How To Make Your Résumé For Applicant-Tracking Systems

“Many job seekers have long suspected their online employment applications disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again. Their fears may not be far off the mark, as more companies rely on technology to winnow out less-qualified candidates.”  This quote is from the WSJ article: “Your Résumé vs. Oblivion”  where the author explains how recruiters and hiring managers deal with your resume when you send it via email or upload it on a job board, company’s career websites or Linkedin. In the age of electronics and downsized organizations, companies are overwhelmed by the number of resumes they receive from job applicants so they will first scan your document into a database and a software will screen the resume for specific key words.

Guidelines for making electronic resumes:

Scanned resumes are first translated in ASCII format, a very simplified way of looking at alphanumeric characters without formatting such as bolding, italics and underlines. If you’re submitting a paper resume to a company and you think the resume is going to be scanned into an electronic resume, then you need to make sure the scanning process understands what you’ve written. Remember, the database is going to convert the resume into a simple ASCII format.

Tips for writing your electronic resume:

Make sure your name is the only thing that appears on the first line of the document.

• Remove any graphics or artwork on your resume including shading, vertical and horizontal lines.
• Bulleted items can confuse scanners, so convert them to simple hyphens or asterisks.
• Move all text to the left margin. Tabs, tables and centered text can sometimes confuse the scanning software.
• Restrict your use of fonts to Times New Roman, Arial or Helvetica.
• Use only one font size, preferably between 10 and 14 points.
• Remove all underlining, bolding and italics.
• Use 8.5″ x 11″ paper that is white with black ink and print your resume only on one side of the paper. This will improve the contrast of your  text and help the scanner to read your resume.
• If possible, do not fold or staple your resume. That means mailing the resume in 9″x 12″ envelope.

Please note that the above recommendations are for US standards. In many other countries, the format is metric and paper size is A4 . If you don’t know where your resume will be scanned, ask the recruiter who posted the job.

Keywords in Electronic Resumes 

If you want to make it through the screening and ranking process, then you need to make sure you have the right keywords or key phrases in the body of your electronic resume. Resume keywords are simply the nouns and adjectives that are relevant to the position to which you’re applying. That means the choosing of keywords for your resume requires a thoughtful process.

Mailing Resumes: 

When submitting a resume by email or through mail it’s advisable to send two copies.  One copy can be the simple format the human resources department can efficiently and accurately scan into the electronic resume database. The second can be the elegantly designed resume that uses bolding and italics to highlight the job titles and keywords the writer wants to emphasize.

 Conclusion: While it is important to adapt your resume format to applicant-tracking software, the single best method of getting a job remains a referral from a company employee.

Related articles:  

• Today’s Resume Is Not About YOU, It Is About The VALUE You Add To Employers
• Get Your Resume Noticed: “The Power of Less”
• How To Network Like A Pro!

 

References :

• Guidelines for Preparing Electronic Resumes by UCLA 
• Electronic Resumes by Money-Zine

 

Dear Leaders, Personal Branding Is Not About YOU, It Is About People You Serve

I have preached for a long time what is written in this article from Forbes: Personal Branding Is A Leadership Requirement, Not a Self-Promotion Campaign. Developing your personal brand is essential for the advancement of your career and development as a leader.

Personal branding is more than just promoting the brand calls YOU. It is important for leaders to clearly communicate about their values to attract talent, engage current employees and other stakeholders inside and outside the company.

By cultivating your professional image via the content you post on various social media platforms, you can help other people as much as they can help you by sharing ideas or getting feedback from customers.

The relationships you develop online should be  based on a 2 way communication style without promoting yourself.

The choice of the social media depends greatly on your target audience, don’t waste too much time to be everywhere to increase your SEO.

Which leaders do you know that have successful personal brand ?

