Target-Job Focused Resume Problems: What To Do When Skills & Experience Outreach Your Job Title. Second in a series

Having skills that outstrip your job title can happen to anyone with any corporate background, and this is especially frequent with people who have a small company employment background. If your experience is in these smaller work environments, over time you will have the opportunity to “wear many hats.” Everyone needs to pitch in more at smaller companies, so there is often greater opportunity to gain a wider skill set, than you might experience in larger more structured environments.

Target-Job Focused Resume Problems: What To Do When You Have Multiple Job Options. One in a series.

“I’ve always been successful with whatever has been thrown at me. How do I take all my varied skills and combine them into a job title that works and provides me with the most employer connections?“ Karen W., Ohio.

First of all the writer recognizes the performance benefits of a target-job focused resume that works so well in today’s resume database dominated world, and she is also one of the many job hunters for whom this causes problems and confusion.

The most productive resumes used on a job search today aren’t biographies of all you have done; they are documents designed to be found and retrieved from the vast commercial resume databases that epitomize a new and more complex world of job search. The resume that gets pulled most frequently from resume databases, for review by recruiters, focuses on the skills and experience demanded by one specific job.

Career Smarts: Straight Talk and Three Tips For Survival & Success

Success in life is judged with calendars not clocks, and with the unprecedented ways our world is changing, there are new ways to build the foundations for that long-term success.

These foundations must take into account two of the biggest challenges to maintaining your economic viability over the long haul. Firstly, that your professional future will continue to be affected by the globalization of work through technology; and secondly that economic recessions come round with regularity every seven to ten years, further compounding the opportunities for economic dislocation.

So looking forward, in a world of work where the only constant is change, the most important professional skills you can possess are the skills that insure your employability and economic stability. Here are three commonsense tips that will greatly improve your long-term odds for survival and success.

Are You One of Us? ADHD & Your Career

Have people said you are good at starting things but not at finishing them? Did impulsivity get you in trouble at school? Has it ruined jobs and relationships? Does your mind skip? Do you sometimes spin in circles unable to gain traction?

Answer yes, and it could mean that you have an underperforming career because you have yet to face, embrace and harness the many curses and the awesome powers for success that come with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Blind Loyalty To Employers Is Stupid, Enlightened Self–Interest Is Key To Your Survival & Success

When a company dispenses with your services, it’s nothing personal: the company is taking considered action to achieve what it must do to survive and satisfy the shareholders.

Job search and career management skills are the most important skills you can ever develop. Companies today have no sense of loyalty to their employees; they have loyalty to the shareholders, and the shareholders are only concerned with profit. Learn from this hard, hard lesson: take control of your life, your economic survival, and your success by acting with the same forethought, objectivity, and self–interest as a corporation.

How To Organize For Success In a Changed World

How should I manage my professional life differently in this uncertain world of work? “Manage your life as if you are your own boss and agent,” my colleague Mike Squires, a Senior Technical Recruiter at PayPal says. This means that you need to take yourself and the management of your professional future more seriously: start to think of yourself as MeInc, a financial entity that must survive and prosper over the long haul.

Thinking of yourself as MeInc, the corporation, you begin to organize and structure your professional life with the same commitment that a corporation applies to its success. Imagine the control you could exert over your destiny with firm initiatives in R&D, Sales, Strategic Planning, Finance, Marketing & Public Relations. Let’s look at how each of these applies to career success.

The #1 Secret To A Successful Career & Life

“Manage your life as if you are your own boss and agent,” says my friend  Mike Squires, a Senior Technical Recruiter at PayPal. This means that you need to take yourself and the management of your professional future more seriously. I suggest that you start to think of yourself as a financial entity that must survive and prosper over the long haul, like a corporation.  In fact, think of yourself as MeInc and begin to organize and structure your professional life with the same commitment that a corporation applies to its success. Imagine the control you could exert over your destiny with firm initiatives in R&D, Sales, Strategic Planning, Finance, Marketing & Public Relations. Let’s look at how each of these apply to career success.

The World's Funniest Commercial & Becoming Your Brand

LMAO at this commercial. Copywriters, the people who write commercials, are some of the most creative people in the professional world. Every day they strive to entertain, brand and sell you a product in sixty seconds. In this brilliant example without a single spoken word.

It intrigues, informs, entertains and sells to the customer's most pressing needs... and is just a superb piece of branding. When you stop laughing, watch it again and notice that the entire commercial is built around a deep knowledge of the product and the customer; this results in a message that speaks directly to the customer's most pressing performance needs.

Become your brand in everything you do.

Join Martin every week to learn more about writing a killer resume, getting more job interviews and turning job interviews into job offers at his free weekly webcast, Mondays at noon central. Details: http://my.knockemdead.com

Seven Secrets For Choosing The Right Resume Writer

Anyone can, and many do, hang out a shingle claiming to be a professional resume writer. Right now I know of a lifetime GM executive who got laid off six months ago, he only ever had one job and had never written a resume in his life, but with the help of a slick little website, has magically become a resume writer.

So clearly, you need to exercise caution and move forward with the street smarts that will help you make an informed choice:

Resume Writer, Career Coach and Headhunter Credentials

When choosing a professional resume writer, you should do it with care. I would suggest ask about membership in professional associations and professional credentials, because people who belong to professional associations are invariably more committed to professional development and take the time to earn professional credentials. These credentials are reasonable qualifiers of competence.

Here’s a comprehensive list of resume writing credentials. I’ve followed this with coaching and other related professional accreditation's. The credentials that apply to resume writing are in the first section. Don’t get impressed by credentials, unless you know what they mean and see they actually relate to resume writing.