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Top 13 Executive Resume Errors

May 22, 2020 by Martin Buckland Leave a Comment

Your resume/CV, combined with a LinkedIn profile, is your best introduction to someone who could be a key influencer in your career transition and advancement.

Don’t make a mistake and decrease your chances of landing your next great job.

Here are the top 13 Executive Resume errors to avoid in order to attract the maximum intrigue and impact.

  1. Stating Your Age

A hiring authority has no right to know your age due to various country-based statutes and anti-discrimination legislation, so don’t place your age on your resume.

  1. Unprofessional Email

There is no excuse to have an email address that doesn’t epitomize your professionalism. Some emails have been highly embarrassing and instantly make me question that person’s ability to remain professional in their business dealings. It’s so easy today to set up a professional email address using the free services providers (primarily Gmail) within a few minutes.

If you have to have numbers in your email due to running out of options with your name, don’t use your year of birth. Steer clear.

  1. Personal Pronouns

It’s too common to see the words “I”, “my”, “her” or “she” in a resume. Leave them out, there is no place for them in a resume/CV.

  1. Graphics, Charts, Headers/Footers and Photographs

A resume is rarely read by human eyes today. It is scanned into an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) where it is processed. Any graphic, chart or photograph within the body of the resume distorts the application’s programming and interferes with the elements required to search for your talent. Therefore, your resume will be bypassed even though you may be the perfect candidate.

Any text within a header or footer is never transcribed by the ATS. If your name, address and contacts are in a header, these vital details will be eliminated.

  1. Poor Grammar and Spelling

There are no excuses today for typos with the advent of spell check. Even so, you should always have your resume reviewed by peers, friends or family. One mistake can raise a red flag and create doubt about your attention to detail, time management and your interest in the position.

  1. Font Selection

MS Word offers you a choice of so many fonts. Your choice of font is another resume component that should be regarded seriously. Times New Roman and other sans serif fonts are dated and should generally be avoided. However, you should also steer clear of the squiggly, fancy and calligraphy style fronts. Theses are difficult for the human eye to read, but even more difficult for the ATS scanning.

You have just a few seconds to impress. Select an easy to read, standard font such as Arial, Calibri, Garamond, Helvetica or Georgia.

  1. Incorrect Tenses

Show your current employer in the present tense and the rest in the past tense. If you have not worked for a while, use the past tenses. Don’t mix up tenses as this causes confusion, and again shows your limited attention to detail.

  1. References

Leave your reference list for later. You will be asked for references as you advance in the recruitment process. Also avoid writing “References Available on Request” in the resume. It’s a waste of space and dates you by over a decade!

  1. Hobbies, Interests and Family

A resume is a business document. A career decision maker is not interested in your personal life and what you do outside of work hours, although, work-life balance is encouraged. Eliminate your marital status, number of children, and other personal details.

There are some exceptions. One client had climbed Mt Everest, Mt Kilimanjaro and other high peaks. Another had placed in the Top 100 of the London, New York, Chicago, Miami and other marathons. These accomplishments show the reader many positive traits about the candidate.

  1. Salary/Compensation

Don’t pigeonhole yourself from the start and damage your negotiating position. You don’t need to address the sensitive topic of your current or future salary intentions from point zero. Compensation discussions should commence closer to the final recruitment stages when you do have to be open and clear.

  1. Reasons for Leaving Past Employers.

Too many people highlight the reasons for leaving their previous employers. You do not need to include reasons, especially if you have been fired. At an interview, you may be asked about the reason for leaving a past employer, but eliminate this unneeded detail out of your resume.

  1. Failing to List Your Performances, Accomplishments

We are in a performance-driven society where your record of delivering accomplishments is a differentiator and paramount to you being hired. A career decision maker isn’t interested in your responsibilities, apart from the number of direct and indirect staff managed, CapEx and OpEx budgets, and P&L.

Failure to have numerous accomplishments in the resume will count you out!

