Must Do's to Get a Job - Part 2

Quotes found on resumes:

• You are privileged to receive my resume.
• Graduated in the top 66% of my class.
• Excellent memory; strong math aptitude; excellent memory; effective management skills; and very good at math.
• Accomplishments: Completed 11 years of high school.
• Education: B.A. in Loberal Arts.

If most often the first impression a potential employer has of a new hire is the resume, then the folks above are NOT going to get a job.

In Church Staff 101's Must Do's to Get a Job - Part 2, we'll spend some time talking about your resume, bio and other information to have in your marketing brochure. Yes, "marketing brochure", because as you look for a position for the first or fifth time, it's all about marketing yourself; allowing the potential church or ministry to get a feel for who you are and what you are about.

Personal branding is becoming a more important topic these days. We are bombarded with advertisements constantly, it's about time each of us take a hard look at how we are advertising ourselves. An insightful website to check out is A Brand You World. They produced a personal branding summit in early November and you're able to download mp3's of their very interesting teleseminars. One I would download and listen to is, Brand Your Resume, Bio or CV: Trends and Tips.

I love Stephen Pollan's take on resumes. "Resumes are human-resources screening devices rather than applicant promotional devices. Their main function is to provide a HR person with information he or she can use to cut down the number of potential candidates so interviewing doesn't take so long." If at the least a resume is an HR screening device, it's still imperative to put together the very best resume you can.

I just did a Google search for "resume help" and came back with over 15,000,000 hits. Needless to say, there's a lot of sites that can help you with your resume. A couple of sites I believe you should check out are Ten Easy Ways to Improve Your Resume and
ChurchStaffing.com .

Ten Easy Ways... is written by Katherine Hansen and gives ten great and insightful must do's for your resume. The ChurchStaffing website allows you to check on job openings, post your resume, have your resume "tuned" and they will even write it for you, what a deal.

If I could just throw one more resume to do, it would be dont hav ani spellling errers! Please use spell check AND have someone else, maybe a couple of people, read over your resume to check for any errors.

An interesting new addition to your marketing brochure is the bio. Two sites that will help you craft your bio are Resume/Bio Tips and How to Write an Executive Bio. Check them both out.

And lastly, here's a list of some extra items to think about:

• DVD of you in action. Please take some time to do the best job you can of producing this piece of info.
• Blogs. If you author a blog, add it to your marketing brochure.
• Social networks. Add links to your myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn bios and sites.
• References. Add a list of references with up to date contact info.
• Everything looking nice, NOT over the top. You don't need a 3D, pop-up, music playing marketing brochure. Just make sure everything looks clean and neat.

Tell me what you think. What tools have you used to market yourself successfully? What hasn't worked?

Wayne