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1.
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Proof your document once, twice and again before sending it out. If your
résumé/CV and cover letter suffer from poor spelling, mistakes
in grammar, disorganization or sloppy execution, the client will probably
feel this also is a reflection of the quality of your work.
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2.
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Make sure people know when and where and how to find you in as many ways as
possible. This communicates that your job search is important to you, and
that you value the time and convenience of anyone trying to communicate
with you about an opportunity. Don't be coy and offer just a message number
or an e-mail address. The conspicuous absence of commonly provided
information like an address raises questions: what are you trying to hide?
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3.
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Do not start the résumé/CV with an "objective", its specificity
might rule you out if it is misinterpreted. You will get a better response
with a declaration of what you have to offer a client, rather than a statement
of what you want from the client. Instead, write a summary paragraph of your
key skills and accomplishments, that will set the tone for how the client
perceives you while reading your résumé/CV. It also will serve as
a table of contents into the résumé/CV, where details should
support assertions.
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4.
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Do not limit yourself to one page unless you are entry level. Give as much
detail as necessary to define your professional accomplishments. Make it as
easy as possible for the reader of your résumé/CV, whether it
is a non-technical recruiter or a technical manager, to understand your
background and history. A good recruiter, for instance, can always edit a
document to make it more concise, but can never invent the critical details
you omit.
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5.
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Stick to a reverse chronological format. If people have to work too hard to
figure out what you did when and where, they may just put your
résumé/CV aside and move on to another which is clear, simple
and straightforward. Also, as with contact information, the organization of
a history, so that dates are hard to identify, implies that there may be
something that you don't want the reader to know.
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6.
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Define what YOU have done for each important project, what you did as a team
member or solo, and what impact it may have had, as well as anything special
that was accomplished. Also, where relevant, explain what technology was used
in the completion of each task. Key technologies should not just be mentioned
in a laundry list at the top of the résumé/CV. A client should
be able to see where, when and how these technologies were used by you.
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7.
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Don't include EVERYTHING. For instance, leave out personal details about your
hobbies or your family. You need not describe experience that is fifteen years
old in the same detail as work you did last year. The phrase "prior to the
year 200X - details on request" should help limit the size of your document,
while ensuring that the space is given to describing your most relevant and
recent experience.
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8.
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Be sure that your key technical credentials are visible both to the human
and the electronic eye. Include, even repeat, as many key words and phrases
as possible, that define your technical strengths. These "magic words" will
be searched for in matching your credentials to available jobs. Someone who
is "eyeballing" your résumé/CV will be looking for these on
the first page. If your document has been electronically harvested into a
database or scanned in, the keyword search may be sensitive to one spelling
of a term and not another. It even may even rank you by the frequency with
which a particular word appears on your résumé/CV.
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9.
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Be a "copycat", especially if all of this advice seems overwhelming.
Use the web to seek out a few résumés/CVs of people with similar
backgrounds to yours. They may strike you as good models for organizing your
own résumé/CV. Two good sources are careermosaic
(www.careermosaic.com)
and deja news (www.dejanews.com),
both of which will help you access and study résumés/CVs posted on
the usenet.
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10.
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Finally, never forget that your Segula recruiter is dedicated to helping you
leverage your experience to its best advantage. We look forward to hearing
from you.
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