My partner and I were fascinated to learn that “one small error, such as listing the name of a former employer after the years worked there, instead of before, can ruin a great candidate’s chances.” As résumé strategists, that little nugget is valuable information to us.

Reading over the entire article, we felt the most significant, sad and worrisome statistic was that “most recruiters report that at least 50% of job hunters don’t possess the basic qualifications for the jobs they are pursuing.”

Not surprising. The indiscriminate and desperate shot-gunning of GENERIC résumés in response to any and all postings for SPECIFIC positions is the reason for such a tragically high rejection rate.

While we understand an applicant’s need to DO SOMETHING – ANYTHING in order to maintain a sense of positive and proactive forward momentum in their job search, responding to everything in hopes that something will stick is a guaranteed recipe for frustration, disappointment, and depression. It’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing positive will come of it, and doing so merely prolongs unemployment.

Job seekers would be better served to stop the knee-jerk submission of generic reverse-chronological résumés far and wide in hopes of something sticking. They should use that time to identify their most relevant business accomplishments and the skills used to achieve them. THEN, with a posting in hand for which they are qualified and interested in, organize their accomplishments and skills in a targeted cover letter and résumé, and present themselves as an IDEAL CANDIDATE for that particular job.

Flying in the face of what we know is unjustified conventional wisdom and scoring interviews for our clients, the functional résumé is the ONLY format we use. And we make certain that in the generic “Part B” (work history, education and related information) is presented in its entirety.  We have found no need to hide problem areas because by the time a recruiter or hiring manager gets to something negative, they have fallen in love with our client’s very relevant skills and accomplishments.

When our clients have taken the time and effort to thoroughly complete a personal inventory identifying their skills and accomplishments and what they actually bring to the “world of work” – (William Bridges’ term), something magical happens.

Their self-confidence increases as their self-doubt subsides. Their new and positive sense of self, coupled with their new targeted cover letters and résumés and job application selectivity, removes them from the unqualified 50% and transports them from “job hunter” and “applicant” to the prized plateau of “candidate.”

“Candidates” get interviews.

Don Burrows (Don@YourProfessionalProfile.com) and Deborah Drake (Deb@DeborahDrake.com), co-authors of the soon-to-be-released Burn Your Résumé. You Need a Professional Profile™

If you have been looking for the longest time and getting nowhere, it’s understandable that you’d feel like saying there’s no work and nobody’s hiring.

However, in terms of your reality, those two sentences are inaccurate. To be 100% accurate, imagine saying this to yourself, “There’s no work FOR ME. Nobody’s hiring ME.”

Like any other critical problem, before we can fix it, we must acknowledge it. We can’t rationalize it.

There is work and people are getting hired – just not you when you want it. 

I’m not making light of the seriousness of your situation. But before I can help, I need you accurately thinking.

If your strategy has been to use the same generic templates for your cover letter and reverse-chronological résumé, unchanged, for each position you apply for, “generic” may be the primary cause of your continued unemployment.

Since your strategy and job search tools aren’t working, neither are you, yet. The good news is that you can fix that.

Applicants who get interviews and become candidates avoid “generic”. They know that since this is an employers’ cherry-picking labor market, if they want to get picked, they must customize their cover letter and résumé according to the requirements of each job.

Yes, it’s more work than printing off a generic résumé, addressing  template cover letter and mailing it off.  If that’s what you are currently doing and it’s not working for you, why continue doing it?

Please click here for additional food for thought:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwEsb6BusJ4

Do you want to score the interview?  Well, your cover letter and résumé must authoritatively, compellingly showcase your accomplishment and related skills that are most relevant to the job you are seeking.

