You would be surprise how many people would love to go out to lunch and talk about what they do (especially when the lunch is on you).  You don’t have to take them out to anything fancy, but the gesture works wonders when wanting to get more information about a job or an organization.  Often times these informational meetings leave an impression on the person you are interviewing that they keep you in mind when a job opens up in their company.

What is very important for you to know is that informational interviews are NOT times to ask for a job!  That will only throw your chances of any opportunity in the trash.  These information interviews are for just that…information!  Use the following steps to help you on your way: 

1. Identify the Industry You Want to Learn About: Assess your own interests, values, and skills. Research and gather information about the field in which you are interested in.
2. Do Your Homework: Read all you can about the field prior to the interview. Decide what information you want to know more about.  Create a list of questions that you would like to have answered.
3. Identify People to Interview: Start with lists of people you already know such as friends, relatives, students, co-workers, supervisors, etc. Professional organizations, the yellow pages, organizational directories, and public speakers are also good resources.
4. Contact the person: by telephone, by a letter followed by a telephone call, by having someone who knows the person make the appointment for you, etc.
5. Conduct the Informational Interview: Dress appropriately (at least business casual), arrive on time, be polite and professional.
6. Follow Up: Immediately following the interview, sit down and jot down important points and information gathered. Be sure to send a thank-you note to your contact within one week of the interview.  At the very least, send an email.

Stay tuned for some sample Informational Interview questions…

A Career Counseling Tip: “If you practice some you want to perfect, you might not notice the change, but others will.”

There are common ways to write a resume using one of the 3 main styles (chronological, functional or combination).  I will go through the 3 types of resume in more detail in later posts.  But for now, I wanted to walk through some basics in deciding how to write a resume. 

One thing you have to know off the bat is that you will have to put in some work.  It’s not as easy as you think.  If you have seen a good resume, chances are you have seen the result of multiple tries and dozens of eyes having to look at that one resume.  The fact is, you must expect to write and edit several drafts of your resume. A good resume requires attention to detail.  Detail meaning paying close attention to style, organization and layout. Remember that the purpose of your resume is to be positive and show effective communication. It must be well organized, attractive and easy to read.

Resume Style 

The writing style should be clear, direct and concise. Don’t use indirect statements or puffy language. What I mean by puffy is that a resume that is too wordy or too long will not be read. Use short statements that say exactly what you want them to say and what you want the employer to know about your background. A one-page resume is strongly recommended unless you have extensive, related work experience. Include only information that is directly related to the position you are seeking. Avoid including personal information that would give off a negative response to your application.

Expand on your relevant experiences that are parallel to what the job description is asking for. Condense jobs or experiences that are not directly related. In other words, make your resume to the type of job you are seeking. You will not have one resume for all jobs, you will have many resumes for the many jobs you will be applying for.  You may need more than one resume if you’re applying for different types of jobs. The more you fine tune your resume to a specific job or career area, the more qualified you will appear.

 Functional Resume

When writing your resume consider the best arrangement of your topics and headings as they relate to the job for which you are applying. Rank order your resume components as they relate to the job, and place the most important items first. In this way you can highlight your strongest qualifications.

People don’t read resumes, they skim them. Think of your resume as a piece of advertising rather than a comprehensive data sheet.

I can’t emphasize this enough!  You want to capture the attention of the reader within a few seconds, otherwise, your resume is heading for the trash.  Remember, looks are important. Design an attractive layout. Typeface size, spacing, margins, headings and the relationship of empty space to text can all work to your advantage or disadvantage. An attractive resume format will catch the employer’s attention and receive a more careful reading.

The Perfect Resume

It is imperative that no typographical errors, punctuation errors, misspellings, smudges, blotches, or any other imperfections appear on your resume. You must have a perfect copy.  And lastly, you don’t need fancy paper to create an impression, but nice quality paper with high cotton content does go a long way.

Career Counseling How To Write A Resume Tip: “Have atleast 7 different people look at your resume before submitting it to the employer.” 

Or maybe, your thinking involves reflection and has a philosophical twist. For example, during the typical Monday thru Friday work week, you work each day and do what you need to get the job done. After work, you head home and you’ll spend some “you” time doing things you love. At the end of the week, you’ll reflect back and ask yourself what it all meant. “Did my work affect others,” “was what I did this past week meaningful and define me and who I am?” As a manager, two major things must be considered:

1. Verbal Thoughts- This is who you say you are to yourself and to others. Verbal thoughts are the thoughts you say out loud to others expressing your expectations of them in a variety of capacities such as your employee’s quality and quantity of work, your need for competent work to be done, solutions to problems already at hand, etc.
2. Physical Action- This is the act of the manager putting his words into actions. There is nothing worse than to have a boss tell you what to do knowing very well that the reason you are doing it is because he it too darn lazy to do it. This is not the leadership of a good manager. A good manager will leave you with the sense of doing what you are doing because you are great at what you do, you have talent and are an asset to the organization. This can be done by simply being congruent with what you say and what you do.

