Boulder Jobing Community Blogs

The executive order, signed by President George W. Bush, requires all federal contractors with contracts of $100,000 or more to use an electronic verification system, defined by the department of Homeland Security as the E-verify system, for all employees working on the contract (new hires and current employees alike). The same requirement is placed on all subcontractors of these contracts that are receiving $3,000 or more.

This executive order was originally slated to be effective January 15, 2009, but has been delayed several times. The latest of these delays was announced recently and will postpone the effective date until June 30, 2009. You can contact ESG at www.esghr.com if you would like additional information about this order and its requirements.

Open House/Job Fair

Monday, September 8, 2008 from 9:00 a.m.  to 3:00 p.m.

TransFirst, LLC

Cherry Creek Place 1

3131 S. Vaughn Way, 1st floor Conference Room

Aurora, CO  80014

Off of I225 and Parker Road across from University of Phoenix and Dex

TransFirst, LLC is growing - Come check us out!

Sales Earning Potential of $80,000+ FIRST YEAR

Looking for sales professionals with a proven track record, high energy and professionalism. 

Open House/Job Fair

Monday, September 8, 2008 from 9:00 a.m.  to 3:00 p.m.

TransFirst, LLC

Cherry Creek Place 1

3131 S. Vaughn Way, 1st floor Conference Room

Aurora, CO  80014

Off of I225 and Parker Road across from University of Phoenix and Dex

TransFirst, LLC is growing - Come check us out!

Sales Earning Potential of $80,000+ FIRST YEAR

Looking for sales professionals with a proven track record, high energy and professionalism. 

Relax – there’s a point to customizing your resume to meet the needs of employers. In The Career Champion newsletter, I regularly cover the fact that a resume needs to deliver a clear message in order to be effective. However, this doesn't mean that every resume you send must be a completely different version.

If you’re unsure of the actual breaking point between one resume and another, here are 3 ways to tell if you’ll need an encore version:

1) Your skills aren’t focused on one main career goal. My clients often find that they can target one particular job type by showing strengths for that role. If they wish to pursue a similar position, I recommend that they change a few words here and there.

However, if they focus on an entirely DIFFERENT job type, that's another matter. It's hard to convince employers of your business development skills, for example, if your resume is centered around your expertise in operations management.

2) Your credentials are SO broad that your resume goes on forever.  If your resume gives hiring authorities too much to read (especially if there’s too many interesting facts that don’t add up to one message), then it’s time to narrow your focus.

Proving your fitness for a particular job is a matter of tuning the text around WHY you’re qualified, and then backing up your story with achievements and other examples.

3) Tweaking your resume for each job application requires a major rewrite. If you can’t reasonably dedicate a summary to one suite of skills, then you should separate out your career goals.

This may involve extra effort on your part, including additional keyword research and a different presentation, but the end results will be worth it.

Remember, recruiters have enough resumes to read without getting confused by what you want to do! Zeroing in on your specific, measurable credentials allows you to quickly convey why you are qualified, eliminates the potential for confusion, and gets your resume noticed much faster.

A unique resume authority, Laura Smith-Proulx is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, a career services company that caters to technical, sales, and organizational leaders, from managers poised for growth to senior-level executives.

A Certified Professional Resume Writer, Interview Coach, and Career Coach, Laura has achieved a 98% success rate for thousands of clients through creative and skilled writing/editing, insightful career coaching, and positive motivation.

If you're ready to make a key change in your leadership career, get our FREE 7-Part E-Course on "The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes That Can Keep You From a $100K+ Job... And How to Avoid Them."

If this situation applies to you, remember that you are in good company! I would estimate that nearly a third of my clients have experienced a period of unemployment at one time or another.

Your best bet in this case is to meet the challenge head-on by preparing to address the gaps directly. This will make it much easier to market your skills for a high-powered role. I have compiled three highly effective tips you can use when presenting an interruption in your work history to a potential employer:

1) Remember that hiring authorities see gaps all the time… but they also expect to see career progression, PLUS an explanation. This is a critical point! In order to deflect questions on gaps, ensure that your résumé shows some strong areas of growth, which can make the interim period seem more like a blip in your career.

