Posts Tagged ‘CPRW’

Why You Need to Hire a Professional Resume Writer

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017

If Your Resume Isn’t Opening Doors, Get Some Professional Help

Job searching sure is expensive. After all, it costs money to dry clean your interview suit, fill up your tank and drive to each and every job interview. And at a time when you’re counting every nickel and dime, you don’t want to spend any more cash than necessary.

But if you’ve been job searching for some time without success, it may not be what you’re saying, but how you’re coming across on paper. That’s where a resume writer comes in. Resume writers are not just professional writers, but they’re experts in making your resume stand out from the rest of the applicant pool. Here’s why you might need a resume writer, and why it’s such a good investment.

1. U Can’t Right Good

Let’s say you’re an accountant.

Dollars and cents are your game, not words. So if you’re struggling to express your previous work experience well—and your writing confuses HR professionals like advanced math perplexes most of society—a resume writer can help. He/she can discern what needs to be on your resume (and perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t), and express it all professionally.

2. You’re Stuck in the Past

When you look at your resume, you think it looks totally awesome. But when a hiring manager sees it, all he’s seeing is the year 1986.

Like music and fashion, even resumes have to be stylish so they can get more than a passing glance from a potential boss. If you’re not sure of what the current trends are, a professional service can give your resume the extra savoir-faire it deserves. From the quality of the paper it’s printed on to the template used, the writer will make sure that your resume reads—and looks—its best.

3. You’re Not Getting Interviews on Your Own

You know your work experience is impressive and your workplace skills are stellar. So why aren’t you getting any interviews?

The main reason could be your subpar resume. A professionally written resume can open doors for you that might lead to a great job. It’s also good to keep in mind you might even need several versions of your resume, depending on the type of job interview you have. These advanced nuances are things with which a professional resume writer can assist.

4. You’re Shy

To you, a resume is a necessary evil. It’s basically a depiction of all your previous accomplishments and accolades, and frankly, you’re not the bragging type.

You might need an expert to help you through the process if you have a hard time talking about yourself, much less writing it all down on paper. There’s no shame in getting help with this because writing about yourself is one of the toughest assignments, and you’re often your own worst critic.

A professional resume writer will know how to spotlight your most worthy accomplishments because he’s looking at them with fresh, unbiased eyes. Let him turn your resume into something that’s personable and professional.

5. You Have Issues

Maybe you left the workplace so you could raise your family, and now there’s a huge gap in your employment history. Or perhaps you’re changing career fields and don’t quite know how to revamp your resume to show off the skills you have for this new industry. While you can’t rewrite history, a professional writer will know just how to accentuate the positives on your resume, and write away any negative aspects.

Hiring a resume writer may not be an option for everyone and some people can do the job on their own. But for those who have the necessary skills but are struggling to get interviews, a professionally polished resume can be one of the best investments you make as you continue on your job search.

So if you’re looking for an edge, an upgrade, and a boost to your job search contact us today!

5 Reasons to Hire a Professional Resume Writer | Sara Sutton Fell via Salary.com.

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Ten Job Search Rules To Break

Thursday, August 21st, 2014

We’re not advised to tell the truth when we’re job-hunting — just the opposite. We’re coached to contort ourselves into pretzel shapes, to be whoever we think the employer wants us to be. We’re encouraged to play a role on a job search, to fawn and grovel and hope the hiring manager falls in love with us. What horrible advice! If you wanted to go into the theatre, you’d be in Hollywood by now.

We say that if people don’t get you, they don’t deserve you. Better to let them see who you really are at the earliest opportunity, right? Job-seekers are often surprised that more honesty doesn’t hurt them on a job search. If the people they’re interviewing with have any self-esteem and confidence at all, your human honesty helps you.

And if managers are so fearful that they can’t handle a dose of honesty, do you really want to work for them?

Here are ten traditional job search rules to start breaking on your job search.

Ten Job Search Rules to Break

1. Follow the defined process.

The defined recruiting process is broken. Black Holes are great in space, and horrible on a job search. Many job-seekers have trouble stepping out of the Good Little Rule-Following Job Seeker persona. If they can do that, they’ll be unstoppable!

We’ve been trained since childhood to do what we’re told to do. The Black Hole will eat your resume and shred its atoms, but people keep pitching resumes into gaping recruiting portals anyway. Don’t do it! Reach your hiring manager directly.

