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with another who can help. The more you network, the more valuable you become in your network—and the more valuable your network becomes to you.

Finally, be aware that your online network reflects on who you are in the eyes of potential employers, so exercise some judgment in making connections. Also, many employers now contact people in a candidate’s public network for background information, even if the candidate doesn’t list those people as references.10

Seeking Career Counseling

Your college’s career center probably offers a wide variety of services, including individual counseling, job fairs, on-campus interviews, and job listings. Counselors can advise on career planning and provide workshops on job search techniques, résumé preparation, job readiness training, interview techniques, self-marketing, and more.11 You can also find career planning advice online. Many of the websites listed in Table 13.1 offer articles and online tests to help you choose a career path, identify essential skills, and prepare to enter the job market.

Don’t overlook the many resources available through your college’s career center.

Don’t let a silly mistake knock you out of contention for a great job.

Avoiding Mistakes

While you’re making all these positive moves to show employers you will be a quality hire, take care to avoid the simple blunders that can torpedo a job search, such as not catching mistakes in your résumé, misspelling the name of a manager you’re writing to, showing up late for an interview, tweeting something unprofessional, failing to complete application forms correctly, asking for information that you can easily find yourself on a company’s website, or making any other error that could flag you as someone who is careless or disrespectful. Assume that every employer will conduct an online search on you. Busy recruiters will seize on these errors as a way to narrow the list of candidates they need to spend time on, so don’t give them a reason to toss out your résumé.

REAL-TIME UPDATES

Learn More by Visiting This Website

Follow these people to a new career

Alison Doyle maintains a great list of career experts to follow on Twitter. Go to http://real-timeupdates.com/ bce6 and click on Learn More. If you are using MyBCommLab, you can access Real-Time Updates within each chapter or under Student Study Tools.

Planning Your Résumé

Although you will create many messages during your career search, your résumé will be the most important document in this process. You will be able to use it directly in many instances, adapt it to a variety of uses such an e-portfolio or a social media résumé, and reuse pieces of it in social networking profiles and online application forms. Even if you apply to a company that doesn’t want to see résumés from applicants, the process of developing your résumé will prepare you for interviewing and pre-employment testing.

Developing a résumé is one of those projects that really benefits from multiple planning, writing, and completing sessions spread out over several days or weeks. You are trying to summarize a complex subject (yourself!) and present a compelling story to strangers in a brief document. Follow the three-step writing process (see Figure 13.2 on the next page) and give yourself plenty of time.

Before you dive into your résumé, be aware that you will find a wide range of opinions about résumés, regarding everything from appropriate length, content, design, distribution methods, and acceptable degrees of creativity to whether it even makes sense to write a traditional résumé in this age of online applications. For example, you may encounter a company such as Union Square Ventures, which recently asked applicants to send all the links that make up their online presence, rather than submit a résumé.12 You may run across examples of effective résumés that were produced as infographics, interactive videos, simulated search engine results, puzzles, games, graphic novels—you name it, somebody has probably tried it.

When you hear conflicting advice or see trendy concepts that you might be tempted to try, remember the most important question in business communication: What is the most effective way to adapt your message to the individual needs of each member of your audience? An approach that is wildly successful with one company or in one industry could be a complete disaster in another industry. A design that says “clever and creative” to one recruiter can shout “amateurish gimmick!” to another. Your infographic résumé might

2 LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the process of planning your résumé, including how to choose the best résumé organization.

Don’t put your résumé off to the last minute or try to plan, write, and complete it in a single session.

You will see lots of ideas and even some conflicting advice about résumés; use what you know about effective business communication to decide what is right for your résumés.

REAL-TIME UPDATES

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See the cutting edge of creative résumé design

These creatively unleashed résumés are definitely not a good fit for every industry or employer, but for the right audiences, they proved quite effective. Go to http://realtimeupdates.com/bce6 and click on Learn More. If you are using MyBCommLab, you can access Real-Time Updates within each chapter or under Student Study Tools.

360 Unit 5: Employment Messages and Job Interviews
1 Plan		2 Write		3 Complete

Analyze the Situation

Recognize that the purpose of your résumé is to get an interview, not to get a job.

Gather Information

Research target industries and companies so that you know what they’re looking for in new hires; learn about various jobs and what to expect; learn about the hiring manager, if possible.

