Contents:
            Tips, Tricks, and Tools
            Featured Resume Talking Points
            Answer to a Common Interview Question

Tips, Tricks, and Tools
            Let’s talk about “power-colors” this month.  You may not think about it, but the color your dress or tie can make a large difference in the impact you have on prospective recruiters (whether they realize it or not too!).  Think about it… Last time you went to a career fair, you probably saw a ton of guys running around in the stereotypical blue shirt, with a boring tie.

            Not surprisingly, as a recruiter, these people tend to blend in with one-another!  How can you stand out, you ask?  Well, there are several quick ways to make yourself stand out by making a couple of easy changes to your wardrobe. 

            For guys, this means buying a white shirt, and a power tie.  Power ties are simple.  They are bold, solid colors, and some may have a slight pattern.  Colors are actually a very interesting part of the equation.  There has been a lot of trial and error here, but the general “effectiveness of colors” breaks down in order like this: pink, yellow, red, and blue.  You may notice that I wear a bright green tie, which I have found works exceedingly well for me personally (I have had random people come up to me and say “now that’s YOUR color!”  I trust those kinds of comments.  If you are curious about which ties I’m talking about, please take a look at the amazon.com store.

            For the ladies, color choice means using power colors in your blouse to contrast against your suit or skirt.  The same colors apply as the guys, pink, yellow, red and blue.  At career fairs, I tend to see a lot of blue, and not so much on the others.  Play around with them to see what works for you.  You may also come across a color like I did with the green that is just “your” color.  The biggest thing I noticed when I wear those kinds of ties is that my self-confidence also goes up.  Hopefully you will feel the same!

Featured Resume Talking Points
            I want to focus a bit this month on how small changes to the wording in your resume can make a world of difference in the readability and general effectiveness of it.  Here are a couple examples from my good friend Ben’s resume that I worked on with him:

Before:  “Responsible for running water faucet leachate testing according to the NSF 61 standard.”

After: “Responsible for running water faucet leachate testing to certify for public safety.”

            You can see the change here was in the wording at the end of the experience bullet point.  “according to the NSF 61 standard” was removed, and “to certify for public safety” replaced it.  The key takeaway is that most recruiters, unless they are familiar with NSF 61 probably don’t know what it in the world it means.  A recruiter might just think it is some test for packaging, chrome quality, or some other random test. 

            By changing it to say “to certify for public safety,” we have now pinpointed exactly what that test was for, and directly stated the importance of it – public safety!  And guess what else – the phrase “public safety” carries much more implied responsibility than “NSF 61 standard” does.  So you’ve now won a couple points: clarity with the reader, and more responsibility and importance attached to the task.

            Here’s another one along the same lines:

Before: “Responsible for making decisions regarding building maintenance.”

After: “Responsible for leading and executing regular maintenance issues, as well as unique facility construction projects.”

            You can see again the subtle change in wording that makes a large difference on describing exactly what the task was.  In the original verbiage, all Ben did was “make decisions.”  In reality, he was the one making decisions, doing the work, leading others to do the work, etc.  Much more than “making decisions.”

            All it took was asking a few questions of Ben to find out exactly what he did.  You can do this on your own resume too – Read your experience bullet point, and ask yourself “Self, does this really cover everything I did around this experience?”  What are you missing?  What else did you do?  Don’t short-change yourself on it either.  You may be under the impression that what you did was grunt work – Ben was under that impression with this task, and look at what he was actually doing!

Answer to a Common Interview Question
            One of the most difficult questions to answer when you’re in an interview is “What is your greatest weakness?”  We’ve all been there, and if you haven’t, you will soon enough!

            Some people will come up with an honest answer about some technical shortfall they have, others will say “I work too hard” (Which may be true, but this is truly a weakness, as you should be working smart, not “hard”). 

            The approach I have found success with is to turn my weakness into strength.  I have done this with something along the lines of:

“Well, I started taking foreign language classes in high school, but I have not continued them in college.  At the same time, I am very interested in potentially taking assignments abroad, and that, combined with the increasingly global market will make language skills a necessity for success.  Thus, as soon as I take a job somewhere, that will be one of my areas of focus to develop skills in the appropriate language, based on not only my personal tastes, but more importantly, what languages and cultures are important to the company.”

            I’m positive you can come up with something similar (and even better!).  There are a few key points to it that you should understand.  First, I identify the weakness I have, and I do so in a way that says I have given thought to how to fix it (point two).  Next, I have indicated to them that I have aspirations for assignments abroad, which is a strength (it’s actually somewhat difficult to find people who want to do that).  And finally, I indicate that the needs of the company will be taken into account when selecting the language – it’s not a one person show!

Takeaways simplified:
            -Turn your weakness into a strength
            -Indicate how you plan to close the gap (Show some thought in your plan!)
            -Let them know that the company wants will be taken into account in your plan

Have a great month!

Happy (Job) Hunting!

Thanks again for your interest in College-Career-Builder.com


E-Mail: coachbob@college-career-builder.com