2. If you know someone in the company, give that person your resume and tell them to give it to the hiring manager.

A job search, like any marketing campaign, makes use of channels. Your friend inside the company might be a tremendous channel for your job search, or a horrible one. The question is “How well does your friend know the hiring manager?” If your friend does know him or her, you’re in great shape. Otherwise, your friend carrying your resume in the door is just a side entrance to the same Black Hole you were trying to avoid.

Choose the strongest channel for your job search: an intermediary friend, the direct approach, or a third-party recruiter. Don’t assume that your in-house friend is your best job-search conduit.

3. Use a traditional zombie-style resume and cover letter.

You’re not a zombie. You’re a human, switched-on and ready for action, so don’t brand yourself using zombie language like “Results-oriented professional with a bottom line orientation!” (Ropwablo for short.)

You can write a resume that sounds like you, and you’ll make a stronger impression if you do. Forget the old-fashioned cover letter and write a compelling letter instead.

4. In your overture to employers, emphasize the way your background matches the job spec.

You know that a written job spec has as much in common with the actual job as I have in common with Genghis Khan. Forget the tedious and delusional job-spec bullets and focus on the pain behind the job ad.

5. Spend most of your energy applying for posted jobs, and do so online.

If you want to destroy your mojo in the first two weeks of your job search, spend all your time online hunting for positions to apply to. Then, toss resumes into Black Holes and pretend that someone is going to get back to you. You’d be better off putting a stack of paper resumes on the passenger seat in your car and driving down the freeway with the window open. In that case, one of your resumes might land on a hiring manager’s desk by chance.

If you want a job rather than a boring daytime activity, step away from the Black Hole and take a more active role in your job search.

Split your job-search time three ways into three equal parts: one-third of your available time and energy will go to responding to posted job ads, one-third of it will be spent reaching out to target employers whether or not they have jobs posted, and the final one-third of your time and energy will go to networking.

6. Use your networking time and energy letting people know about your job search, your specific skills and how each friend can help you.

Your job-search networking is not a hunt for jobs to apply to. It’s a mojo-building, introduction-generating exercise instead. Use your networking to coach your friends on the issues they’re dealing with (nothing grows mojo better than coaching someone else) and to get their moral support in return.

When people get unadvertised jobs through networking – and people do that every day – it’s because they focused on the relationship, not the transaction.

7. If you’re asked to report your salary history, share every detail going back as far as the employer asks you to.

Are you ready to go work for people who don’t trust you? If the employer asks you to verify every salary you’ve ever earned, the relationship is not off to an auspicious start. Keep your salary history to yourself.

8. When the employer asks you to jump, do it.

No employer is ever going to love you more than they do just before they make you a job offer. Don’t be a doormat on your job search. A new job is essentially an extended consulting gig, so manage the process the same way you would if you were proposing a consulting assignment to a new client. Don’t climb over every pile of broken glass they put in front of you. If you show up as the most compliant, docile candidate in the bunch, don’t expect to be able to argue for your strategic value later in the process.

9. Don’t bring up the topic of salary – let the employer bring it up.

It is suspicious to me that the awful, conventional wisdom “Don’t mention salary – let the employer bring it up first. Whoever speaks first, loses” fits so nicely with many job-seekers’ natural aversion to broaching sticky topics like money.

That advice is repeated everywhere, and it couldn’t be more mistaken. In a job search, you have to price yourself like a house. You have to let employers know what it will take you get you on board. If you wait for the job offer to finally learn what an organization is planning to pay you, you’re in the world’s worst negotiating position.

After all, it was your obligation to show (not tell) these folks what you’re worth, during the interview process. If you’ve been through two or three interviews with a gang of people and they subsequently decide collectively — maybe delusionally as well, but that’s a different topic — that you are worth $X, then in their eyes you are worth $X, and you’ve already missed your prime opportunity to show them differently.

10. Do whatever you need to do and say whatever you need to say to get the job.

When you agree to play a part to get a job, you’ve made a deal with the devil. As tempted as you may be to bite your lip when you’re frustrated with a hiring process, don’t do it. If you have to take a survival job to pay the bills, take it! Don’t swap your integrity for a paycheck from people who don’t even see, much less value, the real you.

Remember that only the people who get you deserve you. The faster you say “No thanks” to the wrong opportunities, the faster the right ones will roll in.

