Most employment consultants and resume writers are able to arm their client with a resume that is superior to the original version. By applying the reverse chronological, functional or hybrid template style, they can convert a “homemade” resume to something better. However, in a market saturated with professional resumes, “better than homemade” might not be good enough. The practitioner who can truly transform a resume and rejuvenate the client’s career prospects becomes indispensable.

Career Professionals of Canada regularly evaluates the skills of employment consultants and resume writers who apply for their Certified Resume Strategist (CRS) designation. Many qualify and attain their CRS credential with high marks. However, some are unable to make the grade. Here are some key areas where CRS applicants have the most difficulty.

• A client’s value proposition is a holistic representation of what the individual offers a potential employer. Therefore, the message must be integral to the complete resume. Evidence of a client’s value must be expressed throughout the resume. An objective statement, headline, tagline, or profile is meaningless if the rest of the content does not substantiate it.
• For a resume to be selected for consideration, it must not only address the potential employer’s buying motivators, but also distinguish the client’s exclusive value. This is even more crucial as resumes typically go through the recruiter’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS). In an environment where most candidates match qualifications to job descriptions, a practitioner must also differentiate the client’s unique offerings. Both strategies must be applied to raise the resume’s ranking and reveal the candidate’s additional strengths.
• Client obstacles and barriers to employment must be mitigated in the resume. A skilled resume strategist will know various ways to address issues such as career gaps, a short employment term, incomplete education, or a significant change in career direction. Diverse obstacles and barriers require different tactics to address them.
• Meaningful impact statements set clients apart from the rest of the candidates. There is rarely a reason to substitute accomplishments with a list of responsibilities. If a statement does not precisely define a specific situation, delineate the candidate’s performance, and offer an outcome, it is not an achievement – it is an activity. In the eyes of a recruiter, any candidate can perform an activity, but the best ones have achieved something of benefit to the employer.
• It might be astonishing to know that spelling and grammar are the two areas where practitioners struggle the most. The most common issues found in submitted resumes are the basics: inconsistent number structure, incorrect capitalization, inappropriate or missing punctuation, issues with parallelism, and misplaced or dangling modifiers.

Most successful CRS applicants have a few things in common. If you are a resume writer or employment consultant, you might want to assess your abilities against their strengths:

They do not systematically use rules or templates.

Why this is important: To be effective, you must fully understand the guiding principles and practices of resume writing. However, to be exponentially more successful, you need to know more than what is readily available on the internet. If you build deep expertise and knowledge, your clients will benefit from a range of ideas and strategies. Otherwise, your clients may as well write their own resumes.

They understand, intrinsically, that each client is unique.

Why this is important: There is no single formula that will work for every client. It is impossible to provide the best resume service if you are unable to distinguish one client from the next. You must do your due diligence with every client. Create personal, thoughtful, and meaningful content every time you write a resume.

They have an exceptionally strong command of the English language.

Why this is important: If you are writing resumes for clients, it is crucial to understand more than the basics of grammar. Learn all the important guidelines for the use of modifiers, serial commas, subject-verb agreement, apostrophes, hyphens and dashes, fragments, and run-on sentences. If you do not have strong English language skills, pass your client’s resume on to a professional proofreader before finalizing it.

They know how to address concerns specific to their client base.

Why this is important: It is especially advantageous to thoroughly understand your specific client base and know how to deal with their specific issues. You might be working primarily with a client population of immigrants, disabled workers, older workers, youth, or individuals with a criminal record. Whatever your demographic, you must be armed with many tactics and strategies to tackle your clients’ issues.

They have advanced applicable skills in Microsoft Word.

Why this is important: To design resumes properly, you need to know advanced features such as character spacing and kerning, point-size line spacing, tab stop positions, tables and graphs, themes and styles, paragraph and page borders, and text box wrapping. If you are not familiar with these features, you may be unable to properly correct errors in your clients’ resumes.

In today’s technology market, there is no reason for a Canadian Career Practitioner to be lacking advanced resume development skills. If you provide resume development services, you need to know how to produce a quality resume for every client. If you feel that you need further professional development, consider taking the next Advanced Resume Development Certificate Program.

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To succeed in today’s labour market, clients need to shift their attitude toward the workplace. The whole concept of ‘jobs’ is getting replaced by the concept of ‘work’. For most Canadians, there may not be a “guaranteed for life” job; however, there will always be an opportunity to build a career.

