Sometimes when I write a resume for a client, I include an excerpt from the performance review as a strategy to better market the client. Occasionally when I use this technique, I get some push back from clients. The response is often, “I’ve never seen that on a resume before; is that common?”

No, it’s not. Because most people who write their own resumes don’t include testimonials. Because they have spent years reading other people’s poorly-written, cookie-cutter resumes and they assume that what they see over and over again is the “correct way to do it”. But one of the main goals of an effective resume is to stand out as a unique candidate with a compelling message of value. Trying to look like everyone else has never been a great marketing strategy. Here are some other reasons why it makes a lot of sense to include a testimonial on a resume.

1. Many hiring managers and recruiters read endorsements on LinkedIn profiles. Why wouldn’t they want to read one on your resume? Endorsements can influence how your LinkedIn profile is perceived. Recruiters can even organize candidate profiles based on the number of recommendations a person has. Generally speaking, on LinkedIn a handful of recommendations is better than none and if no recommendations are present, the hiring authority may wonder why. Many hiring managers value endorsements…so it shouldn’t matter whether they find them on LinkedIn or on the actual resume.
2. The opinions of others can elevate your candidacy. It’s one thing to communicate your achievements on a resume. It’s another thing to have a third party validate those achievements. Most people ask their friends about products and services before making a purchase. Hiring managers prefer candidates that have been “vetted” by others. Testimonials on resumes can help instill buyer confidence in job candidates.
3. The testimonial can capture a personal nuance about a person without being cliche. Sometimes the testimonial is the perfect way to convey that you are a dedicated, hard-working person of integrity without using those overused phrases on the resume.

Obviously, the selection of testimonials needs to be handled with care. “Joe is a smart, hardworking guy” won’t cut it. But if the testimonial reads “Joe worked diligently to appeal to all stakeholders to bring a stalled IT project in on time and $500K under budget.” a hiring authority is bound to believe that Joe is the type of candidate that can build consensus and get things done. Find a cheerleader, get a compelling quote from him, and add it to your resume to build trust and rapport with the hiring authority. The testimonial may help get you in the “yes pile” faster than you think.

When hiring managers read resumes, one of the first things they look at is dates of employment. If they see multiple short employment stints, they will often assume that you are a job hopper, question your ability to stay at one company for long, and move on to the next candidate.

Often people’s choppy employment record may be caused by several factors beyond their control; but unless the story behind your job changes is made clear on the resume, you risk being passed over for someone who can offer the perception of a more stable work chronology. Here are some of the circumstances that make job seekers look like job hoppers and what you can do about it.

Serial layoffs. It happens. You may be a loyal employee, but perhaps you have been the victim of serial layoffs and as a result, your resume depicts movement every year or two. Rather than just putting your dates of employment on the resume and letting hiring managers come to their own conclusions as to why you left, tell them why right on the resume. Add a brief explanation following the dates of employment — such as “company downsized,” “company relocated,” or “company went out of business.” This way, the employer has the facts and isn’t left to guess why you are no longer with the company.

Temporary assignments. If you have spent the past few years working on consulting or temporary assignments, your chronology may be questionable to your reader. Instead of listing each temporary assignment and company with their corresponding employment dates, create one category for temporary assignments with the total length of time you have been working in this capacity. Then give an overview of the companies you have supported and highlight some of the main accomplishments that encompass all of your temporary experience.

Rapid promotions. Frequently I see resumes where the person has been at the same company for 10-plus years, and they re-list the company name and new job title and dates each time they are promoted. To the reader who is quickly scanning the document, this may cause confusion; he may think these were positions at different companies. Just because it is obvious to you, don’t assume it is obvious to the reader who may be trying to get through hundreds of resumes. List the company name once and place the full dates of employment to the far right. Underneath that list each job title with the employment dates immediately following. By placing full dates of employment and dates of specific company positions in different sections, you increase the chances that the reader will understand that these changes were the result of promotions at the same company and not job changes.

Company mergers. Have you worked for a company that was bought by another company and then bought by another in less than five years? When you list all three company names individually with the dates you worked for each company, it can look like you voluntarily went to work for each of these companies during that short time frame. A better strategy is to list the current name of the company and in parenthesis write “formerly company XYZ” and follow that with the full dates of employment from the time you started at the first company before any acquisitions occurred.

