Hi, everyone.
This is Andy LaCivita, founder of milewalk and the milewalk Academy, and award-winning
author of The Hiring Prophecies, here with this week's episode.
I am very excited to talk to the college students and recent college graduates today.
Today is about our resume.
I want to tell you about one great trick that you can do to really, really get noticed.
If you didn't see last week's episode, it was titled How to Build the Ultimate Professional
Resume.
I think it would be great for you to take a look at that.
I went through a lot of items in the resume section-by-section.
There's a lot overlap between a professional's resume and your resume.
I'll put the link in the notes.
I definitely suggest you check that out.
One of the things that I think is really important for you to understand is I recognize the world
is very different today than when I went to school, the way companies recruit.
It is a lot more impersonal.
It's that much more difficult to get noticed.
Your resume, among a pile of other resumes, it's going to be much, much more difficult,
especially when they can't see your smiling face, and they can't relate to you.
You've got to ooze your personality.
There are so many other things that you have to project from a computer screen or a piece
of paper.
I'm going to talk to you about that today.
I've seen over half a million resumes in my lifetime.
That's enough resumes to look at for many lifetimes.
Many of them look the same.
With the way that companies and busy employers read them, it's very, very difficult for you
to get noticed right away.
One of the things that I'd like to do is teach you a trick that I think is a fantastic one
that will get you started on the right foot as soon as somebody looks at your resume.
It's going to help you overcome what I think is one of the biggest resume mistakes that
most college students and recent college graduates make, but even a lot of professionals make.
You've got to dump that objective statement.
The resume is about what you offer not what you want.
An objective statement just wastes real estate space on the resume to tell the employer what
it is that you're looking for.
They are much more interested on what you can offer them.
What I suggest is starting out with a profile, something that hits four major items, just
at the very top.
Call it profile or summary or whatever you want, but it's a couple or three or four sentences
that really hit four main major areas: your school; your major or area of studies or concentration;
your work experience generalized, just what type of work experience have you performed
since you've been going to school, through your summers or internships or whatever it
might be.
Then the fourth thing is what are those extra curriculars that you do, your volunteer work,
anything that you participated in your fraternities or sororities or volunteer programs, whatever
it is that you do that's extra.
If you download the template, you can follow along here.
I think this will go a little bit more effectively.
Just to take the example from the resume template that I've given you, you can go something
like this: State University graduate with a bachelor's of science in marketing and a
psychology minor.
Held various summer jobs and internships focusing on sales support activities.
Served on several university and fraternal committees.
Built additional sales-related capabilities via school fundraising activities and other
volunteering efforts.
Forty-three words that encapsulates and brings you to life.
It's the first thing that they see after your name and your contact information.
You're now giving them a nice little summary of what they're about to read.
There are four benefits to doing this.
It looks more professional than a collegiate, and I think that that will make you stand
above the crowd.
The other thing it does is it screams maturity.
It's got a very, very nice polished presentation to it.
One of the biggest issues or complaints that employers have with recent college graduates
isn't that you're not smart or that you can't do the job.
It's the lack of readiness for the workforce, especially as it relates to maturity levels.
They're not as concerned about your skills, because they're going to have to retrain you
or train you on whatever it is they need you to do.
If you've gone to a good school and you've got a good pedigree and you've worked hard,
they know that they're going to be able to do that.
They constantly ask me what I'm noticing about recent college graduates and whether they're
ready for the workforce.
I think this really will give you a leg up on that.
The third thing that it will do is will start to build some excitement.
They've skipped over the what-you-want or the objective-statement type items that are
up above.
You've gone right into here's who I am, here's what I've done, and I want you to get ready
to read some really great achievements, accomplishments, volunteering activities, and work that I've
done.
The fourth thing that it does is it makes you unique.
No one else does this.
I'm so surprised that when I look at the world today and all the great things that recent
college are doing, you're doing activities, you're participating in programs that give
you the kind of accomplishments that you can put on a resume that makes it look very professional,
which a lot of college students decades ago didn't do.
Some worked, but many just went to school.
You're doing so much more.
Take advantage of that.
Add it to the resume.
I hope you liked this tip.
I think it will really help set you apart.
I strongly suggest you download the resume template.
There's a lot of great instruction in it.
If you check out the milewalk blog, I give an interviewing book away.
It's called Interview Intervention: Communication That Gets You Hired.
I give an eBook to anybody that signs up.
I've also created an entire interview intervention experience that includes the eBook, the audio,
chapter notes, guides, other helpful aides for your job search.
That's on the milewalk Academy at milewalkacademy.com.
Just click Learn More when you see Interview Intervention and download the experience.
Until next week, I hope you enjoyed this tip.
Take care.