I have created a new blog and will be using it as my primary blog going forward. I have also re-posted a number of my favorite posts from this blog to the new blog to get it started. I will no longer be updating this blog so if you subscribe to this blog, you will want to change your subscription to the new blog:

Peak Portfolio

“The only winner in the game is the one that walks away from the game”–Pee Wee, Superfly: The Untold Story of Frank Lucas the American Gangster

Here’s a quote that I can relate to. Are you playing a game you can be successful at? If you do become successful at the game you’re playing, will you be happy with the outcome? I’ve talked myself out of many new business ventures because I took the time to consider what my life would be like if I was successful. There are some games in life in which the participants are all losers. Are you playing in any of those games? If yes, maybe it’s time to change the game you’re playing.

There must be thousands of books, articles, and blog posts focused on how to write a resume. So why write another one? There’s a saying that the best way to learn something is to teach it. I have found this to be true in writing as well. It’s a great way to structure your research on a topic and organize your thoughts. So that’s what this is, a compilation of my thoughts on resume rules. Some are based on advice I have heard or read from others I don’t recall and therefore can’t give credit. Others are based on my own preferences from reviewing hundreds of resumes in past hiring efforts.

1. Heading: State name, city/state, phone, and email. Don’t put “phone:” or “email:” in front of the contact info. Just put 555.123.4567 and john@johndoe.com. Minimize the info to just the essentials. Don’t include a fax number or full address. You don’t care about responses by mail since they are typically standard “we received your resume” responses from HR. Fax numbers label you as “old school”.
2. Simplify: Eliminate clutter. Tighten up sentences (see Elements of Style). Use the least amount of words and information possible to get your point across. Look at each title, sentence, and word in the resume and determine if the information is redundant or unimportant.
3. White space: Ensure adequate white space by having a minimum of 1 inch margins on the sides, .75 on the top, and .5 on the bottom.
4. Graphics: No lines. No pictures. No fancy anything.
5. Fonts: Stick with one font throughout. Use size 11 font. Use Times New Roman or Arial only. Strategically use bold font to structure the resume and guide the eyes through the resume.
6. Bullets: limit bulleted lists to 3-6 bullets.
7. Proofreading: Make sure there are no spelling errors or grammatical errors. This seems obvious but you’d be surprised at how many people have mistakes in their resumes.
8. Paper: If mailing the resume, use plain white paper of good quality. Colored or textured paper is too risky. This is kind of like the advice to stick with a white dress shirt with no patterns if you aren’t a fashion genius. You’re better off just sticking with what you know will leave an impression of professionalism.
9. Relevance: Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes. What are the key things they are looking for when scanning a resume? For example, years of experience, type of experience, education, past employers, titles. On first pass, they are looking for signs that they should read the entire resume. By skimming through your resume, the hiring manager should be able to determine “at a glance” that you have the experience, education, and professionalism to warrant more of their time.
10. Content: First, forget the standard BS about roles and responsibilities or job descriptions in your resume. Focus on the key things that a hiring manager cares about. Have you managed people? How many and for how long? What did you accomplish in the job? If you list a project, what was your role on that project? Were you in the driver seat or were you just along for the ride? Second, focus on quantifying the benefits of your accomplishments. For example, “renegotiated the contract, saving 35% ($2 million) annually” or “eliminated dead weight, increasing sales per employee by 27%”.
11. Summaries: If you add a summary at the beginning of your resume, it should be 3-4 bullets. It should concisely characterize you in a few bullets. For example:
    - 20 years of project management experience with Fortune 500 companies
    - 10 years experience managing 10-15 employees
    - Harvard MBA
    - Project Management Professional (PMP)
    If I was looking for a very senior project manager, I wouldn’t need to read the rest of the resume to know I want to interview this person. The goal of this section is to characterize yourself in a few bullets so that a hiring manager will decide to interview you without reading any further. If your bullets can’t do that, don’t include them.
12. Length: My recommendation is to stick with 1-2 pages. Often the hiring manager will be scanning through dozens of resumes. It’s refreshing to find a quality 1-2 page resume when digging through a pile of 4-6 page resumes that go on and on.
13. Categories: Use “Experience” instead of “Professional Experience”. It’s cleaner and less flashy. My recommendation is to use the following categories: Summary (see 11), Experience, Publishing (only if published. This could also be added to the Personal category), Community (only if significant role), Education, and Personal (see 14).
14. Personal: I recommend adding a few sentences at the end of the resume that bring out your personality and show that you are a real person.
15. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is another place to house an online version of your resume. One thing I like about LinkedIn resumes over standard resumes is the ability to solicit referances and incorporate them into the resume under each position.