The bottom line is this: Employers don’t read resumes. They scan them very quickly, and it’s easy to have your information misinterpreted if you do not make things crystal clear for your reader. Obviously there is more of a story to tell behind your employment experience and the reasons why you changed jobs. But in order to be able to tell that story to a hiring manager, you need to make sure that your resume provides enough of a positive hook that they decide to call you in for an interview.

As you may have already heard, Lane Bryant is claiming that ABC and FOX censored their plus size lingerie commercial and refused to air it because the content was too racy for prime time TV. Lane Bryant is claiming the networks have a double standard and would have aired a Victoria’s Secret commercial with rail thin models during the same time slot. The networks have been denying that Lane Bryant was treated any differently than any other advertisers and that the whole thing is a publicity stunt by Lane Bryant.

But stunt or not, it has brought the issues of beauty, size, and unrealistic standards for womens’ bodies to the forefront…again. Yet even with the recurring press (remember the Dove campaign for real women ads from a few years ago or the more recent “stars without airbrushing” photo shoots?), many women still seem to have a problem coming to terms with “what they are really supposed to look like” because media messages continue to play on some sort of revolving loop inside our brains and designers continue to make size zero jeans with inseams for women who are 5′ 11” for the 12 women in the universe who can actually fit into them. No stranger to body dysmorphia myself, I struggle with all the same mixed messaging that so many of us seem to get caught up in every day. The funny thing is that the Lane Bryant controversy made me think about people’s perceptions about resumes and the misinformed tapes that are on continuous playback in many job seekers’ minds. Here are two of the tapes that need to be erased.

Resume Length

The number one question I get from people about resumes is “How long is it supposed to be?” And the majority of the population seems to be convinced that it must be one page or you will be immediately rejected. Because people have heard this “rule” so many times, they think it must be “the standard.” Or perhaps creating a two-page resume would be considered “racy” or certainly inappropriate for “prime-time hiring.” However, just like people, resumes come in all sizes and one length is not better than another; just different. I meet some people with 30 year careers who can tell their story in one page and I meet others with seven year careers that truly benefit from a two-page document. The important thing is to communicate your unique value at the beginning of the resume and then tell your story. And if it takes one page or two pages, that is fine.

Resume Design Features

Another thing that seems to make some people uncomfortable is the concept of incorporating visual elements into a resume. Charts, graphs, and other imagery can be a great way to solidify an important point about your candidacy but people seem fearful of adding design elements that are different than what they have seen on resumes in the past. Just like some aren’t used to seeing a more voluptuous model in a lingerie ad, some can’t wrap their head around a different way of showcasing their “assets” to employers.

Stop worrying about how you think a resume “is supposed to look.” Some employers will go for the 32B and others will go for the 38EE. The point is to tell your story. Be proud of the value that you bring to an employer  and don’t be afraid to flaunt it.

I just wrote a resume for my teenage daughter so she can apply for an internship this summer. The first thing I had her do was make a list with the headings academics, leadership, activities, and community and then I asked her to list everything she could think of that she had done during high school that could fit within each of the category headings. By grouping what she participates in by themes she was better able to recall everything she has done and create a more compelling record of her achievements.

But beyond systematizing the process of recording achievements, the exercise had another, more profound effect on her. It helped her realize just how much she had accomplished in a relatively short period of time and it made her feel really good about herself. It’s not that easy to feel good about yourself as a high school junior. You are constantly being measured by subject tests and entrance examinations. One bad grade in your junior year and you feel like you will never recover. So the exercise helped put everything in perspective. And it allowed her to realize that she could actually be a real “catch” for a company seeking a summer intern.

I think job seekers sometimes feel like high school juniors. They may feel judged during interviews and the whole process might make them feel very anxious. If they have a bad interview, they may feel like they will never recover. But assessing your skills and accomplishments and grouping those skills into categories or themes can also help job seekers see the value in what they do and allow them to better articulate their brand proposition. These themes can be used to create content for a resume or hone interview stories. Yet they can do more than that. They can provide that boost of confidence on the days when you are feeling down about your search.  Reviewing your themed stories of success around such competencies as business development, process improvements, operational transformations, and staff development can serve as a great reminder of the value you bring to an organization and the fact that there is an employer out there that will need someone with those skills.

In honor of April Fool’s day, the Career Collective is tackling a few important and timely questions: How are you fooling yourself about your career /job search? What can you do about it, and how to avoid being tricked by common job search blunders.