If you are spending 90% of your time thinking about something and 10% of your time is spent doing, it is difficult to maintain congruence and balance. Trying to achieve balance is hard work because you constantly feel the need to move on from working on one thing to moving on to the next. How many times have you told yourself, uh oh, I’ve been really neglecting my health, so i better work harder now so I get more time later to take care of myself? Or, I’ve got to stop thinking so much and take more action.

The different areas of your life are all fighting for your time. And the longer you neglect one of those areas, the louder it gets and the harder it will fight for your attention. Put off your health and you’ll feel the physical strain it puts on your body. Put off your relationship for too long, and a breakup may be the result. Put off your work, and your career and income will suffer. This is a struggle many managers face in succeeding in life.

Let’s consider a different way of thinking; Let’s look at it as your life is just 1 big area, one area with no need to balance different aspects of your life, no need to move on to the next task because you have so much to do, no nothing. How could something like this be possible? It’s possible if all of those different areas of your life are congruent, if they all follow the same rules. Then what you think and what you do are one, both pointing in the same direction. For example, improving your health improves your relationship. Increasing your income increases your products made and/or your service.

It seems obvious that all the different parts of your life are interconnected. But a common way people approach their problems are to treat problems by isolate them. If there’s a problem with your health, you need to diet and exercise. If there’s a problem in your career, it’s time to work harder. This doesn’t work well because everything is interconnected.

If you feel lonely because you haven’t been able to find the right relationship, and you keep trying harder and harder to find a relationship, you may get nowhere. The problem may be that you work at a career you simply aren’t passionate about. Once this happens, you project this discouragement and lack of passion to everyone you meet. Then you change careers to do what you love, and all of a sudden your interactions with everyone turn positive. You meet your future spouse, who is attracted to your dedication and passion about your work and the contribution you’re making. And the encouragement you experience from this relationship in turn helps you advance your career, increase your income, and free up more time to spend with your new spouse.

As a manger, congruence can deeply affect not only you, but the people you work with. Notice I didn’t say the people that work for you. Your job is like a sport. Your employees are all members of the same team. The team plays for a common goal which is to win. Under the right leadership, this team is unstoppable. And the leader must show congruence in what he says and what he does. The following 6 traits are what help with congruence. They are all important, connected, dependent and interdependent. You can’t have balance and congruence without mastering and knowing how to handle the following 6 traits.

1. Kindness
2. Proactive
3. Cheating
4. Balance
5. Flexibility
6. Passion

You might ask what I mean by cheating. Well, cheating is one of those things that deprives someone of a sense of ownership, self-efficacy and believing in oneself. No matter where you apply it, the long-term results are negative. Cheat your health, and pay the price of illness. Cheat in your relationship, and the cost is a loss of intimacy and even a marriage. Cheat in your education, and your income and efficacy suffers.

If you apply one of the 6 traits, either positively or negatively, it ripples into all other areas. If you cheat your health, then in the long run this will hurt your career, your relationships, your finances, and your emotional well being. Similarly, be kind to your body, and your increased positive energy will positively affect your relationships, your work, your finances, your emotions.

I Tip in Career Counseling: “Be proactive about building a career you enjoy, and your passion will spread to every area of your life.”

1. Communication Tool
2. Marketing Tool
3. Interview Road Map Tool
4. Post-interview Comparison Tool

I call these items tools because they are four tools you can use to your advantage when deciding on how to write a resume. For instance, your resume is first and foremost a communication document.  Its purpose is to communicate clearly and succinctly to employers your work-related skills and abilities.  If your resume communicates effectively, employers will easily be able to understand and assess your qualifications. 

Marketing Tool 

Your resume is a marketing tool that can persuade employers of your value for the type of work you are applying for.  Your resume must do a solid job of convincing employers of your unique value when compared to the many other employment candidates with whom you are competing. 

Interview Road Map Tool 

Your resume can serve just that, as a road map during an interview.  How many interviews have you had where the interviewer follows your resume as the basis for guiding the interview?  If so, what the interviewer is doing is going down your resume line by line asking appropriate probing questions along the way.   A poorly written resume can confuse the interviewer making for a really awkward time during this kind of interview.  Taking the time and effort to prepare a thoughtful, well-organized resume is sure to have major payoff for your job search efforts. 

