I was reading an excellent book, The 7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People’s Decisions, which is based on new research about how people make decisions.

Here’s an excerpt:

“In taste tests of Pepsi and Coke, the results were about even when people didn’t know which was which. If they were told which one was Coke, however, Coke would win, usually by a wide margin with the same group of tasters. This is important, because it means that people cannot tell you how they are choosing one product over another.”

What does this mean for your job search?

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For many moons now, I have cautioned most job seekers against creating video resumes.

Reason?

They’re too easy to get spectacularly wrong and deceptively hard to get right. Plus, I have never heard from or read about anyone who ever got hired via a video resume.

But ace recruiter Harry Joiner has an idea that shows promise — linking to a YouTube video from your Linkedin profile. (I suppose you could link to videos from your MySpace and/or Facebook pages, too.)

I wish this idea were mine. But it’s Harry’s. So read all about it here.

WARNING. Before linking a video to your online profile, make sure it’s a very good video that presents you in a very good light. Because you never get a second chance to make a first impression, to coin a cliche.

According to a Feb. 28 2008 survey by Accountemps:

Prepping for the job interview is much more common today than a decade ago …. 79 percent of executives polled said candidates they meet with display at least some knowledge of the company or its industry, up from 59 percent in a 1997 survey on the topic.

Despite this trend, would-be employees still may be missing an opportunity to demonstrate that they’ve done their homework in their cover letters: Only 44 percent of those polled said it’s common for applicants to use their cover letter to show they’ve researched the job, up slightly from 37 percent in the previous survey.

So, are you in the smart 44% of applicants or the lazy 56%?

Which group do you think will get the attention of employers — and get hired — faster?

With tools like Hoovers.com, Linkedin.com and Google Alerts to ferret out data on companies and managers you’d like to work for, there’s no excuse for not customizing your resumes and cover letters.

From the “Those Who Can’t, Teach” file, here’s advice on resume writing that gets it exactly wrong:

Professor L___ S___, the Director of Undergraduate Advising, thought that the most convincing resume structure was the functional resume. “The functional resume will make the relevant information obvious,” and “the things I need to know will be seen right away,” Professor Schnell said.

Look. When my dog runs into the house covered in mud, she’s obvious. And she is seen right away. But that doesn’t me happy to see her.

A functional resume is you covered in mud. And employers won’t be happy to see you this way.

Why?

Because, as anyone who’s ever hired anyone can tell you, functional resumes are used to hide information, such as a lack of experience (in a recent college grad) an uneven work history. They are never the first choice of savvy job hunters.

When a hiring manager or recruiter sees a functional resume, their shields go up, just like on Star Trek. They immediately think, “What is this person trying to hide?”

Not the best way to make a first impression.

So, what’s the solution?

A hybrid resume that combines the best of functional and chronological formats. See my prior article here.

Here’s a question I hear regularly: “I want to send out a resume that’s targeted to the job posting, but I don’t want to start writing from scratch every time. What shortcuts are there?”

I’ll give you 2 ways to quickly customize and submit a resume targeted to each job posting.

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