What Does "EVERYTHING" Include?

As you may know, I run a membership site for professional resume writers that provides them with done-for-you content they can use with jobseekers. I offer an "EVERYTHING" membership for new members (or those who may not have been a member since the very beginning). It unlocks the Pass-Along Materials "vault" with more than 50 content packages -- everything your jobseeking clients need to know to help them in their job search. One amazing thing about the EVERYTHING access is that you also get the Pass-Along Materials that aren't available for sale. And, you get access to all the Special Reports too, dating back to 2012.

Here's the full line-up (as of October 2016):
Getting Started With LinkedIn In Your Job Search
Jobseeker's Guide to References
Jobseeker's Guide to Salary Negotiation
Jobseeker's Guide to Online Reputation Management
What To Do Next With Your Resume
LinkedIn Resources Bundle
Jobseeker's Guide to Leaving Your Job
How to Give and Get LinkedIn Recommendations
Position Yourself to Get the Job
Jobseeker's Guide to Applicant Tracking Systems
Brag About It
Jobseeker's Guide to Working With Recruiters
Jobseeker's Guide to Networking Your Way to Your Next Job
Jobseeker's Guide to Virtual Interviews
Jobseeker's Guide to Understanding Employment Law
So, You Got Fired (Or You Think You're About To Get Fired)
Jobseeker's Guide to Developing a Brag Book
LinkedIn Profile Update Delivery Document
Jobseeker's Guide to Getting the Job Offer
Frequently-Asked Questions About Job Offers
Your 2014 Career Roadmap
Jobseeker's Guide to Avoid Getting Ripped Off or Scammed In Your Job Search
How to Answer Six Common Questions Jobseekers Ask Resume Writers
Jobseeker's Guide to Informational Interviews
Jobseeker's Guide to Connecting With a Hiring Manager
Jobseeker's Guide to Creating a 30-60-90 Day Plan
Client Management Forms
Jobseeker's Guide to a Confidential Job Search
What To Do When Your Job Search Isn't Working
What Do Jobseekers Need?
When to Hire a Reference Checking Service
Tweetable Tips
Social Media Audit for Jobseekers
The Social Job Search: Jobseeker's Guide to Developing a Social Media Plan
The Jobseeker's Guide to What To Do After the Job Interview
Jobseeker's Guide to Applicant Tracking Systems
LinkedIn Client Resources Bundle
How to Know When It's Time to Make a Job or Career Change
Developing Your Personal/Professional Development Plan (PDP)
Jobseeker's Guide to a Modern Job Search
Job Search Letters (Letters of Acceptance, Refusal, and Resignation)
Jobseeker's Guide to Cover Letters
Jobseeker's Guide to Comparing Job Offers

PLUS, these Pass-Along Materials content packages that are not available for purchase:
• Job Search Advice: 365+ Ready-to-Go Tweets and Facebook Posts
• The Jobseeker's Guide to Preparing for the Job Interview
• Career Checklists: 100 Tips for Success In Your Job Search
• Resume Critique Form/LinkedIn Critique Form
• Jobseeker's Guide to Working With Your Resume Writer
• Job Search Jump-Start 30-Day Challenge
• Positive Encouragement for Jobseekers -- Tweetable Tips
• Finding a Job During the Holidays AND 7 Things To Get Ready For Your Job Search
• Client Management Forms -- Prospect and Client Communication
• Why You Need a Resume
• LinkedIn 30-Day Challenge
• Client Frequently-Asked Questions
• 2016 Career Planner
• Managing Your Career Brand Ready-To-Go Workshop
• Career Checklists 2: 100 More Tips for Success In Your Job Search

Special Reports:
Resume Writer's Online Marketing Guidebook
Making Money Writing Ebooks
Introduction to Social Media in Your Resume Writing Business
Resume Writer's Guide to Article Marketing
Resume Writer's Guide to Profiting From Speaking: How to Use Teleseminars, Webinars, Workshops, and Seminars to Attract New Clients and Generate Revenue
Feed the Media: How to Get Free Publicity For Your Resume Writing Business
Capture Clients with Content: Use Information to Attract Resume Clients
Ready, Set, Goal: Business Planning and Goal Setting for Resume Writers
Securing Referrals: How to Get Other Resume Writers to Refer to You
Sell Your First Information Product in 72 Hours
Getting LinkedIn With New Resume Clients
There Is Only One of Me
Earning Six Figures as a Resume Writer

