Just A Series of Choices

Written by Bruce Benskin


Continued from page 1

Choice #3 – Choosing to get a career by coincidence will seldom (read seldom as never) yield a role with expansive growth potential and long term satisfaction. It is not easy; it takes expertise, competitive edges of timing, better exposure and more powerful communications about capacity to win a position of your choice.

Eventually, Steve let a recruiter encourage him to “get his foot inrepparttar door” in a company a few states over. It was his only “egg in his nest” and a few steps back to where he had been 8-9 years earlier…and he’d have to leave Sundays and come back home Fridays since relocation wasn’t even offered. But what choice does he have – it’s been 11 months since he was let go and savings have dwindled and he’s tired of being a stay-at-home dad.

Choice #4 – Choosing to take a job will only spiral down his career, his confidence, his perceived capability and his cash. Being talked into – that is recruited/sold – a cookie-cutter position versus taking a position that has been engineered around him. There should be no question.

Well, Steve has gotten accustomed torepparttar 140027 commute and his efficiency apartment and really looks forward to seeing his kids next weekend. The job is just that – he’s surviving, but there’s no challenge…same-o every day. That recruiter called back to say he’s got another job like this onrepparttar 140028 East Coast – Steve hung up on him this time…about allrepparttar 140029 energy he could muster. Been feeling really exhausted.

Choice #5 – Choosing to ignore his body cues of exhaustion only leads Steve to depression and powerlessness and feeling trapped again. Choosing to have proper rest, diet, exercise and balance of life invigorates.

Steve’s 17 month anniversary is coming up – he’s looking a little haggard fromrepparttar 140030 day-to-day grind. It’s Friday, about 2 and Steve’s boss wants him to come torepparttar 140031 conference room…andrepparttar 140032 HR person is there…

Choice #6 – Steve can choose to run this cycle again…or choose to purposefully utilize his full potential by proactively marketing himself.

It’s Steve’s choice…it’s his career…it’s his life… Then, again, maybe it’s not Steve; maybe it’s you???



Bruce Benskin is a Regional Manager in Cincinnati for R.L. Stevens & Associates Inc. (http://www.interviewing.com), a career marketing firm and organization celebrating over 24 years of providing strategic marketing solutions for its clients’ career transitioning needs.




Make Your Resume Keyword Rich and Scanner Friendly

Written by Mary Carroll


Continued from page 1

OCR software attempts to match characters scanned from your resume with standard letter shapes. This makes it imperative that your resume is formatted with a font that OCR can recognize, font choicerepparttar single most important factor in creating a scannable resume. Simple, conservative typefaces such as Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana and Courier are some ofrepparttar 140007 best choices.

Other content and design guidelines are: - keep it simple and conservative - use high quality 8-1/2 x 11 inch, white or off-white paper, print on one side ofrepparttar 140008 paper only - format headings with either Bold text or ALL CAPITALS. - use headings sparingly but consistently to support your information structure - don’t use italics - it skews characters and confuses OCR - don’t use underlined text - it confuses OCR - use no more than two fonts in sizes between 10 and 12 points - allow margins and line spacing (white space) to keeprepparttar 140009 document from looking crowded - use horizontal lines to separate sections of your resume - don’t use vertical lines, graphics, shading or boxes - your contact information with your name is printed atrepparttar 140010 top of each page - a summary, where your best assets, whether education, experience, or skills are listed - categories are clear and text is indented - dates of employment are easy to find and consistently formatted - each entry highlights a capability or accomplishment - verb tense is consistent; current job is in present tense; past employment is in past tense - use a minimal amount of punctuation, it can confuse OCR - capitalization, punctuation, and date formats are consistent - no typos or spelling errors - don’t fold or staple your resume, if you mail your resume use a large envelope

Your resume should be a quick and easy to read, containing no fluff and no unnecessary words. As hiring professionals look through hundreds or even thousands of job applications, they may spend only a few seconds reviewing each resume. To catch their attention, you must quickly convey that you standout fromrepparttar 140011 competition. A successful resume is one that does not exclude you from consideration. Your resume is a personal self-marketing tool; so make sure you get a powerful and accurate message across. By fine-tuning your keywords to meetrepparttar 140012 qualifications of each job,repparttar 140013 more likely that you'll be asked to an interview where you can sell yourself.

Mary Carroll is a customer advocate for at Video Professor, the leader in self-paced software learning tutorials, helping our customers to better understand Video Professor and how our tutorials can provide tools to learn various software programs to your desired level.


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