Some job seekers run their resumes through spam filters first before emailing to a recruiter. If you have a spam filter installed on your PC, this can be a simple step to take to increase likelihood your resume is getting delivered.

If your email software has a "Read Receipt" feature which can alert you when a recipient has opened a message, you may be tempted to use it when sending your resume to recruiters. While it would be an effective way of knowing your message was delivered, we would not recommend it on grounds that recruiter could view it in a negative way. No one likes to be spied on, and most email programs will cause a warning message to show up if a read receipt will be generated.

Standing Out from Crowd

Once you are reasonably sure your resume isn't getting dismissed by spam filters, next step is to get recruiter to want to open and read your resume. There are several things to keep in mind when persuing this goal. First, make sure you are sending your resume to someone it's relevant for. If recruiter specializes in accounting, don't send them an engineering resume. Do a little research about recruiter or employer first and come up with a subject line that is targeted to their situation. For example, if you were a programmer sending your resume to a pharmaceuticals company, you could use "C++ Programmer with Pharmaceutical Industry Experience" as your subject (assuming that you really did have experience in industry). A subject like that will set you apart from other resumes waiting in recruiter's inbox.

After recruiter has opened your email, you want to make sure they can quickly understand your capabilities by having an easy to read and powerfully written resume. For a thorough discussion of ways to improve your resume, read section on resumes in Job Search Handbook (www.jobsearchhandbook.com).

We recommend visiting your local Toastmasters club to see how it works. To find out more about Toastmasters, visit their web site at this address: http://www.toastmasters.org

Quick Tips for Conquering Your Fear

- Everyone gets nervous before a speech. Even former President Clinton has talked about how he still gets nervous before speeches, even after having spoken in front of all kinds of audiences all over world. Experienced speakers talk about harnessing that nervousness and using it to energize and inspire yourself to give a better speech. Plus, they say nervousness generally goes away after first couple of minutes of speaking and turns into a feeling of excitement and exhiliration.

- There usually isn't as much at stake as you think there is. People often make mistake of assigning an unreasonable amount of importance to people in their audience. The truth is most audience members in any given situation are preoccupied with their own thoughts: what they're going to do later that day, their relationship with their spouse, their kids, personal problems, etc. Your speech is much less important to them than it is to you. And they will be much less critical of your performance than you are. Plus, no matter who is in your audience, they are not more important than your family members and people who truly care about you.

- The speech does not have to be perfect. As mentioned earlier, there's a tendency to compare yourself with polished public speakers you see on TV. Your audience will not expect you to be at that level, and you should not expect it of yourself.

- The most important ingredient in a good speech is preperation. This often requires investing time in researching topic ahead of time so that you have enough material that you could speak for at least twice amount of time allotted. If your speech has information that audience finds interesting or that they did not know before, you will have done a good job as a speaker.