Every great resume is a marketing tool for the person it represents. It should be appropriate and specific to your unique situation. Not a tool ineffectively designed to follow the usual rules and tips we so often read and hear about though employment grapevines and experts. Not a historical outline or accounting of jobs we have held in the past and the various tasks associated with such.

A great resume is an advertisement. It says, “If you buy this product, then you’ll be the recipient of all these amazing benefits”. A great resume highlights the scope and depth of your experience and it communicates a strong persuasive reason to the potential employer to covet your services. Great resumes also pave the way to engaging and memorable interviews. A well-designed and creatively crafted resume will prompt the interviewer to hone in on the specific areas most relevant to the position and will allow you to focus on those particular areas during the interview. Once you adopt a more forward thinking, sales oriented way of portraying your experience; you can begin crafting your great resume.

The presentation, layout, and language you use to communicate your value through your resume are particularly important

There are two things you can be sure the hiring manager will do upon reviewing your resume. First, he/she will start at the top and work their way down, and they will read from left to right. Second, the first impression you create will have the greatest impact on their opinion of you and this will be the perception used to filter all the rest of the information contained in your resume. The old adage “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” is so true. So why not grab their attention before they ever begin to read.

In my opinion, to create a great resume, it’s critical to concentrate on your layout and the language and verbiage used within it to entice the reader to continue reading. As I have suggested previously in my post “Resumes, moving from Fair to Flair” one of the most successful resumes I have ever developed was presented in a “Newsletter” style and format. I have used this particular resume since my mid-twenties and have received feedback from many hiring professionals that the layout was indeed so intriguing and unusual they were immediately prompted to place it in the stack that made the first cut without too much evaluation on content. To me, that speaks volumes for designing a resume that is atypical and non-conforming.

As you begin to layout your resume, keep in mind what I stated earlier. You can be guaranteed that the hiring manager will do two things read from top to bottom, left to right, and immediately have a first impression of you.

You will want to ensure they know who you are by developing a unique header, with all the typical information associated with who you are; your name and contact information including your address, phone number(s), e-mail address. It’s not necessary to associate individual labels with address, phone, and e-mail information as these can be inferred. Be sure to use the same heading on your references page, cover letter and thank you letter or on any other correspondence you may send. This way, you develop a consistent brand or image to the hiring manager, and this also accommodates quick and ready access to your contact information depending on which document the hiring manager may be currently assessing.

Next you’ll want to focus on the particular section headings you will use throughout your resume. Section headings include your employment information, education, community activities, volunteerism, etc. Section headings are important as they enable the reviewer to quickly perceive and determine the relevance and importance of the information from their perspective. Remember, hiring managers are inundated with resumes to review and evaluate. The last thing they want to do is read a lot. Again, try to envision your resume from their point of view.

Thinking about your section headings and the length and layout of your resume with help you with developing the language you use to sell yourself throughout your resume. Evaluate your past employment and the hard and soft skills your have developed throughout your career and life. Many candidates underestimate and thusly understate the value of experiences garnered both personally and professionally by not spending quality time thinking about past experience and future goals.

Ask yourself these questions as you evaluate your experience:

• What was the purpose of this particular function/job/task/project?
• What was the relevance of the function/job/task/project?
• Was there a particular benefit or achievement realized during or at the conclusion of the function/job/task/project?

You can apply these questions to your career; education, community involvement projects, hobbies, and volunteerism activities to advertise your unique qualities and sell yourself as the candidate most likely get the interview! Remember, a great resume is an advertisement. It says, “If you buy this product, then you’ll be the recipient of all these amazing benefits.”

You may never really have thought about it before but the soft skills you have developed throughout your life are an essential element to most any employment you seek. In his book Working With Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman suggests that it is not your intellect, experience or skills that make you successful; rather, it is your emotional intelligence – how well you can “read” other people’s emotions and feelings in the workplace.

“Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.”
–Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, p. 80.

The term Emotional Intelligence encompasses five core characteristics and abilities that everyone possesses to some extent. Just as the ability exists to measure someone’s Intellect or Intelligence Quotient (IQ), there is the ability to measure a persons Emotional Intelligence (EIQ) or as Daniel Goleman refers to it above “master aptitude.”

Self-awareness–knowing your emotions, recognizing feelings as they occur, and discriminating between them.
Mood management–handling feelings so they’re relevant to the current situation and you react appropriately.
Self-motivation–”gathering up” your feelings and directing yourself towards a goal, despite self-doubt, inertia, and impulsiveness.
Empathy–recognizing feelings in others and tuning into their verbal and nonverbal cues.
Managing relationships–handling interpersonal interaction, conflict resolution, and negotiations.

Your emotional intelligence (EIQ) or “soft skills” have become increasingly more important in our ever changing and fiercely competitive industrial world. More and more businesses realize their employees need to be well versed in both relating to their customer base as well as their co-workers and peers. From showing a keen sense of perspective and optimism, to extreme self-awareness and understanding for what is happening all around them.

One of the best indicators of a strong emotional intelligence is the ability to work within a team environment. But bear in mind, being a good team environmentalist involves more than bearing your share of the workload; it also necessitates being a leader when necessary and recognizing when to do so; knowing when to share your opinions and ideas or when to defer to others; and understanding how to stay on track to achieve the best possible results while minimizing conflict and tension. As with any ability, there is a broad spectrum or range. Understanding where you fit within that master capacity is a good way to develop and enhance it.

Two more important gauges of an above average emotional intelligence are communication skills. No matter how many wrinkles you have in your brain or how high your IQ sores, you are quite likely to go unnoticed if you cannot effectively communicate your thoughts and ideas to others. This is why so many job listings seek candidates with strong communication skills, especially in public speaking. Employers seek job candidates who are not going to lie down and curl up into the fetal position every time they are required to speak out loud.

A few more characteristics of EIQ include being flexible and adaptable. Often, you may be required to collaborate with individuals who possess a completely different knowledge base or tangential perceptive than that of your own. Flexibility promotes creativity and innovation and is what keeps businesses and organizations successful as they navigate tumultuous business cycles and changes in technology and industry. Having employees who are flexible, adaptable, and creative keep them on the cutting edge of business and opportunity.

Do you know your own EIQ? The internet is a great place to set out to learn your EIQ or validate what you think you already know about yourself. You can go to Google and find numerous articles and links to information, resources, and EIQ tests. Go on, give it a try and see how you measure up.