Related articles

• Why Branding Works?
• Is Personal Branding The Future Of Marketing? (business2community.com)
• Personal Branding Is A Leadership Requirement, Not a Self-Promotion Campaign
• Dear Executives, If You Are Not On Llinkedin Your Competitors Are

Why Facebook “Graph Search” Can Be Recruiters Best Friend ?

In my previous post I shared some comments about an article “Why I’m quitting Facebook” from  Douglas Rushkoff a media specialist for CNN. I found interesting to share some of potential FB problems. However I  still have benefits on using Facebook, especially as an expat who has many friends living around the globe and great “virtual” ones too.  One of those virtual friends is fellow expat Judy Rickatson, Social Media Director at Families in Global Transition. When she read the article, she shared her insights on how to address the issue about FB selecting or hiding friends updates for you. She recommended to use lists of your favorite friends and pages to make sure you will not miss news that really matter to you. Apparently that works for me.

There is another reason for me to stick to FB  as a career coach. Facebook is becoming one of the best source of employee referrals.

In this article: Infographic: How to Use Facebook for Recruiting. The graph shows how Facebook new feature called “Graph Search” can help you locate people by their interests, real-world connections, and locations. 

For now the Facebook application is not ready but you can try a search on this page:  https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch

Currently, 47 percent of new hires through social media are referred through Facebook, which puts the social network ahead of LinkedIn and Twitter as a recruitment platform (41% are referred via Linkedin and 16 % via twitter)

• 1 in 5 of users have had a friend share a job on Facebook
• 14 percent search specifically for jobs on Facebook
• 52 percent use Facebook to help find work

Companies can set up Facebook pages to build a following and post job listings, but 47 percent of users will “unlike” a page if the company posts too many status updates. This is why searching for candidates directly through “Graph Search” might be a better way to target people who might be interested in a new career.

 In conclusion, Facebook new “Graph Search” seems to be a powerful data mining tool and yes, potentially will violate your privacy and those data will be sold to marketers. So you can delete your FB account, still data about you will be found anyway. The best answer you have is to consider that what you post even to your secret list of friends will become public one way or another. If you don’t want to get hurt don’t post stupid things that you will regret. You also have to use this new feature for searching jobs, posting contents that will raise your visibility in FB graph Search.

What do you think of Facebook Graph Search ?

Related Articles:

• Implementing an employee referral program in your organization
• Utilizing social media for employee referrals

7 Steps to Become an Authority in Your Industry/ Keep Learning !

See on Scoop.it – Global Leaders

How developing your reputation as a leader can help boost your business and brand.

The last point  “Keep Learning” of this article on “how to become an authority in your industry” is for me the most important factor to become and stay an expert in your field.

The original article is mainly for businesses but the concept can be applied for building your reputation to boost your career and get opportunities

For organizing and sharing interesting articles I like Scoop.it. To discuss new topics, get new ideas and feedback from other experts I like Linkedin groups. I am not using yet the new Google+ feature, “communities”,  but it seems something interesting. If you have started a Google + community, please share your experience or wait for the next post after I have learned how to use this new tool.

For organizing ideas and actually learn, I like to write in my blog. Learning by teaching is one of my favorite way to learn. I can’t explain clearly something if I did not understand it fully.

What about you ? What do you do to be known as an expert in your industry ?

Related articles

• First look at Google+ Communities: the importance for brands, search and PR (econsultancy.com)

7 Rules To Never Waste Your Time Again

Reblogged from Anne Egros, Intercultural Executive Coach:

Are you always busy, yet not finishing all you want to do or enjoying the way you spend your time ? Time is the most precious asset we have that once spent is lost forever, unlike other precious things we may lose such as money, a job or even love, as we can always replace them. So why most people don't think about time as an investment and don't choose wisely how to spend it  as they do about their own money ?

Read more… 769 more words

Are You In Control Of How You Spend Your Time ?

1-What have you done since you read this article ?

2-What tips did you find useful ?

3-What other strategies did you use ?

