What resume words are the most important? They are the words you choose to tell your own unique career story. You see, there is not a list of words to choose from to make you unique in the eyes of employers. Do you think you can choose from a list of words that everyone else is using? How does that make you different from others and make you stand out?

What makes you stand out is your unique career history and how well you tell your own story in your resume (and interviews). You MUST use creative writing that will powerfully present YOUR career story to others. Period. This means painting a vivid picture for readers about what you have to offer with the resume words you use. We’re talking about really showing readers what you’ve done in the past which is the best indicator of what you can do in the future.

Position your resume words so that your skills and past accomplishments are painted in the right light, giving employers a real taste of who you are. Don’t think you can slide a few words into your resume and that will put you over the top. What will bring you success is knowing how to form and phrase your words so that they influence and persuade employers your direction.

Don’t take your word selection casually. Your written and spoken words will either attract employers or drive them away. The words you use to drive your job search will have a direct impact on your number of interviews, the quality of the interviews (meaning with good companies for relevant jobs), and your paycheck potential (meaning more money because you’re worth more to employers based on the words you’ve used to create value).

DO NOT put all your eggs in the “resume key words list” basket. Although knowing the right key words to use is important, you can’t just throw them on the resume and see what sticks. You must have a strategy for your words. Key words should wrap around the content of the message or story you’re telling about your career and past accomplishments. This is the only way you are going to build that future value that employers look for in a job candidate.

First, when you are looking for a job, your resume must carry a strong written message that explains why you are one of the best people to have in for the job interview. What you need to do (and what we do with clients) is dig in deep to fully understand the results of your past accomplishments. Notice we said the results. You then need to align those findings with your future job target. This also means highlighting transferable skills, and that can be a bit tricky.

Here’s a surprise you may not have thought about! All the digging and thinking you had to do in order to get a strong written message in your resume, now becomes your “story line”. See what we mean? You can and should take this same message with you throughout your time while looking for a job. Your resume is presenting the message first to employers. But, then when you go in for an interview, you need to be consistent with your story line, and further demonstrate why you are a good candidate.

Most people agree that getting interviews is the hardest part about looking for a job. Most feel that once they get in front of the employer that they can do a good job talking and moving closer to a job offer.

Follow these few simple steps to help you get more interviews, and make looking for a job be a little more fun that it is stressful. Remember, your resume is a vehicle for carrying your words. If your words don’t spark excitement, there are no interviews.

When getting a performance review from your manager or supervisor, what you’ve accomplished over the last year is being evaluated to determine what raise you should get based on the merit (or value) of your contributions.

When submitting your resume for an open position (including internal positions), you are being evaluated on the merit (or value) of your contributions and accomplishments.

Both performance reviews and resumes are directly tied to how much an employer views you are worth when it comes to paying you. This is why it’s so important to keep track of the key things you accomplish, so you have bargaining power when it comes to merit increases or new job offers.

Then, you need to word your accomplishments to demonstrate the most value of what you can bring to the table. Being able to word things properly in your resume so that your resume persuades and influences others is critical. It doesn’t matter if it is during an internal review and or a job transition.

Your thoughts, feedback, and input is encouraged and welcomed. You can find more on this topic at www.JobSeekerUniversity.com.

The Real Benefit…
Hiring a good professional resume writer puts someone in your corner that will help you investigate and bring forward the true results of your past career achievements. This is 90% of the process! Then, align those achievements with your future job target and salary target plans by using creative writing skills and industry knowledge. This process enables the resume to bridge your past with your future.

Your Curse of Knowledge…
It’s nearly impossible for you to write your own resume! Why? It’s a proven fact, through psychology studies, that the more you know about a topic, the harder it is for you to tell someone else about it. Since you know your own past and career better than anyone, it’s nearly impossible for you to put your past career achievements into words in your resume that mean something to the reader.

The Value?
The value of professional resume writer services is to hire the expertise to uncover and articulate the value that you can bring to a future employer. Period. So, make sure you ask the right questions when deciding to invest in a professional resume writer. Make sure the person is industry Certified, ask how the process flows, and know exactly what to expect.

