Engaging Your Hiring Audience: Writing an Effective
Professional Resume Summary

The Professional Summary is an excellent way to grab the eye and interest of hiring managers There is great advice on the internet about writing a Professional Summary for your resume. You will find information about including your outstanding skills and past experience that stands out, pertinent to the job at hand, and being succinct and targeted. I've also included the following tips for you:

• Include numbers and specifics - years of experience, size of teams managed, company annual sales, team or individual awards, themes throughout your career, and names of customers impacted are just a few examples. Including these will increase the impact that your summary content will have ion the reader. And, the use of DIGITS (numbers) draws in the reader's eye and so your content is much more likely to be read. 
• Strengths and abilities are often included in a summary but it's important to make this specific not general. Excellent communication could be anyone. Strong communication to technical or C-Level audiences is specific and stands out. 
• If using paragraph form only, make it short - 3 sentences is good. If your summary is longer, consider integrating a small space of separation that divides the summary into two small paragraphs. 
• Bullets draw the reader's eye in, so you might use a combination of sentences and bullets. You might start off with one or two lead in sentences followed by three bullets.
• Highlight an achievement that will also be in your experience section. It's OK to highlight a success in two sections of your resume. That's good marketing practice.

A well written, targeted summary will grab the reader so that she or he wants to read on, into your experience section. When that happens, the summary has fulfilled it's marketing purpose.

I've included an internet blog article link. Add the tips above and you will be on your way.
http://biginterview.com/blog/2013/11/resume-summary-statement-examples.html

Two Tips for Your New Year  

There are two things that are "nice to do for career" early on in the new year. One is updating your resume. The second is evaluating your support team or, as I refer to it, my board of directors. 

Let's begin with the first item - updating resume. Why do it now? Well, one reason is to insure that you take the time and do it. A great way to feed your updates is keeping a "kudos" list of accomplishments and acknowledgements throughout the year. Then, you review that list and use the ones that will add value and impact to your resume content. If you have too many bullets (rule of thumb is about 7 under your most recent position), then it may be time to clean house and remove older bullets or ones with less impact. OR, you can leave them all on and only pare down when you are applying for a position or using your resume for an introduction.

For the second tip, I am including the link to a mid year post of mine in 2015. http://designyourdirection.blogspot.com/2015/08/getting-to-career-success-finish-line.html  This post describes in detail why it's important to have a support group for career success. And, while you are at it, develop a support team - your board of directors - for support of achieving personal life goals, too. I'm planning to do this for myself. We all benefit from the support of others in our lives.

Have a great start to 2016. It's a year of rebuilding and now is a good time to start.  

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  
  

Wishing you much success and I'm here to be a resource and answer questions.

Marianne 

408-295-6656

marianneadoradio@gmail.com

Ask about sliding scale if you've been laid off.  

Connections on Linkedin: 

Take Time to be Effective

 

I receive several requests every week to connect with others on Linkedin. Due to my work as a career counselor and former role as a staffing consultant, I have over 1500 direct connections. There is no "right way" to determine who will be a new connection. But, for me, before I accept a connection,  I like to know the person on some level and be able to speak about our connection if ever asked by others.

Now, for months something else has weighed on me. I get many people who click on the button to connect and I receive their message: "I'd like to connect with you." I have no idea who the person is and why they'd like to connect. Well, the obvious - to expand their connections. Taking the time to express who you are and why you are reaching out,  goes a long way to displaying professionalism.  Including information on how we know each other - worked together, a colleague in common, met in a class - is effective. Even if I am not able to connect, due to my parameters, I am forming a positive impression when I receive that inmail. And, you never know how an interction, even a brief email on Linkedin, may create an opportunity in the future.

So, please, don't send me a request unless you expand upon it and take the time to be effective when networking with me and others through Linkedin.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  
  

Wishing you much networking success and I'm here to be a resource and answer questions.

Marianne 

408-295-6656

marianneadoradio@gmail.com

Ask about sliding scale if you've been laid off.  

Should Salary Information be Shared?

Sharing Salary Information with Peers: In the last week, it has come out that a former Google employee had created a spread sheet, in "Googledocs" of course, that allowed colleagues to share their salaries. People even began to enter their bonus information. I have taught salary negotiations, was a hiring manager, and now coach individuals on salary negotiating. l learned from a wonderful HR friend, always assume that salaries will be shared by peers. Therefore, when I brought in someone new on the team, or prepared for raises, I wanted to be able to explain the logic behind the salary base so that if everyone were to know their peers' salary information, things would be seen as fair. For instance, everyone knows who the high performer is and that person would typically be higher than many in the range.  Someone newer in the profession, unless bringing in a really unique specialty, would be a little lower in starting base, than peers.

So, this open spreadsheet concept tested the waters for Google. I'm not certain how it will all play out. I'm someone who loves compensation theory. And, yes, there is an art to establishing company ranges and compensation philosophy. HR professionals who have a love of numbers and the psychology and strategy behind them, when applied to a company's pay structure, devote entire career lives to this profession. In fact, here's our local SV Comp Association >>>>>
http://www.svca-online.org/?page=15.

So, I can't wait to see how this all plays out. Like many others, I'm staying tuned!

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  
  

Wishing you much success and I'm here to be a resource and answer questions.

Marianne 

408-295-6656

marianneadoradio@gmail.com

Ask about sliding scale if you've been laid off.  

March Madness and Career Dreams

March Madness and Dreams: I was so struck by all the raw emotion of both winners and losers, coaches and players, in the March Madness series. Dreams and talents played out on those basketball courts. Emotions were felt and observed as the games played out. I think of the emotions we have when pursuing our career and life dreams. We have a talent or talents that bring so much satisfaction when used. Depending on circumstances, and sometimes with sacrifice made, some of us use our talents full time, and others of us in our spare time, or at a particular season in life.

