LinkedIn's top 10 overused résumé phrases

 By Mark Milian, CNN

With national unemployment at 9.8 percent, Americans are looking for ways to make their job applications stand out.

However, peppering résumés with tired or empty buzzwords probably isn't the recipe for becoming a standout job candidate.

LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, has compiled a list of the 10 most overused terms and phrases within the profiles of its 85 million members.

"We wanted to reveal insights that help professionals make better choices about how to position themselves online," DJ Patil, LinkedIn's lead data analyst, said in a statement.

Job seekers may want to search through their résumés and cover letters and reconsider using any instances of these words:

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

Jessica Holbrook Hernandez, president of Florida-based Great Résumés Fast, recently compiled her own list of throwaway phrases. She says she cringes when coming across things like "great communication skills" or "attention to detail."

These terms, she writes, "are frequently used on résumés, often by candidates who really don't even possess them. Instead of using these throwaway terms to describe yourself, attempt to outline specific accomplishments."

Weekly Wisdom: October 18, 2010

Smoothing Out a Bumpy Work History
Ten jobs in 10 years might look like a job hopper or a committed consultant, depending on how you present your work history in a resume.

By Lisa Vaas, http://www.theladders.com/

It didn’t make sense.

Doneé had been searching for work in the digital media industry for nearly eight months by the time she hooked up with career coach Adriana Llames, author of "Career Sudoku: 9 Ways to Win the Job Search Game". Doneé had in-depth industry knowledge, plenty of contacts and is good at networking.

Then Llames saw her resume. Whoa.

Ten jobs in the past nine years? No wonder she wasn’t succeeding. Llames called a few executive recruiters in the digital media industry and asked if they knew, or had worked with, her client. They all said that they wouldn’t represent her because of what they called her “unstable work history.”

Llames, like all career coaches, doesn’t have the luxury of passing on such a problem child, so she rolled up her sleeves. Here’s what she did to help position Doneé’s unstable work history in a positive light, and some of the techniques professional resume writers often employ for those like Doneé with bumpy histories.

List Contracting Positions as One “Consulting” Job

In the course of reviewing Doneé’s resume, Llames found that nearly 65 percent of her positions starting in 2001 were consulting roles. Doneé is, in fact, currently consulting. So Llames grouped the consulting gigs together and focused all of Page 1 on her client’s consulting expertise and clients.

Cheryl E. Palmer, a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW), noted that many people use their names for the name of their consulting organization (i.e., James Smith Consulting Group). “It makes the resume much crisper and cleaner to summarize consulting jobs under one position and combine the dates for all of the consulting work rather than listing them all separately.”

Llames followed suit and listed the other positions, even though they each lasted about 12 months, on Page 2. But, Llames told her client, she was still concerned that what she called “her career ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder]” would come across even with the revised resume.

That makes networking all the more important. Llames suggested that, whenever possible, Doneé should try to “keep her resume to herself until she’s across the table from someone and they’re already in love with her and ready to go.”

When to Delete a Gig

It’s OK to omit those full-time positions with extremely short tenures. Palmer said that the rule of thumb for full-time positions is to omit those that last less than three months.

Account for Your Time Away From Work

Shel Horowitz, ethical marketing expert and author of eight books, advised one client who'd been out of the workforce raising children for 10 years. As many resume experts advise in such cases, he highlighted her volunteer work as if it consisted of paying positions (without, of course, saying that they were actually paying positions, which would have been a lie). The client got a job as director of a local human services agency. (Click on the link that follows for our in-depth look at transitioning from full-time parenting to full-time work.)

For another client, he accounted for a two-year gap by talking about the travel he did in that period.

Many professionals also mask short employment gaps by using whole-year formats for dates instead of month/year, but many hiring managers report that this raises suspicions and few resume experts recommend trying to hide gaps in this manner. Stick to the month/year format and come up with something relevant to insert into the gap, whether it’s family illness, sabbatical, professionally relevant courses, volunteer work, working on a book, etc. — just make sure it’s accurate and truthful. If you’re unemployed now and lack such justifications, immediately start working on being relevant in one or more of these ways. (Click on the link that follows to learn more about handling negatives on your resume.)

