Regular old resumes appear to be for the birds these days. According to Colorado Tech University, the resume you choose needs to include your social networking savvy as well as your standard experience. Their own infographic walks a resume writer through the necessary steps:

Image courtesy of institutechildrenslit.net

You ask most people if the cause of their stress is email and they’d say yes, but the cause is not so much the amount of email or the work it can lead to, but the culture that has been created around email.  According to Boston University Associate Professor Stine Grodal, email causes stress because of the following issues:

• Time over volume: It isn’t necessarily the amount of email we receive that overwhelms us, but the time it takes to read and respond to dense, cryptic or outright incoherent messages.
• Nebulous rules: Because emails don’t interrupt us like phone calls do, there are no rules around appropriate and inappropriate times to send emails. In this way, “email begins to blur the lines between work life and home life,” says Grodal. “It comes at all times of day — late at night and early in the morning.”
• Response time: Further complicating the rules, most senders have come to expect a reply within two hours, explains Grodal. “That puts a lot of pressure on people to respond to email outside of the work day,” she adds.

By this reasoning, this stress can only continue as our business world relies more and more on emails and social networking and our personal lives adds text messaging and further social networking to the mix.

So, how do you manage that stress?

• Start a new culture. Pick up the phone and you might be encouraging others to call you instead of emailing. Response time will be cut down and hearing the intonation in voices will also cut down on your time spent decoding those “cryptic” emails.
• Schedule your emails. Read your emails and respond at set times of the day. Turn off the message alarms on your phone or Outlook/Entourage.
• Don’t double messages. If you send an email, leave it at that. Don’t then instant message, text message and/ or call as a follow up. If you’re in a hurry, start with a phone call.
• Avoid the cc. As a boss, I hate being cc’d on messages just to make a point. It acts as a silly threat; everybody knows why you’re doing the cc and everyone resents it. The risk is also that, if you continue to cc unnecessarily, the boss will ignore your more important messages.
• Same as above for bcc, read receipts and flagged messages. Don’t cry wolf.

I’ve often heard that interviews are won or lost in the first five minutes. In the last week I have conducted a slew of interviews for an entry-level communications specialist. The position requires excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, organizational skills, a strong “get it done” attitude, and a journalism or public relations background. I can honestly confirm that, while the job may not be given, the job is often lost in the first five minutes.

You already know that you need to arrive on time, dress professionally and give a firm handshake, but did you know that the way you present your resume matters? I recently watched as one candidate spent several minutes looking through a stack of papers for what was a dog-eared copy of her resume and list of references. Note that organizational skills were integral for this job.

Another thing that will lose an interview is showing a lack of confidence, so act confident, even if you’re not.*
How?
Watch your body language. Sit up straight, don’t fidget and maintain eye contact.
Don’t be afraid of silence. This is difficult, but it’s the easiest way to trip someone up; just ask lawyers or journalists!

One that some people may not think about is showing that you take direction well. You may think that you need to prove you can take control, but there is a level of respect that should be adhered to within an interview.  Let the interviewer lead the interview. I once interviewed a graphic designer that brought his laptop to show some of his sites. What transpired next was twenty minutes of him leading me around the Internet. I didn’t want to be rude as he was clearly excited about his work, but it was unnecessary and I felt he lacked focus as a result.

Do your research. I’ll never forget asking a candidate, “What do you know about StormStaff?” and the response was, “Well, I was hoping you could tell me more about StormStaff. What is it that you guys do?”  Clearly the journalism skills haven’t led her to research us! Plus, how passionate could she possibly be if she doesn’t know what we do?

If you need further interview help, download our Interviewing Tips Whitepaper

* When acting confident, don’t act cocky. It’s ok to admit if you haven’t done something that may be expected of you, but are a fast learner and excited to take on new challenges.

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”

–Russell Baker, American journalist and humorist

Monday marked the official start of the summer and while most of us may be concerned with losing a few extra pounds around our midsection or toning up our pecks before hitting the shores this season, this might not be the only shaping up that needs to happen.

This summer, treat your resume like you do your bathing suit bod and you will find much more ease with your job search! You may want to evaluate your current situation and determine the best strategy to boost your chances of getting a call back. Depending on where you stand, you may find yourself bulking up, slimming down or simply just toning up your resume a bit over the summer:

Need to bulk up: Is your resume looking a little bare? Need to beef it up? If you need to add to your resume, you may want to consider doing some volunteer work at local charities, alumni associations, community groups, professional interest groups, etc.

Volunteer work gives you a chance to gain important workplace skills and some extra experience. You can take it a step further by getting involved on the leadership level of an organization! Consider an elected or appointed position, the Board of Directors or possibly acting as a community advocate. Getting involved in higher levels of volunteer-based organizations will not only show you are self-motivated but will also let potential employers get to know a little more about what your passions are. Not to mention that volunteering can also lead to good job references and loads of networking opportunities.