Examples of what I did for saving time for my business:

I tracked my time on Social Media Platforms and concluded:

#1: I spent too much time learning about Facebook pages and other social media tools in details, now I know more than enough to be able to make a distinction between what works and what don't  and more importantly I have now in my network a bunch of very good social media experts and online marketing professionals I trust whom I can use for myself or recommend to my friends and clients.                             

#2: Time zones and geography: To be effective I have to post when my clients are active on the Internet. I learned how to use some automatic tools that post for me when I sleep on Twitter for example but it was not really efficient. I also dug deep into cultural preferences and clearly saw that Facebook was not used for business in most of my target countries but used for casual family and friends contacts.

#3: Linkedin authorize you to follow 50 groups (and more if you use sub-groups), I found this is way too many, so I just kept the groups but stopped all the notifications by email. That way I don't have too much distractions in my inbox. I also leave some groups and join others based on my interests at a specific moment. 

#4: Use Email Filters and Folders. I try to automatically put incoming emails in folders by topics or people. I have one  for all notifications from Facebook, one for Twitter and one for each client or important people, one for blogs and newsletters I follow etc..

#5: I started to use Scoop-it a magazine-like curation tool that help me keep interesting articles that stay there so I can search certain topics and save me time when I need to write an article or a blog. It is better than Twitter for that purpose.

#6:Un-following  people on Twitter:  I am using " ManageFlitter" to eliminate accounts I followed in the past that are no longer active and I want to focus on people who share my interests.

                                                                                                                                               

Related articles

• 6 Tools to Manage Your Twitter Followers (searchenginewatch.com)
• 52 cool facts and stats about social media (2012 edition) (prdaily.com)
• 8 Great Twitter Tools to Try (inc.com)

How To Network Like A Pro!

What is the Definition of Networking ?

“net·work·ing, noun”:

Definition:

1. The exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically : the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business
2. The establishment or use of a computer network

If you are mastering the art of networking the classical way, involving in person meetings, business cards  and phone calls,  then you know how to turn contacts into connections that will help you get your next job or win your next business deal. Right ?

WRONG !  

If you are a great connector and know how to make the most of your connections through traditional in person conversations, it is not enough anymore. If you don’t know how to use social media to engage people on a personal level by being part of online communities such as Linkedin, then you are simply out of the networking game. Since 2004, when the term social media was first used, people want to do business with people they trust and share similar interests beyond work but without necessarily being in some kind of physical contact via phone, video-conference or in person.

In the digital age, aka, the internet world, you cannot be a networking pro if you don’t know how to leverage your online presence to attract the right people who will help you reach your professional and business goals as well as your personal projects.

I think today, even the most stubborn executives admit they need some kind of presence online, they might no become social media artists,  but they know that personal branding is not a buzz word and actually it is a pretty old concept that first appeared in 1997 in an article published in Fast Company Magazine, from  management guru and author Tom Peters:

“We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” -Tom Peters

If you want to become a more confident and engaging person to establish effective relationships both online and off-line, start following those 3 steps:

Step #1: Create A Brand Called “ME”

What makes you unique ? In a global economy in crisis, every job seekers and businesses must differentiate themselves to stand out of the crowd. The only constant today is change and very fast change in our highly connected global world. To win the global war of talent you need to know who knows you and how you are perceived. What is your reputation online? Are you in control of what people find when they Google “your name” ? What is your unique value proposition ?  Do you know what your competitors have to offer ? What gives you a competitive edge ?

In a previous post “Me Inc, Brand Yourself and Find your Ideal Job”, I have listed the five steps to help you build your personal brand .

The materials to build your brand can be identified through the same process of strategic planning used to market products or services. Make a “SWOT” analysis starting by various assessments of your core personal  values, the principles that guide your life, your life purpose or mission, your vision, what are your strengths, weaknesses ? In which environment do you thrive ? What is the type of boss or ideal client you want to work with ?