The Passive Income Project
Your Mindset Affects Your Money: How Attitude Can Amplify Your Income
Push Past Procrastination
15 Quick and Easy Ways to Get Resume Clients From Facebook
Do You Have a Book In You?
Brand Your Resume Business
Make Your Resume Business Better
Stand Out From The Crowd
Evernote for Everything: How Evernote Can Help You Manage Resume Client Projects, Remember Stuff, and Just Be More Efficient
Power Through Your Projects: Practical Strategies To Get Things Done
Attract Your Ideal Resume Client
Marketing Your Resume Clients With Stories
Writing Better Headlines for LinkedIn and Client Resumes
Membership Site Ideas for Resume Writers
Pricing Your Resume Services for Maximum Profit
Google Hangouts: Create Relationships, Cultivate Revenue, and Collect Referrals
Stepping Stones to Success: Taking Stock, Finding Your Focus, and Creating Your Action Plan
First Call Questions: Questions for Resume Writers to Ask Prospective Clients
What Should I Write About? Tips for Topics for Blog Posts, Articles, and Social Media Content for Resume Writers
Spring Clean Your Resume Business
Easy Ways to Boost Your Credibility As a Resume Writer
Three Systems for Six-Figure Success in Your Resume Writing Business
Follow Your Passion: Discover Your Purpose
Resume Writer's Guide to Selling Premium Packages
Best Year Ever
Telling The Story Of You
Connect With Clients Through Content
What To Write About On Your Website
So, You Want to Write a Book
Resume Writer's Guide to Getting Unstuck
Productivity Hacks for Resume Writers
Newsjack Your Way to New Clients

It's more than $1,000 in content that will help YOU and YOUR CLIENTS.

If you're interested in getting EVERYTHING, or have questions, email me!

What Does Success Look Like?

I'm getting ready to launch the next session of the Get Clients Now program.

If you are struggling to succeed and missing the mark, the answer may lay in your strategic planning. You may not be looking at the big picture enough to understand the small things that go into succeeding on a project. Maybe you don't really understand proper planning and organizing yet.

What Does Success Look Like?
Have you really thought about what success looks like? Take the time right now to write down exactly what success looks like to you. Does it mean more money, more freedom, or something else entirely? There are no wrong answers, but if you don't have an answer and you don't know what constitutes success, it will be hard to feel as if you're successful. If you think about it, this is true for any project you are working on. What should the deliverable look like? Answer that and you have your starting point.

What Are the Steps Needed to Get to Success?
Can you pinpoint exactly the steps needed to reach success? Do you know how long it will take, how many hours each day you will need to focus on the steps needed to reach success? It's important that you can look at what the end result is supposed to be and work your way backward to the beginning to design the steps necessary to reach success. The big vision at the end starts with what you're going to do Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Do the Steps That It Takes to Reach Success
Once you've defined what success is, and designed the steps that will get you to success, now it's time to act on these steps and do them. No one gets to success without taking action. Action is the forward movement that will help you wind up at your destination. If you're spinning your wheels, you may be stuck in one of the planning phases. Move out of that planning phase and start acting.

Are the Steps You're Taking Creating Momentum?
It's also important to build in a few stops along the way toward your goals to evaluate how everything is going. Is what you're doing leading you to success? Are you getting some results that indicate that you're on the right track? If so, keep going. If not, re-evaluate if your plan is sufficient to move you toward the success that you need.

Is something missing that is crucial to getting to success, such as a skill that you need to take time out to learn? If so, you may need to add in time for learning, but don't trick yourself into thinking learning is action. It's not.

Defining success, planning based on the definition, then acting on the plan and putting into motion the steps necessary to achieve success, are all important components of moving behind the struggle to achieve success and finally experiencing success.

Are You Wasting Time?

© gpointstudio - Fotolia.com

One thing that will ensure the failure of your business is wasted time. Don't confuse "wasted" time with the time it takes to renew your physical or mental power. That's important, too.

Exercise is good for both -- and you need it to keep yourself primed and ready for what's ahead. You know what you're doing to waste time -- it could be watching reruns on television for hours at a time, playing games with your friends online or on your smart phone -- or, as Jon says, wasting time on Facebook.

If you think your wasted minutes and hours are getting out of hand and causing a downturn in your business efforts (and it's time to be tough on yourself and honest about this), then it's time to rethink how you manage your time.

Good time management skills can set you on the right track for success. Without them, you can falter and all of your dreams for the future can wither and die. Here are some good time management tips to add to your daily routine, if you're ready to turn up the heat on your progress.

Put some pressure on yourself to get it in gear! Decide how much time you're going to spend on thoughts, conversations, and actions. You may want to monitor yourself for awhile by recording how much time you spend on the three categories of your day during working hours.

At the end of the week, you should know where (in which category) you're wasting the most amount of time. Don't fudge the numbers just so you can get away with more. You have to be tough on yourself to make progress.

Block distractions. Tricks like blocking email and Facebook alerts, turning off your phone and hanging a "do not disturbî"sign on your home office door can work wonders. Many resume writers use programs such as Facebook for business reasons, but when you're on the site, don't let yourself be distracted by anything other than business.

