Martin Yate - Knock em Dead Resumes: A Killer Resume Gets MORE Job Interviews!

12TH EDITION

New York Times bestseller

Avon, Massachusetts

Your resume is the most financially important document you will ever own. When it works, you work, and when it doesnt work, you dont.

How to create a template for the story your resume needs to tell in order to be successful.

Fifty percent of the success of any project depends on the preparation. Taking the time to gather the right information for your resume makes the difference between interviews and no interviews.

In any job search you are selling a product: You are a bundle of skills and capabilities suited to a particular set of challenges. Like any product you will do better when you give a distinct identity to what you are taking to market.

A resumes format can help emphasize or de-emphasize aspects of your professional background.

The most effective way to get a premium, powerful resume for a professional job in the shortest time with the least hassle.

First impressions are important. Editing polishes your content and helps it deliver a greater punch.

With the job search the way it is today, you may need to repackage your background into three or more different delivery vehicles.

Everyone hates reading resumes, so here are some powerful strategies to make your resume data dense and visually accessible to distracted readers.

One hundred-plus killer resumes that got real jobs for real people.

On the list of things you want to do in life, fixing your resume is right up there with hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. Yet owning a killer resume is the foundation of every successful job search; show me a stalled job search and Ill show you a flawed resume. What you learn in these pages will give you the best resume you have ever owned, and if you pay close attention, you will learn how to change the trajectory of your career.

Your resume is the most financially important document you will ever own: When your resume works, you work; when it doesnt, you dont. Its the primary branding tool to introduce yourself to your professional world, and properly fashioned, it ensures that prospective employers and future colleagues see you as you want to be seen. Slack off on your resume and you can say goodbye to that new job and career success.

No one likes writing a resume, but its an essential part of defining a commodity that your professional world is eager to embrace. When it comes to a job search, you are a commodity, and your resume is the styling and packaging that sells the product. This is critical in a world where your resume all too often disappears into resume databases with millions of others. When recruiters do find it, your resume will get a scan lasting five to forty-five seconds, and if a clearly defined and relevant brand doesnt jump out, theyll move on to the next one.

Knock em Dead Resumes will give you control over these issues, delivering a resume that will consistently get pulled from the resume databases and will resonate with recruiters on that first scan and also on deeper, more careful readings.

Remember: Managers hate to interview; they just want to find and hire someone who gets the job, so they can get back to work. Knock em Dead Resumes shows you how to convince hiring managers that you are a competent professional who gets the job. It will prepare you to talk about the jobs big issues and answer the tough questions in ways you never thought possible... and its all based on a commonsense approach youll be able to grasp and apply to your future.

Read this book with a highlighter
it will save time as you refer back to important passages.

YOUR RESUME IS the most financially significant document you will ever own. When it works, the doors of opportunity open for you. When it doesnt work, they wont.

No one enjoys writing a resume, but it has such a major impact on the money you earn during your work life, and consequently on the quality of your life outside of work, that you know it needs to be done right.

You didnt come to this book for a good read. You came because you are facing serious challenges in your professional life. The way the professional world works has changed dramatically in the past few years, and nothing has changed as much as corporate recruitment. When hiring practices have changed beyond recognition, your approach to getting hired needs to be re-evaluated from top to bottom.

In these pages, you are going to learn very quickly how to build a resume that works. But youre going to learn something more. Since my approach to resumes is part of a larger strategy for achieving long-term career and personal success, everything I teach you about developing a kick-ass resume will apply to the broader challenges of the job search, interviewing, and career management.

In other words, not only will you leave this book with a killer resume, youll leave it with critical job search and interview strategies, and even some amazing insights into winning raises and promotions.

Understanding what employers want and need from a specific job title, and how they express and prioritize those needs, will tell you what it takes to win and succeed in that job. It will also give you some hints about the story your resume needs to tell in order to get your foot in the door.

Employees only get added to the payroll to help make a buck, to enhance profitability in some way. Think about this: If you owned a company, there just isnt any other reason you would add workers to your payroll. So it is implicit in any employment contract that your job contributes to profitability in some way.

Depending on your job, you can help an employer make a buck by:

• Making money for the company
• Saving money for the company
• Saving time/increasing productivity

No matter what your job, no matter how impressive your title, at its very core, your position exists to help an employer maintain and increase profitability by:

• The identification of problems within your area of responsibility
• The prevention of problems within your area of responsibility
• The solution to problems within your area of responsibility

No resume gets read, no one gets interviewed, and no one gets hired unless someone somewhere is trying to solve a problem. That problem may be finding a quicker way to manufacture silicon chips, speed up the accounts receivable process, leverage social networking for brand management, or any one of a million other profit challenges.

The only reason your job exists is because your employer needed someone to identify, prevent, and solve the problems that regularly occur in this area of professional expertise; it exists because not having someone like you is costing the company money.

Problem solvingthe application of critical thinking to the challenges within your area of expertiseis what you are paid to do. It is why every job opening exists, and why every job gets filled with the person who seems to have the firmest grip on how to identify, prevent, and solve the problems that make up the everyday activities of that job.