Just a quick tip for today, but one that many writer neglect - updating your resume.

I have multiple copies of my resume on my computer, actually. First, I have a general resume that can be used in a pinch for just about any job. Problem is, when your resume is generic, your chances at getting a job are slim - you have to have a great cover letter or introduction email. Even then, you might not get the job.

My generic resume is a building block for my other resumes, though. I have one that is appropriate for blogging jobs, which focuses on my blogging experience. Another resume is focuses on my education and more professional academic work. Still another hypes up my experience as a business owner.

Even these, though, need to be re-worked when I apply for a job. I like to focus on specific points of interest for the job I want.

In general though, if you keep you “base” resumes as up to date as possible, it will take you a lot less time to apply for jobs. Try to update your resumes about once every three months, and you’ll save time in the end.

Image via BallGame68 on Flickr

Do you dare lie on your resume, or in your interview? I am amazed at how easy it is for people to lie about their credentials, about their work or life experience and then when caught, they either attempt to perpetuate the lie or they get angry for the exposure. I am publishing this post I wrote back in July 2007. With some additional information added. As a coach, I am asking you not to lie. Don’t lie on your resume, don’t lie on applications. Don’t lie in an interview. Don’t lie about anything. It will not serve you in this market.

Unfortunately, today we have redefined our definition of lying. According to Merriam-Webster, a lie is defined:

to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
to create a false or misleading impression

Here are some questions people may ask themselves:
1. Is it a lie if you make a false statement that you believe to be true?
2. Is it a lie if you make a false statement, you know the statement is false, in order to deceive?
3. Is stretching the truth lying?

When it comes to the hiring process, from completing the application to the interview, from the first day of employment to the last day, you have a responsibility to operate from integrity. To be honest in all that you do and say.

Here are some common things people “stretch the truth” about in the hiring process:
1. Some people lie about where they have worked in the past
2. Some people lie about the dates of employment
3. Some people lie about where and when they attended college

Lying by its definition should not be an option you choose when applying for jobs, during your interview or during your employment. Most companies spend a lot of money verifying your information, especially information included in your resume and cover letter and on their application. Don’t erode your chances for employment by lying.

As I have been answering questions on LinkedIn over the last few days, I am amazed at how many people are willing to tell “a little white lie” in order to buy more time when an organization calls to do an initial screening or phone interview. When an organization calls you about an interview. If you are not prepared to speak to them, say so. Reschedule the interview. Understand that in order to reschedule that interview, there is no need to lie. But understand that in this market your lack of preparation may cost you the opportunity. The consequences for choosing to lie may be greater in this market than in the past.

Remember: If you tell an untruth, make a false statement knowingly or not, if you stretch the truth, then by definition, you are lying. Period!

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Review your resume before sending it or giving it to anyone. There are a variety of mistakes people make when developing their resume. One blooper may be enough to move your resume from the interview pile to the circular file. Check out a few Resume Bloopers:

• Woman who sent her resume and cover letter without deleting someone else’s editing, including such comments as “I don’t think you want to say this about yourself here”
• Why Interested in Position: “to keep my parole officer from putting back me in jail”
• The applicant listed her name as Alice in the resume but wrote Alyce on the on-site application.
• One resume that came across my desk stated how the individual had won a contest for building toothpick bridges in middle school.
• Hobbies: “Having a good time”
• Candidate explained a gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for three months.

Check out 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes,Bloopers, and Blunders Ever. All of the above bloopers came from this article found on JobMob.

Review your resume prior to publishing it for others. Here is a list to get you started:

1. Is your resume appealing to look at? Does it look like a canned resume or does it have a look that will differentiate it from others competing for the same job?

2. Does your resume have a professional look or does it look like it was typed on a typewriter?

3. How many pages? Two pages or three? Use two if you can communicate everything you want the hiring manager to know about your skills and abilities. Three is fine only if necessary.

