If you want to get the interview, you have to stand out… in a good way.

You can’t just “apply for jobs.” You have to sell yourself, audition, take all the risk out for the hiring manager… make your hiring a fait accompli.

In a recent episode of ResumellowTV, we showed how to use social media to augment your applicant profile. Using tools like Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can dramatically increase your chances of getting an interview and, eventually, a job offer.

In brief, you can make a positive impression with the following ideas:

• LinkedIn – Make sure your profile is updated. Then, add the URL to your personal LinkedIn page to the header of your resume. (Make sure the URL doesn’t turn into an active hyperlink or the text will turn blue, which just looks bad.
• Blog – Become a subject-matter expert. Whether you want to be an assistant manager at a retail outlet or a high-priced executive, a few posts on the topic of your target employment may go a long way toward impressing an employer.
• Twitter – Follow thought leaders and tweet about their thoughts. All of this information becomes searchable
• YouTube – Have you thought about creating a personal profile that explains the value you will bring to a business?

Now, keep in mind that your resume has to be perfect or none of this rich media will help. But, once an employer has developed a healthy curiosity about you, these tools can go a long way to putting you over the top.

And, your content has to be good. If it is cheesy, you are hurting yourself more than helping.

The main benefit of this work is to fill your “Personal Internet Information Vacuum.” When and employer does a Google search for you, wouldn’t it be great if the first items that pop up include your brilliant thoughts?

This is one more area where we do a great job of helping our clients. But, you can do all this on your own, too.

Over the last 12 months, I’ve hired over 300 people in an economy that has more job seekers than I’ve ever seen. But, over 95% of the applicants I hear from won’t even be considered for an open position because they fail to follow these simple rules:

1. Remember that they WANT you to be the perfect candidate

I actually dread posting ads for new positions because I know I’ll have to sort through all the applications. When I post an opening for a national position, I usually receive well over 1,000 applications. Local positions are usually over 100.

Each time I review an application or a resume, there’s a little glimmer of hope that begins to swell inside me that believes THIS applicant just might be the one, because if they are, the search is complete.

Believe me, hiring managers are on your side. They want you to be the right fit for their company, and you stand a great chance as long as you mind your manners and don’t screw up.

2. Follow instructions

I’ve learned to take some short cuts in the hiring process that help me eliminate unqualified people in one second or less. You see, if I spent just a minute with each application when I’ve received over 1,000, it’d take me over 2 days just to figure out who to consider.

I don’t have that much time.

I’ve developed a system that allows me to literally spend 1 second with each application and cut out over 70% of applicants.

Here’s how . . .

I place a simple instruction in the job listing and then see if applicants follow it.

The instruction is usually very simple . . . here are some examples:

• Please include salary history
• Please include cover letter
• Please include at least three references
• Please include your resume in .txt, .doc, or .pdf format

If the applicant follows the instruction, I’ll consider their resume. If they don’t, I delete them. Harsh, I know, but think about it . . . do I want to hire someone that doesn’t read and follow instructions? No. Do I want to hire people that do the job right? Yes.

If someone can’t or won’t follow instructions, they don’t belong at my company. Even with executives . . . I still want to see if they can follow simple instructions.

When an applicant follows instructions they’ve earned their way from a “glance” to a “skim.”

3. Make sure your resume indicates that you meet the requirements listed for the job

When someone has earned their way to a “skim” of their resume, they’ve gotten 15 more seconds of my time.

I now skim the contents of their resume to see if they match the requirements I placed in the job listing.

For example, I recently needed to hire several outbound call center agents for a telemarketing campaign.

The job listing, in addition to asking for an attached resume and salary history, included the following minimum requirements:

• Previous call center experience (6 months minimum)
• Previous sales experience

Once I finished trimming out the people that didn’t follow instructions, I skimmed the resumes – checking to see who met my minimum requirements.

Anyone who didn’t indicate they had at least 6 months of call center experience and that they’d previously sold something (no matter how insignificant) was immediately eliminated from consideration.

This simple step usually allows me to eliminate 50% or more of the people that passed the “follow instructions” test.

