Chapter 8
Updating Your Résumé for an Online Audience
In This Chapter
Fitting a traditional résumé into a modern job search
Transferring your paper résumé to an online version
Making an attractive résumé that’s custom fit to you
Accommodating employer requests for a basic version
Using and writing recommendations
When most people start a job search, they exclaim with some anticipation, “Now I have to update my résumé!” Although a traditional, hard-copy résumé was the pivotal part of a job search in the past, today a truly successful job seeker may never actually need one.
This chapter examines the way HR departments and hiring managers use résumés today. By understanding the function of a résumé, you can break free of the limitations it imposes on you. This chapter also shows you how to transform yesterday’s paper résumé into a modern, web-based version with greater impact on your personal brand. Finally, you discover how obtaining and writing recommendations works in the social media world (goodbye writing your own long-winded letters; hello short and sweet recommender-generated content!).
Understanding the Real Function of a Hard-Copy Résumé
A hard-copy résumé (as in the paper-based one that you create in a word-processing program on your computer and print out on a piece of ivory paper) is a necessary evil. It’s also an obituary.
A traditional, hard-copy résumé tells employers what you did, not what you can do for them. Nowadays, when potential employers ask to see your résumé, what they may actually be asking for is some kind of documentation that validates their opinion about you.
Potential employers want an opportunity to get to know you better, and sending them a worn-out résumé may be a mistake because it doesn’t do a very good job of demonstrating your potential value, personality, or fit. Here are the functional purposes of a résumé in today’s white-collar workplace:
Fulfill some kind of process requirement with a company’s HR software, also known as an applicant-tracking system (ATS). (More on this later in the section “Generating a Plain-Text Résumé.”
Allow a hiring manager to quickly assess your skills and abilities to see how soon you can start being productive
Allow a corporate recruiter to find a reason not to hire you; it could be an easy justification for a decision already made
Serve as a place-marker, a paper voodoo doll of you, on a person’s desk
So what can you do to make the whole hard-copy résumé thing work in your favor? Make it look good on computer screens and be sure to include references to your online profiles so hiring managers can discover more about you.
Your résumé should include just enough information to accurately represent who you are and offer options for readers to find out more about you if they choose to.
Grasping the Benefits of Online Résumés
By displaying your skills, qualifications, and abilities, a résumé used to indicate whether you could do a particular job or not. In the previous century, when most jobs were hands-on and less about what you know, answering the question “Can you do the job?” was good enough.
But now that most jobs are knowledge jobs and business is so much more complicated than pushing buttons, employers need more rounded information on candidates. In short, you need more than your paper résumé to stand out from the crowd.
With social media, you have an opportunity to not only clarify whether you can do the job but also help a hiring manager determine your motivation level and whether you’d be a good fit for the company long before you reach the interview stage. In fact, if you’ve run your job search right by using the many social media tools available, you may hear a hiring manager say at the first interview, “I feel like I already know you.”
Here are some of the benefits of supplementing a paper résumé with an online version:
You remain in control of the document. If you make a change in one location, everyone reading that document can see the update. For example, if you get a promotion, you just have to update your online résumé to let other people know about it rather than send out multiple copies of an updated hard-copy résumé.
You can show your current value rather than just your past. In other words, you can customize your online résumé to include more details about how you can help the company or hiring manager deal with a current issue or problem. You can also incorporate video, images, and color into your résumé to demonstrate your professionalism.
You can show some personality. Because you’re breaking away from the tired paper-résumé format, you have much more flexibility to show your true colors. You can create a strong first impression as a likable guy or gal who’s always motivated to do well at every undertaking.
Customizing Your Online Résumé
When transferring your résumé to the web, the last thing you want to do is simply copy and paste your hard-copy résumé into an online format. If you do, you miss out on an opportunity to demonstrate the type of person you are and how motivated you are. Also, people read a computer screen differently than a piece of paper. Consequently, the way you write and format your online résumé should change accordingly.
The sections that follow show you how to convert a traditional hard-copy résumé (see Figure 8-1) to one that shines online (see Figure 8-2).
Figure 8-1: A résumé in the traditional format.
Writing for an online audience
When you read articles online, do you tend to pass over large blocks of text? If so, then you’re like most people who have a hard time sorting through dense paragraphs on a screen. When I first started blogging, I had to completely shift how I wrote to a much briefer format. The truth is that most people scan online content most of the time. The same scannability test will be true of your résumé.