  1. Ineffective and Weak Personal Brand

What is your personal brand? Have you defined your personal brand? So many have no clue what their unique promise of value is, their differentiator. If I was in a hiring position, why should I choose you over the competition?

Craft and articulate your personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, e-mail signature and other social media accounts.

One error in either the format or content will decrease your opportunity to be called for an interview. Why mess it up because you are unaware how to write a resume? This is a skill.

For a free, no-obligation, no sales pitch resume critique, send your resume via LinkedIn or via email to martin@aneliteresume.com

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Are People Excited to Be on Your Team?

August 21, 2018 by Martin Buckland Leave a Comment

Tips to Be a Highly Effective Legacy Leader

While it is evident that being a leader is much more than your title, how leaders actually manage their teams has a significant impact on the success of the unit as a whole. Being a leader means knowing and encouraging each individual to accomplish his/her own personal goals, and valuing each member for the role they play. Are people excited to be on your team?

Connect and Listen to Your Team

The strength of your team is often dependent on the relationship among the individuals and the sense of value each team member feels. Therefore, the engagement you foster between yourself and the members of your team can have a significant impact on how your team functions. It is imperative that you take the time to authentically connect and listen to the individuals on your team. Get to know each individual personally. Inquire about the way they like to communicate, their style, and even their hobbies. Create a collaborative environment where they feel comfortable to share their ideas knowing that those ideas will be considered and valued.

Are People Excited to Be on Your Team?Know Your Team

As the leader, it is your job to understand the skills of each individual and utilize those strengths to make the team most effective. When the strengths and weaknesses of the team are recognized by the leader, each member has a specific role, and the team works as a collective unit to achieve its goals.

Make Progress Your Goal

The best leaders have the interests of their teams at heart. They make it a priority to help individuals achieve their goals and develop their personal brands. They allow team members to take on new tasks that will provide the experience needed to move to the next level. When individuals know their leaders want them to succeed, they feel valued and perform at high levels. Additionally, the leader can provide opportunities for members of the team to take risks and improve on their weaknesses.

Clarify Your Expectations

All members of your team need to be able to communicate your primary goals. It is imperative to the success of your team and your effectiveness that you clearly and consistently address your goals and the progress you are making towards them. Additionally, each member needs to know his/her role in achieving those goals.

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Can Introverts Lead?

April 12, 2018 by Martin Buckland Leave a Comment

The short answer, is yes! While extroverts can offer charismatic leadership that makes the most of their enjoyment in public speaking, motivating their teams, and keeping an upbeat, inclusive corporate culture; introverts often lead with deep connections, a focus on legacy leadership, and a focus on solutions.

Can Introverts Lead?Deep connections are crucial in leadership. Introverts excel at mentoring individuals and small groups. Good listeners and thoughtful planners, they tend to encourage development and creative problem-solving, things that can help those around them achieve excellence.

Legacy leadership is about not only mentoring and supporting the teams you lead, but teaching other executives to lead by mentoring and encouraging growth as they rise in their own careers, leaving a lasting legacy of good leadership long after you have moved up and on. This focus on the long game as well as short-term goals is often seen in introverted leaders. They want to be the leaders and mentors they’d seek for themselves.

Solutions are where the efficiency, longevity, and productivity are. Introverted leaders spend less time presenting and discussing the problems and dive quickly into designing and implementing solutions.

Knowing yourself is one step to becoming a great business leader. When you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can play to the strengths and work on shoring up your weak spots. Introversion isn’t a reason to give up on leadership. Make the most of the strengths introversion offers, and learn to get comfortable with skills such as networking, public speaking, and promoting yourself as a great candidate. Introverts can lead!

 

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Why Do Companies Hire Executive Recruiters?

May 8, 2017 by Martin Buckland Leave a Comment

What does it mean when a job is advertised by an Executive Recruiter? Companies hire executive search firms when the stakes are high, either because they need a perfect skills match, they need discretion, or the cost of hiring a poor fit is higher than the $75k + of hiring a top-notch recruiting firm.