4. Have you labeled all sections? Use bold print to help offset sections of your resume.

5. Are your dates of employment clear? Format should include Month and year.

6. Is your resume targeted? Do you include accomplishments? Include strong/powerful action words will help you shine.

7. Is your resume written in first person using pronouns? Omit pronouns and use an implied first person voice in your resume.

8. Check spelling, and then check it again. Definitely ask at least two people to proofread your resume. Ask them for feedback and ask them to look for grammatical mistakes and misspellings.

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What are you doing to create a buzz about you? If you are waiting for the phone to ring, but there is no traction or attraction, you are waiting in vain. I have been following a question on LinkedIn. You can jump in the conversation too, just find the Job Angels Group, join and come share your thoughts and/or questions.

Here is the question:What are you doing to stand out to employers? Especially when you are responding without referrals to a job opportunity? Is a strong cover letter or resume enough to put you on the top of the stack?

My response: Is a strong cover letter and resume enough to put you to the top of the stack? To answer you question in a word, “No”, I don’t believe a strong cover letter and resume are enough to get you on the top of the pile. I do believe they are a start. The problem is that there are so many job seekers in the market, competing for the same jobs. Many are qualified for the positions they are applying for, so how does a hiring manager or recruiter differentiate one good or great candidate from another? That is the value of social networking or a referral. I believe qualified candidates who find them self in the market today must find other access points into organizations. And not rely on whether their resume/cover letter bubbles up to the top. That is a losing game for people who are serious about finding a job.

Get out there and talk to people, meet people, get introductions, conduct informational interviews and get people buzzing about you. When you start talking to people, or you get introductions through networking, that is when you want to introduce your resume/cover letter. Now you are putting it in the hands of key decision makers or hiring managers.

If you are struggling to network with others on in your industry, try positioning yourself as an expert. Here are a few suggestions for you to do that:

1. Answer Questions at LinkedIn Answers

2. Start a blog

3. Write some articles - Freelance

4. Write a book

5. Start a Business

Don’t allow yourself to fall into hopelessness concerning your job search. It is a tough market, but it is not insurmountable. Choose to get creative, choose to take some risk. Jean over at Small Business here at Bizzia has a post called Laid Off? Terminated? Start a Business. WOW! Great advice! Joel Freeman wrote a book for business people called If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand. I love his title and the book so much, I use it for a webinar to assist job seekers with moving past the anger, frustration of their current state of affairs into ACTION! You have to do something, create a buzz about you! If you don’t, why should anyone else. If you don’t, who will. Your next great opportunity is waiting for you to take one step of FAITH. Come on! When you get break through, come back and share your story!

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Have you ever been moving along rather swiftly in your car, truck or van and all of a sudden there is a speed bump in front of you? Your foot is frantically looking for the breaks so that you don’t damage your car.

Speed bumps are asphalt mounds constructed on streets. According to Wikipedia,The use of speed bumps is widespread around the world, and they are most commonly found where vehicle speeds are statutorily mandated to be low. In other words, you are legally required to reduce your speed in the area of the speed bump. For the purposes of my discussion of a successful job search, my use of speed bumps are the apparent obstacles, both expected obstacles and unexpected obstacles that are in the way of you receiving the job you are looking to do right now. As frustrating as a speed bump can be when driving, the speed bumps you face in the job market are equally frustrating.

Every time someone tells you “no”, you are dealing with a speed bump. Every time you send a resume/cover letter and get no response, you are dealing with a speed bump. When you have navigated your way through a hiring process and the last interview comes and goes with no response, you are dealing with a speed bump.

So what do you do with a speed bump? Just like you slow down to face them in your vehicle, you get to slow down and deal with them in your job search. For each speed bump you face during your job search, the first thing you need to do is slow down and assess the situation. Take a moment a give your self honest feedback about why you might be getting a “no” or why you are not getting a response back from your resume/cover letter submissions.