Help your client to change their approach to career development, career transition, and career management. Rather than focusing on working “for” someone, they should consider that they are working “for” themselves.  By taking the perspective of being a small business of one (ie. Me Inc.) they can becoming more engaged in their own career and create a more meaningful future.

Here is what you need to do to help your clients become CareerPreneurs:

• Empower them to become an independent agent. They should define who they are completely independently of their job title, organization, or other people’s beliefs and opinions.
• Help them to understand why creating and scripting their own career path is much more effective than waiting for someone to write it out for them.
• Give them an understanding and access to Labour Market Information (LMI) so that they can become proactive and continuously keep an eye out for emerging and growing opportunities.

Help your clients to become more successful by embracing these CareerPreneurial competencies:

• Flexible – they are versatile, mobile, fast, and fluid
• Innovative – they are unconventional thinkers, with no preconceived concepts
• Productive – they are vigilant, passionate, and engaged
• Opportunistic – they are always on the lookout for windows of opportunity
• Well-informed – they know their own strengths and their working environment

Introspection is a good first step. It might be useful for your clients to ask themselves:

• What can I do for an employer?
• Where can I add value?
• What are my unique gifts and talents?

According to The Canadian Career Strategist, Career Professionals of Canada’s Certified Career Strategist (CCS) eGuide, “To be a successful Career Strategist, and to engage your clients as careerpreneurs, you need to understand the external economic and social landscape; educating yourself about the new work and career realities and knowing what you need to do to ensure your clients’ continued marketability.

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[CLICK FOR SAMPLE RESUME]

True resume strategy is not about following rules blindly. Many principles and guidelines make sense. However, the challenge for practitioners is to understand a range of methods and techniques and apply them only when appropriate.

Here are some typical resume contradictions. If you find yourself saying “I always do it this way” then you might want to consider changing your approach. Take the challenge and expand your horizon so that you can write better strategic resumes for your clients.

Paper or Digital?

The Contradiction: Presenting a hard copy resume should be effective in almost every face-to-face situation; however, these days it is almost mandatory for clients to submit resumes online.

The Challenge: Even if your client submits a resume online and receives notification that it was accepted, you cannot be certain that the resume ever reached the actual targeted recipient or was read by anyone else. Always arm your client with a hard copy fully formatted paper resume and three quality digital versions: a fully editable Microsoft Word document, a strikingly formatted Adobe (pdf) version, and an optimized Text (txt) file for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Your client must be able to provide a soft copy of the resume in the format that the recruiter requests. In addition, recommend that your client mail a resume with a cover letter printed on high quality paper directly to the recruiter, company representative, or hiring manager. It is also important for your client to bring enough distribution copies of the paper resume into in-person meetings.

Concise or Lengthy?

The Contradiction: Current consensus is that if your client presents a lengthy resume, a person might not read it. However, for a resume to pass a computer and human review, it needs to be comprehensive.

The Challenge: In our world today, everyone is starting to feel the effects of “information overload.” Everyone wants things now. Everyone wants information in bite-sized pieces – or better yet, condensed top-level points in a few words or lines. Cleaner and leaner content might seem to be the best option, but your clients will do much better if you are strategic to exploit both computer reviews and human reviewers. Create a beautifully formatted resume that is concise and clean, but don’t forget to include the appropriately bulky text version for the ATS. Companies are using keyword searches and we can’t avoid that. If your client does not use the right keywords and phrases from the job posting, the resume will not be picked up by the recruiter’s technology. However, even with an ATS version, readability is crucial. Cut out all non-essential words to strengthen the keyword optimization. Then, ensure that you are telling a powerful story that compels the reader to select your client.

Objective or Profile?

The Contraction: Some resume writers consider objective statements as self-centred and self-serving. They prefer to lead a resume with a profile statement featuring strengths instead. However, recruiters need to know what actual job the applicant is targeting in order to select the resume.

The Challenge: It best to use the marketing approach that highlights your client’s value to the organization. This means that you need to know when to employ an objective, a headline, or a profile statement. Never discount any strategy; embrace them all and use them in different ways according to the situation. For example, if your client has never held the role, it is difficult to incorporate a target job title into a profile. In this case, it might be appropriate to use an objective statement and incorporate the target position within that piece. Conversely, if your client is highly experienced in the job, you might want to include the job title alongside his name.

Functional or Chronological?

The Contradiction: Recruiters and hiring managers love reverse chronological resumes because responsibilities and achievements appear logically, within the appropriate positions. Clients with barriers to employment prefer functional resumes because they help mitigate career gaps and other issues.