Really! It’s time to burn that old ineffective reverse-chronological relic of the last century.

~~~  Please know I care that you get a job. It matters to me that you get back to work.

To win the interview, your cover letter and résumé must be targeted to each job you apply for. That’s how you make yourself stand out, the way a meatball stands out on a plate of spaghetti.

I’m a Seattle professional résumé writer offering professional résumé writing classes and products. If you’re tired of being the spaghetti and need some help becoming the meatball, we say:

“Think there’s no work? Nobody’s hiring?  Burn your résumé. It’s time for a Professional Profile^©.”

Please visit www.YourProfessionalProfile.com to learn more.

What exactly is a “career transition”?

Before I answer that, I should tell you why I have earned the right to answer it.

Fluent in Spanish as well as English, I’ve been a domestic and international Human Resources professional on five continents for over three decades, a recruiter for each of my Fortune 500 employers for fifteen of those thirty years, and throughout my career, a crafter of functional résumés that earned hundreds of people interviews.

I’ve survived being laid off and I know how to help you get back on your feet and get what you want.

It’s not rocket science, but it can be difficult. It’s a matter of balance; you must learn to play an effective INNER game (your spirit, emotions and self-confidence) to sustain yourself as you learn to use more effective OUTER tools (targeted, tightly-focused résumés and cover letters).

So. “Career transitions.”To name some of the categories, you are in “career transition” if you are:

• a new graduate transitioning from college to your first job;
• a member of the armed forces transitioning from the military into the civilian job market;
• a retired Boomer transitioning back into the work force to make ends meet;
• a person in their working years who voluntarily stepped out of active employment for a prolonged time (perhaps pregnancy, or to care for an aging parent or loved one) and is transitioning back into the job market;
• a person who was laid off for a significant period of time, has successfully completed a job search, and is transitioning back into the workforce;
• a freelancer who for whatever reason wants to go back inside and is transitioning back to full-time employment;
• a “solopreneur” starting a new business and actively seeking new customers.
• relying on any of the various social media sites to broadcast yourself to find work or attract new customers.

THE COMMON THREAD

Besides being in “career transition,” the common thread uniting all of these folks is the fact that the people you anxiously want to connect with absolutely do not care about your lists of job duties and responsibilities.

They DO care greatly about your accomplishments, the problems you have faced and fixed because they have similar problems they need fixed. As I said: it’s not rocket science.

In upcoming posts, I am going to tell you how to present yourself as an “Ideal Candidate” for each position you apply for. I want to help you make YOUR résumé stand out like a meatball stands out on a plate of spaghetti. To learn more, please check out my introductory video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSQb_dU3lJg&feature=related

My wife and I learned last Friday that the father of our niece and nephew suffered a major stroke earlier in the day and for over six hours lay paralyzed on the floor of his home. When he did not answer his phone, his son broke into his house, found him and got him to the hospital. He is stable and is not expected to recover.

Back in 2007, I helped five elders in my family and my extended family, and their children, get things under control when each of the elders was diagnosed as “terminal.”  Going through the process five times, I learned a lot about the practical nuts-and-bolts of end-of-life planning.  One of the things I learned is that, while often emotionally complex and painful, with some proactive advanced planning, it does not need to be as difficult as it so often is.

After the fifth time, family and friends encouraged me to document what I learned. To help people ease  their way through the entire process, I wrote Plan While You Still Can: 16 End-of-Life Checklists You Need Now.

When my wife and I got to the ICU, I saw they had my book right out there on the window sill. Our nephew was reading it for the first time; our niece had read it a couple of years before.

They had questions and I directed them to some possible answers in the book.

The good news was that they had the book there with them and it helped them. The bad news is that reading it in the moment is like checking out the parachute after you’ve bailed from the plane.

How much better would it have been for their emotional stability, balance and sense of calm had the entire family actually completed the sixteen checklists, identified the gaps in their planning, and taken action back when he was healthy, before the wolf was at the door?

For reasons I do not understand, people seem to think their end-of-life planning is complete and they’re good to go (my apologies) when their legal and financial arrangements are in place. What I’ve found is that those two elements make up maybe 20% of a complete end-of-life plan.

