Monday, June 9, 2008

World's Best Resume Writer (WBRW)

It's the ultimate bragging right: World's Best Resume Writer.

Career Directors International is launching a worldwide search for the "best of the best" -- the top three resume writers in the world with their new "World's Best Resume Writer" competition.

The contest is open to any English-writing resume writer in the world. You do not have to be a member of CDI to enter. The contest will be judged by a judges panel comprised of HR managers, senior recruiters, OD specialists, and several certified resume writers.

Unlike other resume writing contests -- including CDI's Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) competition -- all entrants will be working from the same client information. You will receive a note file on a target client in the sales and sales management field.

Laura DeCarlo will be lead a free 30-minute Q&A call tomorrow, Tuesday, June 10 at Noon Eastern time. The conference dial in number is 651-715-3300. Your participant access code is 506334#.

The entry fee is $39.95 (one entry per person) and you'll receive a copy of the CDI Resume Writing Guide, a $39.95 value, with your entry.

Visit the CDI website for more information. The entry deadline is Nov. 1.

You can also read more information about this contest in the May/June issue of Resume Writers' Digest.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

The Resume Addendum

At the NRWA conference in Scottsdale in 2006, the icebreaker at the pre-conference welcome party was a game where a resume term would be affixed to your back, and you'd have to ask other guests questions to see if you could identify what you were.

I was a "resume addendum," a document that I rarely produce (and wasn't able to guess in Scottsdale, despite some great clues from my husband and others).

But Friday, I saw a client situation that clearly called for a resume addendum. My client, Joe, is an executive with a 30-year work history. His early experience was in developing international markets -- in his words, he was "the guy that gets off the plane and sets up the company's office in Dubai." This was in the early to mid 1980s, mind you. He later became a guru in the world of franchising, creating the systems that sustained hundreds of franchise outlets for a couple of different franchise companies.

Joe came to me with the challenge of turning his bio (the only career document he had) into a resume -- actually, two resumes, at my suggestion. The first resume I created targeted franchisor systems development, where he'd spent the bulk of the last 20 years. The second was a chronological format that included his earlier international business experience.

Joe loved the first resume -- and got immediate, positive feedback on it from several recruiters and hiring managers, including a few outside the franchise field. And that led to a phone call in which he expressed his disappointment in the second, international-focused resume.

Upon further exploration, we initially came up with a solution to his major complaint: that his international experience was "buried" in the resume, since it was chronological in nature -- despite my highlighting the relevant experience in the Qualifications Profile.

My first thought was to make the second section of the resume (after the Qualifications Profile) into an "International Business Experience" section, minus the dates that would clearly who that this experience was almost as old as I am.

But in further conversation with Joe, I discovered that he really loved everything about his franchise resume -- he just wanted an extra page he could add on when he wanted to target a position using his international experience.

Aha! A situationg fit for a resume addendum! So this weekend, I'll be working to create a page that fits the formatting and style of the original franchise resume, but that highlights his early international business experience.

I'll let you know how it all works out ...

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Stuck In a Rut

It's been a busy week around here ... I don't know if it's something in the water, or something in the air, but all of a sudden, I've gotten three new projects yesterday from quotes I did a couple of weeks ago. Which is great ... but it certainly fits that "feast or famine" adage.

But lately, I find myself creatively challenged with the resumes. Not with the content, but with the design. Looking back to more than 15 years ago when I first started writing resumes, design wasn't a problem. I could use great fonts to help create an attractive document. But when I transitioned to a fully virtual practice in 2004, I had to make the change to providing resumes in primarily Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana. B-O-R-I-N-G. But font compatibility and system issues meant that providing a resume in one of those boring fonts meant I could spend less time troubleshooting file problems (which I don't charge for) and more time writing (which I do charge for).

But now I'm feeling stuck in a rut. I haven't bought a new resume book in probably two years. There hasn't been a good session on resume design at a conference (at least not one I've been to) in a while .... I'm looking for inspiration. Anyone have any good recommendations for a book with some great designs using these tried-and-true fonts? I'd love to have someone write an article for a future issue of Resume Writers' Digest on this subject. If you're interested, or know of a great resource, post a comment or e-mail me at RWDigest@aol.com.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Industry Reputation Update

A job seeker posted a comment on my Sept. 2007 "Industry Reputation" thread today. It's the third one from a job seeker who found the post by Googling either "Resume Pro Writers" or "Stanford Writing Institute."

He wrote:

Wow. Thanks for posting this. I was just about to contact Resume Pro Writers when a little voice told me to Google the Stanford Writing Institute. You just saved me $125 and two weeks of aggravation. Thanks again, and good luck in your job search.

I guess I should be writing a couple of posts each month about how to choose a resume writer and other positive attributes of working with the professional resume writing community. Plus, all of you who are interested in getting more exposure should be contacting me to get profiled... a topic I'll get into more when I finally get around to writing up my impressions of the great teleseminar with branding expert Rob Frankel. (As I imagined, he had some great insights about branding both yourself as a resume writer and your clients...)