Now, of 1,000 applicants, I’ve gotten rid of 700 – 750 that couldn’t follow instructions and other 100 – 150 that didn’t demonstrate that they met the minimum requirements.

I’m now down to around 10 – 15% of the original applicants and I’ve used up about an hour and a half of time. I need a break.

4. Submit a well-formatted resume and a clear, intelligent, respectful cover letter

My favorite thing to eat during a break is a fudgesicle. Granted, I can’t have one every time I take a break, but they make me happy. In my family, we call them “happy bars.”

So, I come back from break . . . if I’ve had a happy bar, I’m in a good mood – which bodes well for the applicants I’ll be reviewing. If I haven’t, I come back and see that I’ve still got over 100 applications to consider.

That’s still way too many if I’m only going to hire one person. I’ve got to eliminate some more applicants.

Now I start looking more carefully at the information provided by the applicants – I check to see if the cover letter highlights the applicant’s strengths and addresses my company’s needs. Is it intelligently written? Does it seem generic, like it was sent to 100 other employers?

I look more carefully at the resume – is it well formatted? Has attention been paid to details? Does the language make the person seem successful? Are accomplishments highlighted?

My focus at this point isn’t on getting rid of people. Rather, I separate candidates into two groups – those that impress me in some way through their resume and cover letter, and those that don’t.

Usually, by this point, I’ve narrowed my search to around the top 1 – 5%. I never have more than 20 people in this group.

5. Respond quickly to contact from employers

The next thing I do in my hiring process is reach out through email to the applicants that impressed me.

I ask them a few additional questions that are specific to the position. I do this for a couple of reasons:

• I want to engage in written communication with them so I can see how well they communicate. I usually hire communicators, so this is important to me.
• I often need to ask additional questions to gather information that will help me consider them for the position.
• I want to find out which applicants take communication with me and my company seriously.

Now, remember, I’ve already chopped out around 85% of applicants that didn’t follow instructions or meet my requirements. I’ve also set aside another group that didn’t impress me with their cover letter and resume.

At this point, I’m emailing 1 – 5% of the original applicants. So, if an applicant actually hears back from me, it means I think they’re a strong candidate for the position. If I email an applicant, I am seriously considering hiring them.

When I hire, I do so quickly. The timeline usually looks something like this:

• Monday morning: Run ads and collect applications.
• Thursday morning: Trim out people that didn’t follow directions, review resumes, and send out emails with additional questions.
• Thursday afternoon and Friday: Review email responses as they come in. Each response that communicates effectively and provides acceptable answers to my questions is invited for a phone interview that will be held as soon as the same day and as late as the following Tuesday. Assuming that the phone interview goes well, I invite the person in for a face-to-face visit.

You would be amazed by the number of people who wait several days or even weeks before responding to my email.

People who wait more than a few days to send a reply end up completely missing the opportunity – even though I was seriously considering them for the position.

By the time I’ve gotten through the phone interviews a week after placing the ad, I’ve narrowed the candidates down to a handful of finalists.

6. Be on time for your interview

No exceptions. No excuses. Your punctuality tells me more than anything you could possibly say in the interview.

7. Send a thank-you note

It may sound old-fashioned, but sending a thank-you email after a job interview is an effective way to stand out from the crowd of people being considered for the job.

I’m not saying this is required to get a job. I hire plenty of people who don’t send me a thank-you note; however, it will earn you good will with any employer.

Remember that human resources professionals and hiring managers are people. Candidates that reach out and thank these stressed-out, overworked people, set themselves apart from the crowd.

When I receive a thank-you note from a candidate I’ve interviewed, it automatically raises my opinion of them by a notch or two. If their interview was only a B-plus or an A-minus, the note raises them to an A in my mind. The gesture tells me they’re pleasant and thoughtful – I like hiring pleasant, thoughtful people.

If the interview went terribly, a thank-you note probably won’t make a difference, but since you don’t really know how the interview was perceived by the employer, a simple note will never hurt.