Figure 8-2: A résumé in a format that also looks good online.
Following are a few formatting guidelines to help make your online résumé easier to read:
Use bulleted points and lists as often as possible. Bulleted lists are easy to scan, as opposed to paragraphs.
Shorten your blocks of text. On the web, using single-sentence paragraphs isn’t uncommon (contrary to my daughter’s ninth-grade teacher’s advice). I tend not to write more than three short sentences per paragraph for online writing.
Use headers. Headers are just large, bold headlines used to break content up into sections. Headers can make your text more scannable so it’s easier for the reader to follow your train of thought. For example, you may break up a big block of text, like your objectives, into two or three sections: “Who am I,” “What can I do for your company,” and “Three things that make me different.”
Take advantage of hyperlinking. The Internet was invented so scientists could link one article to another. If you mention something in your résumé, offer more detail by linking to more information about it. For example, you may link to the corporate website of the companies you worked at or schools you went to. You can also link to your LinkedIn profile or even an online portfolio.
Put the most important content up top. The fold is the bottom of what’s visible onscreen in a web browser before you scroll down. You can read content above the fold without having to scroll down. Some people tend not to scroll down, so content below the fold is often skipped. Prioritize your writing so that important information is what appears first.
Keep a little white space. Reading big blocks of text on a computer screen is difficult on the eyes. White spaces can break things up and give your résumé a fresh feel. Refer to Figure 8-2 to see how that résumé uses white space to frame the body of the content.
To get inspired by some very beautiful résumés, check out the CVParade blog at http://cvparade.com.
Changing the focus from verbs to nouns
A paper résumé may live only in your portfolio, but an online résumé can live anywhere — and, therefore, be discovered by just about anyone. If you can make your online résumé show up on a recruiter’s Google search, then who knows what possibilities may open up for you.
To get your résumé found on Google, you need to practice search engine optimization, or SEO, which is the art and science of making websites appear on a search engine’s first page. (Flip to Chapter 7 for more information about SEO.) You can practice good SEO skills by sprinkling certain choice keywords — nouns that Google reads in a web page to determine the page’s relevance to a search query — throughout your résumé.
Traditional job seekers don’t write paper résumés with keywords in mind. Instead, they fill résumés with action-oriented verbs that describe what they did. But those verbs don’t translate well to an online résumé because people tend to search for nouns. For example, a recruiter may search for “Houston Project Manager in Oil Industry” — notice, no verbs.
Be sure to lightly pepper your online résumé with powerful keywords that search engines can find and use to create a search-results page. For more on keyword research, check out Chapter 5.
Your nouns aren’t the only nouns
When job seekers discover keywords, they usually experience an aha moment that helps them grasp the importance of using nouns and incorporating search-friendly keywords in their online résumés. For example, I once had a client who called herself a volunteer coordinator. After some research, she discovered that the more popular way of describing what she did was services coordinator. I would have never guessed this, and if she didn’t do her research, neither would she.
By using a more popular keyword or job description in your online résumé, you’re more likely to be found in an online search. Use your own researched keywords on your online résumé. To start brainstorming your own list of keywords, see Chapter 5.
What to include and what to leave behind
Selecting what to include and what not to include in your résumé is even more important for online résumés than for paper ones. Because your first impression is likely to be an online impression and people make snap decisions, make sure your résumé displays the most relevant information possible. After all, you have only about 30 seconds (the average time a recruiter spends on a candidate online) to get and keep viewers’ attention.
Just because a web page or profile page is infinitely expandable doesn’t mean you should fill up pages and pages in order to store all your past experiences, interests, and certifications. If you’ve been in the workforce for a while, try to limit your work history to the last 15 to 20 years. Make sure every piece of information you reveal about yourself supports your value and your personal brand (see Chapter 4).
Generating a Plain-Text Résumé
Many organizations persist in using outdated applicant-tracking systems (ATS). An ATS electronically handles the whole recruitment process, from sorting large amounts of résumé information to providing a platform for recruiters to leave notes and hand off candidates.
Chances are you’ll have to apply online using one of these systems at some point. And rather than just letting you link to your LinkedIn profile, it asks you to upload a plain-text résumé. But when you created your résumé, you probably spent at least 50 percent of the time worrying about how it looks. If you upload it to an ATS with all its text boxes, headlines, and bullets, it would actually look quite bad as plain text.