All that my niece and nephew were and are going through now supports that point.  

I wrote that book to be of service, to help people proactively plan, and thereby somewhat ease the inevitable fear, sadness and emotional pain.

Proactively planning to avoid or minimize pain is a common thread in what I do.

After listening to President Obama encourage us to volunteer our gifts to help each other out of our economic pain, I wrote Résumés That Resume Careers.

It’s easier for people see and act on the benefit  of identifying their accomplishments and job skills and then prepare their functional résumés (what we call a Professional Profile) than it was to help them do end-of-life planning.

And yet the proactively responsible adult, and their family, will benefit from doing both.  Of course, the opposite is true as well.

It’s true: you can either pay now or pay later.

Whether it’s responsibly taking care of your end-of-life planning so your family doesn’t have to struggle so, or creating an up-to-date and flexible professional profile so you’re ready to take instant advantage of an immediate job opportunity or interview, I hope you’ll commit to proactively doing what needs to be done, before the wolf comes to visit.

If you want to learn more about either book, please visit www.PlanWhileYouStillCan.com or www.ResumesThatResumeCareers.com

I have never been a political man nor have I had much respect for our most of presidents.

When Kennedy died, I felt moved to get out of bed at 2 am and drive to the Rotunda to view his casket. Earlier, because I wrote for the Diamondback, the University of Maryland’s daily, and because I lived nearby and thought him worthy, I covered his arrival at Bethesda Naval Medical.

I also got to cover a speech MLK gave at Howard University for the Diamondback. Me and my photographer – the only white guys in the building, and I have never felt safer or in a place with more love.

Character. Contribution. Stand up and be counted.

Oh man!

However, I hold Obama above them all, in such esteem that, if the clock were turned back about three decades, I’d make application to the Secret Service and would either kill or take a bullet for the man.

I don’t believe in any dogma, and I pray that the Universe keeps him safe.

His speech last night touched me deeply as he memorialized the deaths of the brave, the selfless and the heroic, people true to their beliefs as they acted, lived and died in the moment.

As a nation, we certainly have more than enough on our plate, and the shooting heaped another helping of stress upon stress on us. 

President Obama is OUR leader, and in that speech, he showed us that he is precisely that – OUR LEADER – doing what he is supposed to do, and what we want him to do – console, support, encourage, begin the healing process.

He exemplified grace under pressure last night as he touched our minds and hearts. You can feel that he cares. His eloquence in time of crisis heightened my respect for him as he did everything possible to improve the lives of people who are hurting.

The embodiment of service. Improve the lives of people who are hurting.

I want to do that as well, help people define and use their skills and accomplishments to find their way out from the fear and the pain of unemployment.

Thank you, Mr. President, for being my role model. 

This is the only country we have, and we are all in it together. Last night I saw my president reaching out and sharing his gifts with people who were hurting, and he was effective. Today, tomorrow and into the future, we can use the Tragedy in Tucson to continue to reach out to each other to share our gifts, and together we will help ourselves out of our troubles.

NOTE: If you would like to see his speech or read a transcript, here is a link:  http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2F&h=5f82b

Any takers? If so, would you please write (Don@ResumesThatResumeCareers.com) and tell me what you are doing, because I would love to share your strategies with students in my workshops and teleseminars.  I’ll send you a download copy of my newest book, Résumés That Resume Careers, to thank you.

If, on the other hand, what I said in my opening sentence rings true, let me share a strategy that you may want to consider implementing.

What I am about to share is not some pie-in-the-sky theory; I know from personal experience that it works, because I used it successfully to land a contract at a time when the economy was also very difficult.

Some background.

At the time I was laid off, I had been a divisional vice president of human resources for eight months for a prominent multinational. When the company did another reorganization, I was one of about 130 people who were laid off.  Part of my severance included outplacement with one of the national outplacement firms.

Figuring they knew more about getting interviews than I did, for six months I diligently followed their instructions and used their templates to create cover letters and reverse-chronological résumés, and job search strategies. I sent out over 200 résumés. During those six months, I went on three interviews.

