Numbers show that the majority of people change careers five to ten times during their lives. Once the initial excitement wears off most employees tend to burn themselves out and go through what’s called a “Midcareer Crisis.”

“Midlife crisis” may be many things — depression, a reassessment,
dissatisfaction, or unease — but a key contributor can be career
issues.”

Other factors such as location, layoffs, and personal issues influence may also impact this decision. While sometimes it is necessary to ‘reinvent’ yourself.. tread carefully because it’s easy to harm relationships, burn  bridges, kill-off networking opportunities, and emp you down the line with a resume which has no specific industry focus and short employment histories.

If you fall into this category you need to focus on presenting yourself to hiring managers as an asset that can fill the role just as well as your competition, most of whom have had experience in tyour potential field for years. The key is being able to associate your past employment history, skills, and qualifications into your new venture.

Four Tips To Transitioning

1. Identify your accomplishments, skills, and expertise that your new venture will expect you to have. Knowing these traits will be your best resource in transferring into a new industry.

2. Extensively research the ins and outs of any new opportunity. Running into an interview blind will fail nine out of ten times. If you don’t have someone in the space to pull information, the Internet is your next and best resource.
3. Combine the the first and second steps above to identify the vital skills and competence you’ll bring to this next opportunity. Establish yourself as confident and valuable resource.

4. Formulate your resume around this information and be ready to elaborate on it during the interview. You will be grilled on it. This is your chance to prove your worth, and where all the above steps come into play.

1. Minimalism is key

Just because Microsoft Word lets you use Clip Art and Symbols doesn’t mean you should. The NUMBER ONE thing that should be in your mind during the creation process is “Is this easy to read?” Employers want to be able find what they are looking for in seconds. Keep it clear, keep it concise, keep it simple.

2. Keywords are your friend

When employers and recruiters are using job search engines to browse resumes they use specific keywords to locate potential candidates. If you list yourself as a software engineer on your resume, but an employer is using the search term ’software developer’ you may get overlooked. A viable solution for these types of jobs (graphic designer/graphic artist) is to pick the most common term and insert the other relevant terms at the very bottom in small text.

3. No one cares about your objectives

You objective is to get a job. Plain and simple. Writing out a paragraph about your future goals and previous life story is almost always looked over. To often a resume gets tossed out because their objectives are a turn off or intimidating; for instance “I want to manage people” or “Eventually I wish to run my own company”. Employers are looking for experience not wishes and dreams, or people who want to use them as a stepping stone. Keep them to yourself.

4. Lead with your most recent job

This is the most important part of your resume and 95% of what the reader cares about. Since you aren’t leading with objective or education (we’ll get to that next) put down your current employment or most recent. The first question you’ll be asked is “Why do you want to leave?” or “Why did you leave?” Save the employer time and answer these questions but be careful, if you are currently employed it may not be the best idea to put your resume online with this information explaining why you no longer want to work for them.

5. Education and Time lines are not for everyone

The only time you should lead with education is if you are still in school or just graduated. The exception here is if you have a Master or PhD from a top tier school. Putting down a junior college or state college you attended fifteen years ago will never help you.
Employment time lines often harm more than help. If you were employed for six months or even two years you will be passed over or at the very least grilled by the interviewer as to why. However this really is determined on a case-to-case basis but more often than not it’s a good idea to leave exclude information.

Your diploma, unfortunatly, isn’t a ‘get a job free’ card. All to often graduates have no clue what to include on your resume and cover letter. Unless you have a few extra-curricular activities under your belt, the only things you can list are common part time jobs which most likely involved absolutely nothing relevant to the position you want.

Often the question that comes up is if you are applying for a full time career position, how do you create a resume for a full time career if your only previous experience in the workforce was at a clothing store or fast food joint? It shows you have experience but is it the experience they are looking for? Follow the quick three step guide in this first installment of Student Week at ResumeBucket.

1. Make the layout professional

• Don’t go overboard with fancy fonts, graphics, or a confusing structure. While you may think this makes you look good, it’s painful to read for the employer.
• Keep it simple and easy to read. You can find resume layout examples in our database of sample resumes.

2. Content is key

• Employers and Recruiters don’t care about any part type job you had in high school or college. Unless you moved up to a management/supervisor position, omit this information.
• Instead include any type of extra-curricular activities you may have been involved in on campus, this includes sports, clubs, student body government. Anything to show you were more than just a body who showed up to class then left.
• Write a 2-3 short and concise introduction about yourself and your goals, be careful and don’t make it to wordy. Tailor this to suit the job you are applying for.
• Finish it with any references you have. Many people lie here and get caught. Employers DO check. Make sure to use reputable people and not friends or family remembers.

3. Clean up

• Keep it to a one page. Employers who are looking at a fresh resume don’t expect you to have that much experience in the work force. Padding your resume with trivial information is a turn off to hiring manager reading your resume.
• Most likely your name will be Googled by employers. Make your Facebook or any other social sites that may come up private. You don’t want them seeing your pictures from Friday and Saturday nights. Instead build out a Linkedin.com profile, sign up and post your resume on ResumeBucket.com. Google yourself and see what comes up and work from there.

Post up your comments! We love to help out our users with any questions they have, and if you really want an outstanding resume check out our top tier resume writer.

Sometimes cover letters can be a bit tricky to write, so we decided to write a short tutorial on how to go about it. Don’t be intimidated by writing the cover letter; it’s where you can show off your talents and writing skills. So here it is, 8 simple steps for a great cover letter:

• Address the letter to the person who could hire you by name and title. If you can’t find their name use a functional title like “manager” or “selection committee” and remember to never use “To whom it may concern.” You are writing a simple letter to another person to let them personally know that you have interest in their company.

• Show that you know a little about their company. Do some research and be up to date on their current interests, priorities or problems. You don’t want to waste your time and the recruiters time by not doing any research about the company you are apply for.

• Express your enthusiasm to work for that company. If you have a good idea for a current problem a company might be having, offer to come in and discuss it. That’s one way to get your foot in the door, offer to help them with a current situation they might be having. Be creative, use your imagination to get as much face-time as possible with any company you want to work for; it really does help.

• Keep your tone warm and friendly while being professional. Avoid generic and cliché phrases. Recruiters can go through hundreds of resumes a day and it only takes a couple keywords to have your resume in the trash before it’s cracked open.

• Set yourself apart from the crowd. Put someone really unique about yourself in the cover letter. This gives the recruiter some incentive to look into your resume and will remember you. This may seem obvious, but make sure your unique skill is relevant to the job you are applying to.
• Take the initiative about what will happen next. A lot of times people will say that they will follow up with an e-mail of phone call about setting up an interview. Here is a great way to follow up on a resume.

• Keep it to one page. All cover letters should be less than one page. Short and sweet is the way to go; don’t waste anyone’s time.

• Proofread multiple times. This is overlooked more than you could imagine.

When you write your cover letter let your creative process flow. The person reading it will have an idea of who you are instead of taking a template and inputting a few words sporadically throughout the letter. It might be easier to write your cover letter after you have tweaked your resume so that the whole packet flows together. If you need help with writing your cover letter or resume, feel free to contact us.