Weekly Wisdom: October 11, 2010

6 Steps to Put Your Resume in the Right Hands

E-mail and snail mail your resume and cover letter to the source

By Mark Bartz of The Ladders

Put away your wallet. You don't need to drop hundreds, or many thousands, of dollars to blindly blast your resume and cover letter to the right employer. Here are six easy steps that will save time and money, and land you interviews in the unadvertised job market. This information comes from your peers, especially sales and marketing professionals: We followed up with (literally) hundreds of them during their job searches to learn the latest best practices for resume distribution. This information also comes from major employers who source us for America's top sales and marketing talent.

If you follow these steps you can expect a 6 to 9 percent response rate as opposed to the 1 to 2 percent response rate using the normal resume distribution methods. 

Step 1: Submit your resume initially by e-mail. Set e-mail type to HTML, not plain text. Don't convert your resume to a PDF. Set your spell check so you can't send anything out without first spell-checking your message. And don't use an e-mail stationery; use a white background — no color or graphics. E-mail each employer individually — anti-spam software is set to recognize and reject mass e-mail sends. Word-wrap your sentences at 60 characters — this prevents those awkward-looking e-mails with fragmented sentences.

Send your cover letter (with contact information) in the e-mail body and your resume as an attached document. Be sure the cover letter is addressed to the recipient or Attn: HR. Your subject line should be  "Resume of (Your Name) for (Job Title)." If you can, set your e-mail options as follows: the importance to 'high,' the sensitivity to 'confidential' — almost no one does this and it gets you noticed. In the body of the e-mail, be sure to state that "I am pursuing a (fill in the blank) role with your organization." And, "I've attached my resume for your review and look forward to your response." Finally, run anti-virus software frequently! Annoying little viruses may be interfering with your "open rates" as most companies run server-side anti-virus products. 

Step 2: At the same time you're e-mailing the employer, mail them a hard-copy resume. Print using a laser printer on 24-lb. white paper with a lumens rating of at least 90. Don't use 'resume paper' unless you're presenting the resume in person (it doesn't scan as well as plain white paper). Mail it flat in a gray envelope: Folds don't scan well and white envelopes may become soiled moving through the mail. Hand-write or computer-print addresses on mailing labels — and be sure to use a waterproof (non-smear) pen. 

Step 3: Send a follow-up e-mail to the same e-mail address you used in Step 1. In the e-mail subject header, put: "Follow-up to resume of (your name)." In the body of the e-mail, paraphrase the following:

"Attn: Human Resources: I am following up to be sure you received my resume, and to see if there is an opportunity for an interview. I am seeking a role in (fill in blank) with your organization. I look forward to meeting you in person, and I welcome your referral to any colleagues who may be interested in my unique background and skills." 

Step 4: Mail a follow-up card, using the verbiage above; hand-write the note. If your handwriting is like mine (terrible!) then slow down and print the note. Use the 'thank you' blank cards they sell at stationery-supply stores like Staples, Office Depot, etc., which price out to about 50 cents each plus postage. You should get a better response with those notes vs. not using them! 

Step 5: Some discreet guerilla marketing tactics: If you find an employer asking for resumes by fax but not disclosing who they are, call that fax number but change the last digit in the phone number (it will likely be a person sitting next to the fax machine); use your finesse to ask that person for an appropriate contact name within HR or the division you're targeting. If you must fax, set your fax mode to "fine." You'll likely find your fax machine currently in the "standard" mode — switching to fine mode will slow down the fax but typically doubles the clarity of the recipient's fax — test-send once to see the marked improvement for yourself. 

Call the department you're considering working for and ask them to recommend a professional association for you to join. Attend meetings of that professional association as a visitor, but be sure to get training on the latest techniques in networking and informational interviewing before you try this! This sort of networking requires a light touch, particularly for the full-time job seeker.

Even if you have a contact in the organization, always phone the front lobby of the company to ask for names of HR or the appropriate hiring manager — it goes without saying to get names and titles correct. Remember there's a high turnover rate of employees at all levels these days — 50 percent every 2.4 years according to the Department of Labor — so gathering accurate contact names can be a chore but makes a much bigger impact. 