Another way you can bulk up your resume would be taking additional courses and certifications. They may require a bit of a time commitment but you’ll be able to attend them at most local community colleges and educational facilities. Listing additional courses and certifications on your resume show you have some initiative, something all employers are looking for in potential employees.

Slim Down: Feel like you’ve got too much weight carried around on your resume? Is it bogging you down? Slimming down your resume may be just the trick, but it can be hard to do. We’ve all felt the need to include as much as possible on our resume, but in fact, you may end up jeopardizing your chances by including too much. The most important thing you can do on your resume is to have clearly described your skills and strengths. If you’ve done this and get asked in for an interview, feel free to go in depth at that time. So make sure you trim the fat. Avoid long lists of duties for jobs you’ve held and keep it to the facts that emphasize your accomplishments and successes. The most important thing you can do to keep a lean, mean resume is to keep it straight forward and concise.

As a rule of thumb for your resume, try to remember that less can actually be more!

Side note: If you are a more experienced job seeker and need to trim down your resume, a good way to do this (as well as prevent any possible age discrimination) could be leaving off the year you graduated from college. You may also leave off older work experience as well.

Just a little tone up: Some of you may only need a few touch-up revisions to your resume. If this is you, congratulations on winning half the battle! As you tone up your resume, you’ll want to make sure to look over your resume for keywords. These keywords will be crucial in grabbing a hiring manager’s and recruiter’s eye. If you want to spark up interest, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got keywords scattered throughout your resume. Take a look at job postings in your field to determine some of the common keywords that you should include in your resume. If you find a job you’d like to apply for and the posting lists certain skills that are required to apply, make sure you include those on your resume, too (as long as they are valid, of course).  You may also want to consider adding a brief “special skills” section in addition to employment history. This can be a collection of the words that best summarize your experience and skills. Lastly, if you’ve trained and worked with certain computer programs (for ex. Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel), particularly if it’s unique and/or relevant to your profession, make sure you detail them as well.

Follow these tips and you’ll find yourself ready to beat the summer heat and feel your best throughout your entire job seeking process!

Sources:

Want to land an interview? Bulk up your resume with keywords! – ExecuSearch group

How to bulk up your resume – ehow

Opportunities to add keywords to your resume – Quintessential Resume Resumes and Cover Letters Tips

What does hiring the wrong person really cost you? More than you think. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that hiring the wrong entry-level employee costs between $5,000 and $7,000 after three months. Mis-hiring a supervisor that makes $20,000 per year will cost you about $40,000.  Hire the wrong $100,000 per year manager and you’re out about $300,000. Add to this a decrease in employee morale, lost business and dissatisfied customers and you’ve got every hiring manager’s nightmare. So how can you find the right person for the right job? Staffing agencies can get the job done when it comes to meeting your hiring needs. Staffing agencies dedicate all their resources to finding your perfect fit– after all, this is what they do, 100% of the time.

“We know our clients’ time is valuable,” says Kelly Strukoff, Associate Vice President of StormStaff, a San Diego-based staffing firm. “We make it our priority to ensure that our clients get the hiring resources they need on time without sacrificing quality.”

In an economy where time is money and money is scarce, hiring managers can’t afford to make the wrong hiring decisions.  They need to be confident that the position will be filled by the right person the first time around. Working with a staffing firm can save companies time and money and can offer peace of mind, but how do staffing firms guarantee they have the right candidates for your open position?

While some staffing firms take a “one size fits all” approach, many firms work diligently on building long-term relationships with their customers. This allows them to learn the ins and outs of their customers’ businesses and fully understand their hiring needs, down to the smallest details. “At StormStaff, we personalize every aspect of our service because no two clients are the same,” says Strukoff. “We want to know as much as we possibly can about the client – their specific needs, work environment, business goals, everything. This helps us find the right candidate for them instead of just sending over piles of wrong-fit resumes. It’s always quality versus quantity for us.”

In-depth recruiting is also an essential function of staffing firms. Finding the right candidate for a client’s open position means screening, interviewing and evaluating a pool of candidates based on the needs of the client to find a mutually beneficial match. “Candidates are our clients too,” says Alex Silva, a StormStaff Account Manager based in Fort Lauderdale. “We do our best to market their skills and try to find their next career step, not just a job.” Not all staffing agencies invest a high-level of time and energy into the careers of their candidates, but those that do have no doubts that their customers will be fully satisfied with their services. Strukoff adds, “At StormStaff, we are so confident in our candidates that if there is any performance issue at any time, we’ll make a replacement without charging the client for the first week of the transition.” That’s a guarantee that any hiring manager will be happy to hear.