So even if you have a nice-looking résumé, you also need to have handy a drab, plain-text version. Don’t worry — it’s super simple to convert.
1. Open your finished résumé in Word or another word processor.
2. Copy all the text in the document.
3. Paste the text into a simple text-editing program (Notepad for PC and TextEdit for Mac). If you’re using a Mac, convert the pasted text to plain text.
4. Spend some time cleaning up any odd formatting, like bullet points that disappeared, odd spacing, or reordering.
5. Reapply some formatting you need to make it look good in plain text. Here are some tips:
• Make headlines pop by using all caps or enclosing them in a few asterisks.
• Use five spaces instead of tabs to measure your indent.
• Use asterisks to replace bullet points.
• Change columns to a linear flow and take advantage of line breaks and white spaces.
6. Save the completed file as a plain text document (.txt)
Looking at Tools That Make Your Résumé Sparkle
Just like résumé writers, who help you with the content of your résumé, certain tools and services can help you make that content look amazing. And considering that someone is probably going to view your résumé on a computer screen, consider breaking away from the three possible templates available in MS Word and use one that I describe in the following sections.
Note that I list the following services in order of robustness of service, with the most complete services at the top and the simpler (think free) ones at the bottom.
Loft Résumés for the style conscious
Loft Résumés (http://loftresumes.com) is a marketplace where designers sell their take on what a beautiful résumé should look like. Some of their patterns are stunning. If you check them out, you'll see how one of these works of art would help you stand out from the crowd!
Prices typically hover around $99. You can browse the selection of designs, pick your colors, and then upload your now shoddy-looking MS Word–templated résumé for a complete makeover. In about two days, your new résumé is sent back to you in the style you’ve selected along with a matching cover letter template.
SplashResume to make it shiny
“Design is everything,” my more artistic friends in college told me. That statement was partly true back then, but now it’s absolutely our reality. Well, the same kind of right-brained thinking holds true for résumés as well.
Whereas before, simply hiring a résumé writer for your content was enough, now you also need to think about how the design of your résumé tells your story.
One of the services offered by Splash Resumes (www.splashresumes.com) is a graphic-design service. You send in your nicely written résumé, and you get back a work of art. Use this service to tell your story visually. You can pick a previously designed template or ask for a customized one. Personally, if I was going to work with a designer, I'd want him or her to customize my résumé with my brand in mind. It's a bit spendier, but it will tell your story.
Resunate to improve job match
According to Resunate (http://resunate.com), 72 percent of résumés never get seen, presumably because what was written in the document doesn't correlate well with the actual job description. But Resonate provides a tool that compares your résumé with the job you're using it to apply for and gives you a score. It becomes a veritable sanity check so you can see the likelihood of your application getting considered. At best, you get a good score and move on. At worst, you get a crappy score and ask your best friend for a refund of the coffee you bought him to look at your résumé last week.
Rezscore for the hard truth
Unlike Resunate, Rezscore (http://rezscore.com) doesn't need to compare your résumé to a job description to tell you it sucks. After uploading your document, it generates a surprisingly compete report of what you're doing well and what needs some improvement. Admittedly, I uploaded my résumé and only got a C! But did get some good tips for making it better. You may as well try it out, because it's free.
Pongo for live résumé help
Pongo (www.pongoresume.com) is an online tool for designing your résumé and cover letter while collaborating with live résumé writers while you work. You only pay when you print, fax, or e-mail your résumé. Its design features are more customizable than other résumé builders', and you can even modify the base template to your liking. This company was one of the first résumé builders, having started in 2004, and it's put a lot of work into making the résumé-writing process easier.
MyOptimalCareer for a full package
MyOptimalCareer (https://myoptimalcareer.com) packages its award-winning résumé builder with other career tools, including a cover-letter builder, interview practice module, portfolio module, personal résumé-website builder, and video-résumé tool. The company has serviced over 1.5 million users through over 500 subscribing institutions that include colleges, universities, libraries, workforce boards, alumni groups, and trade associations.
The site offers the usual features for your résumé — nice templates, easy to use interface — but it also offers writing help and career guidance. Of the résumé builders I mention in this chapter, MyOptimalCareer probably offers the largest variety of predesigned templates, each categorized by job role or industry. It also does the same thing for your cover letter. This design flexibility coupled with the other job-search training tools and assistance comes at a price. At the time of writing this, a monthly membership is $19.99 but goes as low as $10 per month for an annual subscription.
