Resume Clinic’s Bits and Bytes

I have been receiving a larger percentage of call volume than usual of people looking for a resume to apply to federal positions. But many don’t realize that the product is very different than their private sector counterparts.

First, while your average private sector resume is limited to two pages (many HR professionals and recruiters have openly admitted to tossing those that are three pages or longer), the federal resume is measured by character limits per section and not overall document length. Most federal vacancies allow up to 5000 characters per employment entry. They also usually allow 20,000 characters in the “Additional Information” section. That is a lot of information. To give you an idea of how much, I just checked one of the two-page resumes I did not too long ago and it measured 8000 characters total.

Next, while as resume writers, we usually like to target every resume, it is even more imperative for the federal process. Your keywords will determine if you even get past the initial cert part of the process. If your resume is low on content with poor keyword strength, you’ll lose out. Researching the job vacancies and those that are similar will provide you with excellent keywords and concepts to ensure you are addressing the needs of the position. If you are low on experience, another way to satisfy this is by including some of your coursework and even some course descriptions from your collegiate career.

When it comes to the position headers, federal resumes include several items that their private sector counterparts do not, such as supervisor names and contact information, physical address of employment, and even ending compensation (although some recommend leaving it off of your presentation version, it is requested when completing the online resume builder).

These two resumes are so different that you should never use one interchangeably. Be sure you have separate federal and private sector versions of your resume for optimal effectiveness when going with a two-pronged job search.

And try not to wait until the last minute to put them together, okay?

For everything there is a season. Conversely, there are times when things are out of season. When it comes to landing employment, that “low season” is essentially from mid-November until after New Years.

During this stretch of the year, businesses are usually operating at half-strength, both physically and mentally. It is usually around this time that employees request extended vacations and time off. And the staff that remains is more worried about Christmas parties and shopping than they are work. As such, hiring usually grinds to a halt around this time.

Now, what does that mean or you? Well, this is prime time to get your resume and cover letter in before the big push back to productivity starts after January 1st. When all employees return to work after the start of the new year, it’s “catch up time”. By making a solid push in distributing your resume over the holidays, your resume should be right there in the first week of January for hiring managers to review. Also, you have a leg up on your competition that decided to take it easy during the holidays to pick up on the search after January 1st.

So after your thanksgiving turkey and football, get right back to work. Send out those resumes with reckless abandon to position yourself at the head of the line. Don’t let Christmas activities interfere with the search either. Block aside some time everyday to tend to the job search. Who knows, maybe the best Christmas present of all is waiting for you in January: a good paying job!

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William Mitchell, CPRW
http://www.theresumeclinic.com
Order a free resume critique today!

When you work from home, it can often give you a case of the “blahs”. You have little interaction with others and the walls can sometimes close in on you. I definitely get this feeling every so often.

It is best to get out and change your view for several reasons. First, there’s the human contact. Working solo can turn you into a hermit. Interacting with people isn’t just good for the interaction, but you keep in touch for networking purposes. Next, how about Vitamin C? Staying in your home office for days at a time keeps you from the sunlight exposure that is good for your health.

Find a nice coffeehouse at which you can work. If you have an air card, maybe you can get some work done in the park or at the lake (my personal favorite). Even the public library can present a nice change of pace!

If there is one thing that you can be certain of, it is that life is happening to everyone. We all tend to feel that our trials and tribulations are unique and that no one in the world has ever had they kinds of troubles that we have. This can at times bog down our progress in reaching our goals and dreams because we feel that the chips are stacked against us. Sometimes, in order to amass the strength and confidence to traverse a situation, it helps to find out that there were others facing the same issues who found a way to emerge triumphant.

Biographies and autobiographies of people who have successfully overcome similar hurdles to ones you are going through serve as an excellent way to delve into the inner thoughts of those who are willing to share you you have arrived at where you wish to be. For instance, if you want to understand the mindset of the successful business professional, you might want to read the autobiographies of Donald Trump or Lee Iaccoca. Perhaps you’re struggling with weight issues. In that case, Ricki Lake may be a good read to find out how to harness strength and will power. For every situation from bankruptcy to debilitating illness to dysfunctional family life, someone’s been through it and wrote about how they overcame it.

It is not always necessary to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes the blueprint to success already exists. Many extraordinary people have already been through the fire and documented their journey. Perhaps we can learn from their mistakes instead of our own.

It may have begun with the U.S. economy, but it definitely is not ending there. As we saw over the past month, our behemoth of an economy carries the world with it. When we hurt, everyone does. The Resume Clinic, like many other resume writing services, has seen a spike in resume orders from professionals across the globe who have either lost their jobs already, anticipate doing so soon, or are just preparing for the worst just in case. We have also seen a spike in international resume orders from expat professionals being affected by mergers and consolidations. Clients from as far as China have smartly prepped themselves for the worst-case scenario by getting their resumes on the launching pad to hasten any transition.

While resume business has been steady, the trend is worrisome for us as a nation and world. We are heading into the holiday season with thousands of people in mortgage trouble and employment peril. There’s talk from President-elect Obama of a new stimulus package, but can we afford to wait until January 20^th for him to take action? Non-farm payroll employment fell by 240,000 in October and the unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Hang on folks … it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!!!

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William Mitchell, CPRW
http://www.theresumeclinic.com
Order a free resume critique today!