Month: August 2018

Resume Headlines: What Good are They If No One Reads Your Resume?

Resume Headlines: Do headlines help or hinder in compelling the recruiter to read your resume?  What you say in the headline makes all the difference.

“Writing headlines is a specialty – there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn’t write a headline to save their lives.” – The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership, Bill Walsh

Additionally, my LinkedIn banner looks like this:

There are benefits and risks to using a headline. On one hand, they can raise the number of times your resume appears in keyword searches. Furthermore, an effective headline can increase the number of people who will read your resume.

On the other hand, based on the wording of your headline, a recruiter can decide whether to take time to read your resume or toss it. Additionally, they take up space where concise, compelling wording is critical.

My LinkedIn Headline

For my LinkedIn headline, I chose a title that I have used for over thirty years as a recruiter and combined that title with keywords that describe my services.

The World’s Noblest Headhunter, Business and Career Builder

I had an advantage is selecting this headline.  Over thirty years of experience have demonstrated that to me that the headline is memorable and that people respond to the headline.

Headlines Instead of Objectives or Summaries

A good place to insert the headline is in place of the objective statement or a summary of skills.  I generally don’t recommend stating an objective, with the possible exception of when the objective specific to the job and the company.  For example: Objective: To apply for the project manager position available at ABC company.

Likewise, as I have written elsewhere, stating a summary of experience skills at the opening of a resume is redundant to the content section of the resume. Therefore, I would recommend a resume headline over with an objective or a summary of skills and experience.

Resume Headline: A Distraction or a Compelling Title

Resume Headline: Do headlines help or hinder in compelling the recruiter to read your resume?  What you say in the headline makes all the difference.

“Writing headlines is a specialty – there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn’t write a headline to save their lives.” – The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership, Bill Walsh

Additionally, my LinkedIn banner looks like this:

There are benefits and risks to using a headline. On one hand, they can raise the number of times your resume appears in keyword searches. Furthermore, an effective headline can increase the number of people who will read your resume.

On the other hand, based on the wording of your headline, a recruiter can decide whether to take time to read your resume or toss it. Additionally, they take up space where concise, compelling wording is critical.

My LinkedIn Headline

For my LinkedIn headline, I chose a title that I have used for over thirty years as a recruiter and combined that title with keywords that describe my services.

I had an advantage is selecting this headline.  Over thirty years of experience have demonstrated that to me that the headline is memorable and that people respond to the headline.

Headlines Instead of Objectives or Summaries

A good place to insert the headline is in place of the objective statement or a summary of skills.  I generally don’t recommend stating an objective, with the possible exception of when the objective specific to the job and the company.  For example: Objective: To apply for the project manager position available at ABC company.

Likewise, as I have written elsewhere, stating a summary of experience skills at the opening of a resume is redundant to the content section of the resume. Therefore, I would recommend a resume headline over with an objective or a summary of skills and experience.

Powerful Resumes: The Critical Details for Getting Job Interviews

Powerful Resumes: Are you sending out dozens of resumes and not getting job interviews. Here are some resume basics that will increase the power of your resume.

Truth and Accuracy

Lying or stating inaccurate information on your resume can cost you an interview. Furthermore, lies can live forever.  Six months into the job, your employers might call you out or even fire you for lying to them about the things you put in your resume.

Often hiring managers and recruiters know whether your resume is accurate without even speaking with you.  Experienced recruiter’s, especially those who specialize in your field, have the knowledge and can access additional facts on the accuracy of your resume.

Hard Skills versus Soft Skills – Facts versus Opinions

Skills come in two categories: hard skills and soft skills.

Hard skills examples:

  • Skilled database developer: I created the first-ever, company-wide database of clients.
  • Skilled website developer: I can code in HTML, css, PHP, and JavaScript.  I am the company’s webmaster.

Soft skill examples:

  • Versatile
  • Intelligent
  • Conscientious
  • Loyal hardworking

As a recruiter, I view a simple list of soft skills of little value. Stated without substantiation, soft skills are just puffery.  A list of soft skills shows a lack of thought about the compelling and persuasive power of your resume. To me as I recruiter, powerful resumes describe what you have done, not what you think of yourself.

However, soft skills are important to an employer.  During the interview, the best hiring managers will ask you for examples that illustrate your soft skills. Here are two examples of how a candidate who has the soft skills of an effective communicator can illustrate those soft skills.

  • Served as the company spokesperson to the press, radio, and television.
  • Edited the company’s monthly newsletter.
  • Wrote the copy for the company’s annual report.

Stating an Objective

At one time, stating an objective at the top of their resume was common.

However, stating an objective is often a waste of wording in a document that must grab the reader’s attention immediately and hold the reader’s attention. As a recruiter, I am less interested in reading some general objective than I am in seeing whether you are qualified for a job. Like most recruiter’s, I spend just a few seconds reading a resume to decide whether to keep it or toss it. Although I want to match applicants with the jobs they want, I first want to see if they can land that job.

On the other hand, when people do include an objective statement, they can give it meaning by making it specific to the job for which they are applying.

Sample:

Objective: To apply for the program manager vacancy at your company.

Powerful resumes get straight to the point of your skills, accomplishments, and qualifications.

Grammatically Perfect

Seeing grammatical errors on resumes frustrates me as a recruiter. Suppose I have a perfect candidate. I am excited to present a resume to a client. But I have to stop, contact the applicant, and get a corrected copy of the resume.