And, let me emphasize that last part. A simple thank you note will never hurt. A long, drawn-out letter that makes the interviewer feel like you’re trying to butter them up so they give you a job might make you take a step backward; but, a simple note works wonders.

Something like this is sufficient:

Name of the interviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to visit with me today and for considering me for this position.

Our conversation strengthened my interest in working for your company.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional information to help in your hiring process.

Respectfully,

J. Candidate

If possible, you should send the thank-you note within an hour of finishing the interview. You don’t want it to arrive too soon, though. A note that arrives 2 minutes after the interview ends makes you seem over-eager. In my experience, a thank-you note that arrives 30 – 45 minutes later is most effective. You want the timing to say you’ve been thinking about the conversation and that you really are grateful for the interview.

Final words

It’s incredibly easy to stand out in today’s job-hungry economy. These simple rules will allow you to rise to the top of the resume pile. Follow them and you will almost certainly have more interviews. More interviews equals more opportunities and that’s you’re looking for.

Put your best foot forward, and don’t forget . . . they WANT you to be the perfect candidate.

Oddly enough, We’ve begun to see a number of resumes come in for critiques that don’t include a postal address.

A postal address may seem like a trivial piece of information in today’s global economy, but it’s not. Here’s why:

Physical location often plays a part in an employer’s hiring decision. For example, if a company is located in one state, but you live in another, the company may have to go through the tedious process of registering as an employer in your state so they can pay appropriate payroll taxes and unemployment or other insurances. Plus, their ability to provide you with benefits will also likely be affected.

So, if I, as an employer, am trying to hire someone, I will rarely consider someone from outside of my home state (unless they’ve indicated they’re willing to relocate). I just don’t want the headache of trying to manage an employee relationship where an exception is required.

Regardless, however, of whether or not an employer will hire someone from out of state, leaving a postal address off of a resume makes hiring mangers feel like you’re hiding something, and they just don’t want to have to figure out what it is – not when they’ve got 100 other resumes to go through for the same position.

If you live far away from an employer, don’t hide it. Instead, address the distance in another way . . . add “planning to relocate” at the bottom of your resume or in your cover letter.

Sample Resume

Need a sample resume to use while you’re building your own resume from scratch?

Look no further. The following sample resume can be adapted to almost any situation . . . make sure to customize it to fit your career – obviously you won’t want to claim the experiences listed here since they weren’t your own.

Feel free to customize the “areas of expertise” section to be “qualifications” or “career highlights” or whatever seems most appropriate for your situation. Regardless of what you do with the section – it’s purpose is to draw the reader in so they read the rest of your resume.

The professional experience section in the sample resume lists only one position, but you can include more as you need. Simply copy and paste the existing listing multiple times to accommodate the experience you want to list.

The “early career” section is optional. If your career is just getting started, feel free to omit this part. If you’ve got more than 10 years experience, consider listing the last 10 years in the professional experience section, and putting the rest in “early career.”

Customize the education section as appropriate for your situation or eliminate it entirely if that makes sense.

Ultimately, this document is just a jumping off point for you. Make it fit your own circumstances.

^{Randall Archer, in Hawaii. Used with permission.}

I have a close friend named Randall Archer who always wanted to be a stuntman when we were young.

After high school, he moved to Los Angeles and started trying to break into the industry, but quickly learned that his dream was nearly impossible.

Instead of giving up, though, he approached his search creatively.

Do you treat your job search as a full-time job?

Every day, Randall learned where outdoor shoots were happening for TV shows that were heavy on stunts (Buffy, Power Rangers, etc.) and he’d show up on the set. Often, these sets were many miles away at remote locations.

Are you brave enough to network with people you’ve never met?

Upon arriving, Randall tracked down the stunt coordinator and offered them his head shot and resume. Usually, this meeting only lasted a few seconds. Often, he was turned away without being able to introduce himself.

Are you relentless enough to jump in and participate even when you’re not getting paid?

Whenever possible, Randall volunteered to work for the coordinator that day without compensation – hauling stunt pads and other gear, doing odd jobs, and asking questions about stunt work when he felt it was appropriate.