Also, be prepared to explain the gap itself by pointing to an activity that filled it, such as volunteer work, caring for an ill family member, or launching a business.

2) If possible, give a name to the gap itself. Give readers of your résumé an idea of what you did by using a between-jobs “title” such as Consulting, Sabbatical, Leave of Absence, or Family Management.

But what if the gap was short enough that you were merely searching for work? You can just leave it “as is,” while still preparing your explanation. This leads to the next tip, which is…

3) Don’t point out a gap that you can’t name. Essentially, your best strategy when dealing with any potentially negative information is this:  focus more on the RESULTS you can bring to your next employer than anything else.

In other words, if you don’t have a plausible explanation for being out of work, then simply move on to focus on your value proposition—and save your explanation for an interview.

My personal philosophy is that everyone has something POSITIVE to offer their next employer. The more focus you put on your strongest contributions, the less you—and hiring managers—will need to emphasize any shortcomings in your career history.

A unique resume authority with a 98% success rate winning interviews, Laura Smith-Proulx, CCMC, CPRW, CIC is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, a career services company that caters to organizational leaders, from managers poised for growth to senior-level executives.

If you're ready to make a key change in your leadership career, get our FREE 7-Part E-Course on "The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes That Can Keep You From a $100K+ Job... And How to Avoid Them."

Here are three key reasons that many employers are turning to online sources as a substitute for references (whether you want them to or not!):

1)  Personal websites are growing by leaps and bounds.

It’s not news that many people are turning to personal and social networking websites in droves. The popularity of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites has exploded in recent years.

What you might not know is that, search engines frequently find your online profile first, since it uses your name as an identifier.

2)  Press releases can make their way onto the Internet with astonishing speed.

I’ll use a case study here to make my point perfectly clear:  Roy, a former client, learned a valuable lesson when he embarked upon a job hunt and wondered why he wasn’t approached for leadership positions.

I did an online search for his name and discovered that his previous achievements were “spun” the wrong way inside press releases. We rebuilt his online profile, counteracting this effect by presenting his own version of events.

The lesson? You never know what someone else considers important about YOUR career.

3)  Personal life or opinions have become fair game.

Have you posted to a blog lately? As with other hot information, blogs can rocket their way around the Web. Don’t forget about published articles, project lists, and any other sources in which you’ve been quoted.

A well-known CEO of a major corporation in Colorado was caught flagrantly posting his opinions on a company merger to a public group on Yahoo late last year. While the merger went through (barely), his reputation suffered significantly, and the press had a field day with it. Can you imagine what a potential new employer would think? Enough said!

To prepare my clients for these scenarios, I have developed a special report entitled “When Employers Google You, What Will They Find?” that covers key strategies for managing online identity.

To sum up, consider that the information you provide on your career might NOT be the only data employers see... and that you should check your online identity often to avoid surprises.

A unique resume authority with a 98% success rate winning interviews for six-figure professionals, Career Management Coach and Certified, published Resume Writer Laura Smith-Proulx is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, a career services company that caters to professionals targeting a $100K+ position.

If you're ready to make a key change in your leadership career, get our FREE 7-Part E-Course on "The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes That Can Keep You From a $100K+ Job... And How to Avoid Them."

However, many leadership professionals experience minimal results when they fail to adequately express their true strengths and core competencies.

If you aspire to the corner office, moving from searching to successful requires using some key strategies to pique an employer’s interest. Consider these tips to present a confident image and look the part on your resume:  

Look at your career contributions with dollar signs.

Employers are always interested in the bottom line. Can you add to it, or control the expenses affecting it? Then, by all means, get this information onto your resume.

Ask yourself hard questions about the results of your work, and then put figures to as much of it as possible.

For example, when working with a sales director in the mortgage industry, after discussing his leadership of an underperforming location, we were able to turn dry task descriptions into “Turned around branch to achieve #1 status nationwide from initial ranking of 32 out of 40.”

As you can see, results such as these speak for themselves—and cut through any doubt about your abilities.

As with any business communications, consider your presentation.

If you want to portray a standout image, look beyond the strategies used by countless other job seekers. Case in point:  millions have used a do-it-yourself style or worse yet, that Microsoft Word resume template, to create their resumes.