Be careful about using grammar that is non-standard in U.S. correspondence.  One case in point is failing to use the Oxford comma for words in a series.  Here is an example of omitting the Oxford comma.  “Two amateurs, Chef Francois and Chef Diego prepared our meals.”

Here is the same sentence with the Oxford comma.  “Two amateurs, Chef Francois, and Chef Diego prepared our meals.”

Here is a bullet point illustration in a resume.

  • I increased sales, reduced costs, and expanded market share.

Powerful resumes contain standard U.S. grammar.

Powerful Resumes

Here are some other articles  on writing resumes that will land you job interviews.
Resumes Must Close the Sale on Getting a Job Interview
Resume Writing Made Simple: Here’s How
The Simple Way to Write a Killer Resume 

Attitude: You Own It. Make It Amazing.

Attitude: How is it that some people remain calm, positive, and objective, when life gives them challenges and hurdles?  Is this powerful trait of attitude management is a teachable skill.

Understanding Moods and Attitudes

When I am in hungry, tired, or rushed, things can seem more personal.   I may feel more anxious or impatient.   My mood declines and my attitude declines with it.  I may feel angry over things that might not otherwise bother me.

It is easier for me to treat other people the way I feel.  Then I infect them with my bad attitude.  By simply taking a deep breath, having lunch, or taking a break, I can often change the way everything looks and improve the way I treat other people.

By understanding that other people experience the same decline in attitudes based on what is going on with them, I can avoid catching a bad attitude from them.  They are human.  I am human.  I can allow them the same understanding people have so often given me.

My response to other people in this light relieves me of the stress of owning their bad feelings.  I can let those actions toward me to pass.  I feel healthier when I can to see that, as humans, we share the same wiring.  I can find compassion for people who need compassion.  I can find patience with people who are being impatient.  I can stop and listen to people who are being rude without agreeing but simply letting them air out their thinking.

Conditions Affect Moods

Driving has a profound territorial impact on attitudes.  In my car, I have a sense that I am in my personal moving territory.  My mind says that the area around my car is like the yard around my house. It is my space, my yard, my safe distance between from other people and cars, my mobile territory.

If another driver moves into my mobile territory, I have a sense of violation and frustration.  My sense of mobile territory can even extend to a sense of injustice when I see a driver cut off another driver.

Among the thousands of other drivers on the highways every day, there are people who feel overwhelmed, experiencing grief, living in fear in failure, or experiencing other very difficult situations. There are other people who are simply tired and hungry and have just had a dreadful day and caught a bad attitude from someone else.

However, I can’t change their attitude.  On the other hand. I can change my attitude.  Maintaining a bad attitude is painful.   If I allow myself to stay angry or anxious, or fearful, I am trying to punish other people when I am hurting myself.  Bad attitudes are very painful.

 Furthermore, good attitudes have so many benefits.

  1. I am healthier.
  2. I feel better.
  3. I can focus.
  4. I can feel joy in the present moment.
  5. I can celebrate life as a flow of passing events.

When someone has a cold, I do not see them as being a bad person.  I see them as a person with a temporary disease.  When someone has a bad attitude, I see them as a person with a temporary attitude disorder.

When you can, avoid people with bad attitudes.

Most people avoid those types of people.  However, when that person is your boss or coworker, you may find that the best way to keep from catching negative attitudes from these people only takes some practical steps.

  1. Be very positive and upbeat around these people.
  2. If the person is your boss, try to understand what your boss wants done and try to do those things without expectation of approval.
  3. See them as people and not as evil forces.
  4. Angry, rude, difficult, even obnoxious people are just people.   When I see them as human just as I am human, I realize that they are the one in pain not me.

Surrounding Myself with Positive People

The most important thing that I can do is to stay close to positive people and read or watch positive things. I love the healing that I get from positive people, places, and things.  Today I am going to catch the good attitudes and heal the bad ones, in myself and in the people around me.

Listening Failure: Reasons Great Ideas Are Never Heard

Listening Failure: What makes us ineffective listeners? What are solutions to overcoming listening failure? Here are steps for more effective communication.

The Value of Overcoming Listening Failure

Effective listening is important in all parts of our lives.  In our personal relations, effective communications can help us build strong, long-term bonds. In networking, effective communications can help us create trust with the new people we meet. Whether interviewing for a job or building success in our current job, effective communications will help us create success.

Take Away the Bias

Listening failure happens on both sides of the table.  To prevent these failures, both the listener and the speaker must keep an open mind.  They must set aside their feelings and focus on the meaning of the message.

Better Speakers Create Better Listeners

More effective speakers deliver clear, concise presentations.  They connect their message to the conscious mind of the speaker.  The seek feedback from the listener to create a more effective message.

Great Listeners Create Better Speakers

The most effective people know how to ask great questions and to learn from listening. ~ www.jaywren.com

Great listeners look for the message and help the speaker present their information.  They listen without judgement. When appropriate, they ask questions and collaborate in making the presentation a discussion.

Tactfully, of course, great leaders teach the team how to give persuasive presentations.

Steps to Prevent Listening Failure

For the listeners and the speaker, there are basics to have great communications.

  1. Stop what you are doing.
  2. Silence your phone.
  3. Look at the person who is speaking.
  4. Ask questions when you need clarification.
  5. Examine the discussion to see whether there is a recommended action.
  6. At the conclusion, repeat the subject to your speaker and ask if they have additional, helpful information.

Conclusion

In conclusion, listening failure happens on both sides of the table.  To prevent these failures, both the listener and the speaker must keep an open mind.  They must set aside their feelings and focus on the message not the messenger. Both sides must eliminate distractions and focus on creating effective communications.

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