ResumeBear for tracking info
ResumeBear (http://resumebear.com) offers a document-building tool. But it also offers features to help you track who you send the résumé to, whether they bothered to open it, and if they printed it out. This insider info can help you gauge whether or not you've made progress for that role. Also, the site invites employers to join the network, so you have a chance of getting seen by a recruiter member.
Jobspice to do your formatting
When you upload your résumé to Jobspice (http://jobspice.com), the tool automatically puts it into a professional-looking format, which could save you hours messing around with headings, columns, and text boxes. In 15 minutes, the tool outputs a nice looking document ideal for e-mailing or printing.
CVMaker for more formatting
CVMaker (http://cvmkr.com) is a free tool that lets you copy in elements of your résumé. You choose what format you want, and then you can download the finished product. Most of the templates are traditional yet very professional. What's really nice about this service isn't so much the designs but that it exports to plain text.
Embracing the Modern Recommendation
Along with most traditional résumés, people often included recommendation letters. Most employers require references to call at the very least. So smart careerists strive to collect agreements from former bosses to vouch for them.
In the old job-search paradigm, former managers and colleagues commonly asked people to write their own recommendation letters. I remember asking my boss to draft a letter for me, and her response was, “Why don’t you write one for yourself, and I’ll sign it?” That won’t work today. Here’s why:
The advent of online recruiting means that many of your recommendations appear online and in larger quantities than ever before. (If you want a higher search ranking on LinkedIn, you may even strive to have a minimum of 15 recommendations!) That adds up to a lot of recommendations you would’ve had to write yourself.
The recommendations found on online résumés are much shorter than the old paper recommendations. The typical online recommendation is between five and ten sentences — more like testimonials.
Writing your own recommendation can look inauthentic to a recruiter who’s trained to pick up on things like that. The key to social media is authenticity. If you try to write all your own recommendations, they may wind up looking the same (or suspiciously similar to the trained eye).
Having strong recommendations is essential, and having more of them builds your credibility online. Take advantage of this recommendation blitz by helping your connections write as many high-quality referrals as possible.
Asking for an online referral
What do you do when you ask a former boss or co-worker for an online referral and he says, “Why don’t you write it up for me, and I’ll paste it into your online résumé”? Apart from letting him know that his attitude is a bit outdated, you can always explain that you’ve already written several versions of a recommendation letter and you’re concerned about them sounding the same. Tell your former boss or co-worker that you’d appreciate if he could take just five minutes to write a few sentences covering points you provide.
Offering your recommenders three points you’d like them to cover can help them collect their thoughts and organize their words. It also helps ensure that whoever reads the recommendation finds out what you want him or her to know. I recently received a recommendation request where I was asked to talk about the unconventional approach to marketing strategies that the person possessed. When you give your recommender guidance, think about what elements of your personal brand you want to reinforce. And don’t give everyone the same topic to focus on. When asking a former boss or co-worker for a recommendation, these tips may come in handy:
Expect a 50 percent response rate. If you’re aiming for three recommendations, send out six requests.
Follow up your request with a phone call. Using e-mail or LinkedIn’s request system alone can be ineffective.
Use the online résumé’s recommendation system, if it has one. I hate requests that require me to click around for five minutes just to find the spot where I’m supposed to write. Using the online résumé service’s recommendation system makes writing recommendations easier.
Tell your recommenders how little time it takes to write a recommendation and how much it’ll impact your career. If you put your request into concrete terms, people won’t feel like you’re asking for a big commitment. For example, you can say, “It will take only five to ten minutes of your time and will really help my career prospects.”
Make certain the person you choose can offer concrete examples to each of the points you want her to make. The person you ask should be in a position to draw from experiences with you.
Who to ask for an online recommendation
Because online recommendations are much shorter than traditional ones and take much less time to write, employers expect you to have more of them. Having more recommendations is a credibility builder, and it tells LinkedIn’s search algorithm that your profile is more important than other profiles, so it puts you on top of a search-results page.
But don’t just ask your best friends to write a recommendation. Be sure you have a nice mix of the following business relationships as recommenders:
Someone you reported to, such as a supervisor or boss
Someone senior but who you didn’t report to
A colleague you worked with in the same group
A colleague parallel in your organization but in a different group
A customer or client who you helped
Someone who worked for you or reported to you