work help resume interview career change…

Get maximum efficiency with online job posting.

When it comes to recruiting new employees, there are several methods that meet the purpose. Whether it’s posting a newspaper advertisement or browsing through previous applications, all methods have their advantages and disadvantages. However, no method is as efficient or as popular as online job posting. These days, all companies choose to post online ads, rather than traditional newspaper ads. The internet offers and endless pool of candidates and more control over the people who you would or wouldn’t like to be interviewing further on. Smashfly Technologies provides innovative ideas to help you make the most out of your online recruitment advertising campaign.

A functional society is one where everybody has a fair chance of choosing a place of employment and advancing up the corporate ladder according to their abilities. Job postings are at the very foundation of the workforce marketing, supporting the dynamics of the employees and the needs of the employers. Whenever a company is in need of a new employee, the first step it takes is organizing a recruitment advertising campaign. Traditionally, companies would place an ad in a local newspaper and organize interviews with the suitable applicants. Needless to say, this task was highly time consuming and the results were often unsatisfactory. These days however, with online recruiting, companies have endless options. The candidate pool is no longer limited to a certain area and the odds of finding the best person to take the job are considerably higher.

Recruiting new employees is an elaborate process which begins with advertising the job opening. The immediate result of an online recruitment advertising campaign is receiving a certain number of applications from those interested in occupying the position. Sorting out the applications can be a time consuming task but with specialized job marketing software it can be done rapidly and effortlessly. The next step is setting up interview with the suitable candidates. Nowadays, interviews can even be conducted online to save parties a lot of time. Once the interviews are over, it’s up to the management team to choose their favorites. Online job posting expands the range of searching for candidates to virtually everywhere, enabling companies to make the best employment choices.

Online job posting isn’t only advantageous for employers but for those in search of an employment opportunity as well. Finding a job online is just a few clicks away, no matter where you’re located. For those who are looking for a job in their own country, the opportunities are also numerous – they’ll find an extensive database of jobs across the region. Many websites also allow candidates to narrow down the search by job category or position level. Other advantages include searching by date, company, viewing job profiles, resume posting, salary calculators, career resource links and so on.

We live in a world of endless opportunities – and what better place to observe this than the internet? The World Wide Web is an unlimited resource of pretty much anything you can think of. Employers and employees alike have had much to gain from the online job posting system. Smashfly Technologies offer the latest in online recruitment advertising support.

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Career Change Time? Consider Software Testing

The profession of software testing emerged in the early nineties when personal computers became more popular as they became more affordable. The fast-growing population of PC users created new opportunities for software companies as well as strong competition for the consumers business.

The new generation of software users quite naturally expected their applications to work as advertised. At the same time, market forces encouraged the fast release of new software often at the sacrifice of thorough testing. Defective software does not sell.

The software industry soon recognized that, to achieve success, they would have to set quality standards prior to release and create thorough end-user testing procedures in-house.

In 1992, I got my very first job as a Software QA Engineer literally by accident: an old friend introduced me to a small startup company in Newark where he worked at the time. My job there was to identify functionality and performance problems in a client-server database application.

I searched for fellow testers for professional networking; but I found none. I approached over two dozen software developers asking if they knew of anyone who tests software for a living. They had never heard of software testers and could see no use for them since they tested their own software.

I found myself wondering what growth potential, if any, there may be in this career. In particular, I wanted to know how much I could earn as a software tester. I approached our VP of Engineering with this question. He suggested that, if I stay with the company for five years and do really well, I might hope to make up to $40,000 a year.

A small group of developers who had heard this exchange were clearly skeptical. I read the look on their faces, “That’ll be the day!”

In May of 1993 the startup I worked for collapsed. In the course of a week, there were five advertisements in the San Jose Mercury News for software QA positions. I sent a resume to each, which resulted in two job interviews the following week and one on-the-spot job offer.

My new employer was a multimedia startup. And guess what – that job paid 25 percent more than my previous one. Three months later I got a raise, which brought me to a $40,000 salary, exactly the projected five-year target thought to be unrealistic. My new employers were exceptionally successful. They sold the company profitably six months later. The new owners restructured the business and I was back in the job market again.