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Job Search Expenses: What Can be Deducted

Thursday, March 27th, 2014

A client walks into an accountant’s office for help with an audit of his income tax return. “They’re disallowing all of my job search expenses. And I swear, I only took those trips to find work. Okay, there might have been a little bit of personal time, you know, vacation, mixed in, but it was mostly to find a job.”

Here’s his story: He retired many years ago but his pension shriveled when the economy tanked and his wife who had been working full time was forced to cut back due to health issues. To help make ends meet, he had to rejoin the workforce. His job hunt cost about $4,000, and he deducted it on his tax return on Schedule A Itemized Deductions as a miscellaneous deduction.

Everything looked in order. The primary purpose of the trips was to get a job, and he had receipts to prove the deductions. He also had all the miscellaneous paperwork to substantiate his purpose – resume, business cards and correspondence to and from prospective employers. He was not able to get a new job; employers told him he was too old. But according to the rules, job-search expenses are deductible even if employment is never achieved. So why was he getting audited?

The bad news is that one of the rules to qualify for the deduction is that, according to the IRS, “there cannot be a substantial break between the ending of your last job and your looking for a new one.”

This is just one of three basic rules:

  1. You can’t deduct expenses for a job search if you are looking for a job in a new occupation. So if you were a shoe salesman and you just finished your nursing degree and are now applying for nursing positions, you’re on your own with covering expenses.
  2. You cannot deduct expenses for a job search if you are looking for a job for the very first time.
  3. There cannot be a substantial break between the ending of your last job and your search for a new one.

Let’s say you are looking for work and you qualify to deduct the expenses, here’s what you may deduct:

  • Employment and outplacement agency fees. If you get the job and an employer reimburses you for the fees, you must declare that amount as income
  • Resume preparation expenses including postage and overnight mail charges
  • Fees you pay each year to keep a license active
  • Travel and transportation expenses – keep a mileage log. Note that travel expenses include any laundry or dry cleaning bills racked up while you’re on the road
  • Meals and lodging while away from home. Keep your receipts or use the per diem cited on the IRS website for the cities you visit
  • Education expenses to improve or maintain skills in your present occupation

These are the basic categories of expense but the list in not all-inclusive. The IRS allows any expense that is considered “ordinary and necessary,” as well as legal.

In other words, bribing a person to hire you is considered an illegal activity, and the deduction will not be allowed. But hiring someone to revamp your resume or a career coach to help you manage your job search will be.

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Keys to a Successful Engineering Resume

Thursday, October 10th, 2013

Did you know you can engineer your resume to be a powerful marketing tool? While engineering jobs can encompass a wide range of different specialties (mechanical, reservoir, nuclear, electrical, software, etc.), there are effective resume strategies applicable across disciplines. Here are seven key tips (culled from the minds of recruiters and hiring managers alike) to keep in mind when crafting your engineering resume.

Tip #1: Think Precision

Precision is paramount when it comes to engineering projects, and the same holds true for engineering resumes. Failing to proofread and correct all errors on the resume is a common mistake engineers make. It’s imperative that you have a well-prepared, professional resume with no spelling or grammatical errors. Triple-check it and have other people go over it as well to make sure it’s perfect.

Tip #2: Be Concise

There is a tendency among engineers to go into information overload on their resumes. However, resumes often get accepted or rejected in 30 seconds or less, so you must be concise.

You should create a resume that is crisp and to the point. Scrutinize your resume with an editor’s eye — just because you think the information is relevant doesn’t mean the hiring manager will.

Tip #3: Add a Project List

Depending on your engineering specialty and years of experience, you may find a dozen or more key projects should be included on your resume. When this causes your document to overflow onto a third page, a separate project list sheet is an effective solution. List projects by employer or client, and give a short — even one-sentence — description of what you did. Most importantly, don’t forget to include your project outcomes.

Tip #4: If recent project experience is lacking, use a DIY project

Sometimes inexplicable things happen and an experienced engineer finds themselves on the unemployment list for a while. These employment gaps can result in an employer having a hard time justifying even taking the time to talk with the candidate. This is why these gaps should be filled with learning experiences from do-it-yourself (DIY) projects. Create something and go through the design process of gathering requirements, block diagramming and prototyping and put that experience and maybe even some lessons learned on the resume! This will show the prospective employer that the individual is self-motivated, passionate and a number of other things. The best part is that when they call for an interview, the candidate can bring what was designed and talk about the process, the hardware design, the software etc. It might just give that edge needed to even beat out the competition.

