Resume Advice for Unsuccessful
Mukesh Shah
$150 resume fee, and your dream job interview guaranteed. I tell your career stories to get you a JOB INTERVIEW. Read
Job Seekers
I don't want to waste your time, so I am specific and tell you what you will get with me here. I am Mukesh Shah a resume writer.
I was unsuccessful in my job hunt. So I did experiments with my resumes. I am good at it and succeeded because of my market research and advertising background. I help many friends, and now resume writing is my living.
The standard resumes are not getting results. If you are not successful and ready to try new tactics, I promise you will get your desired job interviews after reading this article.
Your biggest problem is NO response to your job applications. And I read pros posts on LinkedIn.
1.???1500+ Applications, 300+ rejections.
2.???Finding a job is hard, especially when the online job application process can seem like a black hole of time and energy. I applied to over 300 jobs online over the course of 2 months and got a zero percent engagement rate.
3.???I’ve sent out 300 resumes and got one interview. What am I doing wrong?
I understand the frustration but also wonder how one sends so many applications when he/she is not getting results.
You will never experience such frustration and succeed in your job hunt. Read what I do to get desired job interviews to job aspirants and adapt my tactics.
The first understand that,
Job getting is not a NUMBER game, it’s a MATCHING game.
Simple Test
One simple test you can do with your resume.
Fold your resume in the middle left and right. OR in the digital age cover the right side of your resume on screen and do it. Then read the top left half. If you find,
If you have a few such numbers you have done a good job. Forget ATS and everything you will stand out.
You understand the success path of job getting
You rest assured that there is a job for you.
Don’t waste your time on various “how-to…..”
You only think about yourself.
Yes, “Who you are” is what matters, and that companies will be hiring and pay for your service.?
You back yourself
You believe you can satisfy your masters with your work. You have the expertise, skill to perform the job efficiently.?
You are selling your service
You get paid for your service.
You are not seeking help. You are selling your service. It’s a contract for your work and the company’s job requirement.
You are passionate about what you do
You can’t do a job that you hate, consistently. Passion is the best but the least you must be interested in a job. It’s important you know what you want, the kind of jobs, the companies you like to work for, etc.
Building a resume
A common way of working on a resume goes a bit like this:
1.???State all your facts in sections Education, Experience, Award – Prize, Writing, Co-Curricular Activity, etc.
2.???Adjust font sizes, layout adjustment fixes grammar errors, and make sure it has the bullet points.
3.???Give a title to the resume
4.???Check for accuracy of contact info.
5.???Submit
You need to do much more.
?What Recruiters look in the resumes
I quote from highest read recruiters
Looks for
????Most recent role
????Company recognition
????Overall experience
????Gaps
????Personal web presence
????General logistics – Location, eligibility to work in the US
????Overall organization – This includes spelling, grammar, ease of use, ability to?
Things I rarely pay attention to:
????Education
????Fancy Formatting
????Uncomfortably personal details
Things I wish more people would do:
????Bring personality into the resume
????Include URLs for other web presences
Things I wish people would stop doing:
????Using MS Word’s Resume templates – Period
????Writing resumes in the first person
????Mailing, faxing, or hand-delivering paper resumes
????Do not pass the go. Sending resumes addressed to the CEO that ends up on my desk unopened – We laugh at people who do this.
????Exaggerating titles and responsibilities – Eventually, the truth comes out.
????Coherent, relevant storyline in which your past roles are clearly illustrated to be a natural precursor to why you are now applying to this new role.
????Don’t use corporate jargon to sound business-ey! Figure out what you have done in the past, write it out in layman’s terms, and describe your accomplishments.
Lastly, find ways to summarize those stories into bullets to insert as the body for each of your roles (less is more). Don’t rattle off a list
????Simple, clear, and effective format
????Formatting -- If the resume had some funny looking or unconventional formatting it went in the bin. I am a real stickler for good and simple formatting.
????Typos -- First thing, I abhor typos
????Contact Information -- I am looking to see if the applicant bombards me with contact information. All I need to see is their name, a contact number, and an email address. That is it.
????Job Experience -- I am not really looking for what company they worked for, but I am looking for several things here. I am looking at how they present the experience and jobs.
????I am also looking at the bullet points. I only need four or five.
????Most importantly, does the position pertain to the job they are applying for? No explanation here.
????Social Media -- If you put it on your resume, I check it out. The most common social media link that I see is LinkedIn which makes sense. I click on it.
I also get Facebook and Twitter links. Big mistake there has been times when the candidate would've had the job because they had everything we were looking for. Whenever we went to their Facebook page. They lost it. Remember to self-censor when you post to Facebook or Twitter, or any social media outlet for that matter.
What Irks Me
????Lack of Keywords
????Objectives
????Cover Letters
领英推荐
Please Stop
????Exaggeration
????References upon Request
????Templates -- I hate templates
What Do We Like?
????We like plain and simple resumes. We like resumes which are easy on the eyes.
????We like resumes which are short. That is not to say if you have an interesting resume we will not want to read more. However, that is rare. Me personally, two pages, maybe three.