The Challenge: You’ll see much ado about reverse chronological and functional resume formats on the internet and in resume books. These formats are easily understandable for the layperson. Rather than focusing on strategy, they essentially feed you a formula to develop a “homemade” resume. Create a custom resume for every client. Feature your client’s unique brand, talents, passions, values, achievements, results and more. Combine the best features of the easy-to-read chronological with the attention-grabbing style of the functional into a hybrid document that incorporates distinctive strategic elements to enable your client to stand apart from your competition.

Resume or LinkedIn?

The Contradiction: Resumes are traditionally created as static documents, but now they are becoming living entities on social media such as LinkedIn.

The Challenge: When it comes to the competitive job search world we live in, you must arm your clients in every way possible. Whether or not you believe that social media will replace resumes, sites like LinkedIn are rapidly becoming mandatory for many industries and types of positions. To be an effective promoter of your client, you must not only keep up with sites like LinkedIn, you must enable him to create a strong profile that supports and strengthens facts stated in the resume. Further, you need to remind clients that they need to compare and update their resume to the LinkedIn profile regularly.

Traditional or Innovative?

The Contradiction: Traditional resumes are well established. Recruiters love the format because they are comfortable with them and they have processes in place to collect resumes, compare applicants, and select candidates. Innovative resumes can generate great attention and interest just because they are different.

The Challenge: There is no reason that you cannot infuse creativity into your process. Some clients will embrace innovation, based on their personal style and the job that they are targeting. If you don’t know about innovations, then you cannot provide your client with the best advice. Learn the basics of creating personal websites, online portfolios, and blogs. More than this, investigate the use of micro resumes, video resumes, infographics, and much, much more. Then, enable your clients to take various approaches to ensure that they have the best chance of success in their search.

As practitioners, we must produce resumes that are far superior when compared to our clients’ “home-grown” resumes. Anyone can find guidelines, templates, and formulas on the internet. If everyone is doing the same thing, won’t it be difficult for your client to get noticed?

The best resume writers and employment strategists know how to go far past basic concepts. We need to keep “pushing” ourselves so that we can position our job-seeking clients above the competition. Take the challenge and try something new for your client.

Build your strategic resume writing skills: ATTAIN YOUR CRS CREDENTIAL

Not a member yet? JOIN CAREER PROFESSIONALS OF CANADA

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National Volunteer Recognition Week April 21 to 27, 2013

 “13.3 million Canadians volunteer 2.1 billion hours                                                                                         …the equivalent of 1.1 million full-time jobs.”

Canada Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 2010 conducted by Statistics Canada and supported by Volunteer Canada.

As we head into National Volunteer Recognition Week, I’m reminded of Career Professionals of Canada’s outstanding volunteer leadership.

With varied backgrounds and specialties, CPC’s volunteers form a brilliant, well-rounded team. A warm THANK YOU goes out to all our CPC Board Members and CPC Committee Members. Through your leadership and talents, our organization continues to grow and develop as a leading association for Canadian Career Practitioners.

If you are already reaping the rewards of volunteering, then you know the personal satisfaction that comes from giving time and service to others. You likely have discovered how rapidly your network of contacts and friends has grown as well.

A volunteer position is an excellent opportunity to “give back” to your community while you are building your own credibility as a career professional and a leader in your field.

Volunteering is all about your desire to contribute to the greater good. Assume a role where you can contribute generously without feeling “taken advantage of.” The better your contribution, the more positive your impact and the better you will feel. Be assured, when you give your best, you automatically build your reputation as well.

Getting involved as a volunteer is personally and professionally rewarding. You’ll develop deep relationships with your colleagues and you’ll advance your own professional development. As you build your leadership position, you’ll contribute directly to the development of services and programs to enrich our industry.

Have you volunteered your way to a better network? Gained new friendships? Found unexpected rewards? Secured a new job from your involvement? Please let me know about YOUR experiences, so that I can share those with my readers.