Step 6: Resend your updated resume every few months while you're conducting a search, because most employers purge their resume databases at regular intervals. How often? It depends on the employer. We've seen Fortune 1000-level employers purge resumes older than 90 days; they need to because they receive an average of 400 resumes daily. A second reason they purge their files is to avoid legal discrimination (EEOC) suits. Regulatory compliance is also one of the major reasons larger employers use resume scanning software called Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) or Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

Happy hunting! And of course, if you still want to spend that extra resume distribution cash, there are always charitable funds. Please let us know if you have your own insight to add to the above...we're always looking to refine our most current information.

Weekly Wisdom: 9/13/2010

What's in a name?

When it comes to resumes, resist the urge to use overly inflated or ambiguous job titles.  Clarity is the one characteristic shared by all great resumes; it doesn't matter that you're good at something if I have to spend five minutes figuring out what that something is and why it's important to me!  Was your title "account manager" but you were doing outside sales, generating 100% new business?  Do they call you a "sales manager" even though all your work is over the phone and you've never left the office or brought on an existing account?

The most effective way to get recognized in a saturated candidate pool is to be clear about who you are and what you've done and what you have to offer a potential employer.

Weekly Wisdom-August 23, 2010

10 Ways to Get Your Résumé Tossed
CareerBuilder.com writer

Writing a résumé isn't exactly a speedy process. First there's the brainstorming. Then, you have to write -- and rewrite, and rewrite -- your educational and work histories until your résumé perfectly boasts your background. Plus, there's all that proofreading.

Even though your résumé took you hours to write, hiring managers will typically spend less than one minute reviewing it. If your résumé has any glaring errors, however, employers will waste no time deleting it.

To ensure your résumé gets proper attention, avoid these 10 all-too-common blunders:

1. Not bothering with a cover letter. Cover letters are so important to the application process that many hiring managers automatically reject résumés that arrive without them. Make the most of your cover letter by expanding on a few of your qualifications, explaining any gaps in employment or providing other information that will entice the employer to read your résumé.

2. Giving your résumé format a little "flair." Unusual fonts or fluorescent pink paper will certainly make your résumé stand out -- in a bad way. Keep your résumé looking professional by sticking with standard white or cream-colored paper, black type and a common font like Arial or Times New Roman.

3. Going long. Since your high school job scooping ice cream probably isn't relevant to your career anymore, it shouldn't be included on your résumé. Your résumé shouldn't be longer than two pages so only include your most recent and relevant work history.

[**be careful...stopping short on your job history can also be viewed negatively; don't go into great detail about your job scooping ice cream, but if you did it for three years after college, don't leave a gaping hole in your work history either]

4. Focusing on duties, not accomplishments. Instead of writing a list of job duties on your résumé, demonstrate how each duty contributed to your company's bottom line. For example, anyone can plan the company fund-raiser, but if you note that your fund-raiser brought in 50 percent more money than the previous year's event, the hiring manager will be take notice.

5. Having a selfish objective. Employers are trying to determine whether you're a good fit for their organizations, so everything on your résumé should point to your experience. A summary of qualifications that conveniently displays your accomplishments and background is far more effective than a generic objective statement ("To gain experience in...").

6. Being too generic. Always customize your résumé and cover letter for each job and employer to which you apply. This way, you can tailor your materials to show how you will be a perfect fit for the position.

7. Guesstimating your dates and titles. With the proliferation of background checks, any "upgrades" you give your titles or stretching of employment dates to cover gaps will likely get caught -- and eliminate you from consideration.

8. Tell everyone why you left. Never put anything negative on your résumé. If you left the position due to a layoff or you were fired, bring it up only if asked.

9. Include lots of personal information. It's fine if you enjoy fly fishing on Sunday afternoons, but unless your hobby relates to your career, it doesn't belong on your résumé. The same goes for your height, weight, religious affiliation, sexual orientation or any other facts that could potentially be used against you.

10. Assume spell-check is good enough. Spell-checkers can pick up many typos -- but they won't catch everything (manger vs. manager, for example). Always proofread your résumé several times, and ask a friend to give it a final review.

Just one more reason to keep it simple…

Why the Top Third of Your Resume Counts
Make sure your resume is smartphone friendly
by Abby Locke

PalmPilot, BlackBerry, laptop — you name it – it’s hard to imagine functioning in today’s world without having access to on-the-go technology. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that technology continues to play a big part in how job seekers and recruiters find each other.