Take away from Recruiters
Three things you should not do are
1.???Templates
2.???Fancy Formatting
3.???Objectives
The only thing you should focus on is experience and what you can give to the company
You do
????Tell upfront to HR Managers what you contribute to them?
????Tell your experience with success stories, and HR managers look for successes and action takers
Moreover, you have in your resume what recruiters are looking for.
Don’t List
Your experience is the meat of a resume. There is more to say about your experience than listing them on a resume. The best way is to tell a story.
When I say the story to you, don’t worry. You are not writing a novel. You are telling in two-three sentences some success. You are telling what you did that gave some results. Say it with a number, quantify it and it becomes convincing. It is winning a game; achieve the milestone, recognition anything. You give results, and that is what HR wants action takers, doers.
Few pros do write a company background. Better to tell a story with performance.
When you are fresh and have little or no experience, you tell from your school college experience. It can be a sport, music, research project, internship, etc.
You now know what companies and recruiters want and look for in a resume. You need to tell it. How to tell it interestingly is easy. The story is the best way to interest recruiters. Recruiters do not look for experience from fresh graduates and junior positions; they want action takers and doers.
I know people find it difficult to tell successes. Most feel they have nothing worthwhile to say. The truth is everyone has good things to say. You think your work is normal and average and nothing to say about, but the same info is knowledge for others.
You know that the famous beer story of Schlitz beer (American Beer Brand) reached the number one position in six months by simply saying the process of making beer in advertising. Everyone makes the beer the same way, but Schlitz said it, and people find value in information.
Best stories come from ordinary situations put them in Resume. HR wants to know and love them.
HR wants doers and action takers. Success comes to those who try.
Do it and see the results. Your resume will work magic. Your interview in the next 4-5 applications is guaranteed.
There is more to say about your experience than listing them on a resume.
Let me show my example.
1?????OnBoard Tours. Staff writer/SEO Assistant?Feb 2013 to Nov. 2013.
My boss our President gave me for the first time passwords to anyone for his Google Adwords accounts and then asked to manage daily spends. It was because I saved him an average of $1200 monthly in the first week with analytics.???
2 Ecomleads.com. Media buyer. July 2011 to Aug. 2012
Allow me to tell my boss our President called me Hawk. It is because I changed his mind about scheduling and bidding ads with data from analytics he never used to have.
Prepared click figures for a search campaign for a month and got a real insight into when we got traffic.
Responsible for PPC and PPV advertising
Fresh job seekers and juniors
You usually do what others are doing and join the rat race. I want to put an end to your endless applications and no response.
Never follow the heard
No sense in using online templates and make a resume that hardly produces a result. Why spend even a dime? Most require $30 to $200.
Do it if you believe 'The best-dressed person gets a job.'
Positioning
Positing is your mindset. You should have the right mindset for job hunting.
There are hundreds of applicants, but you can shine out when you position yourself. You should not only position yourself but also define and tell how you are different. Think you are meeting the HR manager of the company you are applying to. A resume is you in person virtually.
What do you do when you meet someone? OR what you say when someone asks you what you do?
Most of us say something like, ‘I am a lawyer,' ‘I am an engineer.'
Examples of Conversation with an HR Manager
Example One
Q: Hi, Mukesh, what do you do?
Mukesh: I do creative online advertising and bring $2 for every $1 spend.
Q: How do you do that?
Mukesh: I use compelling headlines to help businesses get their message across. I am a trained headline writer.
(This is you explain a process. Now he is interested. He is nodding and wants to know more. So, keep talking.
I mentioned headlines because they are 80% responsible for reading further. It is a Positioning Statement. Because headlines are visual, and people tend to relate to them. Finally, I give them a result.)
At Ecomleads.com, an affiliate network we solved high click costs by getting 10%+ CTR for AdWords campaigns. (A success from the experience)
Example Two
Now let us look at an average conversation
Q: Hi, Mukesh, what do you do?
Mukesh: I do advertising.
Q: That's cool. Which newspapers and magazines do you do?
It’s now too late to steer the discussion because it’s already taken a different track.
In the first conversation, I could control the line of questioning. It ensured that my message got through undiluted.
You must take a position.
Love recruiter and hiring managers
There are always stories about recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn and usually, they are negative. You also have an opinion. I advise you must love the recruiters and hiring managers.
Understand they have a job to do. They are searching for people to fill the positions and looking for the right people to do those jobs. They will respond or talk only when they think you meet their requirement.
Believe if you meet the job requirement, HR will always respond.
In fact, they are dying for candidates who meet their requirements.
HR want good candidates
Do you know HR's big problem?
Ask any HR pro and he/she will say “We don’t get good candidates.”
Please, mark the word ‘Good.’ They don’t say the best or excellent; they prefer when available but they look for good candidates.
You should tell them how well you performed the jobs they are looking for. And believe HR pros are practical they will take chance and call to know more if they feel you have potential. It’s your job to tell them.
Resume Writing Guide
I have the 'How to write a Resume' book and you can get it on Amazon.
Take at Resume Book.