Job hunting? Fun? Surely you're joking.

Someone recently described job hunting to me as a "grueling and decidedly unpleasant activity. After all, what could be more tiring than going from one place to another and peddling yourself?"

It's hard to argue that point, especially when you hear reports about the average number of months (4) it takes people - even executives and managers - to land a new position. And the articles talking about the hundreds of resumes submitted for a given position. And the rejection you go through in the career search process...

Okay, enough! Like most anything else in life, you can decide whether to have fun with the job transition process. It's up to you to find the fun in it. Could you:

* Make it a game? Set it up like a bingo card, with spots for resumes sent, interviews landed, networking events attended, et cetera. Get bingo, and stop everything to give yourself a job hunting reward.

* Play with a friend? If you know someone else on the hunt, team up for motivation and relaxation. Help each other role play for interviews, share your horror stories, critique each other's resumes, and keep each other's spirits up.

* Take a break already? You know, this whole job search thing can drive you crazy. And if work-life balance was already an issue in your previous position, it's probably going to be a problem when your sending out resumes, too. Schedule some play time to relax and recharge your brain - it's not only fun, it actually improves your efficiency when you're back at the computer.

The point is, you can make time, even in a hectic job-hunting schedule, to do something fun - and it'll immediately improve what you personally project to prospective hiring managers, recruiters, and others in the job hunt game.

What's more, who wants to hire someone who's deadly serious? Heck, I wasn't deadly serious when I interviewed to become a bank auditor, all those years ago, and I got job offers out of both companies where I interviewed. Don't mistake taking the job seriously with being a downer.

I know this is one of those things that can be easy to say in theory, but when you're in the job search trenches, it can be hard to live it out.

But it's like your mother once said: You catch more bees with honey than vinegar. The harder you try to stay positive and have fun with your job search, the faster it'll seem to go, and the more doors that'll open for you in the process.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allen_Voivod

Education, Skills, and Experience

Your resume can take on a different look just by ordering the sequence of the above information. How you sequence it may depend upon the position you are seeking; the criteria for the position will guide you. As you climb the career ladder, the educational qualifications may fade into the background.

The skills and abilities section may become more important in emphasizing why you qualify for the job advertised. Your experience will underscore your abilities.

Although formal education may become less relevant over time, if you are short on experience and new to the job force, you should stress the educational qualifications and the skills that you have developed.

Let Your Resume Speak For Itself

Do not be verbose. Keep your resume to-the-point and brief. Focus on your abilities to do the job. You need to be specific about how you can handle the job. You can let this employer know later about your other abilities.

If the requirements for the position have been specified, be specific about your preparation for this particular job rather than focusing on your jack-of-all-trades skills. If the employer is looking for a manager, stress your managerial strengths and avoid listing any background that might disqualify you.

Read the job description carefully when creating your resume. Remember, one resume will never meet the requirements of two different jobs. Each resume must be done independently of the other and be specific to the job advertised.

Respond only to those job advertisements that fit your background.

Resume Layout

Take care with how you handle the layout of your resume. Do not overuse capital letters, because then nothing will be emphasized. Use capitals only for sectional headings and your name at the top.

Follow the same practice with bold and italics; do not overplay any of these or they lose their effect and purpose. Use bullets only if they make the information easier to read. Use proper headings.

Do not underline anything. Pay attention to punctuation.

Keep It Relevant

A resume is meant to be a summary. Your interviewer or employer does not have the time to read unduly lengthy resumes. They might just set it aside to be trashed. There is no need to list every job you ever held, especially if you have been inclined to frequent job changes. Mention the important and relevant ones, those that pertain to and underscore your skills in handling the new job.

However, do not try to cover up the time gaps when questioned about them. Be sure to be honest about them.

Check the Final Product

Read and re-read your resume thoroughly once you have completed it. Check for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Proofreading will help you locate any mistakes not caught by the spellchecker.

Remember - your resume is one among thousands, and any errors will only increase the likelihood that it will sink to the bottom of the stack.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Jacowski

Popular bookstores and Internet sites offer publications, examples and tutorials on how to craft the perfect functional resume. This type of resume is also known as a skills-based resume. There is a tremendous amount of information in support of the functional resume. An old rule of thumb is to use this type of document to downplay frequent job changes, as if the reader will be so dazzled by the style that they will ignore the dates of employment! I willingly admit that the functional resume looks good, de-emphasizes employment dates, and provides a nice overview of an individual's areas of expertise. But if you are actively conducting a job search, please DO NOT waste your time and energy preparing a functional resume!

Why should you avoid this type of resume? Because hiring managers, internal company recruiters and external recruiters HATE the functional resume. Yes, I know HATE is a strong word, so let me clarify...they truly HATE the functional resume. Hiring managers and recruiters are extremely busy people and they are dedicating a portion of their work day to the review of resumes, lots and lots of resumes. They want to be able to visually scan a document and quickly get an overview of a candidate's strengths, areas of expertise, career titles, achievements, and length of tenure with each employer listed. They compare this information to the profile of the preferred candidate for the position they are looking to fill.

Imagine you are engrossed in a really good book and truly enjoying what you are reading. Then suddenly you reach a page that is printed upside down and every third word appears backwards. Would you find this odd and somewhat annoying? You would have to stop, turn the book upside down, start reading and then stop each time you need to decipher a word printed backwards on the page. Well this is what it is like for the hiring manager and recruiter when they encounter a functional resume in a batch of incoming documents. One after another they read through the chronological resumes and then they stop at the functional document. Why do they stop? Because they have a quick decision to make; do they invest the time to connect the dots in this document, or just set it aside (or ditch it all together) and move on?

The functional resume often requires a greater investment of time and energy from the reader. The chronology is often somewhat concealed (intentionally) and it can be unclear just when and where the candidate applied his skills to produce his accomplishments. The reader must try to extract the essential details, piece the data together and then compare this to the critical elements in the job posting. And most hiring managers and recruiters do not have the time or patience to devote this kind of attention to a first scan of a resume. They may decide to skip this functional document all together and move on with their review of the incoming resumes.

So my advice, as a professional career coach, is pretty simple...give hiring managers and recruiters what they want. Give them a clear chronology that focuses on skills and achievements and be sure it includes a brief statement to explain any gaps in the timeline. For those individuals who are in love with the functional masterpiece they have crafted, I will offer a compromise. Produce a hybrid resume to provide a summary of skills and career highlights, but be sure to include a strong chronology of academic and employment history in support of major achievements. There are no guarantees for the job seeker. But if candidates give the reader what they are looking for, and it is packaged in a document that is content rich and visually appealing...odds are it will be reviewed.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_E._Long