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It’s always beneficial to pay attention to regional trends. Consider how these trends might affect your clients:

• Western Canada is benefiting from a robust natural resources sector. All four western provinces are expected to see growth. The economy in Alberta, in particular, has been improving over the last decade. It is very likely that it will be one of the leaders in Canada’s job creation. Japan Canada Oil Sands, for example, will begin construction of its $1.4 billion Hangingstone thermal oil sands project near Fort McMurray this month.
• The Ontario region is faring quite differently. In Ottawa, government cutbacks are likely to affect employment opportunities in the public sector. Plans are moving forward for opening a new casino with an extensive gaming entertainment centre and the potential of 10,000 new jobs in the Greater Toronto Area.
• The labour market in Quebec has opened up slightly more quickly than other provinces. We are seeing increases in professional, scientific, and technical services. There seems to be some new job creation in areas such as aerospace, aircraft, and space technologies in particular. Of course, these employers are requiring bilingualism even more than ever.
• In the last year, although the Maritime Provinces saw the smallest gains in job openings interesting opportunities are emerging. For example, a number of call centres are opening up new operations in the region. The New Brunswick provincial government is providing $1M in funding for the construction of the Moncton Transportation Discovery Centre. Hotel development in Newfoundland is also expected to expand over the next few years.

Knowing these subtle regional differences is vital to providing good career development advice to clients. What trends are you seeing in your region? Are there areas of growth? How are you advising your clients to leverage them?

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Introvert clients bring many benefits to the workplace. By celebrating the strengths of these individuals, we can help them succeed in their career. Make the most of your introvert clients’ talents while enabling them to build competencies that employers value.

Watch Susan Cain’s Ted Talk on Introverted People and then take advantage of these tips to help you support your clients:

1. Don’t let your biases or assumptions get in the way. Recognize that if an introvert client is not able to immediately respond during coaching sessions, this does not mean that individual is incapable or incompetent. Introverts typically need some time to gather their thoughts. If a client seems quiet or unresponsive, it may or may not be a sign of depression. Your client may just need time to think and explore his thoughts and feelings.
2. Don’t expect answers right away. During coaching sessions, don’t get discouraged when your introvert client has little to share immediately. Be patient. Listen carefully and allow him to flesh out his thoughts. If you give your client time to absorb and consider your question, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful, quality response you’ll receive.
3. Avoid too much social “small talk.” Keep your coaching sessions on topic. Avoid inconsequential discussions and get right into the subject matter. Stick with the topic of discussion rather than chatting about peripheral areas.
4. Introduce topics in a structured, organized manner. Introverts tend to be uncomfortable with scattered discussions that jump from topic to topic. If you dedicate quality time to one area of interest, you’ll help your client to delve deep and identify meaningful plans, goals, and actions.
5. Listen fully and with empathy. Allow your introvert client to delve deep by asking reflective questions. Let him think and explore his thoughts and feelings fully. Silence is golden. Don’t act on the urge to “cut in” and finish his sentences.
6. Help your client manage the stress of change. If your client is going through a career transition, give him the opportunity to articulate how he feels. If your introvert client holds any negative feelings in, he will have more difficulty navigating through the transition.
7.  Help your clients to find and select roles that are a good fit. If certain aspects of positions seem out of character, point them out. There is a risk that an introvert client will become overwhelmed in a job that is not appropriate.
8. Let your client record information before presenting it. An introvert client may not be able to readily list certain information such as career achievements. If you leave your client with an assignment, he will come back to the table with a solid list to discuss.
9. Allow your client to prepare. For example, before delivering the first interview role-play session, give your client the time to practice at home. You’ll be surprised at the hours of hard work and precision that your client will take advantage of “behind the scenes” and come back with something spectacular.
10. Don’t force your client to be extraverted. Introverts tend to be low-key. Take the pressure off your client and don’t advise him to be more dynamic, proactive, or aggressive in interviews. Your client will be more successful if he is authentic.
11. Help your client to be cognizant of non-verbal communication. To combat any perception that the introvert may not fit in, help him to learn strategies to connect with others. Work on facial expressions such as eye contact and smiling. Deal with posture and other gestures to ensure open body language.
12. Keep meetings and practice sessions reasonably short. Lengthy meetings might drain energy from an introvert client. If your client seems lethargic, suggest a break or end the session; if required, schedule a separate time to pick up where you left off.
13. Don’t mandate large group sessions. These formats might drain your client’s energy, making it difficult to learn effectively or accomplish goals. If you must perform group facilitation, remember that your introvert client needs time and solitude. Don’t put your client “on the spot” in meetings and dedicate some time away from the group for personal work.
14. Give challenging homework projects. Your introvert client enjoys having time to register and absorb lessons learned during coaching sessions. Assign reflective assignments with tangible outputs to give your client the opportunity to present his homework and tangibly demonstrate learnings.
15. Enable your client to embrace extraverted traits. Give your introvert client a chance to learn techniques such as networking, presentation, and interviewing. Without pushing too hard, help him to practice these skills. Consistent application of concepts helps clients to gain confidence and cope better with situations outside their comfort level.