Given that this is arguably the most important document of your career, take a hard look at your presentation, and consider implementing some components found in professionally designed resumes.

You can find examples online at many websites, including An Expert Resume, that show streamlined design, leadership presentation, and effective formatting that preserves both content and space.

Showcase your personal brand and leadership qualities.

Everyone has unique strengths and capabilities to offer their next employer. What are yours? Have you thought about the impact you have on the company’s business?

Make a list of what you achieve that consistently affects revenue, the corporate reputation, or efficiency, and then describe the steps you’ve taken to attain these results.

Ensure that this information takes center stage on your resume, rather that just listing mundane details and job descriptions.

In summary, accessing today’s fast-track jobs requires connecting your performance and personal brand to bottom-line results—thereby ensuring that your resume gets noticed.

A unique resume authority with a 98% success rate winning interviews for her clients, Laura Smith-Proulx is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, a career services company that caters to organizational leaders, from managers poised for growth to senior-level executives.

If you're ready to make a key change in your career, get our FREE 7-Part E-Course on "The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes That Can Keep You From Your Dream Job... And How to Avoid Them."

How can you tell if your résumé will make the cut? Unfortunately, some résumé flaws are so fatal that I can GUARANTEE they will fail to get interviews. See if any of these apply to your situation:

Your résumé uses that Microsoft Word template. At least one third of all the millions of Word users probably created their résumés using this style.

Standing out isn’t just a matter of words—it’s also in the presentation. Bottom-line: use an attractive style that reflect your UNIQUE qualifications.

You are facing challenges in your job search (such as a job that ended last year, lack of a degree, etc.), yet your résumé skips RIGHT to your job history. This can be a killer—since it quickly gives the reader LESS reasons to call you for an interview.

This is where résumé strategy comes in. I recommend developing a plan BEFORE writing the résumé that can put your best foot forward to meet these kind of challenges.

Your wording is weak. Did you write “responsible for” on your résumé? If so, you are missing some fantastic ways to sell your skills. Try “power verbs” (achieved, revitalized, captured, etc.) instead.

You’ve used an objective statement to top it off. Funny thing about that objective – it really ISN’T objective! While this was a standard for the résumé of yesteryear, using this will nearly ENSURE you get passed over today.

A better idea: summarize your unique credentials in a profile or summary.

You’ve borrowed phrases. There must be hundreds of “self-motivated team players” out there. If you’re guilty of copying some great-sounding phrases, give some clear thought to this one.

Your résumé should present your personal “brand”—meaning qualities that describe your capabilities PRECISELY. To get started, ask colleagues or friends how they would describe you or your work.

To sum up, refreshing your résumé can make THE difference between having your phone ring for interviews, or being passed over in favor of someone less qualified.

A unique résumé authority and former recruiter, Laura Smith-Proulx, CPRW, CIC, Executive Director of An Expert Resume, has achieved a 98% success rate landing interviews for fast-track professionals.

Laura’s newest book, “Solve Your Toughest Résumé Challenges to Win More Interviews!,” gives insider secrets to gaining an employer’s attention.

For FREE tips on how to create a knockout resume and successfully manage your career transition, visit www.AnExpertResume.com.

In my recruiting days, I frequently saw candidates who, although qualified, undermined themselves at EVERY turn through an amazing lack of interview etiquette and professionalism.

Study these tips prior to that all-important interview… especially when you’ve promised yourself that things will be different this time:

1)        Look serious. What do your demeanor, dress, and attitude say about you? Get feedback from a friend, and rework any components that need to be addressed.  

I’ll never forget the young woman who showed up at our corporate office in a sweater and jeans, wearing a backpack. Her message of disinterest could not have been louder.

2)        Be prepared. With nearly every company online these days, there is no excuse for not doing your homework.  

Tap into press releases, websites, and annual reports to formulate some questions about the company, their mission, and the job at hand—and have your notes ready to go.

3)        Rehearse answers to common questions. If basic queries such as “Tell me about your strengths” make you freeze, it’s time for some serious preparation.  

