Resume writing don’t's and do’s

Once upon a time, I wasn’t a resume writer. After 15 years getting jobs in all business areas by networking, I discovered that a resume that was good enough to submit after the hiring manager knew me, didn’t get results when it came to making interviews happen with mangers who didn’t know me. After spending a summer waiting by a silent phone, I went out to discover why my resume wasn’t working and I learned how to improve it. While I was doing that, I also found out why 95% of the resumes job seekers write don’t lead to interviews.

 Crafting resumes that make interviews happen is not rocket science. When I followed this list of don’t’s and do’s, my phone started ringing with employers on the other end. 

Don’t be like the others.

 About 80-95% of all submitted resumes contain only contact information, a previous jobs list and descriptions of tasks the applicant carried out at each job. Such resumes give an employer no reason to select us over the other 10 – 200 resumes written by people who have been in similar jobs and carried out similar responsibilities. We must give employers a reason to hire us rather than someone else. If we don’t, someone else will; and they will get hired not us.

 Don’t overuse keywords.

In the last few years, some big organizations have started to ask job applicants to submit their resumes online. When this happens, resumes are stored in a database. From time to time, an opening happens and that database is searched for resumes containing words that the operator thinks are relevant to the open job. Reacting to this situation, some people overload their resumes with up to 60 words of technical jargon. While this can help our resume to be selected from a database, too much  jargon often leads to human readers rejecting the resume because they can’t understand what it said. Today’s scanners are sophisticated enough that they can identify a solid candidate even when fewer keywords are used.

Don’t trust on spell and grammar checkers. Review your work yourself.

Spell and grammar checkers are not telepathic editors but computer programs with limited capacities. They do not know what we intended to write, and if we typed “or” instead of “of” many grammar checkers will not alert us to our error. Using a good dictionary saves us from much grief.

Be careful of free online resume templates.

Most resume templates are really layout programs enabling a user to lay out his or her contact information, job history and responsibility lists. They have no place for focusing on accomplishments, so using them means that we can do nothing to separate ourselves from our competition.

Choose one job target and focus on it.

What kind of work do we want to do? We must answer this question before we do anything else if we want our resume to work. In an effective resume, everything must be focused on showing that we are an ideal candidate the kind of job we are applying for. The accomplishments that someone hiring a purchasing manager is looking for are not the same ones that identify a potential sales star.

 Show our effectiveness by focusing on results.

This one tip can turn an ineffective resume into a great one. Employers won’t decide to interview us based on the responsibilities we carried: what causes them to call us is when our resume gives them a sense of how we helped our previous employers achieve important goals. If, as a salesman, we consistently broke quotas, added new customers to our territory and improved service to old customers, mentioning these facts, with the percentages by which we exceeded our targets, tells a sales manager that we will be an effective addition to her sales staff. A phone call will soon follow.  

Organize our thoughts.

Things that belong together in thought belong together on the page. If our job has customer relations functions and other operations functions that the customer never sees, we shouldn’t mix them but group them by category. For example, as hotel general managers, we may grow our hotel’s business by training our service staff to higher service standards, improving the food service operations and publicizing the changes with efficient marketing campaigns. An effective resume will never insert a corporate function that the customer never sees, (i.e., improving costs by discovering new and more efficient suppliers and negotiating better contracts with existing ones) into a group of services that a customer sees. Instead, visible services will be together and invisible services will be grouped separately. 

Write short

Resume writing must be concise; today’s managers often use less than 15 seconds reading time per resume. To get and keep their attention, every position description must have no unnecessary sentences and every accomplishment statement no unnecessary words. Every word must add to the impact.

Copy edit thoroughly

We are at a disadvantage when we reread our resumes. Because we know what we wanted to say, we tend to read the resume in our head instead of the resume on the page. To get around this, I read my resumes aloud and backwards. This way of reading what is actually there is a great way to catch errors, I might otherwise miss.

It is also helpful to have someone else, whose writing skills we respect, review our work.  Not knowing our intent and looking our work with fresh eyes, our friends are more likely to spot mistakes we overlook.

A Quick Guide to Resume Fonts and Layouts

In the old days, many of us used to obsess about the formats of our resumes. We seemed to think that if we could only find that magic combination of fonts, font sizes, special features and layouts we would have the perfect resume and land the perfect job.