1. You are expecting to get calls for interviews because you posted your resume online. Despite all the advice and statistics to the contrary, job seekers continue to spend most of their job search time posting on job boards. It’s fine to apply for positions that you are truly qualified for online. But is is imperative that you create alternative plans for getting your foot in the door at those employers. Talk to recruiters, find someone in your network who may know someone at the company, or use tools such as LinkedIn or Jigsaw to find a potential decision maker at that company. Posting on the job boards with thousands of other applicants will rarely get you noticed.
2. You think keywords in resumes are a “nice to have”. More and more recruiters and hiring managers are using applicant tracking systems to source candidates and they may never find you if your resume doesn’t contain relevant keywords. Stop debating the importance of keywords and start putting them in your resume. Applicant tracking systems are getting more sophisticated and they are here to stay.
3. You think the format and presentation of your resume is inconsequential. I often write posts about the importance of what I call “resume bling”…the use of visuals such as graphs and charts and in some cases color or images to prove impact or differentiate oneself from the pack. This idea continues to scare people who think this isn’t proper resume etiquette because it will make their resume look different. Ah…sorry…looking different is the point.
4. You think networking is just brown nosing. I get these comments about networking all the time and even hear from people who say they would never “stoop” to trying to build relationships with people as part of their job search. They are missing the boat on the concept of giving to get and being authentic. People want to do business with people they know. Take a general interest in people…always…and they will be there to help you when you need an introduction.
5. You think online networking is not necessary for you. Sometimes my senior level clients tell me they are very well known in their professional circles, so LinkedIn is not necessary for them. They may be well known, but many hiring managers and recruiters expect to see a consistent online representation of who you are professionally.

Take a long hard look at your search strategy. Are you making progress or just fooling yourself? You can read posts on this topic from my colleagues below.

10 Ways to Tell if Your Job Search is a Joke, @careerealism

April Fool’s Day – Who’s Fooling Who?, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes

If It’s Not You and It’s Not True, You’re Fooling Yourself, @GayleHoward

Don’t Kid Yourself! (The Person You See in the Mirror is a Good Hire), @chandlee

Avoiding the Most Common Blunder, @jobhuntorg

Are you fooling yourself? Bored at work? Is it your own fault?, @keppie_careers

Hey, Job Seeker — Don’t Be a Fool!, @resumeservice

Job Search Is No Joking Matter,  @careersherpa

Is Your #Career in Recovery or Retreat? (All Joking Aside), @KCCareerCoach

9 Ways You Might Be Fooling Yourself About Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman

Don’t get tricked by these 3 job search blunders, @LaurieBerenson

Trying to hard to be nobody’s fool?,  @WorkWithIllness

It’s not all about you, @DawnBugni

Mirror ‘their’ needs, not ‘your’ wants in #jobsearch, @ValueIntoWords

Stop Fooling Yourself about your Job Hunt: Things you may be doing to sabotage yourself – @erinkennedycprw

Same as it ever was – @walterakana

I put up a picture on Facebook yesterday of me as a kid sitting in my living room. I love this picture because it reminds me what my house looked like as a child and it’s a window into what trends influenced how homes were decorated at the time. My mother had a penchant for plastic slipcovers and she put them on everything in the living room, including the lampshades. Plastic slipccovers made their debut in the mid 50s and managed to haunt my family well into the next two decades. My friends and I have been chuckling over the picture and trying to figure out why anyone would subject their loved ones to the feel of sticky plastic, especially in the summertime.

But when my Mom had plastic slipcovers it was all the rage and many of my friends tell stories of “growing up plastic” as well. Of course now when we think about plastic slipcovers we immediately conjure up a “dated” image.

We moved on from the plastic slipcovers some time in the mid 70′s when they began to lose their “avant garde” appeal. It’s easy to figure out that your furniture is dated because you have to look at it every day and you are constantly comparing it to other people’s furniture and the trends you see on the Internet, television, and magazines.

But what about your resume? Many people don’t look at their resume or update it for years and years because they don’t feel they have a need to. And when they do need their resume for something, what do they do? Pull out the old one and just add the new job. No redecorating here…

So what people end up with is basically the same resume they wrote 20 years ago and have been “suffering with” ever since. ..kind of like outdated plastic slipcovers.