Why Do Companies Hire Executive Recruiters? What does this mean to you, as a candidate? It gives you an understanding of the stakes involved, it can help you take the position as seriously as the organization considering you, and gives you patience with the gatekeeper for the desired positon.

Perfect skills match: Many candidates become frustrated with the job search process, especially with recruiters who seem too picky about a perfect match. When you have the insight to suspect that the search team was hired to find an exact skills match, you can use that to your advantage. If you’re not a good fit, ask the recruiter to keep you in mind for other positions and offer them contacts for other possible candidates. Not only does that cement your information in the recruiter’s mind, it’s good for your network!

Discretion: When you are contacted by an Executive Recruiter about a pivotal position, or if you’re asked to keep the knowledge need-to-know, respect the need for discretion. Keep the news quiet until you’re hired. That courtesy will pay off with both your new employer and a hiring influencer who can help you advance your career again when you’re ready to move on.

Fit first: When hiring pivotal positions where fit can have consequences on the bottom line, organizations look to the fit experts, executive search firms and the best Executive Recruiters. If you’re being considered for a C-suite position, use the opportunity to discuss with your Executive Recruiter exactly what a perfect fit would look like for this job. Unless you’re overqualified, it’s a matter for concern for you, too. Ensuring that you are awarded a position that fits your experience, skills, and personality should be just as important to you as it is to your potential employer. Success in your career is based on choosing jobs that you can do well, fit is vital to your career as well as to hiring influencers.

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Have You Updated Your LinkedIn Profile Lately?

December 22, 2015 by Martin Buckland Leave a Comment

Refresh, Revise, Restart and Rethink words on white speedometer measuring the relaunch of your product, service, company or businessAs with any web or productivity application, LinkedIn is always upgrading their service offering. Do you keep pace with these improvements? Do you know how to maximize your LinkedIn profile? Do you use all the bells and whistles available today? I suspect not. Few do.

The world doesn’t stay still anymore. We are not in a stagnant environment. You need to constantly enrich and engage. The end of the year is an ideal time to refresh your LinkedIn profile.

To start, think back on what you’ve accomplished during the last 12 months. Have you driven success? Have you gained recognition within your own industry? Have you captured any new awards? Have you appeared on TV, radio, podcasts, or YouTube? If so, now is the time to broadcast these happenings on your unique LinkedIn profile.

Blogging, vlogging and podcasting are in, and excellent platforms for you to use in delivering content and messages. You can now embed rich media into your LinkedIn profile and blog posts, including SoundCloud podcast files, YouTube videos, and SlideShare presentations.

Think deep. We all have something to say and portray. Be original. Be unique. Be enticing. If you manage your career correctly, 2015 was a year when you added to your skill set with continuing education and new experiences. Have you told the 400 million people on LinkedIn about your skills and talents?

Add some flair and engagement to your profile by rearranging the order of the sections, and better still, update your profile photo (just be sure to do the same on each of your web platforms).

LinkedIn is a two-way street, where you can advance your personal brand and portray your collaboration, team spirit, and leadership skills by writing recommendations for colleagues, vendors or customers. There is no better way to acknowledge others than by writing a LinkedIn recommendation. This gesture speaks volumes about your ability to see beyond your own career vision.

One of the simplest and most effective LinkedIn profile upgrades is customizing your LinkedIn URL. I’m astounded at the number of people who still haven’t taken this step, which instantly provides a 300% uplift in search engine optimization.

As the year ends, updating your resume and LinkedIn profile should be an automatic action. Refreshing your LinkedIn profile is not an onerous task, but it is a necessary one if you want to stay above the competition. Are you ready for the 2016 career race?

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Look After Number One, You!

Tips and Tricks to Recession-Proof your Career!

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In preparation of a merge between two multibillion-dollar companies, Martin was brought in to lead a workshop with some of our leadership team in order to prepare our resumes and social profiles for the merger process. Martin brought a wealth of experience and provided valuable insight that was supported by current facts and figures from multiple job markets.

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"All Jobs are Now Temporary"

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