 Thankfully in the last few years, we have learned that content, not format is king. (Unless of course we are looking for work in the graphic arts field or something similar where the display of artistic skills in your resume may be an advantage). That, however, is not the situation most of us face.

 Even though we know that content is king, may of us still wonder whether our formatting and layout choices can help our resume stand out from the crowd. The answer is yes. But that can be good or bad news.

 Certainly choosing an appropriate font and size, restraining our use of special features combined with a well thought out and consistent layout will give us points for organization, but it’s not enough by itself to give us an interview. On the other hand, choosing poor font and size choices, overusing special features and presenting a too-complex or inconsistent layout will make us stand out from the crowd, but we will be standing out for too many of the wrong reasons; such a presentation might well cause our resumes to be screened out.

 In other words, our resume design can help to a limited extent if done right, but it can really hurt us if we get it wrong. So how can we make our presentation as strong as possible?

 The good news is that there is only one rule. Everything we do in layout and formatting must draw our reader’s eyes to what is important, without becoming so obvious as to distract from the message we want to send. A few subtle changes to text or format will help a reader find what is important, but if our formatting and layout choices distract our readers from what we want them to know about us, we may be setting ourselves up for being passed over. We need to pick from a few key fonts, choose reasonable sizes, use a few special features to emphasize key points within a consistent and organized layout.  

One easy way to help our readers is by using one kind of font for key headings and another for regular text. If we want to try this, our first step will be to choose our fonts. Because we will be using them for contrast, we need to pick two key fonts: one should be a serif font, like Times New Roman (this font) which has little strokes at the ends of most letters. Our other key font must be a sans serif font like Arial (this font), which does not have those little strokes. We also must make sure that our chosen fonts are easy to read and available on our recipients computers. To find out which fonts are most used, we can go to the Font Style survey at http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/sampler-CombinedResultsFull.shtml or we can choose from the following short list:

 Garamond, Georgia, Palatino Linotype, or Times New Roman are serif fonts, while Arial, Tahoma or Verdana are sans serif fonts.

All these fonts are easy on the eyes and present on 90% or more of Windows based computers. Studies have shown that Times New Roman and Arial are the two fonts that are most easily readable. The same studies that show font dispersal also show font sizes. Anything from 10.5 point to 12 point is best for normal text. I generally use 12 point for short resumes or 11 point for longer ones, and either 14 or 16 point for my clients’ names. 

Since these fonts are so often used, some people recommend against using them because they fear that our resumes could get lost in a pile of other resumes using the same font. But a subtle adjustment can solve that problem for us. Let me show you what I mean.

I generally use a sans serif font for my client’s name, section headings, job titles, university degrees and other diplomas, and I bold those items for additional emphasis. Then I use my regular serif font for the rest of the text. That one change alone draws emphasizes key components of the resume. If we check out the contact information in the following example, http://www.ffresume.com/files/1923869/uploaded/5p.pdf, we will find our eyes going right to the name.

Special features can be distracting so I try not to overuse them. In the header block of the above resume I have used three: a single line separating the client’s contact information from the rest of the resume and a bolded sans serif font in larger type for the client’s name. There is also another layout change here and I wonder how many of my readers will spot it?                                                

Although the email address, the mailing address and the phone number are all in 11 point type, the blank line between them is only 8 point. If I adjust all my blank lines this way, I will subtly alert my readers that there is something different about this resume. Making this change gives me the benefit of using the most easily readable typefaces with the assurance that readers will not fall victim to “font overdose.” 

 Italicizing regular text is another feature I often use, usually for giving my reader some information about size of the organizations my client worked for and the kind of business it was in. This kind of information helps our readers put achievements into the proper context. Turn back to the previously mentioned resume. After our eye is drawn to the first bolded job title in the Relevant Experience section, the next thing we will notice is the italicized text in the following line. After reading that information, a hiring manager now knows the context in which my client worked – a pioneering planning department for one of North America’s major cities.

At this point, after no more than 3 or 4 lines describing the scope of the job, I add my last special feature, highlighting key accomplishments with bullet points to make them stand out.

• Vancouver General Hospital Precinct – satisfied competing and antagonistic stakeholders negotiated consensus for use of 35 acre site, achieving business, institutional, community and political goals including rationalized hospital plan, introduction of commercial uses, park and recreation space, pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and heritage designation. 