It is important to be really YOU, authenticity is key, don’t try to be someone you are not but discover who you really are using tools that uncover hidden talent and what intrinsically motivates you.

For more in-depth understanding of personal branding  I recommend you to connect with Dan Schawbel recognized as a “personal branding guru” by The New York Times and author of the #1 international bestselling career book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future.or how to build a powerful brand to achieve career success. Check his Personal Branding Blog too.

Step #2: Identify Who Is Your Audience

It is tempting to be everything for anybody and everybody but this doesn’t work. As the leader of your own brand you must inspire the people you want to attract. What is it about you that is appealing to people who want to buy from you or hire you ? You need to change shoes and imagine being in those of your potential customers/employers. This is very important because the way you package your experience in your resume or select social media platforms depends on how your audience is listening and communicating about their professional and personal  interests.

If you want to learn about your target audience, start LISTENING first : search  key words used by people interested by your expertise and thought leaders.  Invite those people to connect on LinkedIn and see what they talk about and how they interact in specific groups (you can be part of 50 groups on Linkedin). Use Q&A, start a Twitter account and read other people’s  Tweets.

The same way an HR person or a hiring manager will get information about you via Google, you can learn a lot about companies by connecting with the employees online. If you want to learn about a specific country before accepting an international assignment, contact expatriates and locals who live there. Once the contact is made online, try to follow-up by a phone call or Skype or meet in person to share about your needs and how you can also return the favor by helping those who helped you. Do not hesitate to contact people you don’t know. People online are much more open to connect and talk to you even if you are a perfect stranger. Read more about How to Connect With People You Don’t Know 

Step #3 Engage your Connections Through Meaningful Conversations

Once you have an idea of what your prospects’ interests are,  then you can start defining your goals and make a “content marketing“  strategy to help you connect with the right web audiences. You can use any kind of platforms such as blogs, videos on YouTube, Google + or images on “Pinterest“ to create and distribute relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience, Use online “content curation“ tools such as Scoop.it to gather and disseminate knowledge in the topics your audience is interested.

You need to choose carefully your content strategy based on the specific goals you want to achieve. For example, If your goal is to increase you ranking in search engines like Google, then maybe it is a good idea to start a professional blog and comment in other experts’ blogs. Do you want to identify and invite new contacts ? then start a debate in a Linkedin group discussion. Maybe you want to demonstrate your capability to engage consumers online as a marketer ? then build a Facebook fan page and try to attract active followers on Twitter.

Whatever you need to do, be consistent about the image you want to project. For example do not use your personal Facebook  profile to broadcast your personal life. You may use your personal Facebook page to show a more casual image  of yourself but avoid venting your frustrations, be negative in general, don’t share your political or religious opinions and keep private things that are too personal.

Always assume that anybody can potentially see everything you post online and once out there it stays FOREVER !

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Are You The Invisible Man ?

Are you looking for a job and getting sick reading about personal branding, getting advises on “how to stand out of the crowd” or people talking about how to engage your target audience ? Worst do you get irritated by stupid buzzwords like “niche” or “influence” ?  Well if this is the case you are not alone:

According to the US Department of Labor, The number of unemployed persons in the United States is 12.8 million in February 2012. The unemployment rate held at 8.3 percent. In Europe,  France and Italy have 9.7 and 9.3 % respectively and Germany 6.3 % (data January 2012 from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

For sure the economy is tough but people who find a job nowadays are those who know they cannot be average, they know themselves very well, they are able to tap into  every single experience they have to identify how and why they can be competitive,  what skills they have or need to acquire that are in high demand.  But it is not enough, the reality is:

If you are not visible online you are essentially invisible when it comes to being found by anyone who might be looking for someone like you.

The paradox of the current jobs economy is if unemployment seems awfully high, more and more employers are complaining they can’t find the talent they need. In September 2011, The Economist published a special report on the future of jobs called “The Great Mismatch”.The paradox is that in some sectors it is hard to find good talent .

