Job Search Marketing Toolkit – Building Your Resume

For those of you who have been reading my blog since August of last year, you will know that I continually compare a job search to a marketing campaign (see “Marketing (yourself) 101“). It’s been some time since I’ve written posts on this topic (and what is included in marketing campaign) so I thought I would be a good idea to run a series of posts on this topic.

So, why a marketing campaign? Most good marketing campaigns let their target market know about their goods and services so that they can increase brand awareness and market share. So how does this compare to a job search? I think that some of the basics are exactly the same. Your product is your skills and experience, you must let your target market know that you exist otherwise how would they know to hire you? But marketing is much more complicated that just letting your target market know of your product, it must be done in the right way with the right tools.

So too is your job search and, in this case, your marketing toolkit includes:

• Your resume
• Cover letters
• References
• Thank you letters
• Target market
• Elevator speech
• Network
• Your experience

All of us have our skill sets, but not many of us are experienced in job search to be able to put together an effecitve marketing plan and the first step in fixing this and getting on the right track is to admit to yourself you need some help (and there is nothing wrong with that). So, on today’s links which focus on Resumes.

• HOW TO BUILD A BETTER RÉSUMÉ – 10 Rules Professional Résumé Writers (Almost) Always Follow – This article, provided by Careerdirectors.com, provides 10 tips for your resume writing. This is a short and concise list and is definitely worth the read. Some of these tips/questions (such as  #1 – “Is your format attractive”) are hard to answer without seeing what others are doing (so I’ve provided a link below for examples), but this basic list is a great place to start in the evaluation of your resume.
• Resume Examples – I’ve reversed the links on this bullet (they follow below). The old cliche “A picture is worth  a thousand words” is certainly true when it comes to resumes. It definitely helps to see a variety of resumes (different formats, content, key words, “look and feel”).  The sub-bullets below provide a few links to sites that have resume examples:
  • Resume Examples - from resume-resource.com
  • Resume Examples - from Exampleresumes.org- An amazing number of resume examples by job function (going down the left hand side of the page) with Occupation based resumes in the middle of the page. This is followed by Situational Example Resumes. If you are look to change or create a resume, this is one site you must connect with.
  • Resume Templates – This site is by Microsoft and provides 4 main categories (Entry Level, Professions, Career Moves and Academic. There are several examples within each of the main categories. Click on any one to see a snapshot. You also have the option of downloading
• Resume Action Verbs & Keywords - You know how it is, you don’t want to keep using the same action words but you run out ideas. This page, provided by Resume-Help.org, provides a very large list of action words. Additionally, there are a number of related links on the right hand side of this page.
• Freeresumehelp.net – There is nothing like free help and advice! This site provides a wealth of information on how to write a resume. The center section of the page has “how to write a resume” while the left hand side of the page has links to resume writing advice as well as links to specialty resumes (Executive, Student, Career Change, etc.).
• Best College Resumes – This resource, provided by CollegeGrad.com, is a great resource for recent grads or those college students seeking a job. The center of the page is filled with links to resume writing resources such as: The Greatest Resume Mistakes and Resumes are never complete.

Good luck in your search.

Related posts:

1. 6 Resources for Creating Multiple Resumes
2. How to Write a Killer Resume and not to Knock Yourself Out