 These few tips are just one way to apply the principle of leading your readers’ eyes to what is important without being heavy handed.  There are many other combinations of popular and widespread fonts in readable sizes, a subtle and consistent use of special features combined with an organized and consistent layout that will prove equally effective. So long as your choices follow this principle your resume will not be screened out because of formatting errors.

The CAR Collection in Our Resume Makes Job Interviews Happen

Too many of us have never been taught how to write interview generating resumes. Until reality shows us otherwise, we tend to think that all we need is our contact information, the title of the job we are applying for, a list of previous jobs and an outline of the responsibilities that we carried out at each one.

 

And this is what 95% of resumes written look like.

 

But Human Resource professionals have been telling us for years that they reject 95% of all resumes they receive. The reason is simple. Nothing in this kind of resume tells a hiring manager why we should be hired over somebody else who has done the same kind of job with approximately the same responsibilities. So if we have to look for a job, our first challenge is this: How do we make sure our resume stands out from the crowd? How can we give a manager a reason to hire us instead of somebody else with a similar background?

 

Two simple changes, one small and one big, can make all the difference.

 

The small change is all about appearance. And I’ll talk about resume appearance in another article. But even if our resume has no formatting or spelling errors that’s not enough: it only means that we won’t be screened out because of those errors. But it’s not good enough to avoid being screened out for mistakes. We need to be screened in, selected, and most important, we need to get interviewed. To make that happen is where the big change comes in.

 

We need to add a CAR collection to our resume. 

 

No, I’m not taking about Hondas, Toyotas or Fords. I’m talking about telling prospective managers about some of the things we did that helped our employers accomplish key business goals. If we describe these achievements in terms of the Challenges we faced, the Actions we took to meet those challenges and the Results that followed our Actions, we are providing prospective managers with pictures of us at work. If they see us meeting challenges at a former or current company that they know we will face at their own company, they will know that we are people they need to talk to – right now!

 

So how do we do this?

 

First, we need to articulate our organization’s key goals. If we are sales staff at a shoe store, selling shoes is what it’s all about, if we are project managers at an engineering firm, delivering projects that do what the client specified, at the agreed on time, for the agreed  is the goal of all our efforts. Our first priority is to create accomplishment statements showing that we provide major assistance to reaching those key goals.

 

So the shoe salesman should include a couple of bullets stating that he:

• Won employer’s 2006 Top Sales award.

• Met or beat quota consistently and was Top 5 salesman over five years.

 

A project manager can say something like:

– Managed on-time and under-budget delivery of $26M Signal Control Centre and Simulation System project for London Underground (LUL) Jubilee Line. Personally devised successful substitute control centre solution saving delivery date when subcontractor failed to provide on-time delivery. Innovation crucial for winning further multi-M LUL contracts.

 

Let’s take a look at how this statement is put together. It begins with a pair of verbal statements showing that this engineer managed a major project to an on-time and under-budget conclusion and he also provided the solution to a major crisis. Finally it mentions the successful results of his actions. Another big plus is that this writer provides the context of his achievement when he mentions the value of the project and the multi million dollar results that flowed from his intervention.

 

We need to write accomplishment statements similar to the above for every qualification or desirable attribute mentioned by the job ads we apply to. If we don’t have every skill or attribute mentioned, often mentioning equivalent or similar skills will do. A computer software engineer might mention his experience with MicrosoftSQL as it is similar to the MySQL knowledge the ad asks for. If we make a habit of providing a CAR statement for every skill and attribute the job ads ask for, soon our phones will start ringing off the hook.

 

Tim Cunningham, CPRW (tim@ffresume.com) is the Vancouver BC based Founder and Principal Writer of Fast & Focused Resume Service.

Don’t Just Write A Thank You Note

Most people who are interviewed for jobs forget to write thank you notes – thanking the interviewer for taking the time to interview them. If five people get interviewed as many as three may not bother writing a “thank you”. So if you want to stand out from the crowd, writing a thank you note seems to be a no-brainer of a suggestion. Doesn’t it show your professionalism and courtesy compared with all those candidates who didn’t bother to write one? Isn’t it another opportunity to point out how well you will fit the company’s needs?  So what’s wrong with thank you notes?

 

There is nothing wrong with the conventional thank you note and it won’t hurt to send one. Some people say it should always be handwritten, but unless you have perfect Palmer Method penmanship, you will be better off using your computer for this note. Start by saying something like “Thanks for meeting with me. After our meeting I am even more interested in the job of (position). I can see that I will like working at (name) because my (character trait or skill) will be a good fit in the role. When should I expect to hear of any developments?” If you send in a Thank You note like this, you will stand out from the crowd, however you will not stand out as much as the candidates who use the far more effective “thank you” note plus approach.

