Hey everybody, Don Georgevich here. Today, I want to talk to you about your r�sum�.
That's right. Your r�sum�. And why it's not attracting employers.
Now, when you have an ideal resume of the ideal length and it's written correctly, you
can probably expect to get called maybe 20 to 30 percent of the time. So, for every 3
out of 10 resumes that you send out, you should get a callback for a job interview.
If you're not, if you send out 10 r�sum�s and you get zero responses, that means your
r�sum� isn't very targeted to the job that you're looking for. There's something
wrong with it. If you send out 100 r�sum�s and you get
zero responses, then you have serious problems. But if you send out 100 r�sum�s you should
be getting 20 to 30 calls for an interview. If you're not, keep watching this video, because
I'm going to show you how to shape your r�sum� so that you can get more calls off of it.
So, if employers are not calling you, that means your r�sum� is not doing its job.
And if your r�sum� is not doing its job, that means it's not making your phone ring.
And that means it's costing you countless lost job opportunities.
Now whether you wrote your resume yourself or you had someone do it, there's probably
some issues with it. There's something about it that is not resonating with employers.
Now, I can't tell you exactly what it is without seeing it, but I get hundreds of resumes that
come across my desk every month. And they all have very similar problems and that's
what I want to cover with you today, what those problems are.
And the first reason is length. Many candidates write three or more pages of just boring work
experience. They just pack it full of everything they've ever done, they list every skill that
they have, and you end up with is three boring pages just nonsense and employers don't want
that. Three or more pages is too many. Ideally,
you want to be around one to two pages. So, if your r�sum� is more than three pages,
I would strongly suggest that you trim that down, especially if you have around 10 to
15 years� experience. Maybe if you have 30 years of work experience, you can go into
three pages. But if you're like most of us and you're in
the 5 to 20 year experience range, one to two pages is ideal for you. Any more than
that, it doesn't get read and it confuses employers about what you're looking for.
But ideally, if you can't say what you need to say in one to one and a half pages, you
have way too much to say and it's just not going to get read. It's like a long boring
conversation. Who wants to sit down and listen to somebody prattle on and on and on. R�sum�
is the same thing. So, more than two pages, way too long. Keep your length down to one
to one and a half pages at the most. So, what you want to do is aim for one page,
but try not to go beyond one and a half pages. If you have them push it to two, go ahead
and do that, but try to keep that one to one and a half page benchmark in mind as the ideal
length for a r�sum�. I mean, I would bet, getting to one page can
be really challenging. But if you push yourself and you focus, you can do it. And when you
have a one-page r�sum�, it's a much stronger, more powerful, more direct r�sum� that
is more likely to generate more calls for interviews for you. Okay. Next one.
Irrelevant content. All too often, candidates put you relevant content on the r�sum�.
And what I mean by irrelevant is work experience that is not related to the job that they're
applying to. So, how do you find out what type of experience
you should put on r�sum�? Well, you read the job description. Get that job description
out. Print it out. Don't just look at it online. Print out that job description. Get yourself
a pen, get yourself a couple highlighters. Go through the job description, break it apart,
look for everything that it's most important to that company. Find out what they're really
looking for; the type of experience and the qualities that they want in an employee. Then
tailor your r�sum� to match that job description. And what that might mean. That might mean
that you'll have to remove some of the experience that you have on your r�sum� because it's
not relevant to what they're looking for. And what happens is when you have that relevant
experience, it ends up diluting your r�sum�. So, if you have some good experience and you
have some experience that isn't related, that interviewer has to filter out everything on
your resume that isn't related to what they're looking for. Which takes effort. So, I'd like
to make their job easier. And you should too. So, write your r�sum� for the job description,
take out work experience that isn't relevant to what they're looking for and this is going
to give you a more focused, customized resume that's going to match the job description
and more likely going to generate an interview for you.
And another thing that people do on their r�sum� is they it full of skills. They
have like a skills section and they have all these individual skills; like they�re a
project manager, they're a leader, they excel, they're great at time management. Those are
all a bunch of skills that are out of context and they add absolutely no value to your reservation.