Tip #5: List Key Accomplishments

Use bullet points to make your resume easier to read. When writing bulleted accomplishments, keep the text to a few key points and quantify the results so employers understand the significance of your work. Here are a few examples:

  • Conducted process mapping studies to improve throughput by 36% and ensure compliance with customer specifications.
  • Regarded as one of consulting firm’s most highly requested mechanical engineers, maintaining 89% or higher billable utilization for the past 4 years.
  • Co-developed material for cooling radiators that saved $300K/year.

Tip #6: List Useful Skills

Forcing an employer to read between the lines is a dangerous game. Listing project details is one thing but an employer also wants to know in general the types of skills the candidate has. Having a technical expertise section that lists various items such as hardware, software and programming language and provide a quick overview summary of what an individual brings to the table can be very beneficial.

Tip #7: Review and Update Quarterly

The worst time to update a resume is when an individual is looking for a job. Going for long periods of time without updates usually results in gaps of information or misrepresentation from just forgetting what was done. That is why it is useful to set a periodic time, whether it is every quarter or twice a year, to sit down and update the resume with new projects, skills, etc. Sometimes employers will include employee resumes in proposals in order to show a potential client that their team has the skills necessary to get the job done. If a resume isn’t kept up to date then the team could quickly look like they are not up-to-date with the latest and greatest techniques and cause the employer to lose business.

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Back to the Basics: 10 Job Search Tips for Job Hunting 101

Thursday, September 26th, 2013

People are always looking for innovative job search strategies to set themselves apart from the competition. But it’s important to have the basics down, the most essential elements your job search will need to include if you want to succeed as quickly as possible.

If your job search is off to a slow start, here are some quick and basic tips that will help your hunt for a new job go more smoothly as you navigate the job maze:

  1. Be Prepared. Have a voice mail system in place and sign-up for a professional sounding email address. Consider getting a separate email account to use for your job search, so you can stay organized. Put your cell phone number on your resume so you can follow up in a timely manner.
  2. Be More Than Prepared. Always have an up-to-date resume ready to send – even if you are not currently looking for work. You never know when an opportunity that is too good to pass up might come along. If you’re not on LinkedIn yet, create a LinkedIn Profile and start making connections who can help you job search.
  3. Time Savers. Strapped for time? Consider getting professional help writing or editing your resume.
  4. Get Social. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a good way to get job listings before they are listed elsewhere. Plus, you can promote your candidacy using the social media tools that are readily available for free for job seekers and companies are increasingly using social media for recruiting.
  5. Look for hidden vacancies. Instead of advertising their available jobs, employers often look to fill vacancies by word-of-mouth, headhunting or simply by recruiting internally. Knowing how to get yourself in contention for these roles could give you a major boost when it comes to finding your next role.
  6. Get employers to come to you. Getting headhunted is no longer the preserve of employees in senior management. When you post your resume online, you are immediately putting your details within reach of thousands of employees may save you the trouble of searching through job adverts.
  7. Target the right companies. Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond or would you rather have the safety of a large organization with job security and a clear career path? Knowing what you want allows you to narrow down your search and spend more time on applying for the roles you really want.
  8. Build a network. Networking is getting to know people who can help you develop your career prospects. You don’t need to be a big shot or the most outgoing person in the world to network effectively, just keep your ears open and listen for information that could work to your advantage.
  9. Don’t Stop. Don’t limit your job searching to the top sites like Monster or CareerBuilder. Check the smaller niche sites that focus on a particular geographic location or career field and you will find plenty of job listings. Networking works, too. Tap into your network of contacts to see who might be able to help you with job leads or a referral.
  10. Keep your spirits up. As time passes, the rejections mount up and the budgets get tighter, it’s easy to become disheartened. However, this is exactly the time when you need to dust yourself off and put in more hard work than ever. One of the main attributes of a successful job seeker is persistence.

Finding a new job can almost be a job unto itself. But if you persevere and remain confident, you’ll have a new job in no time.

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Employment Gaps on a Resume: Showing your Worth

Thursday, June 6th, 2013

There can be any number of possible reasons for a person to be unemployed for a period of time. No matter the causes of an employment gap, it is often and unfortunately the first thing an HR clerk, recruiter, or hiring manager will notice on a resume, usually to your detriment. However, unless the time was spent engaged in something totally unproductive, these gaps, if presented properly, can not only be downplayed and their harm minimized, but they may even prove to be helpful in securing a new job.

