February 2015

 

Hello!
Welcome to Driving Your Career Starts NOW/The Newsletter, showing you how you can manage your career.

Be in charge of your career. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you. Your career funds your life, so there's no parking allowed: drive it now!

            - Joanne Meehl, aka The Job Search Queen - Celebrating 11+ years shortening job searches! 
Use Language in Your Search That Sizzles, That's Not Lukewarm

When in job search, as you communicate via your resume or while in networking meetings, you give clues to the confidence you have in yourself. So use sizzling language rather than tepid and tentative words.

Fire flames on a black background First, some examples of lukewarm language:
"Fairly successful establishing new markets for legacy products"
"Rather effective in cutting Operations costs"
"Assisted in developing..."

"Fairly"? "Rather"? "Assisted in"?

This kind of phrasing is often used by those who fear they will sound like they are bragging.

It's not bragging if it's fact and phrased in a way that shows how you help. Also, this is what I hear from recruiters and hiring managers: "Joanne, tell your candidates to communicate to me what they've done well, because I will not know of it otherwise!" and "Unless the candidate tells me how they successfully fit the role I have open, I can't possibly know what they do well."

More sizzling ways to to phrase it which get the attention of the person hiring:
- "Enjoyed adding $92M in revenue within one year of establishing new markets for legacy products" - that's what you did! No bragging here.
- "Cut Division operations costs by 12% in the first year, resulting in company leadership tapping me to repeat the success throughout the company" - because those are the facts.

In short, if you are clear about your achievements, and use sparky language, you will be helping in-house and other recruiters do their jobs. Help them pick YOU, and everyone wins. 

Joanne is Guest Blogger on SkyWater Search Blog


SkyWater Search is one of the largest executive recruiting firms in the Minneapolis area and voted one of the best companies in the region to work for. See Joanne's blog entries there, especially this one, about de-aging your resume.  

 

Short bits
Creative abstract St. Patrick s Day traditional Irish holiday celebration, business banking success and financial wealth concept  pot full of shiny golden coins isolated on white background


 
A cover email must match you to the open job ... Your resume is not about what you've done, it's about what you will do for your next company based on the successes you've already had ... You never know when a recruiter will call so always keep your resume/LinkedIn up to date ... Manage your career and your job searches will take care of themselves.

 


 

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

    - Thomas Edison


YouTube
See Joanne's videos -- all short and content-rich
 
Connect

Next Face2Face Mpls  meeting is Feb 5th!
The next meeting is
this Thursday, Feb. 5th:
*Become a Master Networker* (speaker Jim Bear), and Joanne's 10-Minute is back: How to Keep A Career Diary. 
All info is at the site.
Career Tip from Joanne: 
LinkedIn is a career management tool, not merely a job search tool. So if you're in a job, be sure to keep it up to date. Between jobs? After you land your new job, continue to keep it up to date. It's your public presence and where your next employer will likely find you.
The Blog: People say they learn a lot when they read the blog (and newsletter). I give a ton of info in each blog so  take a look at the latest AND the archives.

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The Job Search Queen and The Resume Queen are trademarks held by Joanne Meehl