So, what I would suggest; if you're really good at leading people or project management
or whatever it is, put that skill in context. Write an accomplishment statement about your
leadership abilities or write an accomplishment statement about how you are good at project
planning or whatever it is, but put your skill in context.
That way, you have real skills that you backed up with experience and that is going to attract
an employer. Trust me on that one. Okay. Next one.
Zest: Now, what is zest on a r�sum�? Zest is that creative edge that is woven in to
your r�sum�. It's what makes your r�sum� sparkle, it's what makes it shine, it�s
what makes it stand out from everybody else's. So, how do you write a r�sum� with zest?
How do you add that extra little pizzazz in there that makes your r�sum� stand out
from everybody else's? Well, I'll tell you. Writing with zest is
not going to be that easy, because it requires effort and you're going to have to add some
style and some flair to work experience statements. You don't want to just write boring statements
that say, �I achieved company goals, I sold X amount of product and I achieve goals�.
You want to write creatively. You want to pool in your interviewer or the employer into
a r�sum� and you want to let them get a feeling for the kind of work that you've
done. So, you want to write creative statements
that describe what you did, how you did it, who you did it for, and what the benefit was,
who did it benefit, how did it benefit, what was the value of what you did.
Bring the employer to think of your career and show them. Let them feel what you did.
That's how you can write creatively; that's the zest part, that's what's going to make
your r�sum� sparkle. Now, it's not easy. It takes time, it takes effort and that's
why people don't do it. So, what you want to do to really attract
an employer is remember how I told you to get out that job description and highlight
everything that they're looking for; write creative statements around the key areas of
experience that they are looking for. That's going to pull them in.
So, when they say they're looking for someone who knows how to manage projects, you come
in and you talk about how you manage projects, what you've done, the tools that you've used
to manage those projects and the success rate that you've had with those projects. Give
them all those little details and that's going to make you stand out. It's going to make
you shine on paper. Because that's all you have.
They can't see you, they can't talk to you yet. So, they're only looking at you on a
piece of paper. So, you have to make that paper come alive. And that's what zest is.
Now, what you can do after you get your r�sum� written. Give it to somebody, give it to a
friend, give it to a family member and have them read it and just have them read it openly.
Have them read it and then give you feedback. Now, here's how to weigh in the feedback.
If they read your resume and they say, �Oh, that sounds good�. That means it's boring.
That means they're bored to tears, they don't even know what you're saying.
But if they come back and they say, �Hey, that's really cool. How did you do that?�
Now, you got something. Now, you've got some zest in there. You've got some pizzazz. You�ve
got some sparkle and now you have something to work with. And that's a r�sum� that
you can send out and you're more likely to get more hits on that type of r�sum�.
You're going to get calls for interviews. But in a nutshell, writing with zest is writing
creatively. You have to be able to write creatively. And writing creatively takes time. You can't
just do it in a minute or two. And I'll tell you this; if you hire a resume
a writer, they generally don't write creatively. They just write factually, because you're
giving them a list of experience and facts and things you've done and then they just
put that into some statements for you. But even though they have the ability to take
everything you've done and write it into statements, they generally lack that creative edge. Unless
really good, expensive r�sum� writer. But most of them out there, you get your r�sum�
written for a few hundred bucks, it's not going to have that sparkle to it; it's not
going to have that creative edge. Sure, maybe it's a little better than what
you can do yourself on the first draft, but if you push yourself hard, you can force yourself
to write a very good, creative r�sum� that's a strong reflection of who you are
and what you've done. And it's going to make employers say, �Wow! That�s pretty cool.
How do they do that? I want to meet them�. That's the response you want your r�sum�
to generate and you could do that. It just takes time. You have to put the time in, you
can't just bang out your r�sum� in five minutes and have a masterpiece. It takes hours,
days, weeks. My own personal r�sum�, I've had hundreds
of revisions. I've written it over and over and over. Every day, I find a way to make
a certain statement a little bit better, a little bit sharper, a little bit more clear,
a little bit more sparkling, a little more zest.