 

The “thank you” note plus or follow-up letter has everything you would put in the conventional thank you note but it adds a little something extra. And that something extra will have a powerful impact on your job hunt.

 

Using this technique requires you to lay a little groundwork in the interview. All you have to do is ask one or two questions and think about the information you receive in reply. Ask your interviewer: “What are the challenges in this position that the new hire must immediately address?” and “Can you give me some background knowledge on these challenges that the previous incumbent would have had available to him or her?” Then, after the interview, think about this information and develop two to four possible approaches you might use to address one or two challenges. Now, after thanking the interviewer, expressing your interest and showing your fit for the position, add to your note something like this: “I have been thinking about the challenges we talked about and I’ve come up with a couple of ideas that may be helpful. Feel free to call me and we can discuss them.”

 

By offering your ideas about how to address a problem situation even before you have been hired, you have once more signaled your seriousness, professionalism and commitment to the job. And, because you are offering solutions, you are also offering to show the manager exactly how you will go about doing the job and an idea of what you are capable of. So  the manager will definitely call you back.   

 

When the manager calls, discuss your ideas. After you have completed brainstorming, say something like: “It has been great thinking through these challenges. Do you know when HR will be taking the next steps?”

 

Tim Cunningham, CPRW (tim@ffresume.com) is Vancouver’s only Certified Professional Resume Writer and the Founder and Principal Writer of Fast & Focused Resume Service (www.ffresume.com).

 

 

Be Careful of Job Boards

When times are tough, job hunters face increasing pressure to find a job. Many people think job boards are a good way to find work; but how well do they really work? How many people find jobs using them? And is there anything that can go wrong if you use them?

 

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, aside from doing a nice job for very young entry level job seekers, the big job boards do not work at all well. It has been repeatedly documented over the years that the success rate for big job boards like Monster is around 2%. And unless the job hunter refreshes his or her resume weekly, it will effectively disappear after 10 days. At the fall 2008 Kennedy Recruiting conference attended by hundreds of HR professionals and recruiters, most agreed that the big job boards will soon be extinct because they do such an inefficient and ineffective job of matching the right people with the right job. For high end jobs, the experts recommend niche boards such as execunet.com or at the lower end, transparent boards like craigslist.com.

 

Another problem is that what appear to be job postings, particularly high paying jobs, often turn out to be nothing more than disguised pitches for career services. According to another recent Wall Street Journal article, instead of being interviewed for a Vice-Presidential position, Tom Greene “found himself once again listening to a pitch for a career service, without any prospect of a job.”

 

Finally, there is much that can go wrong if you post your resume on a job board. For one thing there is a security issue. Even if you just post your phone number, if it’s a listed land line, that posting enables anybody to find your address. If your resume says you are still in a job, you have just told the world that you are not at home from 9-5.

 

Does that mean that job boards should be ignored? No: but use them carefully. Choose the best job boards for your particular situations. Surf them to discover jobs that match your qualifications then research the company and apply to them. Also send your resume to professional recruiters in your field who advertise there. But don’t post your resume on them or, if you do, don’t include your address and a listed phone number.

 

The best way to find a job is still the one less traveled. Determine your target companies by careful research then network, network, network. Finally send in a short inquiry letter supported by a well written resume. Or, as one of the above cited Wall Street Journal articles concluded, “Don’t put too much time into [job boards. Instead invest] heavily in networking, in person and online.”  

Tim Cunningham, CPRW (tim@ffresume.com) is Vancouver’s only Certified Professional Resume Writer and the Founder and Principal Writer of Fast & Focused Resume Service (www.ffresume.com).

 

 

 

Lying on Your Resume can kill your Career

When times get tough, job hunters face increasing pressure to find a job. Many people think lying on their resumes improves their chances: recent surveys have found between 20 to 50 percent of job seekers and employees whose resumes were checked had made “significant misstatements” on their resumes. Unfortunately for lying employees, the rise of the internet makes it much easier for employers to check references and employers have been quick to take advantage of their new tool. A 2005 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management showed that 40 percent of human resource professionals had increased the time they spent checking references since 2002, and 52 percent said they use professional background checkers to do it.