What I discovered in my new job search amazed me. Where I had found only five software quality assurance listings over the course of a week, I was now finding 10-12 listings a day. I had 3-4 interviews a week, sometimes two interviews a day, and received many offers within a month. The market had grown dramatically within a single year and the demand for software testers far exceeded the supply.

I chose the company that offered me strong exposure to automated testing, my passion at the time; but I could not help mulling over the amazing growth in demand for software testers and the equally amazing lack of supply.

In the mid-90s, software testing was still a new profession. Between 1994 and 1997, half of QA graduates of many small and big local QA schools became the first person in their companies specifically hired as software testers.

Today, most software companies have a dedicated quality assurance department with one or more managers and a staff ranging from junior testers to senior quality assurance engineers.

Before the recent recession, starting salary in QA was about $60,000 on average with 2-3 weeks spent on job search. Those who liked to change jobs every year or so as they acquired experience, saw their salaries grow to $90,000-95,000 within two-three years. When the recession hit Silicon Valley job market in 2001, there appeared to be no jobs at all for the inexperienced software tester.

But in the year 2007, the recession is over. On average, an entry level QA job seeker in Silicon Valley would get 2 job interviews a week. It seems to take only 3 or 4 interviews to land an offer. Finding a QA job today seems to be no more difficult than it was in the 90s.

Software QA is a unique job niche in many ways: Maturity is an asset in software testing unlike other IT fields. Maturity is easily marketed as patience, attention to detail, and tolerance for routine tasks, all of which are highly valued in software QA.

Whatever your prior education or work experience, it is likely to be an asset because there is likely to be software that specializes in your field of expertise. If you have experience in education, accounting, banking, publishing, workflow or contact management, sales, client relations, drafting, stock or bond trading, image processing, to name but a few industries, you will find software companies that target your field.

Testing software is basically about finding the discrepancy between the expected behavior of the application and its actual behavior. If you have an accounting background, for example, you are better positioned to understand what the expected behavior of a software application should be and how an accounting department would use it.

Testing is not a difficult concept to learn. We all have some experience testing something. We test new recipes, test-drive cars, double-check our change at the convenience store. In each case we are testing to see that the actual result meets our expected result.

Entry-level jobs in software QA do not require a computer science degree. The field covers a broad spectrum of technical proficiency. The niche is large enough to accommodate you.

We see individuals of all ages transitioning from H1B visas to green cards, for example, becoming two-income families and homeowners, and establishing themselves in their new country.

Software testing is definitely a consideration for college educated people of all the ages and professional background looking for a career change.

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How To Format A Career Change Resume

If you are seeking to change careers, the best resume format to use is the combination resume. This resume format is not chronological nor functional. It combines both. It is extremely flexible and allows you to use strategies in a way that would normally be considered wrong.

The difference between the combination format and the chronological format is that the chronological format resume is very easy to follow. The hiring manager will typically start to read the chronological resume at the bottom of the work history or professional experience section and will continue reading his or her way up towards the top to trace your career history. The heading depends on your career level.

If there are employment gaps, it will be obvious because it is difficult to hide breaks in employment using this resume format. This is why most hiring managers prefer the chronological resume format. It is easy to read and leaves little to the imagination. This can be a great advantage if you have been in the same type of position because it shows continuity and progression in your industry.

But what happens when you have held different types of positions across several industries? Some reasons for gaps in employment or holding too many or unrelated jobs include raising children, caring for a family member, illness, returning to college, corporate downsizing or merger, joining the military, and difficulty finding work for long stretches of time because of a tight job market or weak resume.

Hey, things happen. That is life. You cannot worry about the past. It is time to think about the future. So, the first thing you will need to do is toss your old resume. It will not help you to change your career. It is time to make a fresh start.

First, create a resume that clearly indicates at the top what type of position you are seeking.

Include a career summary section that highlights where you have been in your career, being careful to only mention what would be of most interest to this particular company. Emphasize your transferable experience and skills that match the qualifications of the position. If there is a job ad, study it and do your best to make a connection between the job requirements and what you have done. Do not use the exact wording.

Use a keywords section to list transferable skills so the reader can find them immediately. This is also important if the company uses resume scanning technology. This will ensure your resume is retrieved from the database in response to a keyword search.

