Branding Your Resume As Technologically Current - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Branding Your Resume As Technologically Current - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Most employers today look for employees that already know how to use the software that employer uses. Few employers have training budgets for new employees to use their training budgets more efficiently, employers want to hire new employees who already have the necessary training. While there are exceptions, you should consider this the rule. Because theres a shortage of jobs combined with mass applicant competition, hiring managers look for employees who dont need training to handle basic job functions. With an average 1,000 applicants competing for each job, most employers can find and will favor candidates who dont need basic skills training. This is even true for most entry level positions where youre expected to have basic skills in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or other software. To succeed in todays job market, youll need to show employers you have the skills to do the job now, to hit the ground running, without additional training. When employers do train new employees, its typically for specialized jobs to train rookies in unique employer processes/systems, not to learn basic work skills. This is less of a problem for candidates just entering the workforce youve grown up with technology as a part of your daily lives, starting in grade school (or earlier). But this can be an issue for many candidates over 40, where employers may be wary of your technical skills. Just because you have current technology skills, doesnt mean employers will automatically realize you have them. Remember, few employers arent reading your whole resume to decide if youll get an interview interview decisions are made through a combination of automated pre-screening and a brief scan. Employers have to see that youre current in a quick scan if you want an interview spot its part of your resumes personal brand. So its got to be easy and apparent for them to find. Your technology personal brand extends beyond your resume it extends to social media. This can present challenges for those who havent invested much time in social media. Heres 6 Ways To Brand Yourself As Technologically Current: Use Todays Resume Techniquesnot yesterdays: Effective resume techniques have changed. Lose the Objective, Summary/Profile, Achievements sections theyre yesterdays news, and give you a dated first impression. List Your Technology Skills: List your tech skills, so they will show up in ATS searches. Be detailed List the components of MS Office (recruiters dont search for MS Office, they search for Excel, Word, PowerPoint); list modules of enterprise packages youve used (recruiters search for SAP MM, not just SAP). This applies to factory workers as well as CEOs employees at all levels are expected to be technologically up to date. Dont List Legacy Technology Skills (unless youre applying for a legacy tech position): Do you really think that listing the COBOL class you took in college (or used in your first job) makes you up-to-date? Of course, if youre applying for a COBOL position to maintain old systems, then list away, baby. Use Social Media: Today, companies are trying to get up to speed and improve social media presence. What holds most companies back? A lack of talent that understands social media. The best way for you to demonstrate knowledge of social media is to walk the walk. Do more than set up profiles, actively post, answer questions, participate in groups/lists on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. Blog: Want to show that you know more than the basics of social media? Blogging is your next step. By creating (or curating) a blog, youre building a personal brand, building your ability to be found on Google searches, starting to understand SEO, all skills needed by businesses trying to increase their own social media presence. Create Other Content: While video is the most effective other content to concentrate on (YouTube gives a big boost to SEO), posting photography on Flickr can help also, especially if youre good at editing pics and creating special effects on Photoshop. If youre missing on opportunities you think youre qualified for, you might be giving employers the impression that youre not technologically current. Impressions can be more important than facts, since most employers make interview decisions based on a quick scan of your resume so they arent reading detail. While this often affects 40+ job seekers and those returning to the workforce, your technology brand can make the difference between an interview and the discard pile. Good thing there are some simple things you can do to affect how your resume is viewed by readers. Author: Phil Rosenberg is President of http://www.reCareered.com, a leading job search information website and gives complimentary job search webinars at http://ResumeWebinar.com. Phil also runs the Career Central group, one of Linkedin’s largest groups for job seekers and has built one of the 20 largest personal networks on Linkedin globally.