Even being strictly management, you need to be able to engage people in both technical and straight business talk. Oh, and then you have the whole sales, business services, and outsourcing sides of IT!

Where do you start?
You need to start with your job target, and then how to write a IT resume becomes easier because you can focus on the technical or management details that support your job search goal. For example, if you are in project management for application development, you MUST have a customer service mindset. If you don’t, then you most likely won’t get along with the folks in the business departments you’re tasked with supporting.

How’s that matter?
Let’s say you wanted to jump the fence and move over to a business services, IT outsourcing, or straight support center role. You can then put accomplishments in your resume that map your past results with your future job target. Even if you wanted to move into a management role, you can leverage these soft skills combined with your hard technical skills.

At a higher level?
If you’re a senior or executive IT manager, then you’re going to focus mainly on the tactics and strategies you use for your short- and long-term objectives. How did you evaluate technologies or systems, how did you deploy the systems, and how did you assemble your technical resources? All things to consider when you’re wondering how to write a IT resume.

Bottom Line?
When preparing your resume, don’t think or feel like you need load up the very beginning of your resume with all your certifications, degrees, or hardware and software knowledge. If you’re fresh out of schooling, that’s more appropriate, but otherwise you need to let your real work achievements support your progression.

Don’t let the unknown of how to write a IT resume impact your job search or desire to move up. Approach the resume writing process as a mission to uncover the true results of your past achievements and leverage those in your resume.

Contact us directly if we can be of further help with your resume writing process. You can also learn more about changing jobs by visiting our job search training website (www.JobSeekerUniversity.com).

At the end of the year, most people tend to turn attention to Holidays, travel, and family gatherings. Career management and job search are set aside with the thinking that employers aren’t hiring anyway.

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Don’t let these feelings over the last couple months of the year influence how you treat your greatest asset in life – your career, job, and ability to generate future income that supports the lifestyle of you and your family.

Are you taking the following steps to protect your career, job search, and family?..

Regardless of your current career or job situation, now is a key time for determining how your ability to maintain or find work at the right salary will affect your life over the coming year. How are you going to manage the greatest asset you have – your career and the ability it offers to create substantial future income?

Two choices – be prepared for the planned and/or unexpected, or do nothing at all and react to situations as they happen. The lack of planning can set you on your backside, both emotionally and financially. It can cause stress, family arguments, and even divorce.

So, have a reality check with your career or job search plan NOW before the reality of an unexpected disaster visits you. On the positive side of the situation, your systematic career planning and focus will pay dividends and better position you to handle financial worries if job trouble hits.

Career and Income Reality Checklist (in systematic order):

1. Give serious thought to what you would do if your job was eliminated.
2. Fully know your soft and hard skills. Could you change careers or industries?
3. Does your resume solve employers’ problems? Make sure it is unique.
4. Does your resume show strong results? Make sure they are quantified.
5. Have your network of contacts active. Stay in touch with this group.
6. Identify potential employers in your area. Make a list now – don’t wait.
7. Practice rolling your resume topics forward to the interview process.

If you follow these basic steps, you will be ready for either the unforeseen or an event that you systematically planned. Let’s face it – a time for truth – who really wants to be reactive to the risk of jeopardizing your income flow and family’s lifestyle? I can’t think of anyone.

So before more time passes and the job transition or “emergency” arrives, promise yourself to sit down now and complete your career reality review. If you’ve already done this, give yourself a pat on the back!

You know what we suggest doing, but you need to decide and act on your own!

Need help? Ken’s resume service will help you uncover unique results and skills, and organize your career story to get the attention of employers.

The interview is to backup your resume and make a stronger connection about your ability to produce future results. It’s also to see how you will fit in with the rest of the staff and work environment.

Balancing Act
You need to make the interviewer “feel okay” about you and your abilities. You need to talk to the level of the open position so you don’t appear over- or under-qualified. You need to talk to the level of the interviewer so he/she doesn’t feel threatened about you coming on board.

It’s all a balancing act that you have to feel out as you go through the interview depending on the conversation. Being able to clearly articulate your past results and how you would handle a given situation, being relaxed, and having a few non-threatening questions of your own is the best way to prepare.