 

Some common falsehoods that trigger dismissals include claiming a degree from a school not attended, inflating a grade point average, claiming to perform functions or skills that one did not do, exaggerating ones’ role in accomplishments, inflating salaries and mischaracterizing why one left jobs.

 

It is not just new hires that get caught: many companies have a policy to fire employees caught lying on their applications — even if the liar has worked well for them for years. It doesn’t matter how high you go: every month or so the business papers tell of another lying executive on his way out. Recently it was the Chief Information Officer at Cabot Microelectronics Corp. who resigned after the University of Pittsburg denied his claim that he had taken a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the school. Other examples of people fired for lying include George O’Leary, ex-Notre Dames football coach and David Edmunson a former president of Radio Shack. James Minder a former chairman of gun manufacturer Smith and Wesson was also fired when it was discovered that he had omitted to mention his convictions for armed robbery on his resume.

 

You may wonder why getting caught lying is such a big deal. The business world relies on trust. If you lie on your resume and get caught, trust is lost: how can the employer know when you are or are not telling the truth? Another good reason not to lie is that liars know they have lied and will always be uneasily waiting to see whether or not the lie is found out. If the lie is found out, that’s not the end of the problem. The liar now has two additional problems: he or she now must look for a new job and explain why they left the last one. That’s a difficult question to answer: how would you tell the interviewer it was because you lied on your resume?

 

If you are worried about your qualifications for the position, there is no need for lying: there are perfectly legitimate ways to position your credentials — for example, your lack of relevant skills — and still win an interview and the job. You may not have the specific skills asked for in the ad, but you can mention related skills and that you are a quick learner. Or if you did the work of a more senior position without having the title to go with it, a linking phrase like “functioned as” tells the truth without landing you in the kind of trouble that can kill your career. 

For additional help in finessing a tough question, send me an email.

Tim Cunningham, CPRW (tim@ffresume.com) is Vancouver’s only Certified Professional Resume Writer and the Founder and Principal Writer of Fast & Focused Resume Service (www.ffresume.com).

An Average Resume Costs More Than You Think!

Did you know 

that the real cost of a “low-cost” resume can be $6,000. … or more?

Here’s why.

 

Before I became a resume writer, I worked for fifteen years in purchasing, financial supervision and database sales. At one point, however, I spent a summer looking for work using a good example of an average resume. What happened during those weeks, I prefer not to think about, but my silent phone taught me all I needed to know about the high costs of using an average resume in a job hunt. Ultimately, it was the events of that summer that led me into resume writing as a profession.  

 

So when people ask me, “How much do you charge for a resume?” I usually don’t answer the question right away. Instead, I make sure that my callers are aware of a couple of key factors that dramatically impact their job hunts. So my reply to the “How much do you charge?” question is something like this:   

 

“It depends on what you want the resume to do. Have you been hired already, and is your employer now telling you that they need a resume for their HR file on you? Or do you need the resume to make job interviews happen? If you’ve already got the job, putting together an acceptable resume is simple: just cite your contact information and record your job history. If you include a responsibility list for each job, the result will pass well enough for the secretary to tick the HR check box. Resumes like this should cost anywhere from $40-$100 at any local secretarial service. But please … don’t use this kind of resume if you’re out of a job and actively looking for work. Using a ‘job history’ resume in this situation very likely means that you will end up paying up to at least $6,000.00 in additional costs and it almost certainly guarantees you a very long and very frustrating job hunt.” 

 

If I hear: “Why do you say that?” I know that my caller does not yet know some critical things that HR folks have been telling us about today’s job hunts.  So I reply:   

 

“Even before the current recession began, Human Resources experts told us that most people are so nervous in job interviews that they generally don’t make a good impression in their first interview. Instead, they usually land a job on their second or third attempts when they are more relaxed. Another point the HR people reiterated is that the average resume ends up in the “don’t call” pile somewhere around 95% of the time. Taken together, these points mean that if you use an average resume to apply for 10 jobs each week, the odds are that you that you won’t get an interview until your ninth week, by which point you are so anxious and nervous that talk yourself out of that job, leading to another nine week wait for your next interview, at which you are more relaxed and might impress your interviewer and win the job. So it was no surprise when one study showed that the average executive or professional should expect their job hunt to take between 18 to 27 weeks. Then, I’ll add: “I once spent a summer waiting by a silent phone. It taught me that these studies’ results were indeed accurate! Remember too, that both studies were done before the recession. Nowadays, when even janitorial openings are getting 300 or more applicants, your job hunt could well take longer.