So I am sorry for job seekers who don’t get it, but you need to work hard to become highly visible in a positive way, use personal branding tools and inbound marketing techniques to “sell” your unique talent and value to a specific group of people who are willing to hire you and not your competitors.

Since I started using social media about 10 years ago via Linkedin, blogging then Twitter, Facebook or today via Pinterest,   I know successful professional people don’t wait to be laid off to build their personal brand and attract people to grow a solid network of connections both online or off-line. Executives have now realized they need a personal brand online too as they are not immune to being laid-off. Even presidents like Obama or Sarkozy use social media like Twitter for their election campaigns in the US and France this year.

If you choose to remain invisible, Linkedin made a search on 135 million profiles and listed the top 10 buzzwords used in United States in 2011 . Use them if you want to be boring, average” and ignored:

1. Creative
2. Organizational
3. Effective
4. Extensive Experience
5. Track Record
6. Motivated
7. Innovative
8. Problem Solving
9. Communication Skills
10. Dynamic

If you want more inspiration to avoid being identified by intelligent softwares used to scan online resumes, try to add the Top 10 overused buzzwords in LinkedIn Profiles in the USA – 2010

1. Extensive Experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

“Personal branding is about building a credible online presence that reflects our unique style and values and carves a niche for us personally and professionally on the Internet. Inbound marketing is about generating quality content directed to your target audience. Oscar Del Santo, Personal Branding & Inbound Marketing: Why the Mix Works

You cannot build a personal brand overnight,. it takes time and it is hard work, much more harder than writing a perfectly boring resume. All you have to do for that  is to make an extensive list of all your diplomas, each experience, even when you were a scout, your skills and most importantly ignore what your potential employers need and what your competitors do. Then you will be sure to never get noticed and remain invisible.

START BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND BEFORE YOU NEED TO

Related article: Invent Your Future Job:  Be Unique, Be Social, Be Global

2012 – The Year Social Media Bubble Will Eventually Burst | Smedio

Today I liked this article from Douglas Idugboe, Digital and New Media Marketing Strategist,because it is clear and has no technical jargon.

If you are a non believer comparing social; media today with the 2000 dot.com bubble burst,  here some numbers that helps put things in perspective :

To reach, the 50 million users mark,

• Radio took 38 years
• TV took 13 years
• Internet took 4 years
• Facebook took less than 6 months

Read More here: 2012 – The Year Social Media Bubble Will Eventually Burst | Smedio.

Klout Score: Content Is Key !

There are sure ways to lose your audience’s trust and patience on social media: making noise and becoming lazy, stopping creating educative or entertaining content and boring people with self-selling monologues.

A lot have been said about Klout  the “standard” for measuring online influence. I am not an expert to understand how the algorithms work to calculate your Klout score but it measures influence based on your ability to drive action by creating content or engaging others in conversations. The Klout score uses data from social networks such as Twitter, Youtube, WordPress, Linkedin, or Facebook.

Even if you don’t want to, everybody who is active on social media has a Klout score.  You may choose to ignore it but if you are a small business owner your clients may take it very seriously.  If you are a self-proclaimed expert in SEO, website designer or social media guru you need to be recognized as an expert with a low klout score people might doubt you have the capability to do a great job for improving their online presence and social media marketing.

If you are a business consultant or a coach, your Klout score may be interpreted to judge how well you can help your clients by using the latest internet tools available to reach their goals. For example help them learn what works and what doesn’t for their particular needs such as marketing their services or building a personal brand and assisting them in job search.

Hopefully, most people don’t use Klout alone to evaluate your skills or capability and your ranking on GOOGLE when people search your name or business is much more important as 99% of people will search information about you via Google (check my post : If You Don’t Show Up In Google, You Don’t Exist. and take the the test.