Our introvert clients bring special gifts. Knowing about these gifts helps us to appreciate and value our clients. By understanding the needs of introverts, we can help them take advantage of their natural strengths and talents throughout their career.

I would like to hear from you. What tools and techniques do you use to enable your introvert clients to succeed in career development? Learn much more about how you can help a wide range of clients through Career Professionals of Canada and our Self-study Certification Programs.

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During her TED Talk, Susan Cain suggests that our culture prizes outgoing and social people, possibly at a detriment to introverts. She argues that introverts should be encouraged and celebrated for their extraordinary talents and abilities. Provide them with opportunities to work in solitude and with autonomy, and they will be more creative and productive.

Because I self-identify as an introvert, Susan Cain’s message spoke to me. I’m most effective when I work alone, giving myself time to research and think things through. However, people might mistake me for an extravert, because I have learnt strategies to be effective in a variety of business situations.

The TED Talk stimulated my thinking about how we can better support introvert clients. View the video and then read this blog post to get 15 tips for dealing effectively with introvert clients.

It’s unlikely that any client is completely introverted or extraverted. However, some clients may have introvert traits. We can employ a number of strategies to help introvert clients navigate through their career development.

Introvert clients have significant gifts to offer employers. Introverts are energized by working on their own; they tend to avoid social situations because being around other people often drains their energy. However, their pensive and precise mind is of great benefit within the workplace. To be most effective, introverts typically need some time to gather their thoughts. By understanding these specific needs of introverts, we can help them take advantage of their strengths throughout their career. Here are 15 tips that will help you top provide a meaningful coaching relationship with your introvert clients.

I would like to hear from you. What tools and techniques do you use to enable your introvert clients to succeed in career development? Learn much more about how you can help a wide range of clients through Career Professionals of Canada and our Self-study Certification Programs.

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A recent Revera Report on Ageism said that despite an aging population, ageism is the most tolerated form of social discrimination in Canada. As career practitioners, we need not stand aside on this growing concern. We must become advocates for our older clients.

The evolving labour market

In our new economy, knowledge is particularly crucial to employers. As business leaders look towards emerging markets, they are increasingly becoming aware that they can benefit from know-how and business acumen. Many positions in demand today require a greater degree of knowledge and on-the-job competencies than an entry-level professional can immediately bring to the table. This is important for older workers to know.

Older clients must understand their worth

Our responsibility, as practitioners, is to help our older clients understand their worth as highly experienced professionals. We must remind them of their diversity and breadth of experience. The credibility that comes from a career rich in successes can be invaluable to employers. When our clients realize the tremendous value they offer, they gain new confidence in tackling a job market that may initially seem against them.

There are ways that older experience and expertise can make a significant difference. Here are some of the tangible values that older workers bring to employers:

• Personal connections across their industry that can turn into potential clients and new revenue.
• Knowledge and best practices from working in other, similar organizations in the past.
• The skills and expertise that come from working years in the trenches.

The older worker’s career is a gold mine. Advise clients to tap into their memory banks and sift through everything they have done. By weighing each competency, achievement, and credential carefully, they can determine what is valuable enough to share with employers. Of course, the accomplishments that each individual features must have relevance to the targeted position and the employer’s buying motivators.

Accomplishments from the past are valuable

As a general rule, many practitioners advise clients to focus on recent accomplishments, because recruiters and hiring managers might feel that much of what a candidate did prior to the current decade has little relevance today. However, are we disqualifying important experience that our clients bring to the job?

Rather than discounting the past, we must let our older clients tell their whole story. They are who they are now because of their experiences, what they learned, and what they achieved. When organizations are looking for professionals, they now attach a great deal of value to such diversity of experience.

We can help our clients to reinforce their value proposition by allowing them to articulate their early experience and deep expertise. But we can’t stop there. We must segue into a discussion about the transferability and application of this earlier knowledge into current positions. This strategy enables our clients to reassure recruiters and employers that it is worthwhile selecting an older candidate.

When our clients become comfortable articulating their worth, others will realize that they are well-rounded, experienced, adaptable, and have everything they need in the role.

