How to add Education to your resume

Experience First, Education Second

Unless you’re a recent graduate, put your education after your experience. Chances are, your last couple of jobs are more important and relevant to you getting the job than where you went to college.

Also Keep it Reverse Chronological…

Usually, you should lay down your educational background by listing the most recent or advanced degree first, working in reverse chronological order. But if older coursework is more specific to the job, list that first to grab the reviewer’s attention.

But Skip the Dates

Don’t list your graduation dates. The reviewer cares more about whether or not you have the degree than when you earned it.

Highlight Honors, Not GPA

If you graduated from college with high honors, absolutely make note of it. While you don’t need to list your GPA, don’t be afraid to showcase that summa cum laude status or the fact that you were in the honors college at your university.

Include Continuing or Online Education

Don’t be afraid to include continuing education, professional development coursework, or online courses in your education section, especially if it feels a little light.  “Online courses are a more-than-accepted norm nowadays, and your participation in them can actually show your determination and motivation to get the skills you need for your career.”

Keywords Matter

If you are wondering what recruiters see when they glance through your resume,

Here is a quick and easy way to see which keywords are most present on your resume—using a word cloud app. It’s simple: You paste your resume into a word cloud generator like TagCrowd, and the app will create an image representing the most common words, with more common ones showing up larger and darker. With a quick glance, you’ll be able to see what terms the employer will most associate with you—and whether you need to do some adjusting to your resume to have the right terms stand out more.

http://www.tagcrowd.com

12 changes to make your resume easy to read

1. Don’t Center Any of Your Text

Even your section headings should be aligned to the left. This improves readability because the eye naturally returns to the left margin once it’s ready to move on to the next line of text.

2. Align Your Dates and Locations to the Right

You can only fit so much different information (company name, job title, location, dates of employment) on one line of text before it gets unwieldy. To help separate out your information, make a separate column for dates and locations that is right adjusted. On most word processors, you should be able to just create a right-tab.

3. Don’t Justify Your Resume

Overall, using a justified setting for your bullets may make your resume look tidier, but it does nothing for readability. This setting leaves uneven gaps between words that ultimately make text harder to read, so for your bullets and resume overall, stick with regular ol’ left alignment.

4. Keep Everything the Same Size Font

Aside from your name, which should be a little bigger, the font size throughout your resume should be the same size to ensure readability. Rather than using font size for emphasis throughout your resume, use bolding, italics, and all-caps—sparingly, of course.

5. Pick Either Your Roles or Your Companies to Bold

Bolding of select words and phrases helps with scanning, but you don’t want to go overboard. So choose what to bold wisely, depending on the message you want to send. If your job titles effectively illustrate your path to management-level roles, bolding those might make the most sense. On the other hand, if you’re a new grad and most of your experiences are internships, you might benefit more from emphasizing the companies on your resume.

6. Use ALL-CAPS Very Sparingly

While it is an option for creating emphasis, all-caps is a lot harder to read and therefore harder to skim than text that isn’t capitalized. Save your all-caps option for section headings or your name.

7. Maximize the First 5 Words of Your Bullets

When skimming a resume, a recruiter is very likely going to be reading the first few words of a bullet, then moving on to the next line unless his or her interest is piqued. This means those first few words of your bullets are much more important than the rest. Make sure the first five words of each line make the reader want to keep reading. (Need help? These power verbs will make your resume awesome.)

8. Keep Bullets Under 2 Lines

Even if your first few words are the most interesting thing your recruiter has ever read, going over two lines per bullet is pushing it a bit. Try to keep your bullets short and sweet. (And yes, you should always use bullets, not paragraphs, to describe your experiences.)

9. Use Digits When Writing About Numbers

Using numbers in your bullet points quantifies results and helps recruiters better understand the scope of your work. (Here’s how to do it well.) Make these numbers easy to read by using digits (i.e., 30% versus thirty percent). It improves readability and—bonus—saves space.