Here are some  of the telltale signs that your resume needs to be “redecorated”

1. Your resume leads with an objective. No one wants to see an objective on a resume anymore. They communicate what you are looking for which isn’t of much interest to a hiring manager. Hiring authorities want to know what’s in it for them…do you have the competencies and the proof of performance to help solve their business problems. Create a profile or executive summary outlining your big picture accomplishments and the value you can bring to an employer instead and leave the objective off the resume and in the past where it belongs.
2. Your contact information includes your fax number. Nothing screams the 80s like a fax number. Chances are no employer will need to contact you by fax. Leave the fax number off the resume or better yet, use that space to include your LinkedIn vanity URL.
3. Your dates of employment are all left justified. Having dates of employment to the left made sense in the days of the typewriter when tabs were the only way to indent content. Thanks to Microsoft Word, text is much more maleable and space can be better utilized. Place employment dates after the company name or to the right to optimize space and save room for other important content.
4. The font on your resume is Courier 10. Courier 10 was all there was when all documents were created on typewriters. Now we have scores of choices. Pick something else.
5. Your resume contains several personal attributes to describe you. If you are using adjectives on your resume such as loyal, detail-oriented, good communicator, or hard-working to describe your value to an employer, stop. Descriptions of personal attributes are meaningless unless there is tangible proof of these traits within the body of the resume. Their use is very old-school and my guess is you copied those words from someone else’s outdated resume or from a book of resume samples that was published during Clinton’s first administration.
6. Your resume states that references are available upon request. Well, they used to be. Now many hiring managers Google candidates before they call them in for an interview. So frequently your references are available online whether you want them to be or not. Ditch the statement about references and save the space for something more important.

There are furniture trends, fashion trends, and even resume writing trends. Be hip and stay informed of the latest resume writing styles and tips to increase the likelihood of getting noticed by hiring managers.

Occasionally I have to turn a prospect for a resume project away because I have determined that they really aren’t ready to work with me. There are five signs that a person is just not in the right place to begin a resume project and doing so would lead to frustration rather than a positive experience. Are you any of these people?

1. You don’t have time to be part of the process. Resume writing is a very collaborative process. Expect to spend time being interviewed by the writer or completing some sort of questionnaire so the writer can gather the appropriate information. Forwarding them a copy of your old resume and expecting them to glean the best information from it won’t cut it. If you are extremely busy, under an enormous amount of stress, or just in a really bad place emotionally, this might not be the best time to embark on an overhaul of your resume.
2. You haven’t spent any time thinking about the value you can bring to an employer. The writer’s job is to best represent you and advertise the benefits you can bring to an organization. But they can only write from the information you supply. A good writer will ask targeted questions to get at the key information that they need to write a strong resume for you. You must be willing to be introspective about your past experience. You need to start thinking less about your job tasks and more about what makes you good at what you do. If you wait until the day you meet your writer to discuss what you have accomplished, you are sure to omit key information or forget something that could help the writer do a better job.
3. You expect your writer to write about skills you don’t have. If you have an expectation that the writer is there to embellish your experience or suggest you have competencies you don’t, forget about it. An ethical writer will only create a true representation of your skills. We don’t make stuff up.
4. You can’t let go of anything. If you are so attached to the great work you did on a Y2K project in 1999 or your stellar GPA in 1982, you will struggle with one of the real benefits of working with a writer…the ability to look at all of your accomplishments objectively and showcase the ones that have the most relevance in the current market. Approach the process with an open mind and let the writer help you make decisions about the content.
5. You want a resume that looks just like the sample one on the writer’s website. Don’t get me wrong. it’s a great idea to review sample resumes to get an idea of the writer’s style. But don’t expect your resume to look like the one on the sample page. That resume represents someone else’s experience. Yours needs to represent you and you alone. This isn’t the drive through window at McDonalds where every hamburger is the same; it’s more like a salad bar that mixes and matches the best choices for each individual.

Yesterday was my son’s birthday. It is a tradition in our family to tell our kids the story of the day they were born each year on their birthday. And while I’ve been telling my son this story for the past 13 years, it has always been somewhat sanitized. You see, my son’s birth was particularly hairy and what seemed like a routine delivery quickly turned into an emergency. For awhile, the doctors didn’t know if he would survive the birth. So every year I’ve pretty much glossed over this part of the story, thinking it would be too scary for him to hear. But this year, I decided he was ready to hear the whole story.

