Guerrilla Resume Wisdom: Make it Original
By Kevin Donlin | July 21st, 2009
Warning! Cliches in your resume may be hazardous to your career.
Are you a creative person who “thinks outside the box”?
Don’t mention that damn box on your resume — it’s the opposite of creativity. Because you’ll find “think outside the box” in approximately 10 squidillion other resumes.
Are you loyal, hard-working, and a strong communicator?
So is my dog, Ginger. That’s her above, loyally working hard to communicate strongly.
OK. What is the point of this verbal dressing down?
Creativity counts in your resume. But only if it’s creative.
That’s the message my business partner, the “Canadian” author, David Perry, has in an interview in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee, to promote the publication of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0.
Highlights:
“If you’re creative, dynamic and a leader, you need to demonstrate that in your résumé.”
Cite examples of your job accomplishments; list summaries of job skills. And do your homework: Read the company’s job description to find where your specific skills and talents would fit.
If it’s a sales job, for example, describe the kind of sales positions you’ve held and quantify the results. If you hit 100 percent of your sales target or turned around your division’s performance, state it.
Here’s my favorite part of David’s advice, the one that pisses off or mystifies about 90% of the HR people we tell it to:
To make your résumé more visual, Perry suggests adding logos from former employers, like AT&T’s globe or Apple’s apple. You can include brief testimonials from co-workers and managers, akin to a book jacket review.
Want more Guerrilla wisdom? Grab your free Guerrilla Job Search audio CD here.
------------------------------
Spread the Word:
digg this
del.icio.us
Technorati
Blogmemes
Ask Jeeves
Furl
Reddit
Rojo
Simpy
Spurl
Socialize It
Earthlink
Google
Netscape
Windows Live
Yahoo
------------------------------