10. Have a Separate “Skills” Section

Just to really drive the point home, piling up all your relevant skills into one section helps ensure that the recruiter sees them. You should still highlight your skills in the context of your work, but pulling them out into their own section doesn’t hurt.

11. Keep Your Resume Formatting Consistent

People can get pretty creative when they’re trying to fit all their relevant work experience into one page. That’s fine, but make sure that however you decide to do it, you keep your formatting the same throughout the document. Consistency helps with skimming, and if the recruiter wants to refer back to something, he or she will know where to look.

12. Try to Have Some White Space Left Over

Lastly, having some breathing room on your resume also helps with skimming. Different amounts of white space can signal to the reader that this is a different section or help emphasize the importance of something, such as your name or skills. And overall, it just makes the whole document less overwhelming.

Having your resume skimmed is a fact of life as you apply for jobs. So, make sure you maximize the experience and make it as easy as possible for the recruiter to find the right information—and send you along to the next step of the process.

Evolution is an necessary to upgrade your career.

Continue Learning and Training  

Once you know what you want to do, find out which credentials are either necessary or beneficial for your career evolution. While some positions might require credentials, others may consider certain certifications as a ‘Nice to Have’—which means you’ll get a leg up if you have it.

Continuing your training and education is paramount, especially in the tech industry. In fact, more than 55 percent of developers seek out training to meet current or upcoming needs or to advance their careers, according to the 2017 Developer Learning Survey. In this case, for example with a software engineer, it may be required that you have certain credentials thanks to the fast-evolving world of technology.

In other cases, like the example of moving from sales to marketing, a credential you likely don’t need is a Google Analytics Certification. However, it will look great on your resume and is free to take. Not to mention, knowing how to navigate Google Analytics is a skill most marketers need to have to be successful, whether you learn on the job or come into a new position with the knowledge already.

Just starting your career?

Set clear goals

The very first step is goal determination: What exactly does “career” mean for you? Is this associated with a certain amount of money? Do you want to reach a particular position?

Only when you have a clear idea of what it means for you to “make a career” can you also work towards this purpose. Many people do not take the time to become aware of their own career goals consciously and systematically. Do it! Write down for yourself what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it. Imagine what it will be like when you reach your destination. Work out a very concrete and detailed plan of action to get you where you want to go. Take your career goal actively in hand.

Become aware of what your career may cost

If you know what you want to achieve, you should also consider what you are willing to pay for it. Many people’s careers are at the cost of their relationship with their life partner, or they neglect their health, free time, and other things that make up their quality of life. But if you want to stay fit, you need to make sure you’re fine – physically, mentally and mentally. So you should be clear in advance about what you may and may not cost your career. Only then can you make appropriate decisions in your professional life. Sometimes a career leap is not worth it if you have to give too much of what is important to you.

Take your time to self-reflection

Time and time again to pause and think

  • what you do exactly
  • how useful that is,
  • whether it brings you to where you want to go and
  • maybe that will be easier too.

Especially when you are very eager to achieve a goal, in many cases takes over a kind of inner “autopilot” and controls our behavior. Such automatic ways of thinking and behaving should be discovered and questioned as soon as possible. Otherwise, you can easily find a way that does not take you where you want to go.

I want to land a real job in sales. Where should I start?

If you want to be a salesperson and don’t want to get wrapped up in direct sales, the best option is to find something you know a lot about and try to get a job selling it at the entry level. If you understand financial products, apply at banks. If you know cars, apply at car dealerships. If you know jewelry, apply at jewelers. Anywhere that sells something you understand and offers commission is a great starting point.

Once you have a proven track record, even if it’s just selling inexpensive used cars at a local lot or basic banking products at a local branch, you can use that as a jumping-off point for scoring higher-commission sales jobs. Learning to utilize social media marketing, online research and customer relationship management systems can also boost your marketability in the legitimate sales world.

Come see us at Career Paths NW, we specialize in placing people in Sales Jobs, call today or email us your resume.

