Direct Contact. The most effective method. List the types of firms that sound interesting (products, size, customer type). Company information can be found on financial and investment sites (for large, public companies), job search websites, and the company sites. Form your prospect list and work on your resume. Research the top 25% of the places you have interest in. Find out enough about them to sound like you've done your homework: products; competition; annual revenues; other meaningful information. If you know someone who works there, contact that person!

Send your resume with a personalized cover letter addressed to a specific person. Try to call that person one to two days after your mailing arrives. Speak confidently and let them know why you're calling, why you'd be a strong candidate for hiring and the kind of position you're interested in. Be brief -- do all that in 20 seconds or less, but speak clearly and slowly enough to be understood. You may get the brush-off, but don't ever let them hear your voice crack or falter!

If you haven't made direct contact with a potential employer, your chances of an interview lie solely with your resume and cover letter. Let's look at resumes first...

Resume Format and Syntax

The two most common resume types:

Chronological: most common. Use if you are currently or were recently working and your most recent experiences relate to your desired field. Use reverse chronological order and specify dates.
Functional: focuses on skills and strengths your most recent jobs don't necessarily reflect. Useful if you have no work experience, have been out of the workforce, or are changing careers. Be ready for probing quesions -- some recruiters may think you're trying to hide something.

Resumes can be a "combination" of the two. The general organization of the resume looks like this:

Name in a slightly larger font and in boldface at the top, followed by address, phone number, and email address. Spell out everything -- no abbreviations.
Objective: optional. Use to give a functional resume focus, clarify the capacity in which your skills may be best used. Don't use an overly specific objective that may eliminate you from another position a recruiter feels is a better match for your qualifications.
Experience: relevant work experience in a particular job area or continued interest in a particular industry. De-emphasize irrelevant positions. Delete those you held for only a few months (unless you recently graduated or are still in school). Stress your results and achievements rather than listing job duties -- HOW did you contribute?
Education: schools, degrees, honors, relevant courses. Brief if you have job experience, elaborate if you have less. Never include a GPA of less than 3.0 on your resume!
Skills: usually computer skills, but includes other skills such as foreign languages and machinery relevant to the position. List programs at which you are at least proficient.
Certifications: applicable certifications and licenses, teaching, social work, one of the NASD Series licenses, CFP.
Professional Affiliations: if you belong to a professional organization in your industry.
References: don't send references with your resume and cover letter unless specifically requested.

Formatting: keep the fonts, spacing and tenses consistent. Use tabs rather than the space bar to keep vertical alignment. Keep it to one page, if possible -- you have 8-45 seconds to make an impression. Get rid of "widows" by editing the rest of the paragraph down. Use present tense for current job, past tense for old jobs.

Paper counts! Use quality, 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper with weight and texture, in a conservative color (white or ivory). Match the envelopes to your paper. Laser printers provide the best results. If yu don't have a laser printer (or access to a word processor) hire a professional or go to someplace like Kinko's that has access to computers with quality printers. Use the campus computers as long as you have access! This is nit-picky, but make sure the watermark reads correctly -- it should not be upside down or backward with respect to your text.

Make no mistake about it...mistakes are bad! Check spelling and grammar. And don't fix mistakes with a pen, pencil or correction fluid...make the changes to the file and reprint!

Content

Sell Yourself...but be concise.

Include achievements, but not generalities, such as "I work hard."
Be honest -- dishonesty is grounds for dropping an applicant from consideration...or firing a current employee.
Use short, concise phrases, rather than long sentences.
Begin phrases with action verbs. If you have these skills, so much the better:
- Supervising/Managing: take responsibility for others' work.
- Coordinating/Organizing: plan events, see projects to completion.
- Negotiating: bring about compromise, resolve differences.
- Customer Service/Public Relatons: allow you to be a positive representative of the organization.
- Training/Instructing: showing newbies the ropes.
- Interviewing: ability to ask tough questions, then listen to get insight from the answers.
- Spaking: coherently verbalizing your ideas.
- Writing: same as above, but written.
- Budgeting: saving your employer money.
- Timeliness: ability to work under pressure.
Keep paragraphs to 6 lines or less, if possible.

Electronic Resumes

Automated applicant tracking systems or database driven systems mean your resume will be read by more computers and fewer people. How is it different than your paper resume? It doesn't recognize the elaborate formatting you used to make your paper resume look attractive, but it does allow you to distribute it to thousands of employers relatively easily.

Format: plain text version of your resume you can paste into one or more database fields. Keep lines to 65 characters or less. Keep it simple, and no longer than one page. A few common abreviations, such as MBA and state names, widely used acronyms for industry jargon, are generally accepted.

Plain text means: no different font sizes, stylized text (bold, italic, underline), no graphics -- use dashes or asterisks instead of bullets.

Alternative: create an HTML resume and post it to a site that accepts them.

Samples

Okay, here are the samples you asked for...

A Professional Resume
Note: this person works in the securities industry, BUT has a degree in Geography. So...you don't have to have a degree in what you do. Remember, it's the TRANSFERABLE skills that are important.
Another Professional
Student Resume
Charlie
Scannable Format
for electronic resume services.

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