Speed bumps will lead to opportunities if you take the time to slow down and re-evaluate your situation. Once you assess the situation you are facing, develop a plan of attack so that you can successfully traverse the speed bumps in your job search. If you are unsure about why you are struggling to get a positive response, you may want to consider hiring a career coach. Someone who is trained to evaluate resumes, someone who can listen and assess your strengths and potential weaknesses. Whether you work through your job search on your own or you enlist assistance from a professional, remember that every issue you face in your job search that seems to be hindering progress is a speed bump. It is an opportunity to slow down and re-assess. Make course corrections as necessary and continue to move forward. When was the last time you saw a car stuck on a speed bump? It is not a place to get hung up on. A speed bump can only impede your progress if you stop and/or if you go so fast that you damage yourself in the process. Move forward with caution, but keep moving forward, you will eventually reach your destination!

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Are you doing your homework today or are you just hanging out? Where’s your head this weekend concerning your job search? Today you should be focused on developing your plan for next week. Who do you need to contact and meet for coffee next week? How many resumes did you get in front of people this last week? How many would you like to get in front of a decision maker next week? This is not your day to rest. You can do that once you get the job offer in hand. You are either serious about your job search or you’re not.

I met a very nice gentleman last week at the job fair I attended. He had a great resume and cover letter. Everything was very well written. His work experience was good, no gaps until now, but he has been in the hunt for a job for more than a year. He has not had his phone ring for an interview in more than six months. My first question, “How many jobs are you applying for every week?” His answer “four”. Here’s the deal - Four jobs per week is not a serious attempt at finding a job. It is not even close. Like sales, the number of contacts matters. Finding a job is a numbers game. So if you are serious about finding a job in this market, you must penetrate the industry or organizations that you have an interest in. Four, five, six, seven, eight, …. resumes/contacts don’t come close. You can make those numbers in one day.

Every weekend while you are in the job search can be set aside to work on your homework. Part of your homework session should be developing your job search strategy for your upcoming “work week.” The other part of your homework session should be set aside to evaluate your job search from the previous week. What did you do well? What could you differently that will ensure that more people have an opportunity to review your resume, your skills and abilities?

Here are a few things to help you get started:

1. Retrieve job descriptions and identify key skills and abilities that the organization is looking for. Compare your resume, your skills and abilities. Do they match? If not, you might want to consider updating your resume. Update your resume as it is consistent with who you are and what you can bring to their organization.

2. Make a list of 50 or more people who you know. Your assignment is to contact each one of the people on the list. Let them know that you are in a job search. This is one of those times that I will recommend that you have a 30-60 second speech that clearly articulates what you are looking for and what you are asking them.

3. Research job fairs, job expos, organizational job fairs that you may want to attend. Schedule them for yourself for the upcoming weeks.

4. Determine your schedule for the upcoming week. Challenge yourself to get up early every week day. Get out of the house and get yourself in front of as many people as possible that can help you connect with people that are decision makers.

5. Set aside time in the upcoming week for follow-up with companies that you made contact. Follow-up with people you met with during the week. Write and send thank you notes.

Today you have homework to do. The test for your assignment will be in front of you first thing Monday morning. And you will have a test every day until you get a job offer. My recommendations above are just that, recommendations. If they don’t work for you, find out what does and use the weekend to assist you with your preparation for the following week. Rather than sitting in front of the computer daily, pushing your resume out to various organizations, I am suggesting that you use the week days to get out and in front of people. And use the weekends for planning and developing a strategy for the upcoming work week. Go do your homework!

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It is no longer an employee’s job market - it’s all about the employer. In this crazy economy, employers are laying people off in record numbers without a whole lot of thought and certainly no guilt or compassion. So, for those of you who are job seekers, looking for a job, hoping for a job, you have to understand that unless you can differentiate yourself from the competition you will be in the job market for a while. Unless you can market yourself as a problem solver for someones organization, rather than a problem - you will continue to be looking for a job.

I met a young lady earlier this week at the job fair I worked. She was there, wandering through the various rooms and stopping at the tables, looking rather bothered to be there, because she needs a job. Yet she was emitting all over the place. Her body language, her glare as she spoke to me about doing what I was doing, shouted “I don’t want to work”, “I don’t want to be here” and “I don’t want to be with people”. Yet, there she was in desperate need of a job.