There are emotions felt when making these important decisions. It can be an emotional process. Our process should include a list of criteria or preferences that we'd like to have met in order to satisfy our career pursuits. Use of a particular skill set, living in another country, helping others, flexibility of schedule, saving for retirement, might be on the list, as examples. For me, I sacrificed regular weekly paychecks to live out my passion of coaching others in pursuit of their dreams or career goals. I love what I do but it came at a price, giving up something on my overall criteria list - a regular salary. I'm somewhat of an entrepreneur so that item was also fulfilled.


We can make our decision to move forward when a decision meets most items on the list. How many criteria items need to be met will vary for each of us. We may decide to sacrifice one or two in order to fulfill the most important one or two on our list.  Whether it's a long or shorter list, doing the analysis will help us move in the direction right for our life/career at any particular time. But, it's important to assess along the way. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate our list.  If so, bring out that criteria list. Have some criteria changed? What is important for our career engagement today, future plans, use of our talents, family situation, etc.? Make adjustments, weigh options, seek wise council to make changes. Whether you lead with your heart or your head, lead with what is important for you at each season in your life. And, make it a "winning" plan for you.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

Wishing you much success and I'm here to be a resource and answer questions.

Ask about sliding scale if you've been laid off. 

Marianne 

408-295-6656

marianneadoradio@gmail.com 

 

Photo ~ VB News

 

One Stop Career & Job Search Shopping

Did you know that your federal dollars fund Career One Stop ReEmployment Centers throughout the U.S. They touch all corners of our Bay Area with the Career Link Centers in S.F., East Bay Works in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and both NovaWorks and Work2Future in Silicon Valley. I often send newly laid off clients to these centers. Combining an individual, private career coaching session and the free workshops, career advising, and often re-employment training of a One Stop Center may be a winning combination for you.

To find a Career One Stop near you, go to http://servicelocator.org/. Remember! They are throughout the U.S. We have all contributed to these services. So, if we are laid off or know someone in this situation, let's put our dollars to work at a Career One Stop for employment, training and financial help after a layoff. And, seek a private, individual career coach to augment and assist with your strategy and job search or job transition.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

Wishing you much success and I'm here to be a resource and answer questions.

Ask about sliding scale if you've been laid off. 

Marianne 

408-295-6656

marianneadoradio@gmail.com 

Planned Happenstance: Being Opportunity Ready

Lately, I have met with clients who are excelling in their careers but wondering what is next. One professional loved his work and was getting great kudos from clients and management but knew it was time for a change. There are other clients looking for a new career path that leverages all their passion, skills, interests and past experience. Others are taking advantage of the improving economy, and the timing of kids going back to school, to gear up for job search mode. Job search is a lot of work but as one woman indicated she's building confidence again and going to thrive.

When meeting with many of these clients, intuition has prompted me to tell them about Planned Happenstance from the work of Career Development Educator, John Krumboltz, out of Stanford. He believed that a very important part of any career advising was to "... teach clients to engage in exploratory activities to increase the probability that the clients will discover unexpected career opportunities."(1)  Another way he referred to it was "planned luck".

Job search begins with "exploring" and understanding your passions, talents, work style, interests and values to find the best-fit opportunities. There are assessments available online and through career counselors to assist in this. There are a lot of people who meet with me who have done a lot of reflection and soul searching and just need to put together a plan of action. That plan must include "exploratory" activities including networking and informational interviewing and researching what's out there. Having a time of inquiry when meeting with others, to understand how they made a move, or what they would recommend, or what their work is like, is all part of the "exploration". This will pay off. 

You know what else pays off? Being ready for the planned happenstance. How do we do this? First of all, we have to be open to it. Being open means doing the work of figuring out who we are and what we desire.  Then, the connections will come. It took me 5+ years to figure that out. First, I went to school to study counseling and become a therapist. And, next, decided that I didn't want to do that so I transferred to the general counseling program and completed the coursework. (My dear friend made certain that I finished even though I didn't know the reason at the time.) And, then 2 years after graduating, having done a lot of soul searching and looking at my interests and skills and desires for work, I "happened" upon the role for me - Career Counseling for Silicon Valley Professionals and later throughout the Bay Area. I recognized it because I had done the work, not even knowing the desired outcome at the time. 

How did it happen? I went to volunteer and utilize my new counseling degree at the renowned Career Action Center. I said that just any volunteer role would do inside this organization that worked with professionals in every area of career development. And, in having the initial meeting with Linda, who later became my mentor, she suggested that I become a career counselor. The light bulb flashed brightly as the connection was made. I was ready for this unplanned luck. And, I've been a practicing career counselor for exactly 20 years.

Remember the professional at the beginning of this piece who was excelling but wanted something else. He decided to begin the work of preparing for a new path not knowing what was next. The organization created a job with him in mind and he had no idea that was in the works. Planned happenstance!

With that in mind, I refer you back to last month's blog for ideas on where to begin: http://www.designyourdirection.com/updates.html.  And, as one of the most creative mentors in my life would suggest, just do one thing differently today to keep your creative juices flowing. Explore something new about yourself. Here's a link to Jungian typology http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. Or, set up a coffee or cocktail meeting with friends to find out more about what they do or what they would recommend you do next. Be open to new ideas. The connections and planned luck are out there for you.

~ ~ ~

If you are in a situation where you need assistance in getting into that right job or getting back into a role that makes you happy, I’d love to assist. Good luck with your unplanned luck!

Marianne   408-295-6656  

* I do sliding scale for those who need that assistance. 

 

(1) Journal of Counseling and Development, Spring, 1999 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1999.tb02431.x/abstract