How to Improve Your Resume

Better.TV's Rhiannon Ally talks to Meribel Aber about ways to improve your resume in order to get that job in these hard economic times.

Rhiannon Ally: I know most of you how do you want your resume in edges but it’s a good idea to pull it out and freshen it up. And today’s money and tips on how to improve your resume from Better’s Finance and Career Expert Maribel Aber as always great to see here. Maribel Aber: Good to see you too. Rhiannon Ally: Okay so we know how hard it is to get a job right now and markets are still really bad. All things getting it to the right person through the human resource department is impossible. Maribel Aber: Its true and today I mean the job market is starting to pick up but your absolutely right, I mean I think the employment number I saw recently was like still 10% so that’s like 15 million people without jobs. So it’s really important that you know everybody should brush up the resume and we’re going to talk about some tips. Rhiannon Ally: Yeah, so what if have to look your resume in years, I know a lot of people out there going I don’t see it in ten years. Maribel Aber: I know. Rhiannon Ally: What is the first thing you think you need to do to get started? Maribel Aber: Well you need to figure out what is your goal. Let’s put it boils down too, what kind of job are you looking for? Because people are very familiar with the chronological format I mean that works if you want to stay with the same industry you want you know some of the themes sort of job family but if you have a gap let say, a lot people have gaps now because— Rhiannon Ally: A lot of people returning back to work right now. Maribel Aber: Exactly or you know they’re taking some time off, maybe raise a family you might to look to add a functional resume so that really focuses rather than the chronological order more like the skills that are transferable and always remember after you put that all together and when you build it your resume is really your personal brand you not your stamp. Rhiannon Ally: How specific do you want to get on your resume? Should you be general so that it can fit for a lot of different job or should you be specific? Maribel Aber: Well you really want to be a specific as possible and you know when we talk about mistakes I mean this is one of the most common mistakes, people loss— they’re not focus you see this resume and it’s like a mini paragraph of like this is my life at this company and companies are only see that according too is in careerbuilder.com about 71% of employers really want the resume to be customize for each job posting. Rhiannon Ally: Oh so that means not just one resume for 10 different jobs. Maribel Aber: That’s right. Rhiannon Ally: Yeah, so what are some of the other common mistakes— we know you want your resume to stand out and we’re not talking like using colored paper right? Maribel Aber: No, right I mean another saying outside of being laser focus is you also want to make sure that your highlighting your specific special skills because when I for instances interviewing I have this before of interviewed for a specific position like some kind of graphic artist you want to make sure you’ve nail that that very closely upfront and the other thing is again we’re talking about not writing your life story, don’t write just your responsibility of the job. Nobody— I mean do you want to read you new whole laundry lists, really customize it to what accomplishments you have over your years of experience. Rhiannon Ally: So make it more like a brag book? Maribel Aber: Yes, yes, yes. Rhiannon Ally: So they won’t read that and think maybe or being too over liked confident. Maribel Aber: No, absolutely not you want to be confident because you want the employer to say, hey you know what this is the person that I want to bring in the interview. Rhiannon Ally: Okay so, if people are dusting up that resume as we speak. What is the absolutely first thing they should do right now? Maribel Aber: Right now is make sure that you’re putting all the current information and time to forget that. Oh I’ve been in this job for so long that you don’t have to the most up today information so you want to make sure that you quit that upfront absolutely. Rhiannon Ally: Thank you so much Maribel and will get our resumes together. And if you have questions for Maribel you can email her at askmaribel@bettertv.com