Feel free to suggest your own resume rules in the comments as I know there are many who would disagree with me on #12.

Lastly, resumes are a standard selling tool for job searching but they shouldn’t be your primary selling tool. Networking is a much more effective way to find a job and resumes are secondary if you already know the hiring manager or, better yet, have worked with them in the past. And you know you have arrived when your reputation and body of work (accomplishments, keynotes, books, articles, blog, etc…) is substantial enough that you don’t need a resume.

”The cemeteries are full of people who couldn’t be replaced” — Michael Gartenberg’s grandfather

This quote doesn’t just apply to life, it also applies to business. Everyone can be replaced in business. This is especially true in big companies. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking you will never be let go as it would take several people to replace you and your subject matter knowledge is too valuable. If you think this, think again. Everyone can be replaced. And it doesn’t matter if the company has to hire several people at a greater cost to fill in void if you left. Nobody will ever admit “you know, we should have given John Doe a 10% raise instead of paying 100% more to hire two people to do his job.”

The other thing to consider is the lack of loyalty companies have to their employees today. It’s no wonder that employees jump companies every few years for more money or a better title.

Given that you can be replaced, the question you should ask yourself is: Are you ready to be fired tomorrow? If not, what should you be doing today to make sure you’re prepared in the event that you become a casualty of a re-org, lay-off, or a bad boss? Here are a few things to consider:

• Networking: People wait until they need a job to start networking. At this point it’s too late. See my last post on Networking to Develop Friendships for more on how to network effectively.
• Benefits: Consider getting personal health insurance. My experience has been that it cost me less money to get my own personal health insurance plan for me and my wife than it did to pay extra to have her on my past employer’s insurance plan. One benefit of having your own insurance is you don’t have to change insurance every time you change jobs. I’ve also heard of some people negotiating a higher salary if they elect to get their own insurance.
• Savings: As the saying goes, save money for a rainy day. You should have no less than 6 months of your current salary in savings. 12 months is even better. You should never let yourself be 1-2 paychecks away from losing everything. Be ready so you don’t have to find a job in desperation in the case that you’re ever surprised by a lay-off or firing.

These are just a few things you can do to prepare for the possibility of being fired. I’ve been a solo consultant for the past 3 years and I like to tell people I get let go every 3-6 months by design. That’s part of being a consultant. For this reason, I plan ahead for it and it’s not a big deal if I don’t have a new consulting engagement lined up immediately following completion of another.

Bottom line: Prepare to be fired so you will be ready if/when it eventually happens to you.

I was talking with one of my friends yesterday about networking and how most people seem to approach it looking at what other people can do for them. I came across this quote today that applies:

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” –Ann Landers, American advice columnist

I think we should consider this in our approach to networking. Instead of looking for people who can help you, just look for good people. Then focus on developing a friendship and more importantly, being a good friend. This approach may or may not result in people helping you succeed but it will result in new friendships and that can be more rewarding anyway.

Suggestion 1: Set a new rule for yourself not to ask anyone for help unless you have met them in person multiple times and have been in contact within the past 3 months just to catch up. If you haven’t invested the time in a relationship, you probably shouldn’t be asking for help.

Suggestion 2: Focus on helping your friends. My experience has been that friends will return the favor without you even having to ask.