Giving thoughtful responses and practicing answers WILL pay off when you see that smile on the interviewer’s face—and you get called back for a second interview.

4)        Act interested. Do you fail to take notes? Look everywhere but at the interviewer? Skip asking your own questions?  

If you want to be remembered, bring a notepad, open it up, and carry on an intelligent dialogue about the company and the requirements for the open position.

5)        Follow up. A staffing corporation study found that 88% of executives are swayed by candidates who write a thank-you note—yet nearly HALF of all job seekers fail to send one!  

Consider the message you want to leave with a potential employer, and make every attempt to distinguish yourself from others competing for the same position.

Laura Smith-Proulx, CPRW, founder of An Expert Resume and author of “Solve Your Toughest Resume Challenges to Win More Interviews! 25 Secrets to Fast-Track Career Success,” uses a background in corporate recruiting to achieve a 98% résumé success rate landing interviews for fast-track professionals.

For FREE tips on how to create a knockout resume and successfully manage your career transition, visit www.AnExpertResume.com.

One of the mysteries to résumé writing, keywords are simply skills and concepts that humans AND systems look for in your qualifications.

However, many people skip adding this content when writing a résumé… and then wonder why the phone stays silent.

Take my client Greg, for example.

Greg had a solid sales background and impressive accomplishments. However, when looking at his résumé, I realized keywords were missing. Employers were not able to get a big-picture view of his ability to generate new business.

I recommended adding some targeted keywords, and the next time we talked, I couldn’t BELIEVE the difference! He was weighing offers from several firms. The keywords had pushed his application past that of competing candidates.

Here are some reasons to consider adding keywords to your résumé:

1) You can satisfy dual-purpose requirements. Your résumé will likely be read by BOTH a hiring manager plus an automated system.

2) Keyword content can demonstrate the breadth of your skills. A new account executive might put “relationship management” on a résumé, but a more experienced sales representative could add “revenue improvement” and “profit growth.”

3) Résumé real estate is valuable! Rather than taking up precious space to describe your credentials, keywords are a great way to present a quick overview, while driving home your point.

The bottom line? Show employers that your achievements and success stories are backed by a host of skills that THEY seek—meaning keywords—and watch your results take off!

Laura Smith-Proulx, CPRW, CIC, Executive Director of An Expert Resume and author of “Solve Your Toughest Résumé Challenges to Win More Interviews,” has a 98% success rate landing interviews for fast-track professionals.

For FREE tips on creating a knockout resume and advancing in your career, visit www.AnExpertResume.com .

And the answer is… when it’s on your résumé!

Nearly everyone is familiar with the classic “Objective Statement” that tops off so many résumés. It usually starts with “Seeking a challenging position…” and proceeds to roll downhill from there.

When you are trying to distinguish yourself from the competition, slapping the same line on your résumé as thousands of others hardly sets you apart! The good news is that there is another way to convey your career goal plus give a picture of what you OFFER instead.

This strategy involves writing a Qualifications Profile or Summary for your résumé, rather than an Objective Statement.

To help you write an effective, eye-catching summary that will persuade employers to read further, consider these tips:

The Qualifications Profile should include 3-4 sentences that accurately describe your credentials.

In other words, don’t copy your friend’s résumé, since this profile needs to sell YOU.

Add some vivid descriptions of your success in past roles, including your track record for completing projects on time or stabilizing operations. THIS is the kind of information that gets you noticed!

Sprinkle some personal qualities throughout the summary—and go beyond the tired phrases used by everyone else.

Know any good “self-motivated team players?” So do most employers.

Save your résumé space for valuable attributes such as “dynamic,” “results-focused,” or “driven.”

Throw in a notable achievement to spark some interest.

Pull out a major accomplishment or two, and summarize these up to show what kind of reputation you have at work.

“Recognized for 30% year-over-year sales increases at Fortune 500 corporations” hits a home run faster than “Skilled sales professional with closing experience” ever will.

The key take-away here is that hiring managers want to read something new, fresh, and thought-provoking on your résumé.

Skip the non-objective Objective Statement, and give them a strong message that speaks to your true strengths!