Job Search in 2019

Determine What Job You Want and Are Eligible For

Before you start looking for a job, you have to figure out what position you want. Have a specific job title in mind, and then do some research to determine the keywords you’ll use when you start looking for jobs.

When you start job searching, the job description, responsibilities, and requirements will tell you more than the title alone, as titles and roles tend to vary between companies. It can also be a helpful exercise to write a sample job description outlining your ideal position.

Although it’s acceptable to apply to several “reach” positions, don’t waste your time searching for or applying to jobs that you are clearly unqualified for. Figure out in advance how you’re going to decide which jobs to apply to, then actively keep these parameters in mind when you’re job hunting.

Networking for 2019

1. Stop Saying Networking

Reconfigure what you think when you hear the word “networking.” In fact, scratch that word altogether, and think of your next networking event as an “open exchange”—one with no pressure and plenty of opportunity. At an “open exchange,” you’re free to share ideas, contacts, information, and resources with tons of interesting people. The prospects that inspires are boundless, and it doesn’t cost much more than a conversation. Already sounds better, right?

2. Choose Non-Lame Events

Don’t just go to any old event—choose events where you know you’ll have something in common with people, like conferences that relate specifically to your industry or happy hours put on by your alumni association. It’s much easier to make conversation in these groups than it is at more general events.

3. Or, Host Your Own!

Email 10 of your friends, suggest a place and date, and ask each person to bring someone new. To keep the event more professional, you could plan a structured conversation about everyone’s career goals, status of their job satisfaction, or even current industry trends.

4. Volunteer

Instead of just attending an event, “volunteer to help with raffles or name tags. It’ll give you an excuse to talk to people, and that makes it much easier to follow through and be social. Plus you never know whom you’ll meet.” 

5. Think Outside the Networking Event

Remember, not all networking has to happen at cocktail hour types of events. In fact, some of the most interesting relationship-building can happen elsewhere. See if there’s a conference you can attend, a hackathon you can participate in, or even a project you can help with. These sorts of events will put you in a much more collaborative environment that will allow you to get to know people in a different way than by simply drilling them with questions.

Know what you want before you start your 2019 job search.

Identify your ideal job target before commencing a search.

If you don’t know what your ideal job looks like you won’t know how to find it or execute a clear strategy with well-aligned tools (resume, LinkedIn profile, etc.).
Start by identifying the job title and work requirements that interest you.

Consider the type of work environment you perform best in (team-based, independent, or a combination of both). Ponder preferred company size, industry, culture, location, and structure. Now create a target list of companies that align with these requirements and start researching opportunities.

If opportunities don’t yet exist, strategize on how to create them. Leverage your network and the power of internal referrals to support your search execution. Let people know who you are, the value you have to offer, and exactly what you are looking for. Aim to make contact with decision-makers.

Finally, develop strong, relevant career tools that speak to, and address, the pain points of your ideal job and unique audience.

These combined efforts will prevent you from spinning your wheels and relying on an outdated ‘spray and pray’ job search approach. Targeted efforts are what will increase job search success in 2019.

Advanced Tips for 2019 Job Search

Tip 1: Establish your career goals! Take this time to reflect on where you are now and where you want to go next. Having clear goals and objectives will get you there.

Tip 2: Update your resume! What have you accomplished in 2018? Review your year’s achievements and projects you’ve finished and include them in your resume.

Tip 3: Brush up on your interview skills! Whether you have an interview scheduled or not, you should always be able to answer The “Tell Me About Yourself” Interview Question. Review the most common interview questions so that you’ll always be ready whenever opportunities arise.

Tip 4: Polish up your social media profiles! Potential business partners or other key players in your industry may be searching for you right now. Social media can play a huge role in your reputation so keep it professional and build a strong online presence.

Tip 5: Activate your network! The people you meet can have a lasting effect on your career. Stay in touch with your previous colleagues and learn How to Network to create mutually beneficial relationships with new ones.