Set a time to begin work -- and stick to it. After you turn on your computer for work, give yourself a certain amount of time (5 minutes or so) to surf the 'net and review your email.

Then, switch to work and don't look back until you're finished. Going back and forth between email, Facebook and work muddles your mind and makes it more difficult to focus.

End your work at a set time. We all have times when our backs are against the wall and we have to spend more time meeting deadlines. But on an ordinary day, set a time to stop work and renew your physical and mental health.

If you have to work longer than the stop time, take frequent breaks, get up and walk around and do something to get your mind off work. You can't be chained to your business 24/7 -- even if you think you want to be -- it's just not beneficial for your success.

Distinguish busy work from working toward goals. Busy work can be a waste of time. You may be procrastinating because you're not ready to meet the goal or you're scared of failure if you do complete it. The best way to beat procrastination is to take action.

Don't coddle yourself by wasting precious time. Set some hard-and-fast rules of time management and stick to it. Think of yourself as an employee. Would you tolerate your paid worker surfing the Internet or playing a game app on his or her phone?

Of course not -- so don't allow yourself to do it, either!

Nine Takeaways From the NRWA Conference

There were a LOT of takeaways from the 2016 NRWA conference in Annapolis. You can read some of my tweets at the #theNRWAConf2016 hashtag, but I did a Facebook Live broadcast today with my top nine takeaways. You can watch them here.

Here's part one (takeaways #1-7):




And here's the second video (takeaways #8-9)





Takeaway #1: Jean Austin: Presenting Your Clients' Talents, or Answering the Big "So What" Question?

Sometimes we forget that accomplishments do not have to include numbers -- they can be things that can't easily be measured. Here are some questions you can ask:

• Did they complete a project ahead of schedule?
• Did they satisfy an unhappy customer?
• Do they go above and beyond the scope of their job?
• What would others who worked with them say they contributed?

Takeaway #2: Thomas Powner: Cover Letters: Adding the Human Touch to Ignite an Interview

Thomas got us thinking about the reder of the cover letter. What do they want to know about the jobseeker?

He sent a cover letter survey to 190 recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers. One-hundred sixty people participated. Some highlights of his findings:

• 63% read the cover letter
• 49% read the cover letter after the resume

Powner developed what he calls the "Human Voice Cover Letter," which includes four elements:

• Opening statements that connect the jobseeker to the company
• 3-5 "human voice" snapshots
• Answer any questions asked in the ad
• Closing statement/call to action

Takeaway #3: Colleen McKenna: "LinkedIn: It's Not Social, It's Business"

• 5.4 people are now involved in most corporate decisions -- including hiring. That means more than one person is looking at your LinkedIn profile.
• The number one activity on LinkedIn is looking at people's profiles -- everyone's sounds the same. The ones that stand out talk about the "why."
• 60% of people look at LinkedIn profiles from a mobile device -- keep it short and sweet.
• If you're using LinkedIn Publishing, experiment with Sunday morning posts. One thing McKenna said is that she thinks browsing social media has replaced the old habit of reading the newspaper on Sunday mornings.
• If you want to increase your chances of getting your LinkedIn Publishing posts picked up on LinkedIn Pulse, have great content. Publish frequently. Use hashtags. Include 5-6 images on video. And produce long content -- 750 to 1000 words.

Takeaway #4: Kimberly Schneiderman: Recruiters: Answers to Everything

I think my favorite session at the conference was Kimberly's. She took the initiative to conduct a survey of 273 recruiters and hiring managers (plus 10 one-on-one interviews) using the RiseSmart database. 

She shared the results with NRWA conference attendees -- including dozens and dozens of relevant takeaways. Some of my favorites:

• 40.7% cited LinkedIn as an online source of candidates.
• "Oneline job boards might results in an interview, but they are LESS likely to result in a job offer." Very interesting.
• 67% of recruiters actually use their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). So it's particularly important for resume writers to make a strong tie between the client's job requirements and the position.
• Some recruiters said an unnecessarily long resume will date you.
• 84% of companies use in-person or phone interviews. Only 4% use recorded video Q&As.

NOTE: If you use any of these statistics, please credit Kimberly Schneiderman/RiseSmart

Takeaway #5: Pricing Town Hall

One of the neatest things about conferences is the opportunity to interact with other participants before and after sessions, and learn from them in the sessions. Conference chair Dawn Rasmussen added four concurrent "Town Hall" sessions this year to allow this kind of interaction among participants. I attended the one on pricing.

The content in this session was generated by participants. Here's some of my takeaways:

• Several resume writers said they have trouble quoting high prices over the phone -- so they tell clients they will email them a proposal.
• Remember that not everyone who calls you is a customer.
• Ask questions before you quote a price. (This will help you determine if you're a fit with the client's needs, and if they're a fit for your process.) You can use the "First Call Questions" special report to help identify questions to ask.
• If you're not rejected everyone once in a while (told your prices are "too high"), your prices are too low.