Klout is not only a number, it helps you identify people who are experts or at least are engaging people in certain topics. You can survey what are the trends in your sector or build your expert image and brand by publishing specific content people read and talk about on social media. For example Harvard Business Review (http://klout.com/#/HarvardBiz) is influential about Management, Business and Economics. Klout thinks I am influential about Coaching, Business, Culture.

Can I cheat my Klout Score ? YES ABSOLUTELY ! Klout is not a science and you can artificially pump up your Klout score by following these advises: How to increase your Klout Score in 9 Easy Steps  The problem with following those tips is that it takes as much time as making great content and you will fool nobody after a while if you are just a boring noise maker and a spammer.

My recommendation is: don’t be obsess by your Klout score, it is just a statistic tool. Nobody will trust you based on your Klout score only, you know the saying : there are  lies, damned lies, and statistics !  You will drop points faster than you gain them if you stop being connected during weekends or vacation which I recommend you to do. Don’t be a Klout addict,  what counts is using Klout as a tool to benchmark yourself against yourself. What did you do or say that increased your audience engagement ?  How much business do you get via social media ?  What topics are hot in your fields ? Are you perceived as an influencer ?  Overall Klout helps you define a sound content strategy.

Agree ? Don’t Agree ?

Related articles:

5 reasons to worry about your Klout score, as social influence comes of age.

Do you have Klout? Or could you be out of the running? (rogueloguevogue.com)

How Long Can You Really Stay Offline ?

Image via Wikipedia

Starting last Saturday and finishing Monday May 30 was memorial weekend in the US. Beside parades and various celebrations, for many Americans it is also the first day of “summer”. Community pools open, people start  BBQ parties and de-winterize their sprinkler systems.

Most of my readers are living in the US, yet Monday June 30, my blog had a record in term of number of people who visited and read posts. So people where either connected through their mobile devices while eating some chicken wings grilled on  the barbecue  or just craving to read news, blogs, Tweets on the internet and social media after 3 days offline.

A lot has been said about  ”Ttwitterholics”, “Facebook addicts” and compulsive usage of social media in general. I admit I am hooked on social media but I am not really addicted just sometimes I am so in the “flow”, see my previous post: Do you work too hard ?, that I forget the time and may be late to prepare the dinner for example.

So how long can you stay completely offline? I will be very curious to get your answers. I can spend 3 days included in a long weekend totally off , not writing or RT anything and check only emails for less than 30 minutes per day during vacation (one or two weeks in a row).

I don’t have TV, so instead of staying more than 2.5 hours on the couch passively watching news, commercials and celebrity shows, I actively “pull” information from the web, have serendipitous conversations with perfect like-minded strangers or customers and potential partners. Many of my friends and probably people I meet frequently on the internet see me posting  everyday on Linkedin , Twitter or FB, which are the main platforms I used. People might think that I have nothing else to do beside being active on the internet.  I am on social media mainly for work. I am an expat small business owner so using internet is my main marketing strategy to keep it afloat as a portable career when I am transitioning from one country to another.

Here the average time I spend daily on social media activities ( I excluded the time spent checking emails and online business like coaching clients or getting professional trainings)

1. Learning: (1.5 hours) almost everything and anything and trends on my fields of expertise, mainly through reading blogs and Tweets.
2. Engaging :(2.5 hours) with existing or potential customers by writing posts in my blog, interacting on LinkedIn, Skype and Twitter.
3. Relaxing (less than 1 hour) by sharing funny YouTube videos on Facebook or commenting on  friends’ walls.

A recent Nielsen survey shows that the average American TV consumption is  very high (141 hours per month) : which is more than 4.5 hours/day ! While according to Nielsen internet is used for an average time of 68 hours per month (at home and at  work).

So while I do not hear about TV addiction a lot compared to social media one nowadays, I am not spending more on the internet than the average American on TV ! In addition, I don’t have withdrawal symptoms when I cannot access to the internet  and don’t yet use mobile technologies to connect to social media.

What about you ? How much time do you spend on the Internet ? Can you stay totally offline for one or more days?