Select the Right Medium

Start with a traditional paper résumé and develop scannable, electronic plain-text, PDF, and online versions, as needed. Consider using PowerPoint and video for your e-portfolio.

Organize the Information

Choose an organizational model that highlights your strengths and downplays your shortcomings; use the chronological approach unless you have a strong reason not to.

Adapt to Your Audience

Plan your wording carefully so that you can catch a recruiter’s eye within seconds; translate your education and experience into attributes that target employers find valuable.

Compose the Message

Write clearly and succinctly, using active, powerful language that is appropriate to the industries and companies you’re targeting; use a professional tone in all communications.

Revise the Message

Evaluate content and review readability and then edit and rewrite for conciseness and clarity.

Produce the Message

Use effective design elements and suitable layout for a clean, professional appearance; seamlessly combine text and graphical elements. When printing, use quality paper and a good printer.

Proofread the Message

Review for errors in layout, spelling, and mechanics; mistakes can cost you interview opportunities.

Distribute the Message

Deliver your résumé, carefully following the specific instructions of each employer or job board website.

Figure 13.2 Three-Step Writing Process for Résumés

Following the three-step writing process will help you create a successful résumé in a short time. Remember to pay particular attention to the “you” attitude and presentation quality; your résumé will probably get tossed aside if it doesn’t speak to audience needs or if it contains mistakes.

look awesome but get rejected by an automated résumé scanner that can’t make sense of it. To forge your own successful path through this maze of information, get inside the heads of the people you are trying to reach—try to think the way they think—and then apply the principles of effective communication you are learning in this course.

Once you view your résumé as a persuasive business message, it’s easier to decide what should and shouldn’t be in it.

Thanks to Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media, you can often learn valuable details about individual managers in your target employers.

Analyzing Your Purpose and Audience

Planning an effective résumé starts with understanding its true function—as a brief, persuasive business message intended to stimulate an employer’s interest in meeting you and learning more about you (see Table 13.2). In other words, the purpose of a résumé is not to get you a job but rather to get you an interview.13

As you conduct your research on various professions, industries, companies, and individual managers, you will have a better perspective on your target readers and their information needs. Learn as much as you can about the individuals who may be reading your résumé. Many professionals and managers are bloggers, Twitter users, and LinkedIn members, for example, so you can learn more about them online even if you’ve never met them. Any bit of information can help you craft a more effective message.

By the way, if employers ask to see your “CV,” they’re referring to your curriculum vitae, the term used instead of résumé in academic professions and in many countries outside the United States. Résumés and CVs are essentially the same, although CVs can be much more detailed and include personal information that is not included in a résumé.

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TABLE 13.2 Fallacies and Facts About Résumés

Fallacy	Fact
The purpose of a résumé is to list all your skills and	The purpose of a résumé is to kindle employer interest and generate an interview.
abilities.
A good résumé will get you the job you want.	All a résumé can do is get you in the door.
Your résumé will always be read carefully and	In most cases, your résumé needs to make a positive impression within 30 or 45 sec-
thoroughly.	onds; only then will someone read it in detail. Moreover, it will likely be screened by a
	computer looking for keywords first—and if it doesn’t contain the right keywords, a hu-
	man being may never see it.
The more good information you present about your-	Recruiters don’t need that much information about you at the initial screening stage,
self in your résumé, the better, so stuff your résumé	and they probably won’t read it.
with every positive detail.
If you want a really good résumé, you need to have	You can certainly seek out formal or informal help, but if you have succeeded in this
it prepared by a résumé service.	course, you have the skills needed to prepare an effective résumé.

Gathering Pertinent Information

If you haven’t been building an employment portfolio thus far, you may need to do some research on yourself at this point. Gather all the pertinent personal history you can think of, including all the specific dates, duties, and accomplishments from any previous jobs you’ve held. Compile all your educational accomplishments, including formal degrees, training certificates, professional and technical certifications, academic awards, and scholarships. Also, gather information about school or volunteer activities that might be relevant to your job search, including offices you have held in any club or professional organization, presentations given, and online or print publications. You probably won’t use every piece of information you come up with, but you’ll want to have it at your fingertips before you begin composing your résumé.