Tools of the trade support career goals

By leveraging established methods to express our clients’ best offerings, we can tilt the scales in their favour. Here are some more considerations for older clients:

• Secure acknowledgements from earlier engagements. Testimonials from different sources demonstrate that a candidate has been effective “on-the-job” for some time. Accolades and awards can establish the individual as an authority on a subject. This helps to validate and support the candidate’s message to recruiters.
• Play to the target market’s complexities. Our labour market is vast and every sector has distinct needs. For example, some employers are sticklers when it comes to mentioning every job and every role that your client has ever held in the resume. This is most often the case in academia and in some government positions. Clients must be clear on the amount and type of information certain sectors expect so that they can act appropriately.
• Freelancing is certainly an option for highly experienced older clients. Many employers support a contract model as it is beneficial to them in the current economy. This is a cost-effective option for organizations who do not want to invest in a long-term employee-employer relationship. If the candidate is in the market for a short tenure, this may be a good alternative to a full-time permanent job.

As Canadian Career Professionals, we play an important role in eliminating ageism across our nation. We need to make it socially and culturally unacceptable for anyone to be excluded for appropriate opportunities, solely based on their age. By improving our clients’ sense of worth and arming them with strategies to sell their value, we will change the overall perception of older workers in our labour market.

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Regardless of how your client submits his or her resume – hand-delivered, through the website, email, or snail mail – it will eventually make its way into the ATS. The ATS narrows down the resume pool to a few applicants who may be a good match. The company representative then needs only to look at a small number of resumes and select a few strong candidates.

Some less than ethical people might deceptively exploit loopholes in the ATS. It’s one thing to be strategic – but it’s completely another when dishonest practices take over the online resume submission process.

You’ve made a name for yourself as a well-respected professional. Rise above the others and take an honourable approach to your client’s job search.

Target each resume to the right positions

Some job seekers haphazardly throw their resume into every job board and textbox without considering how resumes are screened. Rather than broadcasting your client’s resume widely, consider the position being targeted and the recipient’s needs. Make sure that the resume is tailored for each job.

Be authentic in writing each resume

When preparing your client’s online resume, the job posting is of most importance. It contains all the data that the ATS needs in order to match and select resumes. One might think that pasting the complete job posting into your client’s resume will enable it to come to the top of the list. Incorporating a post to get credit for all the text is not only unethical, it’s a ridiculous tactic. First, many ATS flag resumes that match too perfectly as suspicious. Secondly, even if the resume does come to the top, any recruiter will quickly disqualify the person as soon as they see their own job posting blatantly looking back at them.

To improve the resume’s relevance and ranking, ensure that it matches the job posting closely. Don’t copy most or all of the words directly. Instead, show your creativity and intelligence by paraphrasing. Determine the best terms and concepts that should be in the resume. Explicitly detail competencies required in the job posting. Be true to your client.

Introspectively enter keywords and key phrases

You can imagine that every job seeker would enter the typical keywords that come out of job descriptions. The resumes that surpass those are the ones that also have atypical keywords – those that only a few applicants included in their resume. So be introspective in your selection of words that might be required in the job.

If you don’t have a job description, the National Occupational Classification (NOC) will give you keywords for many positions. Select the ones that legitimately represent your client’s best strengths – he or she will be asked about these in interviews.

Ensure your client fits the corporate culture

The person responsible for selecting candidates may use keywords in a “system search” to find particular resumes that fit their needs. Look at the company’s website for key qualities, skills, and values. Learn as much as you can about the company’s internal language, as company reps might search for these in their ATS. If applicable, include these in your client’s resume to show a good cultural fit for the organization.

Don’t try to “trick the system”

Ethical companies are not looking for employees who would want to “trick the system.” Get your client’s foot in the door legitimately.

When it comes to keywords, more is not necessarily better. It’s what keywords are being used and where. Do not try sneaky things like hiding keywords from the job postings in white font. You don’t need to repeat keywords numerous times either. Recruiters can easily figure out that the submission was done in an unethical manner.

When it comes to job search, there is a dichotomy. Your client must appeal to two audiences: the human reader and the computer software. Remind your client to be honest and truthful in every interaction – wherever and whenever they occur. Supplement the ATS strategy with formal networking coaching to enable your client to penetrate organizations. When your client builds visibility and credibility, people will want to meet with him or her. As they learn about your client’s wonderful qualities and remarkable successes, they’ll soon be eager to offer  meaningful and respectable job opportunities.

Want to learn more about how to optimize resumes effectively and ethically? I am available for one-on-one coaching and group training. Or, join us at Creating ATS Resumes. 

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