Laura Smith-Proulx, CPRW, CIC is the author of “Solve Your Toughest Resume Challenges to Win More Interviews! 25 Secrets to Achieving Fast-Track Career Success.” A nationally recognized résumé expert, she has achieved a 98% success rate landing interviews for job seekers.

Get Laura’s tips on creating a knockout resume and advancing in your career with a FREE 7-Part E-Course on “The 7 Biggest Resume Mistakes That Can Keep You from Your Dream Job… And How to Avoid Them” by visiting www.AnExpertResume.com .

It’s called career marketing.

Employers are in a situation like never before, where each posted job triggers a landslide of resumes. It is not uncommon for hiring managers to deal with hundreds of resumes emailed on a daily basis! With all that activity, what is a truly qualified professional to do?

My recommendation is to examine your strengths closely in order to clarify what you uniquely offer an employer. Make a list of your core talents and skills, and then consider comparing your performance to that of colleagues. This techniques will allow you to “market” your expertise on your resume, rather than just listing the facts about your career.

What differences stand out? What did you accomplish that others could not? If you were interviewing in competition with another candidate that possessed a similar background, what would you say in response to “Why should we hire YOU?”

Getting called for an interview is much easier when you raise both your own and the employer’s perception of the contributions you have made in previous roles.

Of course, keep in mind that “career marketing” is the new definition of a resume, and that the job search rules have changed forever.

A unique resume authority, Laura Smith-Proulx is the Executive Director of An Expert Resume, a Denver-based career services company that caters to organizational leaders, from managers poised for growth to senior-level executives.

A Certified Professional Resume Writer, Certified Interview Coach, and candidate for Certified Career Management Coach, Laura has contributed to the success of hundreds professionals through creative and skilled writing/editing, insightful career coaching, and positive motivation.

Her work has been nominated for four international resume industry awards, and published in the “Expert Resumes” and “Same-Day Resume” series. For more information on Laura’s services, visit www.AnExpertResume.com, or contact Laura toll-free at 877-258-3517.

If you are a professional seeking employment in our colorful state, you have no doubt polished up your resume to achieve maximum effect on Colorado employers, taking care to prepare a document that will surely pass the classic 10-15 second glance by a hiring manager and win an interview. Or have you?

Here in the land of boom and bust, oil and gas, and both the great and not-so-great times in telecommunications history, employers have weathered the rush of thousands of resumes from job seekers determined to make their next move. However, the number of candidates that make the first pass is considerably smaller than most might realize.

Consider adding these core components to your resume in order to make a stellar first  impression on employers in the Colorado jobs marketplace—and to get your phone ringing:

Skip the Fluff.

Or, as is said in the resume industry, “Show, don’t tell.” If you really are self-motivated, dedicated, and innovative, detail this information rather than resorting to these words often used by the masses to market themselves to Colorado employers.

Which makes a stronger impression? “Provided strong customer service and led national projects” or “Slashed marketing expenses 45% by delivering three national relationship management projects on time and under budget.”  

By the same token, resorting to a cute graphic will likely irritate rather than wow a hiring manager who is weary of searching for core skill sets.

Strategize.

Skip the objective statement in favor of a summary that shows precisely what you offer an employer. Why use “Seeking a challenging position utilizing my abilities and skills… ” when you can give impressive data on your real-world strengths?

Consider that “Visionary, decisive, and strategic operations leader credited with intense profitability by turning around inefficient organizations, driving groundbreaking service initiatives, and achieving quick results that elude others” hardly makes the same statement.

Make use of short, clear, sentence fragments—think marketing copy—throughout the resume to add spice to your message.  

Beware the Functional Resume.

Nothing makes an employer who has rode the ups and downs of the Colorado economy look the other way faster. This format, which delineates skill categories in lieu of giving detail on achievements at each job, is past its prime and implies that the job seeker has something to hide.

Grouping your relevant expertise by using keywords appropriate for your profession is a great idea; however, take care to include the classic reverse chronology of your job history for the reader to explore.

Summarize…and summarize some more.     

Clarity rules the day! In other words, five-page resumes are history. Don’t expect a prospective employer to read anything resembling a novel, especially when sprinkling the pronoun “I” throughout your document.