 

“Today, a resume only containing only contact info, work histories and responsibility lists does not stand out from the 50-100 other candidates who have done the same jobs and have submitted an almost identical resume. In an economy where average resumes are increasingly jamming the circular file, winning job interviews requires a resume that takes less than 20 seconds reading time to convince its readers that you are an outstanding candidate. If you send in an average resume, your phone simply won’t ring.”  

 

“So if you want to be called for job interviews, you need an entirely different kind of resume. Instead of a ‘work history’ resume that is adequate once you have a signed job offer, you must supply a sophisticated marketing document, specifically designed to get managers wanting to interview you. Crafting such resumes is no job for a typist; your writer must have the persuasive powers of a top-flight copywriter, broad business knowledge that can quickly and accurately grasp the essential skills, specialized languages and necessary achievements of a huge variety of employment situations, and the interviewing skills of a master psychiatrist to delve deep into your memory to uncover incidents that show your character and skills in action; achieving the kind of results that make prospective employers want to interview you – and there are not many people with that skill set. So it’s not surprising that competent professional resume writers charge somewhat more than the typist. In the final analysis, however, our work is worth every penny we charge. For in the long run, a professionally written interview generating resume does not cost you a cent: instead it is an investment, making far more money for you than the cost you paid up front.”  

 

At this point, you may wonder: “How can this be?” So I reply:  

 

“Many people never stop and think about the real costs of using an average resume (I know I didn’t), but every job hunter should ask at least this one question; how much will using an average resume cost me? I can’t tell you what your exact costs will be, but I can show you how to find out. If you divide the amount of your desired salary by 52, you will get your gross weekly salary apart from benefits. Multiply that salary by the number of weeks you must allow for the job hunt to take and you get your total out of work cost. The size of the numbers will surprise you. Consider the following examples:”  

 

“If you want a $20,000 salary, your weekly salary is $384.61 and an 18 week job hunt will cost you $6,992.98.

If you want a $50,000 salary, your weekly salary is $961.54 and an 18 week job hunt costs you $17,307.69.

If you want a $100,000 salary, your weekly salary is $1,923.08 and an 18 week job hunt costs you $34,615.38.”   

 

“The real cost of your average resume is not the $100 dollars you paid the typist. The real cost of that resume is the figure you get when you plug in your chosen salary and multiply it by the 18 weeks that an average job hunt takes. Once you have that real cost, ask yourself: can I really afford to risk paying that much for an average resume? Would I risk paying $6,000.00 or more for anything that didn’t do what it was supposed to do?” 

 

“Now, consider instead what happens if your resume is one of the 5% of resumes that achieves above average results. Assume it makes interviews happen not 5% of the time, but 50% of the time (a hit rate that professional resume writers often meet or exceed). If you go job hunting with that resume and you apply for 10 jobs in your first week and your resume is only 50% effective in generating interviews, the odds are that you will have five interviews by the end of your third week (allowing a week between resume arrival and interview date), and at least one job offer from interviews 2 through 5. You might even get more than one job offer, which is a comforting piece of paper to have in your back pocket when you negotiate the final details of your compensation package with your preferred employer.”   

 

“So instead of taking 18 weeks, which is the low end of the average, your job hunt has taken only three weeks and your resume has just enabled you to earn an additional fifteen weeks salary. Your investment in a professional interview generating resume has just made you somewhere between $5,769.15 for a $20K salary  $14,423.10 for a 50K salaried job or $28,846.15 if you were hired at 100K, or more – not to mention saving you from a great deal of depression and anxiety.”

 

“Now ask yourself: ‘Is it worth investing between 3-5% of the additional salary a professionally written resume will earn me in order to massively increase my chances of making $5,000, $14,000 $28,000 or more, much sooner?’ Do you see why investing in an effective resume is the most significant investment you can make in your career? Or, as I sometimes say to my callers: ‘Investing in a professionally written interview generating resume doesn’t really cost you anything. Instead, it makes both dollars and sense.’”

   

Tim Cunningham, CPRW (tim@ffresume.com) is Vancouver’s only Certified Professional Resume Writer and the Founder and Principal Writer of Fast & Focused Resume Service (www.ffresume.com).