As she allowed me the opportunity to review her resume and speak to her about her job search, I knew she was unemployable in this market. I told her to her face, “no one has to hire you. And no one will hire you as long as you emit to the world that you don’t want to work.” She has an excellent resume, strong skills, but her disdain for employment was evident. She was dripping.

It is no longer an employee’s market - it is an employer’s market! As a result, employers don’t have to hire bad attitudes, arrogance, terminations for cause, and the list goes on. If you fall into one of these categories, it is your responsibility to demonstrate your marketability. The young lady I met wants to be an entrepreneur. Period. She doesn’t want to work for someone else, and she doesn’t want to be around people. These are her words. If that is how you feel about being in the market for a job right now, I will tell you the same thing I told her, No One Has to Hire You!

If you need to work but you don’t want to work for someone else, than you have work to do within yourself before you present yourself to a hiring manager. Get your head on straight. Get your hear right. Make a decision to go back to work - not under duress, but because it is what you need to do right now for yourself, for your family or for whatever reason motivates you. Give yourself a time frame for working so that it doesn’t feel like the decision is forever. If you need to go back to work for a season, make that clear in your head before you begin pursuing any job opportunities. Give yourself fully to the job search once you are ready to do it for the right reasons. Otherwise, be prepared for a long search and lots of questions about why people aren’t hiring you. It starts with the person in the mirror. Attitude matters today along with skills and abilities.

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The other night I was watching the festivities at the Republican National Convention and something that one of the speakers said really brought home the importance of having a great resume.

“Imagine that you have both candidates resumes’ and the names and party affliliations are blacked out. Suppose that all you had to go on was experience? Who would you give the job to?”

Granted, most job interviews are not really much like the presidential campaign and in this particular election, it could be really dangerous to only go on experience, but it does illustrate a great point.

The hiring manager does not know you. There are no commercials about you or news people following you around reporting on your every move and making bold predictions about how good or bad a job you’ll do. All you’ve got is your resume to represent you. If you do not set yourself apart from the other candidates, you getting that job will be a longshot.

The other thing I heard while watching the GOP convention was Dennis Miller talking about bloggers. “They are people with absolutely no talent who think they are special for some reason.” Hey Dennis - you’d better be glad this is a G rated blog ;)

Here is a question from one of our readers I thought would be of interest to all. Take a look:

I’ve recently been fired from my job and I’ve only worked there for short period of time (3 months). I had prior experience before from another company (3 yrs) that works on the same industry. I am wondering if I should put my 3 months experience on my resume. I talked about this with my old co-worker and he said I shouldn’t put it down on my resume since it’s a too short of time. However, I just went on an interview and HR from that company said I should put it on my resume. I told her that I didn’t add it to my resume because it was too short of time and I am going to put it down on my application form. So should my 3 months experience be on resume? Please help. I am actually going to an interview with a different company next week and never brought up my previous experience on phone screen interviews since it was not ever asked. Should I bring an updated resume and tell the interviewers about my previous experience OR only bring it up when asked?

My response:

Absolutely put the 3 month job on your resume. Why? Because if you don’t and you are asked about the three month gap or break in time, it now becomes a difficult conversation. They will want to know why you omitted it. That assumes there was a problem. More is better and you don’t want to have gaps in time on your resume unless there is a very good reason. Like you were in the hospital, on disability. Something like that.

One thing is for sure, you need to decide how you are going to respond to the 3 month job issue. You need a brief explanation for why you were let go after 3 months. Also, “YES” you should bring an updated resume to the interview. All you have to do is hand them the new resume. Tell them is updated and leave it at that. There is no need for further explanation.

So now, my question - “How important is your 3 months experience?” Answer - it is very important. Every job you do, in the span of your life is of value. Omitting it is dishonest. And dishonesty will not help you get the next job. Eventually it comes out. More and more organizations are doing background checks. There are still a few companies out there that don’t do them - but that is not the norm. Don’t jeopardize an opportunity over gaps in your resume, no matter how large or small.

I would love to know your thoughts! Scroll down and leave a comment.