Post-Interview Comparison Tool 

Following the interviewing process, the committee usually meets to make a decision among the candidates.  Your resume will be a focal point when being compared to others.  If the comparison is to be a great one for you, you will need to have a well designed, highlighted work-related experiences, and a well articulated resume.  A poor resume will guarantee you will not make the cut. 

A Tip From Career Counseling: “Write your resume as if it were the only thing used to get a job!” 

Same city applicant: You receive an offer, NEVER ACCEPT THE FIRST OFFER!!! Many HR departments receive bonuses by how many successful candidates they hire and how much they spend to hire them. It’s like buying a car. Never say yes to the tag price and drive off. You want to haggle a bit, right? The first offer is always going to be $5K - $10K under what they expect to payout. Do not fall for the incentive trap! Do not let them entice you with a lower salary for a higher incentive or stock options. Remember, salary is a guarantee. I lost a LOT of money in the telecom industries when they offered me stock option after option instead of salary. …and, when the telecom industry crashed, you guessed it, broke!

Relocation needed: Many of the same rules apply; however, this is where it gets tricky. You receive an offer, only salary with no relo involved, again do not accept, you need some time to think about it. You come back with I appreciate your initial offer and look forward to coming to a fair package we can mutually agree upon. Then you come up $5-10K and ask for a relocation package. Again, there are different levels of relocation packages they have available and they will more than likely attempt to lowball and give you a smaller salary with a “sign-on” bonus. If that offer is not appealing, attempt to bring up the salary a bit more and ask for a full relo package to include movers, lease break fees, if appropriate, and an amount as a miscellaneous incidentals in attempting to relocate. They will then at that point come to a final term that you must accept or decline. You need to push and push, do it all by email, and you must be as emotionless and articulate as possible. Have a colleague or mentor review the negotiation emails before submitting.That always helps me. Good Luck!

Career Counseling Tip: “Know why you are asking for an extra incentive, potential employers will want to know.”

Everyone wants the secret to write the perfect resume. They want to know what it looks like, what it sounds like, what to include in it. Well, before writing your perfect resume you need some ground work. And keep in mind that your perfect resume will not be my perfect resume. Experiences vary and because of that you will need to consider the impact you want to have with your resume. There is no other impact a resume can have other than a HIGH impact. Well, that is if you actually want the job.

There are 2 factors that contribute to a resumes effectiveness:

1. Format
2. Content

That’s it! These 2 simple little things are the most critical things you need to focus your energy and time on when deciding on how to write a resume. Both are equally critical to resume performance and they must be carefully combined and balanced to make a high impact resume. It is important to know that neither one can be sacrificed in favor of the other.  If you want to create a resume that will have maximum impact, consider the following.

Format-

The format is the physical layout of your content or information on the resume. To be effective, you want the resume format to be simple, neat, well organized, and visually pleasing. It should offer little reader resistance.  Design your resume for quick reading and easy identification of your key qualifications for the position.

Content-

The resume content, on the other hand, refers to the actual information presented in your resume (work experience, dates of employment, position held, key responsibilities, etc.). Good format enhances readability, but it’s the content that actually makes the sale. To understand what content is important and how it should be presented in your resume, you need to ask yourself 2 questions:

1. What is it that the employers needs to know about me and my qualifications to make a good decision?
2. What is the logical order in which to present this information to help the employer’s decision?

Good answers to both of these questions are essential to creating an effective employment resume that will motivate the employer to pursue your employment candidacy.  You never want to make the employer do more work than they have to.  You want to do all the work for them so that all they have to do is skim.  It might take you 10-20 hours, but it will be well worth the time once you get the job with a well designed, high impact resume.

Career Counseling: How To Write A Resume Tip:  “Put effort into your research before actually writing your resume.  It will pay off dividends!”

Topics will vary, and depending on my mood, comments from readers, or feedback I get from all of you, I will determine what to write and post on this Personal Development site. My favorite focuses are career counseling (including resume writing, interviewing, the pre, during and post interview process, career change, and much more), professional development (business etiquette, networking, public speaking, business development, etc.), personal growth (self perception, confidence, internal and external locus of control, etc.), and one of my favorite hobbies being a former collegiate athlete some years ago is exercise for a well balanced life style.

There are many websites out there that “claim” to help you better yourself or lose weight, well I’m not going to sit hear and tell you all that I write is completely right for you and you should do anything I say. If you think that, we may need a one on one consultation because you should be able to take in information, assess it, reflect on how it pertains to your life, and make the necessary changes in behavior or life style should you think it’s the right advice for you.

For additional information about me, check out my About section. I look forward to interacting with all of you in the months to come.