I encourage my clients to tell me authentic stories about their work experiences so I can craft a strong resume for them. Frequently, they shy away from telling stories  about disastrous departments, sluggish sales, failed projects, or difficult relationships because they think their story has to be sanitized in order to be acceptable to a hiring manager. But I disagree. Job seekers can show their ability to influence positive outcomes, even when the deck is stacked against them and business conditions are exceptionally challenging. Here are some examples of such situations and how information can be presented in a positive way under challenging circumstances.

Selling in a challenging market…

• Secured sales meetings with 80% of target audience; successfully introduced products and services despite inherent obstacles including saturated and shrinking market.

Providing leadership in environments plagued with infighting…

• Successfully broke down business silos and improved information sharing across cross- functional teams by creating an open and transparent work environment to foster collaboration.

Salvaging a damaged client relationship…

• Reversed strained client relationship that was damaged due to a previous producer’s missed deadline by quickly mobilizing team resources to shave close to 75% off the normal project completion time.

Preparing for a failed company’s closing…

• Developed a liquidation strategy that maximized profit margin from inventory and kept vendors and staff engaged until final closing.

Managing poor performers…

• Reversed performance issues for a struggling employee who went on to become the division’s #1 account executive and ranked in the top-ten firm-wide.

What are your harrowing work stories and what positive outcomes can be drawn from them?

On the day my son was born, during labor the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Oxygen wasn’t going to his brain. The doctors performed an emergency C-section and time was so critical that they had to start the procedure before the anesthesia kicked in. And while I don’t love remembering that part of the story, I certainly do love the end result which was a healthy baby. Happy 14th birthday to my positive outcome, Darius!

I just bought a pair of new running shoes. You are supposed to replace your running shoes every 300 to 500 miles depending on your running style, weight, and the sneaker. My sneakers had seen at least double that amount of mileage. The tread on both sneakers was worn down so far that I was striking the pavement at an odd angle and accentuating an already pronated right foot. And every day I kept saying to myself “You should really get a new pair of running shoes.” But then I would just go running anyway and put it off for another day that turned into a week and then a few months. It’s amazing I didn’t get injured.

Another important task that is easy to put off is updating your resume. It’s so easy to tell yourself you will do it tomorrow and tomorrow quickly turns into next week or next month. And when that golden opportunity surfaces and you are asked for your resume, you scramble around to put a patch job together to get it to the hiring manager or recruiter. Bad plan.

I put off buying new running shoes and ran the risk of getting injured which would have resulted in severe pain and lost running time. If you put off updating your resume, you run the risk of being out of the race if an opportunity presents itself.

December is a great time to reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and update your resume. Because in January their will be a lot of others at the starting line in their search.

My son is getting braces. In order to prepare for the braces, he first needs to wear a special “appliance” to realign his jaw. When you look in his mouth it looks like he has four giant screws in the back, all in different places. Each time he closes his mouth he must push his jaw forward in order to have the desired effect. As you can imagine, this makes chewing quite cumbersome. On the first day he could only eat soup and jello. Today he has moved on to mashed potatoes. And by the end of the week we are told that he will have figured out how to chew more solid foods.

I think that when people find themselves in a job search after many years of being comfortable in a job, they have a similar relearning process and nothing comes easy at first. The old methods of job search don’t work the same way anymore and job seekers need to work around more obstacles to find the right leads. Here are some ideas to chew on (pun intended) as you create a direction for your job search.

1. Take a bite out of that old resume. Examine the content of your resume closely. If there is information on it that is dated or irrelevant to your target audience, get rid of it.
2. Sink your teeth into networking. Building relationships takes time. Do something for your network everyday so the task is less overwhelming and more productive. Set attainable goals to schedule coffee with a colleague or lunch with an old friend. Be consistent and purposeful and remember to approach networking with a “give more than you get” attitude.
3. Get a taste of social media. Dabble in LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter and create profiles on Google and Zoom Info. Be part of the conversation and share expertise, ideas, musings, and your experiences.
4. Explore the different flavors of interview questions. Practice responses to behavior based interview questions such as tell me about yourself, tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision, or tell me about a project that failed and what you learned from it. Interview questions come in all flavors…some are about positive experiences and some are about difficult situations you faced…learn how to answer all of them with confidence.

The “appliance” in my son’s mouth is an obstacle right now. But he will overcome it…the kid’s gotta eat! Job seekers face obstacles everyday. But with some thought, preparation, and a commitment to do things differently they can overcome these obstacles and savor the taste of a sweet new job.