While there is no “magic” length, more than eight years of professional experience typically dictates a second page—but not necessarily a third—in the eyes of Colorado employers.

Colorado resume expert Laura Smith-Proulx, CPRW, CIC, Director of An Expert Resume, has achieved a 98% success rate in landing interviews for jobs seekers nationwide and throughout the state. A former Fortune 500 recruiter and journalist, she applies powerful writing strategies to produce award-winning resumes that consistently gain attention of hiring managers.

Her work has been internationally recognized with the “Toast of the Resume Industry” awards, and has been published in the “Expert Resumes” and “Same-Day Resume” books. A Certified Professional Resume Writer, Interview Coach, and Career Coach, she can be reached at 877-258-3517 (303-805-4315 in Colorado) or at info@anexpertresume.com.

Something in your office stinks. Chances are you either obeyed business etiquette law by abandoning the after-shave, or you pampered yourself with perfume and have broken a serious, though rarely regarded, etiquette code. Either way, that smell…just might be you.

The bottom line is that it is inappropriate to wear perfume, cologne, or after-shave to work. Whether it’s patchouli or Chanel N°5, the office is no place to resemble Pepe le Pew. Co-workers should notice you because of your hard work and talent, not your pungent smell.

MannersInternational.com notes that fragrances are often "offensive to business associates and therefore inappropriate in a professional venue." If you can’t bear to give up your signature scent, be sure to use it sparingly. No one in the office should be able to identify where you are going or where you’ve been via inhalation.

The potential health hazards posed by fragrances may leave your boss, or gasp, client, with an even worse first impression than your body odor. Fragrances have been the direct cause of afflictions such as asthma attacks, migraines, and in extreme cases, anaphylaxes, or extreme allergic reactions.

Read more at http://www.cobizmag.com/articles.asp?id=1620

First of all, relax. There exist countless professionals, managers, and even executives who do not possess a degree, yet these same job seekers successfully ascend the career ladder just the same. What’s their secret? Much the same as you, their bottom-line contributions and hard work had become a stand-in for that coveted diploma.

Keep in mind that, as you pursue that next opportunity, there are a myriad of ways to pique an employer’s interest and win interviews, starting with the approach presented on your resume:

Quantify Your Contributions Extracting accomplishment information of significance can be a challenge, but consider the payoff! Your resume must shout out this type of information in order to prove the consistency of your performance.

For example, when working with a telecommunications executive lacking a degree, I discussed his leadership role in a high-profile project. The end product, “Eliminated $34M in rework, slashed staff requirements for task completion, and achieved 78+% ROI by leading sales and service delivery teams to identify core revisions” speaks for itself and cuts through any doubt about his abilities.

Add professional training as proof of ongoing development. Many well-established professionals have attended hours of seminars, training sessions, and other educational opportunities in order to sharpen their core expertise.

Be sure to keep a complete list as fodder for an educational section on the resume—and as evidence of your passion for lifelong learning.

Showcase your ability to meet—and overcome—challenges in your previous roles. What shape was your current employer in upon your arrival? Were you the sole source of measures that increased efficiency? Did you manage a major, multimillion-dollar account or enhance the company’s reputation with its vendors?

Adding the context in which these achievements were completed can paint an entirely new picture of your strengths. Don’t forget that these types of leadership examples can add punch to your resume and demonstrate repeatable skills.

In summary, establishing a link between your expertise and consistent performance is the fastest way to gain attention during your job search. Consider that for every employer who wants candidates to possess a degree, there are possibly two others that will look at your “on-the-job education” as equivalent (and possibly stronger) credentials.

  A prominent resume expert specializing in helping advancing professionals win interviews despite the lack of a degree, Certified Professional Resume Writer and Interview Coach Laura Smith-Proulx, President of An Expert Resume, has produced award-winning resumes that consistently gain attention from hiring managers.

Her work has been nominated for the international “Toast of the Resume Industry” awards, and has appeared in the “Expert Resumes” and “Same-Day Resume” books. A former Fortune 500 recruiter, she has assisted professionals in successful career changes since 1989. She can be reached at 877-258-3517 or at info@anexpertresume.com.