NOTE: If you are a Free or Bronze level member of BeAResumeWriter.com, sign in and check out the Free Level Resources page for some additional pricing research and resources!

Takeaway #6: Robin Schlinger: Applicant Tracking Systems

I always love Robin's insight into Applicant Tracking Systems -- even if the information scares me a bit. ATS software is more pervasive than ever, and is probably the number one thing that will impact the resumes we write in the next 1-5 years.

Here's what she had to say:

• Taleo ATS software is being used by 36.4% of companies -- or about 1/3 of jobs that are publicly advertised. How can you tell? The job posting may say "Powered by Taleo" or the URL of the job posting may include Taleo.
• Robin likes to give clients ONE resume (not an ATS friendly one and a non-ATS-friendly one).
• Font doesn't matter with the ATS. Standard bullets may not be read, but they don't mess up keywords if they're not read correctly, unlike text words. Robin pointed out that accented words will screw up keywords. This also applies to client names with an accent mark -- like José -- as one participant on the Facebook Live broadcast pointed out.
• Tables, graphics, and columns CAN mess up fiends in the ATS -- "like big-time mess up" -- it can put data in the wrong fields entirely. Robin pointed out, however, that it won't "kick out" the resume -- that's a scam. But you won't know if a particular company's ATS software can overcome the formatting issues. So, better safe than sorry.

Robin also shared "Known ATS requirements":

• Use standard header names to help the ATS categorize information (i.e., "Education," "Training," "Work Experience," etc.)
• Do not put titles after the client's name -- i.e., MBA, CPRW, PE. These may cause problems with data field population too.
• Here was an interesting one I'd never heard before: Did you know that Taleo has a setting that (if enabled), allows the hiring manager to reject all resumes without a physical address on it? So include the address, city, and state. Just in case.
• Repetition is encouraged in ATS-friendly resumes, even if it duplicates information from work experience to work experience. Duplicate content can strengthen keyword density.

Takeaway #7: Modernize Your Resumes: Content, Format, and Design with Wendy Enelow

Following immediately after Robin Schlinger's session on ATS resumes, the logical question (one asked by audience member Thomas Powner and deftly answered by Wendy, was: How do these beautiful resumes fit into an ATS-friendly (ugly!) world? 

Wendy's answer: She would only do these types of resumes (with images, tables, charts, and other graphics) if the client's job search was focused primarily on networking and referrals. If you're not doing an ATS resume, graphics, tables, and images can communicate information effectively and succinctly.

One thing that hasn't changed with the "modern" resume format -- the importance of the top third of the first page of the resume. Wendy advocates "Start With the Wow" -- make every word count in this area. Consider including third-party endorsements and testimonials for additional impact.

Also, Wendy says to consider fonts and design choices on the modern resume -- they need to correlate with the client's desired industry and their personality.

Takeaway #8: So, Tell Me About Yourself … Translating Personal Branding Into Powerful Resumes and Interview Skills with Elaine Lien and Lucie Yeomans

There's no more powerful testimonial for the information that Elaine and Lucie shared than the fact that right before their presentation, Lucie swept the ROAR Awards (Recognizing Outstanding Achievements in Resumes) for Experienced Resume Writers. To me, that really communicated the value of assessments that they use in their branding work. Specifically, they focused on the Reach360, DISC, and StrengthsFinder assessments.

Lucie emphasized how having this assessment information helped her overcome writer's block -- the data gives her both concrete information and a point of view for her client, which makes the resume easier to write.

With the StrengthsFinder, she buys and sends the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book to clients. Each book contains a unique code for clients to go online and take the assessment. She then asks them to send the results to her. (Individual tests can also be purchased online here.)

Again, this strategy is obviously working for Lucie, as her award-winning resumes demonstrate. Assessments like these are things that more of us resume writers probably need to be using.

Takeaway #9: "5 Steps to Creating a Million Dollar Brand" with Dr. Brandi Baldwin-Rana

"Doctor Brandi" was hilarious, and I wish more of the attendees had been able to participate in her presentation. As is usually the case, though, attendees who departed the conference early to make a flight missed this fabulous closing session.

One of the things that resonated most strongly with me is her assertion that resume writers need to work on their own branding. "Perception matters," she noted. (I always say that resume writers/career professionals are like the proverbial "shoemaker's kids" -- they're always barefoot.)

Doctor Brandi suggests creating an Ideal Client profile and using that to attract your perfect clients. (I believe strongly in that too!) She also had attendees write down "3 words that describe your brand." This was a fun exercise.

Then, she encouraged resume writers to align their ideal client profile and personal brand and articulate it -- and COMMIT to it. She said "you never want to be off brand."  

There were a LOT more takeaways from the NRWA Conference, and I'll be sharing more of them, so stay tuned!