WINNING RESUMES BLOG: June 2008

6/18/2008

SAMPLE RESUMES AND TEMPLATES HURT MORE THAN THEY HELP

In a recession or Depression or hard times, using sample resumes or resume templates will HURT your chances more than they can help. Why?

You may be copying blindly from someone else's resume without understanding why it was done the way it was done. That sample resume was once designed for someone else with a different work history and different resume problems or blemishes. It's like making your own diagnosis of what you need and then using the "medicine" prescribed for someone else's resume. This is not smart at all and it will HURT you. It will also cost you a few job opportunities.

In a Depression, there are fewer jobs to compete for and you can't afford to miss out on any.

Like most people, you have probably looked at one or more sample resumes to see how others have done it – to try to save a few dollars in this recession or Depression by doing it yourself. But how much can you really learn or copy or adapt from someone else's resume? Very, very little!

The sad part is that using sample resumes or a resume template will HURT your chances because you will innocently believe that you have constructed a good resume. Not so! It is highly unlikely that you have managed to write a winning resume. You will later find out the hard way that it WON'T get you job interviews. I see this all of the time. In the end, using sample resumes or a resume template may cost you much more than a revamped or improved resume done by a professional writer.

Why won't using sample resumes or a resume template work for you?

First, your own particulars and work history are NEVER the same.

Second, you CAN'T tell what information was included or omitted or downplayed, and so on.

Third, sample resumes do NOT reveal their construction and writing secrets to you. You see, it took a lot of thought and effort to create a "perfect" or winning resume (or to "paint"a woman's face and make her look beautiful)! What you are looking at in a sample resume is the final and "cleaned up" version of someone else's resume with all of the blemishes fixed or improved or downplayed!

This problem is very similar to trying to figure out any good-looking woman's beauty secrets. You simply CAN'T guess what she did to achieve that dramatic result. Have you ever seen the Before and After cosmetic and clothing makeovers on Oprah? That's what experts can achieve for you! The same applies to revamping or improving your job resume. A resume also needs a makeover.[See http://winning-resumes.com/resume_template_can_help_or_hurt.html]

Using a readymade RESUME TEMPLATE, is even worse in a recession. First, are you qualified to choose or select a suitable resume template to present your skills, strengths, experience, and education? I don't think so. I often see managers, sales reps and I.T. technicians presenting themselves in outdated, entry-level Microsoft Wizard formats. (These have remained unchanged since Windows 98 was launched. Besides,Microsoft are not experts on resume formats.)

Second, resume templates make your resume look exactly like thousands of others. That is terrible! Do you want yours to attract the attention of recruiters or not? Then it must be different!

To beat the competition for fewer jobs in this recession or Depression, your resume has to be carefully designed, written, and presented or reformatted and revamped.

It is all about the most effective presentation. Very few people can do this because it is seldom easy. Resume writing is an art. It is the art of self-marketing yourself on paper. In this recession or Depression, you need to sell yourself on paper more strongly than ever before.

To be successful, you must FOCUS your job search. What are you looking for? What is or are your most realistic option(s) in this recession or Depression? The more specific you can be, the more focused and successful your resume and job search will be -- even in this horrible recession or Depression.

The hardest job to find -- NOT the easiest -- is what anxious job seekers refer to as "any job".

As Yogi Berra wisely pointed out: "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else." Either nowhere or in some McJob that pays you much less than you're worth AND WON'T PAY THE BILLS!

In today's recession or Depression, you can't go job hunting with your father's resume. Would you attend a friend's wedding today in the dress you wore to your high school graduation ten years ago? Would any bride trust herself to do her own wedding day makeup? Of course not! If you want to look your best -- in person and on paper -- you must ask a professional to help you. It is that important.

It is a fact that most home-made resumes and resume templates will NOT work in this recession or Depression. They don't look right and they won't impress a picky reader. Don't wait to find this out the hard way. How long can you afford to wait to get your own resume "fixed" professionally?

PLEASE CALL MATT GREENE FOR FREE ADVICE ON 1-718-436-3504

OR WRITE: mattgreene@aol.com