His efforts paid off and he became acquainted with many of the stunt coordinators who were active in the business.

Are you willing to take on tiny jobs and projects as a way to prove yourself?

After a fair amount of time and lots of volunteer work, he was finally offered opportunities from the folks he’d been helping . . . usually small stunts. He continually proved himself eligible for future work.

If you’re not doing these things, are you prepared to begin today?

Randall’s career continued to grow and he can now be seen in feature films and TV shows doing the work he always dreamed of.

He did not become a stuntman success overnight. It took years of hard work to really demonstrate to his prospective employers how much he wanted to be a part of what they were doing.

If you can’t answer the above questions in the positive, you need to ask yourself whether you’re doing everything you can to stay busy and find work.

You have to ask yourself how bad you really want it.

Rules for executive resume writing are different than those followed by candidates targeting an entry- or mid-level position.

Unfortunately, most high-level executives produce resumes that are no better than the rest.

These tips will show you how to make your executive resume stand out from the crowd.

Prove Your Worth

With any resume, it is important to highlight your accomplishments, but it is even more important for an executive resume to demonstrate results. By the time you have climbed the ranks of the corporate ladder, you are expected to have won a lot of battles — you should literally have dozens of success stories.

So, when you list job descriptions, don’t just plop down a bunch of bullet points detailing your job responsibilities. Provide detailed examples of the situations you were in, the solutions you developed, and the success that resulted from the solutions you put in place.

Remember that you are asking hiring managers to give you a larger salary than 95% of the rest of the company — and almost certainly more than the HR people that are reviewing your resume — so you must show them you are worth it.

Demonstrate Leadership

An executive resume should ooze leadership. Brag about the teams you built and the successes those teams achieved.

Speak graciously about your subordinates — a gracious executive is a welcomed asset to any organization.

Flaunt Your Network

If you have built a strong professional network, you should mention it. In fact, if your LinkedIn profile is strong, consider including a link to it on your resume.

If not, build out your LinkedIn profile and then include it near your email address and phone number at the top.

Use More than One Page

Executive resumes should almost never be limited to a single page. Two or three pages are usually best.

Lie About Your Age

Age discrimination is a real thing in the United States. More often than not, it is unintentional, but it occurs regularly.

The prevailing attitude among hiring managers and recruiters is that executives should not be fresh out of college and they should not be too old either (it sounds so bad when you say it out loud, but it is true).

Your executive resume should focus on your experience without an unnecessary emphasis on items that reveal your age.

Consider grouping the early portions of your career chronology into an “early career” section where you summarize what happened long ago without listing dates. Also, eliminate dates from other sections that might reveal your age.

Bury Education

News Flash: By this point in your career, you need to have much more impressive things on your resume than where you went to school.

Yes, you spent a lot of money earning those credentials, but they go at the bottom of your resume now.

Simply list the college you attended, the degree you earned, and your area of study.

There is no need to list your graduation date — it will show them how old you are (or how young as the case may be).

Get Professional Help

More than ever, you need to have a professional look at your resume. Errors that would have been forgiven earlier in your career will make you look sloppy and amateurish now.

A professional editor will be able to tell you what mistakes have made on your executive resume and how to fix them.

If you’d like, one of our editors will be happy to give you a fantastic, powerful resume critique based on our proprietary 51-point grading system.

It may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many resumes we see that violate this simple rule.

In fact, over 50% of job applicants miss at least one of these simple items.

Here’s a list of things to remember when it comes to including your name on your resume:

Correct Name Usage

• Include both your first and last names. Remember, many employers will search for your name online.
• Middle names and initials are unnecessary. Avoid them unless people normally use them when they address you.
• Generational titles like Jr., Sr., and III are appropriate.
• Avoid unrelated academic and professional suffixes.
• Don’t use heavy stylization or graphical elements with your name unless you are a graphic designer.
• Place your name in a prominent place at the top of your resume

Here’s a link to the resume header templates that are shown in the video: RESUME TEMPLATE – CORRECT NAME USAGE

What are your thoughts on name usage on your resume? Agree with me? Think I’m wrong? Comment below.