Top 10 Ways to Rock Your Resumé

Top 10 Ways to Rock Your Resumé


Whitson Gordon — Top 10 Ways to Rock Your Resume Whether you're looking for a new job or just pruning up your paperwork, one of the keys to nabbing the job you want is creating a successful resumé. Here are our top 10 ways to make sure yours stands out.

10. Start with a Big List, and Then Shorten It

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We know keeping your resumé brief is important, but one of the best ways to make sure your resumé is as good as possible is to start long. Make a plain text document of all the possible information you might include, and then pare it down from there. You're less likely to forget anything important, and it will also come in handy if you ever need to tweak it for different job opportunities. Photo by Brandi Sims.

9. Know What Not to Include

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When it comes time to narrow down your giant list of accomplishments, you'll want to make sure you're including the most important stuff. You definitely want to get rid of not-so-notable accomplishments, and anything outdated can probably go too. There are also a lot of phrases that are just wasting ink on the page, and you should get rid of those too. Photo by Jon Tunn.


8. Avoid Overused Phrases

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If you want to make your resumé stand out, you're going to want to avoid canned phrases like "team player", "strong work ethic", and "innovative". We've gone through lists of tired phrases on more than one occasion, so make sure you check out every list to clean out the clichés. Photo by Muffet.



7. Quantify Your Accomplishments

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Instead of filling your resumé with the aforementioned canned phrases, pick something quantifiable. Anything you can describe with numbers demonstrates something real and tangible that your potential employers can see. Saying you "increased sales by 300 percent" (and mentioning how you did so) is much better than saying you "exceeded expectations". Always be on the lookout for ways you can put your accomplishments into numbers. Photo by Iain Watson.



6. Find the Keywords Your Employer is Looking for and Use Them

Top 10 Ways to Rock Your ResuméNowadays, so many people are passing their resumés around that sometimes they don't even get read. Instead, HR folks are scanning them for relevant keywords, like names of computer programs you know. Making sure these are somewhere on your resumé increase its chances of getting seen and actually read, not just glossed over. Photo by Frank Jania.



5. Strategically Tweak Your Dates of Employment

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Employers aren't usually too fond of job-hoppers, so if you've had a few recent jobs instead of a steady one, you might want to try and pull attention away from that fact. One of the best ways to do that is strategically format your resumé to highlight the jobs, not the dates. Using only years to describe employment terms, for example, looks better than the more specific month-and-year approach. Photo by simplyrikkles.



4. Try a Visual Slideshow or Video Resumé

toshiba_cam.jpgWhile many employers will prefer the simple, single-page list of accomplishments, lots of others would prefer to see your personality and accomplishments more in-depth through a slideshow or video resumé. Make sure you make it worth their while, of course—if your slideshow is just as boring as your text-based resumé would be, you're not doing yourself any favors. And of course, check with the HR department before sending something like this in to make sure it's okay. Photo by airgap.


3. Don't Use it Until the End of the Interview Process

Top 10 Ways to Rock Your ResuméSome employers may request your resumé at the beginning, but if they don't, consider holding off. It's too easy for a potential employer to scan your resumé and reject you. If you wait to hand in your resumé until the end, you'll be forced to show yourself off in other ways, and keep your potential employers thinking about something else beyond the dull checklist of accomplishments. Photo by Alan Cleaver.


2. Use Multiple Resumés for Different Potential Jobs

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If you're applying for multiple jobs, even if they're in the same field, you may not want to use the same resumé for each job. Tailor your resumé to each specific job you apply for, and send a unique resumé out for each one. We've highlighted some software that helps you do this without pulling your hair out, so there's no reason to give each employer a cookie-cutter list of the same experiences.


1. Proofread from the Bottom Up

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When you're done and ready to send your resumé in, you will want to proofread it for errors (of course). There are a lot of ways to make sure you proofread it well (like printing it out), but one of the more interesting ways we've seen is to read it from the bottom up. This way, you'll make sure you don't skip over any sections, and will also help you see things from an angle other than the one you've already written and proofread it fifteen times. Photo by kafka4prez.

Billups, Amar'e, Melo lead Knicks past LeBron and Heat, 91-86

Billups, Amar'e, Melo lead Knicks past LeBron and Heat, 91-86

Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson and Allan Houston would have been proud. The Knicks rallied from a 15-point first-half deficit to stun the Miami Heat, 91-86, Sunday night in their signature victory of the season. In the last 10 seconds, LeBron James had a potential go-ahead layup blocked by Amar'e Stoudemire, then misfired an open 3-pointer that would have tied the game.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/index.html#ixzz1FGHMS3mi

Motorola Xoom Hardware

How 'bout hardware -- what kind of specs does this bad boy have?

Motorola Xoom Hardware

The Xoom has a 10.1-inch, 1280-by-800 display. It runs on a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and SD card support for additional storage space. As of now, the Xoom supports 3G and Wi-Fi connections; Verizon promises, however, that you'll be able to get a free hardware upgrade that'll enable 4G access by this spring.

The Xoom comes with a 5MP rear-facing camera and a 2MP front-facing camera for video chat (which Honeycomb natively supports via Google's Google Talk system). The tablet records 720p HD video and supports 1080p playback. It has HDMI and USB 2.0 ports. And according to Motorola, its Android battery life can give you up to 10 hours of video playback on a single charge.
read the whole story.

Is It Really Necessary to Update Windows?

Is It Really Necessary to Update Windows?

Although it's perfectly natural to get annoyed by Windows' seemingly endless ‘New updates are available' alerts, it's not a good idea to ignore them. You do so at your own risk.

The vast majority of updates (which arrive on your system courtesy of the Windows Update tool) deal with security. Microsoft routinely patches newly discovered holes, adds malware definitions to its Windows Defender and Security Essentials utilities, bolsters Office security, and so on. And don't forget the occasional Windows hotfix, which may address serious issues such as random system lockups.

In other words, yes, it's absolutely necessary to update Windows. But it's not necessary for Windows to nag you about it every time.

Step by Step
Step 1. To make Windows Update work mostly behind the scenes, click Start, type Windows Update, and press Enter. (In Windows XP, head to the Control Panel and seek out Windows Update.)

Step 2. Next, click the Change Settings option, and choose Install updates automatically. Click OK to finish the process. Now, the only time you'll hear from Windows Update is when it requires a reboot.

How to Get Deadbeat eBay Bidders to Pay Up

How to Get Deadbeat eBay Bidders to Pay Up..

When an auction on eBay ends, the buyer enters a contract with the seller, promising to pay for the item. This doesn't always happen. Here's one creative (and questionably ethical) solution for how to handle this overly common problem.   read more here  

Need to weed out a liar? Try tricking them with a choice.

Need to weed out a liar? Try tricking them with a choice. Because liars have to think so much to keep track of their lies, they'll often be unable to come up with an alternate to the options you provide. Dr. John R. Schafer, writing for Psychology Today, is back with another great tip to help you uncover a lie. He suggests that offering a liar a choice is an easy way to tell when they're full of crap:

http://lifehacker.com/5711455/detect-liars-by-offering-them-two-choices