Employment Gap: To Mention or Not to Mention

Professional resume writers generally suggest not drawing attention to an employment gap if it is relatively short (a matter of months, for example, in which case it can usually be dealt with via formatting). When gaps are longer, it will be imperative to explain them in some way but you should not refer to illness, unemployment (even if it is clearly a result of a long recession), rehabilitation, etc., since these may suggest that you are a high-risk job seeker. Rather, you should give yourself a title that focuses attention on something positive you were doing during that time, like “Student” or “Full-Time Parent” or “Family Management.”

Employment Gap: Dealing with it in Real Life
Unemployment is not something people frequently plan ahead for or desire. In light of the recent economic downturn in the US, many job seekers have been unable to find work for extended periods of time. In these situations, it is important that you stay busy and engage in activities relevant to your field or which provide transferable skills. Even if it is volunteer work or online courses, you will want to mention it on your resume in order to ensure employers that you have been fruitful even when unemployed.

Employment Gap: Dealing with it on the Resume

In the end, it all comes down to how the employment gap is presented on your resume. If it was for a short period of time (a few months), you might only mention the years when stating the duration for each job. For example, you would write 2005-2007 and 2007-2008 rather than May 2005 – January 2007 and November 2007 – August 2008, since the latter clearly reveals a gap. If the gap is longer and cannot be concealed in this fashion, you should do your best to present your activities during this time as relevant to your job objective. A travel agent, for example, might mention vacation destinations and someone looking for work in the health care industry might mention providing primary home care for a terminally ill relative. Include internships, training, family projects, and any other relevant items.

Employment Gap: Keeping Your Head High

An employment gap is not something to be ashamed of, especially when there are legitimate reasons. So be sure to treat your time away from the work force confidently on your resume and when you are unemployed, be sure to use your time wisely and productively to improve your skills, knowledge, and real-life experience.

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Creating an Impressive CV

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

The curriculum vitae is a professional document designed to present the entire scope and content of a professional’s career. This format is mostly used in medical or academic professions (and also overseas) so as to highlight research projects, journals, citations, etc. The format of a CV is similar to a professional resume; however, the CV is often much longer, being far more comprehensive, and generally includes details that a resume would not.

The CV allows for a more free flowing format and style than a standard resume, and each profession or field has variations on what’s included. There are certain standard features, however, that a CV should have, and certain strategies you should use to artfully present your information, including:

• Highlight the most relevant and sought after qualifications, skills, projects, and research right at the beginning, in order to grab the attention of recruiters and hiring managers.

• An educational summary in reverse chronological order is recommended. For fresh or junior applicants, it is important to mention academic grades, internship credentials, awards, and dissertation summaries. For experienced and mid-career professionals, it is more important to mention citations and academic and research papers written or quoted, with clear mention of the journal or university to ensure the credibility of the claim and to augment the achievement.

• Brief summaries of the challenges and outcomes of important projects and research assignments is also important. The placement of these summaries should not disrupt the overall flow of the document.

• Unlike a resume, it is common to mention recommendations and references directly on a CV, alongside awards and medals. Make sure these are relevant to the position and don’t be afraid to name drop if you have recommendations from important people in the field.

• Avoid the temptation to overuse academic jargon unless it is relevant and helpful for explaining your credentials.

• A neat and crisp presentation is essential. It is not considered professional to add lots of colors, unusual fonts, or graphics to the document. Be judicious with your use of bullet points: while they are helpful for organizing content, too many will break up the flow of the text and make the document appear much longer than it actually is.

• While there is no defined length for a CV, and details are essential, do not allow the document to become too long. A very long CV does not reflect clarity of thought and busy hiring managers may only have a minute or two to read it. It is therefore important to highlight and emphasize the skills and background that clearly illustrate why you are the best candidate for the role.

• As this document represents the overall scope of your career, and is likely the first thing an organization will see, it is important that it contain honest, consistent, and accurate information. Make sure to spell check the document to ensure that no inadvertent errors have slipped in and be sure to avoid the temptation to expand or inflate your achievements.