During that time, I came to understand that I was caught in a serious Catch-22.

I had been a human resources vice president for less than one year, and a human resources director for several years. I learned that companies recruiting for a human resources vice president felt I did not have enough VP time to qualify for that level, and companies looking for an HR director did not want to consider me because I had been a VP and they were certain I would not want to take a back-step to a director’s position.

Catch-22.

On one of the three interviews, the senior vice president of human resources only a little bit jokingly told me I was better qualified for his job than he was, and if he hired me, his boss would fire him and promote me.

(I can see at least two topics for future blogs in that last sentence.)

At any rate, by following the outplacement firm’s standardized processes for contacting recruiting agencies and directly applying through HR for posted openings, I was just another generic applicant, and nothing was happening.

Well, that is not entirely true. My money was swirling rapidly away and I was getting very scared.

Perhaps you can relate?

Then I had an epiphany.

Since nothing positive was happening by following the traditionally-accepted routes intended to wedge me into the HR cattle chute, I decided to stop using the outplacement company’s generic cookie-cutter templates for reverse-chronological résumés, cover letters and job search strategies.

Rather, I decided to:

• trust myself and return to the functional résumé format¹ I had successfully used in the past, when I had taken responsibility for my own career
• stop looking for “JOBS” by responding to want ads and bombarding search firms
• completely by-pass HR as my initial point of contact with any company
• stop acting like a supplicant, with my hands out looking for work
• elevate both my sights and myself, and see myself as a peer of the most senior-level decision-makers
• contact those decision-makers directly, and
• ask my peers for “REFERRALS.”

And this brings me to the topic of this blog: “BE BOLD. ASK FOR REFERRALS, NOT A JOB.”

I redid my cover letter in my format – three short paragraphs, and within the body of the letter I used what I consider to be four magic sentences.

In the first paragraph of my cover letter, I introduced myself, my profession and the position I was seeking. I closed that first paragraph with these exact words: “I am seeking referrals to people and companies where you think there might be a need for someone with my skills and experience. My résumé  is attached.”

Book of Lists, In the middle paragraph, I included two of my most relevant strengths and a brief description of two of my most significant and measurable contributions (accomplishments) I had made for prior employers.

In the closing paragraph, I used these exact words:  “I view this as a request for assistance from one professional to another. I look forward to the opportunity to repay the favor.”

I redid my résumé in a functional format in order to immediately highlight my most significant and universally-applicable accomplishments and skills and abilities that I felt would be most relevant for a senior HR position.

And in order to by-pass HR’s sorting procedures, I used the Book of Lists from the Puget Sound Business Journal to identify the region’s most senior decision-makers. (See www.bizjournals.com for more information.)

Deciding and then believing I had absolutely nothing to lose by side-stepping the traditional HR channels, I sent out 100 letters to the CEOs, Managing Directors and General Managers I found in the Book of Lists.

While waiting for responses, I took some flak from my outplacement counselor and some of the long-term residents with whom I had become friends in the outplacement center.

Of  those 100 letters, I received responses from the majority of them, and invitations from 20 of the decision-makers.

Let me say that again: I sent 100 letters to the very top person in 100 companies, and I received 20 invitations to meet with them when I came to Seattle to visit.

As those invitations began coming in, my colleagues in the outplacement center saw I was getting results and asked me to help them with their résumés and cover letters.  I taught them to replicate my processes, and they too began getting calls. Outplacement management was not pleased with me.

I came to Seattle and met with those 20 executives, and many of them graciously referred me to some of their colleagues.  I ended up accepting a position and the company relocated me from back east.

Following the traditional, generic approach cost me six months and resulted in spiraling depression and increasing fear.

Following my own approach, it took one month and resulted in a growing sense of euphoria, excitement and hope as invitations came in, I went on interviews and ultimately joy as I found WORK!

One month.

Will this approach work for you? I don’t know, but I believe it is worth thinking about the implications for your job search.

Click here to learn more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9VFsJjJKI

Meanwhile, I leave you with this guidance that I attribute to Brian Klemmer: “Judge by results. Often harsh. Always fair.”