Under your Professional Experience section or Work History. Again, it depends on your background. Then present your experience in functional sections such as General Management, Sales Management, Staff Training and Supervision, Budget Planning and Tracking, amongst many others.

Take all of the experience you have gained over the years and categorize it into skill or functional areas that the new position requires. If the company is seeking someone to manage budgets, and you managed budgets ten years ago and four years ago, but not in your last two jobs, then list the collective experience under a Budget category.

Continue this formula until each respective category has a minimum of four bulleted sentences or two two-lined sentences to support the name of the heading. It is a good idea to have at least three categories to show how well rounded you are.

Below this section, list the companies, locations, job titles, and dates. You can either create a separate section named Work History if you have already called the above section Professional Experience, or simply list the section without a main heading as part of the main section. It will be understood. Or, you can start the section off with the company names and dates followed by the functional categories. In other words, flip it.

The most common problem with this resume format is identifying where your experience was gained. But, that is the whole idea. If they are interested in what you can do, they will call you in for the interview. It is at that time you can explain the how, when, where, and why of it all. It will make for great conversation, which by the way, a job interview should be. A meeting between two people with a common interest, in this case the position, who engage in conversation in a professional manner.

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How To Format A Career Change Resume

If you are seeking to change careers, the best resume format to use is the combination resume. This resume format is not chronological nor functional. It combines both. It is extremely flexible and allows you to use strategies in a way that would normally be considered wrong.

The difference between the combination format and the chronological format is that the chronological format resume is very easy to follow. The hiring manager will typically start to read the chronological resume at the bottom of the work history or professional experience section and will continue reading his or her way up towards the top to trace your career history. The heading depends on your career level.

If there are employment gaps, it will be obvious because it is difficult to hide breaks in employment using this resume format. This is why most hiring managers prefer the chronological resume format. It is easy to read and leaves little to the imagination. This can be a great advantage if you have been in the same type of position because it shows continuity and progression in your industry.

But what happens when you have held different types of positions across several industries? Some reasons for gaps in employment or holding too many or unrelated jobs include raising children, caring for a family member, illness, returning to college, corporate downsizing or merger, joining the military, and difficulty finding work for long stretches of time because of a tight job market or weak resume.

Hey, things happen. That is life. You cannot worry about the past. It is time to think about the future. So, the first thing you will need to do is toss your old resume. It will not help you to change your career. It is time to make a fresh start.

First, create a resume that clearly indicates at the top what type of position you are seeking.

Include a career summary section that highlights where you have been in your career, being careful to only mention what would be of most interest to this particular company. Emphasize your transferable experience and skills that match the qualifications of the position. If there is a job ad, study it and do your best to make a connection between the job requirements and what you have done. Do not use the exact wording.

Use a keywords section to list transferable skills so the reader can find them immediately. This is also important if the company uses resume scanning technology. This will ensure your resume is retrieved from the database in response to a keyword search.

Under your Professional Experience section or Work History. Again, it depends on your background. Then present your experience in functional sections such as General Management, Sales Management, Staff Training and Supervision, Budget Planning and Tracking, amongst many others.

Take all of the experience you have gained over the years and categorize it into skill or functional areas that the new position requires. If the company is seeking someone to manage budgets, and you managed budgets ten years ago and four years ago, but not in your last two jobs, then list the collective experience under a Budget category.

Continue this formula until each respective category has a minimum of four bulleted sentences or two two-lined sentences to support the name of the heading. It is a good idea to have at least three categories to show how well rounded you are.

Below this section, list the companies, locations, job titles, and dates. You can either create a separate section named Work History if you have already called the above section Professional Experience, or simply list the section without a main heading as part of the main section. It will be understood. Or, you can start the section off with the company names and dates followed by the functional categories. In other words, flip it.

The most common problem with this resume format is identifying where your experience was gained. But, that is the whole idea. If they are interested in what you can do, they will call you in for the interview. It is at that time you can explain the how, when, where, and why of it all. It will make for great conversation, which by the way, a job interview should be. A meeting between two people with a common interest, in this case the position, who engage in conversation in a professional manner.

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