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Application Tracking Software – Brings Out the Robot in You

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

Job seeking is challenging and often leads to frustration. Professionals browse for the right jobs, keep an eye out for profile fits, and send in their resume expectantly but often do not receive a response, any response, from the myriad of job boards they apply to. The main reason that your resume may not be soliciting a response is because it is being read first by companies’ Application Tracking Software (ATS), which is promptly filtering your resume into oblivion before human eyes ever see it.

ATS is a software application that enables the electronic handling of applications according to a predetermined search criteria based on keywords or other qualifications. To get a response for your resume, it is important to understand that resume design is as important as resume content. In fact, for online applications, it is even more important than the content, as most times it is the ATS which will scan the application first and not the recruiter and may discard it for trivial or technical reasons.



Meet Your New Robotic Hiring Manager

So what can be done to ensure that the ATS picks your resume and passes it along instead of junking it? Here are some simple rules to follow that will maximize your success when dealing with the “robots”:

  • Generic resumes do not work well with an ATS system. Your resume must utilize words from the job description or it will be declined immediately. This means that each time you apply for a job, you need to “tweak“ your resume to match what the job is looking for, using its terminology (even if you utilize slightly different wording at your current role).
  • Avoid images, shading, graphics, special effects, arrows, and any other special characters. Stick to simple text and numbers on the resume (and you can’t go wrong with bullet points). Use of images just confuses the ATS and it may reject your resume as a result. And if you are attaching a photo of yourself, that’s a big HR no-no in the first place, as it can lead to all sorts of hiring discrimination and bias issues.
  • For your resume, only use standard fonts like Arial, Georgia, Calibri, or similar that are commonly used on the web and easy to read. Use Word format, not PDF!
  • Always include a carefully worded professional summary, which should also incorporate important keywords from the job description.
  • Use spell check on your resume. Words that are not recognized in standard dictionaries will not be picked up by the software so proofread your resume as well. Where use of acronyms is necessary, ensure that the explanation is provided alongside to maximize search fit percentages.
  • Don’t ignore designations, titles, and relevant certifications. They attract attention and are likely to be keywords in the ATS.
  • Contact information should always be at the top so the recruiter knows where to reach you once the ATS has chosen your resume to be short listed. It is now common to have more than one page in a resume but it is important to ensure that the first page of the resume has all the contact details and keywords in case the second page is misplaced.

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Your Resume – Summary vs. Objective

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

The days of writing a career objective are long over. The objective was traditionally reserved for recent graduates or professionals changing fields or industries to indicate to hiring managers the kind of position they wanted, as this might not be immediately apparent from their resume since it would either have little experience or unrelated experience. It soon became fashionable for everyone to write a career objective at the beginning of their resume. However, most recruiters rightly point out that hiring managers don’t want to know what a job seeker wants from an employer but what the job seeker can offer to the employer.

It is now standard procedure to include a brief summary rather than an objective. The summary is designed to provide the employer a quick snapshot of what you have done and for how long, outlining your strengths, skills, and expertise (especially intangibles).

Summary or Objective of a Resume

It is important to know what a summary statement should include, as there is no set format and templates should be avoided. Some of the key ingredients are:

– Mention your industry, your work experience in years, and the kinds of companies you have worked for.

e.g., Financial Services, 20 years, private and public sector, Fortune 500, etc.

– Include important functional and vertical skills or expertise you demonstrate.

e.g., back office, service delivery, music composition, lyricist, accounting, software specialist, etc.

It is also important to include keywords from the description of the job that you are applying for. Otherwise, while the human element (HR) might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, that you have some possible relevance to the job, the Application Tracking Software surely won’t and you’ll be filtered out before they even see your resume.

– An executive summary should not attempt to confuse or deceive the reader. It must be honest and consistent with the rest of the resume. Be concise and avoid generalizations. Think of it as a quick road map to what the hiring manager will be reading further below.

– The summary should be just that: a summary. It should summarize the details and the breadth of your career and resume. And it should be able to convey your background in less than 20 seconds.

Problems occasionally arise, however, when a professional is attempting to move into an adjacent profession, such as when a musician wants to be a lyricist or a teacher is applying for math tutoring near me or applying for role as a personal trainer. The goal then is to make the employer understand that you have transferable skills that are applicable to the role for which you are applying, even though you don’t have any or much direct experience. The summary can be an excellent place to accomplish this, as it will explain the situation immediately to the hiring manager and provide the lenses through which the hiring manager should read the rest of your resume.

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