And that's what you want to aim for. And you're not going to get it overnight. I mean, maybe
in a couple of weeks� time, you can get it if you keep massaging that r�sum�,
you're going to get closer to where you want to be, but you have to know where you're headed.
You don't want to just create a r�sum� that's a job description of everything you've
ever done; that spells boring, and that's probably why you're not getting any phone
calls. That's probably why nobody is calling you because you've written your r�sum�
as a job description and there's no creative element in it at all.
And for you to stand out amongst the hundreds or thousands of other r�sum�s out there,
you need that creative edge, you need that zest, you have to put that effort into it
and then you'll get a r�sum� that�s going to make your phone ring. Trust me on
that one. So, to wrap it up; after you adjust the length
and get yourself down to one, one and a half pages, write your r�sum� for the job description,
get out any type of irrelevant content and then put that zest factor in your r�sum�.
You should get a hit rate on your r�sum� of at least 20 to 30 percent.
So, you sent out 10 r�sum�s, you should get at least two to three people calling you
for a job interview. If you don't, that means your r�sum� isn't aligned to what they're
looking for in the job description. Now, if you send out like a hundred resumes, you should
be getting 20 or 30 calls. But now, I'll tell you this; it's not easy
to send out a hundred resumes. You can't just go into the job boards, like on CareerBuilder,
and just punch in and say, �You know, bam, bam, bam, send out my r�sum� to a hundred
positions�. That doesn't count. You have to look at each position individually,
review the job description and target your r�sum� to match that.
It takes effort. It might take an hour or two to apply for each job. So, if you send
out a hundred r�sum�s, I hope you put in 70 to 100 hours� worth of effort into
applying to all those jobs. If you didn't, you're just wasting your time.
Focus; focus all your efforts on just a few jobs at a time. There can't be a hundred jobs
out there that you're a perfect fit for. There just can't be; there�s a handful. And you
have to find those, and target those, and work on those.
That's how you get a phone call. It's not a numbers game. You don't send out a hundred
or 500 or a thousand r�sum�s and expect to get boatloads of interviews. That doesn't
work. And you've probably already tried that and you realize that doesn't work and that's
why you're here today, watching me. So, focus, length, irrelevant content, and
zest. Apply all those factors to your r�sum� and I guarantee you you're going to be amazed
with the results. Now, that's all I have for you today. If you
would like to go further and dig deeper into how to make your resume better, I have a great
program. It's an online program. It's called The R�sum� Doctor.
And in The R�sum� Doctor, I take all of these steps; zest, irrelevant content, job
description statements, and I show you how to go into your r�sum�, methodically,
line by line, and show you what's wrong and how to fix it.
The R�sum� Doctor is about a 90-minute video training workshop where just you and
me, we sit down and I take you by the hand and we walk through your r�sum� and I'll
show you all of the areas where you're struggling or where you might be struggling with your
r�sum� and how you can make it better. I have some examples in there to show you
how one r�sum� generates a response and another r�sum� doesn't generate any response
at all; just by looking at them. So, I�ll show you the process that a recruiter
or an employer is going to go through when they look at r�sum�s and how they can
just instantly, within two seconds, know if they have a winner or not.
And I'm going to show you how you can do that too and how you can apply that to your r�sum�,
so that it's a winner all the time. So, I'll put a link for The R�sum� Doctor
in the description below. It's pretty cheap. I think it's only like 37 bucks or something
like that. And you can pick it up here at jobinterviewtools.com.
And if you don�t like it, then send it back. Just say, �Hey Don. I tried The R�sum�
Doctor. I don't like, I don�t want it�, whatever; that's fine. But I guarantee you
The R�sum� Doctor is going to help you go farther.
So, if you like what I'm saying, if you like everything in this video, if you like everything
that I'm saying and you want to go to the next step, try The R�sum� Doctor. Just
give it a try, watch it, and if you didn't get anything out of it, just say, �Hey Don.
You know, it wasn't working for me. I want my money back�. No problem. But give it
a try. I guarantee you, you would get something out of it. I guarantee it.
Alright, that's all I have for you today. Good luck on your next interview and I'll
see you in the next video. If you found this video helpful, then give
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