Great Occupations

We celebrated our 40th Job Search Boot Camp Show on Saturday which featured our old friend and former co-host, Mr. Michael Kranes of ResumeSlayer.com! During our last 39 shows we’ve had over 15,000 downloads!!! We’ve given great career advice in short 30 minute segments bringing guests and experts to help you with your career choice, job search, and all things career related. We love doing this show each 1st & 3rd Saturday! All our shows are archived on BlogTalkRadio and iTunes (…but to be quite honest listening to the replay on iTunes is much easier than using BTR’s site - but we LOVE BlogTalkRadio’s service).

Artist
Michael works in resumes like some artists work in oils & clays. His talent and finished product is the best I’ve seen in the industry. Michael’s insight and ability with resumes is nothing short of amazing. He is an award-winning Certified Advanced Resume Writer, and has been nominated for Most Creative Resume, Best Militiary Transition Resume, and Best Technical Resume in the Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) awards. His ability continues to draw recognition and praise from clients and admirers.

We asked Michael about using cookie-cutter techniques and templates out of Microsoft Word or those found on the internet. He doesn’t belive in a cookie-cutter approach. People are too diverse. We agree with Michael when he says that patterning your resume after someone else’s resume isn’t effective. You need to make your resume stand out. If you look like all the other resumes, then you end up in the stack (or trash) with all the other resumes. Unique and eye-catching resumes really make you stand out and rise to the top of the resume pile.

Font Style? Size or Pages?
Everyone wants to know the style, fonts, and how many pages — those aesthetic items of the resume. Michael says the aesthetics are “a little like Angelina Jolie worrying about her nail polish.” Writers can get overly obsessed about these things, but the most important thing is the contet. He says to not get overly obsessed about these little things, but choosing a bad “nail polish” could detract from the content.

Michael says, however, that he tries to avoid Times New Roman since it is overused. He likes to use one of the other great mainstream fonts like Helvetica, Palatino, Garamond, or Arial. As far as length, we didn’t get to cover it on the show, but Michael likes to say “a resume needs to be as long as a resume needs to be.” Some resumes will be one page, and some resumes will be three pages. As long as it is delivering the message - the content - in a readable format, the length is more “nail polish”.

Too Much Experience
We always have a live chat going on the same time as The Show. Our live chat was going crazy with the question that many face today - too much experience. Someone who has owned their own business or has been in a leadership role may just want to work without having to be at the “top of the mountain” anymore. How do you show that on a resume?

Michael suggests being transparent and honest in the Professional Summary is the best way to go. For example, a summary that says something like: “After having launched a very successful company serving as CEO, I am ready to work in an advisory or support role in XYZ industry.” On the show Michael gave us a real-world example of one of his clients in his 60′s that he is helping.

“Remember less is more”
The resume is a “movie preview” with the goal of being called in for the interview. By not listing every single deal, and giving suggestions or hints will get you called in for the interview. The resume is powerful and your “golden ticket” to the interview seat. Paying attention to the content, the structure, and how your message is delivered is far more important than the style and color of the paper.

Pay close attention to what is important, and if you need help consider hiring an expert like Michael. The money you spend on expertise may cut in half the ”waiting time” to cash in your “ticket”.

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