Imagine for a second that you have spent hours crafting a standout resume and e-mailed it to a recruiter or hiring manager. Guess what? You can never be sure how they'll end up viewing it. The recruiter could view it on a BlackBerry, a desktop computer or as a hard copy. Picture what your executive resume looks like when viewed on a handheld device — it simply does not have the same effect.

If only the top third of your resume is displayed on a mini screen, can your resume still effectively sell you? The answer is yes, if you have strategically placed a strong, branded profile on the top portion of your executive resume. Generally your resume profile would contain a combination of a few key bits of information. This can include a title header, personal branding statement, unique selling proposition, areas of expertise, industry preferences, job targets, top career achievements, degree from a top university and/or much more.

In order to create a resume profile that communicates your immediate value and prompts the reader to contact you, it’s vital that you determine the following:

1. How do you want to be perceived?
Keep in mind that your executive resume is not a career obituary, so only the key career highlights that are most relevant to your target position will count. Consequently you want to maximize your professional reputation and position yourself as a solution for the company. Are you a turnaround strategist, finance and investment guru, technology innovator or marketing specialist? Determine what you want your reader’s key take-away to be and keep this in mind as you prepare the top third of your resume.

2. What title header best represents you?
A title header on your executive resume should be like a handshake. It should confidently say, “I am a senior marketing executive,” or “My areas of expertise lie in human resource management and global technology.” It is generally placed immediately following your personal contact information on the resume. For example, an operations executive with extensive experience in global markets could have a title header that simply says:

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE

Without meeting this individual, you can immediately get an idea of their background. It also sets expectations for the type of achievements you’re capable of.

3. How would you summarize top career achievements?
Once you know how you want to be perceived, you must support your title header with evidence of top performance and achievements. Looking over your entire career, what is the consistent trend of achievements and contributions that stand out? Have you repeatedly grown startup companies into industry leaders, are you highly competent at spearheading cost-cutting initiatives or do you maximize emerging technologies to power internal operations?

For example, a marketing executive who excels at building companies through market share expansion could have a title header and unique selling proposition that says:

SENIOR MARKETING EXECUTIVE
Senior Vice President / Vice President

"I deliver growth for companies every time." Accurately forecasting industry trends and consumer interests that allow companies to exceed revenue projections, maximize ROI performance, achieve strong profitability and realize significant market growth.

Because the body of the resume will provide detailed content about specific position and industry-related achievements, you could opt to use an executive summary instead of a unique selling proprosition. This approach showcases performance trends overall.

SENIOR MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE
Non-Profits & Philanthropic Organizations with Focus on Mental Health, Children and Education
Visionary Strategy...Innovative Thought Leadership...Collaborative Management Style...

Another good approach for those with many focuses is to follow the title header with an area of expertise. Going back to the Ops executive, here's an example of how one could lay this out:

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE
Supply Chain Management • Planning & Inventory Management • Logistics • Systems Implementation
Startup, Turnaround & High-Growth Companies — High-Tech & Manufacturing Industries
Domestic & International Markets

It takes extra effort and careful planning to achieve a technology-friendly layout, but it is certainly worth the time in the end!

6 Simple Rules of Resume Writing

My last post drew on the wisdom of CEO, Marc Cendenella (The Ladders)—reading his thoughts on simplicity inspired me to take it a step further. So, while advising people to keep it simple, I would like to extend that advice specifically to resumes.

In a competitive market, I certainly understand the temptation to add more detail when you should probably be taking some away. Trust me when I say that we’ve all been guilty of “under-editing.” The resume is important; it’s two pages (or less) that represent your entire career to a complete stranger. And as that complete stranger, what I want every job seeker to remember is: time is money.

Now, if you’re currently unemployed, I know it seems like no fact could be more painfully obvious. But it’s important to understand what that means to those of us on the other side of the ropes.

For people like me (recruiters), that means getting the right candidate in front of my client as soon as possible. For my clients, that means filling the position as soon as possible because every day that it’s open is not only costing them money, but also negatively impacting the satisfaction of the people sharing the burden of those extra responsibilities. And with employee-company loyalty at an all-time low, that’s something no company can afford right now.

The bottom line is: hiring managers and recruiters don’t have five minutes to devote to deconstructing each resume that comes across their desks. In truth, a typical initial assessment—his or her or my first pass at your information—will go from start to finish in less than 30 seconds.

