Making Sure Your Resume Gets Through to RecruitersWritten by Scott Brown
The Internet has made recruiting more efficient in many ways. It used to be that you'd have to send your resume to a company by postal mail and wait for it to get routed to right individual. Now, with e-mail, you're often able to send your resume directly to decision maker. Overall this is a good thing. The challenge though is that you have competition: it's just as easy for other people to email same hiring manager or recruiter. Most recruiters use spam filters in an attempt to keep offers for drugs, loans, etc. out of their inbox. Unfortunately, many spam filters make mistakes and can classify a legitimate resume you send to a recruiter as a spam message. In addition, even if your resume is not marked as spam, you are still probably competing for recruiter's attention with maybe a hundred or more other resumes recruiter received that day. Avoiding Spam Trap There is no one single rule or maxim for keeping your resume from being misclassified as a spam message. Different spam filters work in different ways. However, there are some general things you can look out for. It's generally better to copy and paste your resume into body of message instead of attaching a document file. First, many recruiters are busy and won't take time to open your document file when other resumes in their inbox are pasted right into message. Secondly, some email filtering systems reject messages with documents attached for fears document could be infected with a virus. Although enthusiasm is generally better in a resume than using boring words and phrases, some words can set off spam filters. Words to avoid include: "free," "mortgage," and "trial." If you use exclamation points in your resume, do so sparingly and don't use more than one exclamation point in succession (e.g. writing "Great!" would be safer than "Great!!"). Also, don't use multiple colors in your emails to recruiters. It looks unprofessional and some email filters see colors as an indication of a spam message.
| | #1 Fear that Holds People Back in their CareersWritten by Scott Brown
Surveys have shown average American is more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. No wonder many people have let promotions at work pass them by for fear of having to speak in public. It may not even have been a conscious decision, but public speaking fear has been shown to be cause of missed opportunities for many people. As someone looking to move ahead in your career, working on your public speaking skills even before you need them in workplace can be a smart move. Having public speaking skills could boost your confidence level so that you would be comfortable volunteering to give a presentation that could earn you extra prestige, or give you assurance you need to apply for a particular job.Developing Public Speaking Skills Public speaking is something that does not come naturally for most people. Instead, it is a learned skill. Especially with prominence of politicians these days, it can be easy to get impression that good public speaking skills come naturally to many people. This is not really case. Even politicians work on their public speaking skills, and have benefit of giving speeches on a regular basis over course of a long career. The most visible politicians and business leaders often "cheat" by using speech coaches who help them pinpoint specific things they can do to deliver speeches more effectively, plus they often use speech writers and teleprompters. As an individual interested in getting ahead in your career, you don't need to go to extreme of using a teleprompter or a speech coach. But committing to improving your public speaking skills over long term can have a major impact in terms of your overall career success. Toastmasters is a great organization that has spent decades perfecting a system of teaching people how to speak effectively in public. Their program is designed so you can get as little or as much out of it as you want. Each Toastmasters meeting gives everyone a chance to practice their public speaking skills through various parts of meeting, such as Table Topics, where each attendee can give a brief two-minute impromptu speech based on a topic given to them by host. Most Toastmasters clubs also have mentorship programs where a more experienced speaker will work with you one on one to help you improve your skills.
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