Most people say they have their best interviews when they go into it thinking they really don’t need that job (now that’s being relaxed).

#1 - Articulate Your Past Results
A key aspect of building rapport is how well you communicate your past results. Making the interviewer “feel okay” about your ability to deliver future results is going to be based on how well you talk about your past performance and how well they feel you will handle certain situations in the future.

When interviewing, you must build rapport through the words you use as well as the body language you display. The right words are hard to come by if you have not given sufficient thought to it prior to the interview. That is where building rapport during the interview ripples back to your resume.

#2 - Resume Rapport
The resume helps build rapport during the interview because it will be the center of the conversation - at least to start off the interview. Think about it. Why are you there? It’s because of your resume. The interviewer will want to expand on the content of your resume, and beyond the first impression of eye-to-eye contact during the formal handshake, your resume will be the focus of attention.

Don’t just say, “I opened an IT call center” - say, “Streamlined end-user technical support, elevated corporate productivity approximately 25%, and expedited computer problem resolutions 50% by launching a centralized North America IT technical call center within a 3-month period.”

You’ll be amazed at the level of rapport this creates.

Final Thoughts
Building rapport is not isolated to the interview. You build rapport in the communication you use throughout your entire job search cycle. Your resume, networking, phone calls, and interviewing communication are all important aspects of building job search rapport.

I ask you to stop thinking about rapport as just an interview thing and start thinking about it as a job search communication thing. I ask you to challenge yourself about how well you’re communicating your career story throughout all areas of your job search.

Take time to really know the results of what you’ve achieved and use it in your resume, networking, and interview.

Hope is not enough.
You hope to get an interview after submitting your resume.
You hope to get a job offer after the interview.
You hope to hear from someone soon.

If you spend too much time just hoping and not enough time feeding energy to your hope, then your hope is false-hope. To feed energy to your hope, you have to overcome the 4 top reasons why your job search struggles in the first place (you know, there’s no ROI).

Reason #4
You’re not giving a good demonstration of what you can do for someone during the interview process.

The interview is like a product demonstration. You are the product and the employer is looking to hire you. Think about the last time you received a product demonstration or a sales pitch – it could even be when you were walking through your local hardware store or garden center.

If the benefits of having a specific product are not highlighted, then why would you buy the product? The same holds true for an employer looking to hire you.

Reason #3
You’re not giving your networking contacts the best or right information to effectively refer you to an employer for consideration.

Giving your contacts the right information is like training a sales staff so they can properly sell the products. Have you ever received a sales call where the “messenger” did a poor job of representing a product and you immediately closed your mind to ever buying it?

If a product is passively marketed, then the chance of you ever really understanding the value of having it is slim. Getting your network of contacts to share the right information about you is equally important.

Reason #2
Your resume doesn’t provide the results of what you did.

Your resume is like a product sales brochure. It is the first thing that a potential employer will see about you, and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Haven’t you ever received a half-baked advertisement or seen a television commercial that left you asking, “huh, what was that?” Sure you have, we’ve all been there. You immediately forget all about it.

If your resume is a disorganized dump of your thoughts that leaves a reader confused, then what kind of message does that send to an employer?

And, Reason #1
You haven’t spent the proper time developing your career history story so that you can fully explain the value you can bring to someone, and therefore resolve reasons #2 - #4 listed above.

The top reason job searches struggle is because of poorly communicating the results of what you have done. Poorly communicating it in your resume, to your networking contacts, and in the interview. If you talk about what you did, but leave out what the results were of what you did, then you are only halfway home. It’s like saying you can do a certain task, but you’re going to need a push to get there.

The Critical Path to Focus on
Take time to develop a stronger career history message with quantified results. Do this before you write your resume, talk to your contacts, or go on interviews.

If you do this one simple planning step, the rest of the job search will take care of itself.

Go ahead, feed energy to your job search hope today! You’ll be glad you did.

In closing, you owe it to your career to challenge any pride or inner thoughts automatically saying that your career communication is fine. Don’t be a victim of your own doing and don’t just hope that the job market, economy, or job search improves - do something about it.