So, with all of the above in mind, here are some tips that can help make the difference between a call back and ending up in the recycle bin—jobseekers who want to get noticed, take heed:

1. Be consistent. Check for spelling and grammar but also make sure that your tabs, justifications, punctuation, fonts (no more than 2; no exceptions), spacing and character size are consistent throughout the resume.

2. Keep it clean. When you have completed writing your resume, preview the document and reduce the view to 50%--enough to obscure the text so you can focus on the image of the document. Did you leave enough white space, is your line spacing even, did you use a reasonably sized font (12pt) and leave at least a 1” margin?

3. Headings. Put your contact information at the top of your resume; it should be complete, easy to read and above all, easy to find.

4. Experience. Surprisingly few people seem to realize that your resume should not read like a job description; your resume should clearly outline what you have done but it should do it in a way that demonstrates why a hiring manager should talk to you.

5. So, highlight your accomplishments. This can most easily be done by using bullets—a very reader-friendly tool. Tangible successes and quantifiable accomplishments should be out in the open and found throughout your resume.

6. BE CONCISE. Never put a paragraph where a sentence could convey the same message—anyone who looks at your resume should be able to quickly and easily come away with a sense of whether or not you could perform the job functions. Make sure hiring managers can get enough in a glance to know they want to read the rest.

Sage advice from Marc Cenedella, CEO of The Ladders...

Theirs a problem with you're emailGrammar and spelling mistakes, such as those in the subject line of this e-mail, are sure to get you the wrong kind of attention in your job hunt. Modern software has made writing e-mails so quick and easy that you can easily find yourself clicking "send" before you really should have.

Spell-checker is your enemy

That darn, deceptive spell-check feature is your enemy. Sure, it fixes the obvious misspellings, but it misses the context, so you can end up using the wrong their / there / they're or its / it's by accident.

(My weakness, because of the way I type with a very dominant right hand, is writing "form" instead of "from" and the dang spell-checker never catches it... because it's spelled right even if it's the wrong word!)

You need to re-read your emails carefully -- my best advice is to set them aside after you've drafted them, take a bio break or a walk around the block, and come back and proof-read once more before hitting "send."

The need for clearing your head to make sure your email is simple and makes sense leads to my next suggestion, which is:

Simpler is safer

A lot of the bad emails I see aren't bad because the person writing them is unintelligent. Quite the opposite. They are bad because an intelligent person is trying to say too much, in too complicated a way, with too much complexity, in a bid to sound qualified for the job.

But that is just exactly the wrong approach.

Because, in fact, what employers and hiring managers are looking for is somebody who can communicate clearly and effectively. Rarely do long, complicated words and compound, complex sentences make you sound easy-to-understand.

And those longer, more turgid e-mails have a much higher chance of a misspelling, or grammar mistake, or unclear meaning, than a simple email.

Look, we're trying to get you a job here, not win the Nobel Prize, so don't over-complicate it and get too fancy.

It reminds me of a famous exchange between two writers who did win the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner (famous for complex, dense prose) and Ernest Hemingway (who rarely used words greater than two syllables):

Faulkner: "Hemingway has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Hemingway: "Poor Faulkner! Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" If you're trying to get a job, simple, clear communication is far more effective than big five-dollar words.

As an example, which of these two people would you rather hire?

Sally Simple writes, "I work well with teams, that might not necessarily like each other, to get them to understand the other side's viewpoint, sometimes with a bit of humor, and work together so that we can all be successful as a company."

While Terry Turgid elucidates, "My background indicates a capability to bring together disparate elements of the organizational structure in which inherent tensions arise due to the substance of the work output, the cross-utilization of organizational resources, and competition for allocations and prioritzations that occur as a result, and to enable those elements to optimize their effort co-ordination and process implementation in order to achieve synergistic outcomes on behalf of the global organization."

Now both of those say the same thing (I think), but which candidate would you put in charge of getting sales and marketing to work together? Or leading the product and tech groups on an important new initiative?

I'll take Sally Simple every time.

My rule of thumb for job hunt emails is: if Mom can't understand it, you're not communicating. Not so incidentally, this rule applies to 80% of business email communication, not just the job hunt.

OK, folks, that's my two bits on e-mails. I hope you have a clearly successful and simply wonderful week! How do you prevent yourself from making the type of mistakes I just made in the subject line? My advice is to not trust the computer and to keep it simple.