REAL-TIME UPDATES

Learn More by Visiting This Website

Converting your résumé to a CV

If you need to convert your U.S-style résumé to the curriculum vitae format used in many other countries (and in many academic positions in the United States), this website will tell you everything you need to know. Go to http://realtimeupdates.com/bce6 and click on Learn More. If you are using MyBCommLab, you can access Real-Time Updates within each chapter or under Student Study Tools.

Selecting the Best Medium

You should expect to produce your résumé in several media and formats. “Producing Your Résumé” on page 371 discusses your options.

Organizing Your Résumé Around Your Strengths

Although there are a number of ways to organize a résumé, most are some variation of chronological, functional, or a combination of the two. The right choice depends on your background and your goals.

The Chronological Résumé

In a chronological résumé, the work experience section dominates and is placed immediately after your contact information and introductory statement (see Figure 13.5 on page 370 for an example). The chronological approach is the most common way to organize a résumé, and many employers prefer this format because it presents your professional history in a clear, easy-to-follow arrangement.14 If you’re just graduating from college and have limited professional experience, you can vary this chronological approach by putting your educational qualifications before your experience.

Develop your work experience section by listing your jobs in reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent one and giving more space to the most recent positions

The chronological résumé is the most common approach, but it might not be right for you at this stage in your career.

362 Unit 5: Employment Messages and Job Interviews

The functional résumé is often considered by people with limited or spotty employment history, but many employers are suspicious of this format.

If you don’t have a lot of work history to show, consider a combination résumé to highlight your skills while still providing a chronological history of your employment.

you’ve held. For each job, start by listing the employer’s name and location, your official job title, and the dates you held the position (write “to present” if you are still in your most recent job). Next, in a short block of text, highlight your accomplishments in a way that is relevant and understandable to your readers. If the general responsibilities of the position are not obvious from the job title, provide a little background to help readers understand what you did.

The Functional Résumé

A functional résumé, sometimes called a skills résumé, emphasizes your skills and capabilities, identifying employers and academic experience in subordinate sections. This arrangement stresses individual areas of competence rather than job history. The functional approach has three benefits: (1) Without having to read through job descriptions, employers can get an idea of what you can do for them; (2) you can emphasize earlier job experience through the skills you gained in those positions; and (3) you can deemphasize any lengthy unemployment or lack of career progress. However, you should be aware that because the functional résumé can obscure your work history, many employment professionals are suspicious of it.15 Moreover, it lacks the evidence of job experience that supports your skills claims. If you don’t believe the chronological format will work for you, consider the combination résumé instead.

The Combination Résumé

A combination résumé meshes the skills focus of the functional format with the job history focus of the chronological format. Figures 13.3 (page 368) and 13.4 (page 369) show examples of combination résumés. The chief advantage of this format is that it allows you to highlight your capabilities and education when you don’t have a long or steady employment history, without raising concerns that you might be hiding something about your past.

As you look at a number of sample résumés, you’ll probably notice many variations on the three basic formats presented here. Study these other options in light of the effective communication principles you’ve learned in this course and the unique circumstances of your job search. If you find one that seems like the best fit for your unique situation, by all means use it.

Frequent job changes and gaps in your work history are two of the more common issues that employers may perceive as weaknesses.

Addressing Areas of Concern

Many people have gaps in their careers or other issues that could be a concern for employers. Here are some common issues and suggestions for handling them in a résumé:16

■Frequent job changes. If you’ve had a number of short-term jobs of a similar type, such as independent contracting and temporary assignments, you can group them under a single heading. Also, if past job positions were eliminated as a result of layoffs or mergers, find a subtle way to convey that information (if not in your résumé, then in your cover letter). Reasonable employers understand that many professionals have been forced to job hop by circumstances beyond their control.

■Gaps in work history. Mention relevant experience and education you gained during employment gaps, such as volunteer or community work.

■Inexperience. Mention related volunteer work and membership in professional groups. List relevant course work and internships.

■Overqualification. Tone down your résumé, focusing exclusively on the experience and skills that relate to the position.

■Long-term employment with one company. Itemize each position held at the firm to show growth within the organization and increasing responsibilities along the way.

■Job termination for cause. Be honest with interviewers and address their concerns with proof, such as recommendations and examples of completed projects.

■Criminal record. You don’t necessarily need to disclose a criminal record or time spent incarcerated on your résumé, but you may be asked about it on job application forms.