The Career Source

It’s very common to have employment gaps in resume. If you happen to have a resume gap in your career history, you should build a “bridge” to connect one experience to another. But don’t lie, or fill the gaps with unreal story–just tell the truth.

For example, you worked as an electrician from 2003 to 2010, but you’ve taken a full year off because you were ill, or took time off to set up a new business, or went on an overseas trip to do charity work. Regardless of the reason, you may wonder what you should do to fill the gap so that it works in your favor.

This is what you can do.

List all your experiences together with the events that took place in your career breaks.  This approach will demonstrate to the employer that you utilize your time efficiently, and you speak honestly for your career gaps. You also show him or her you’re a well organized and balanced person. This gives a good impression that you’re a trustworthy person.

Examples of employment “bridges:”

2003-2005
Customer Service Executive, ABC Bank, Chico, CA

2006
Stayed home to take care of sick parent. Did some part-time writing jobs

OR

2002-2003
Sales Executive, XXX Company, New York City, NY

2004-2005
Worked on MBA program at CSU, Sacramento

2006
Volunteered to do Charity work in Laos.

2007-present
Senior Sales Executive, XYZ Enterprise, San Hose, CA

Bridge your resume gap between two employments with the real event, and then continue on with other experiences.

Are you the one who can save money for the organization? Someone who is good in driving improvement plans? A person who can deal with customers or subordinates effectively? If so, sell these abilities and skills. Make a resume that reflects all that you do well and link them to the organization’s bottom line results.

For instant, you have improved the filing system for documents, but it doesn’t indicate how the improvement impacts the organization’s bottom line. Would you exclude this ability in your resume? Certainly not! Instead, you can rephrase your statement so it sells your achievement.

Given below are some examples to show you how to make a resume that links to the organization’s bottom line.

QA Manager

Improved filing system for drawings. Results: Fast retrieval of documents. Company benefit: Less one headcount to manage document control office.

Marketing Manager

Expanded customer base in North-West region. Result:  Introduced 16 new clients in two years. Company benefit: Additional sales revenue of $680,000.

HR Manager

Fostered better working relationship among employees through team building activities. Results: Less attrition rate. Company benefit: Saved on recruitment and training costs for new staffs.

Give serious thoughts as to how you can help the company to save and / or make money, and then make a resume that links your abilities to the bottom line results.  This is the time to sell yourself and toot your horn if you want to get hot job interviews.

Almost all professional CV writing emphasize on one thing-the job seekers themselves! They think that they must toot their own horn as loud as possible, or else they won’t be heard over the voice of other job seekers. Of course it’s important to sell yourself. The recruitment manager wants to know your past achievements and experiences, and how you could possibly benefit his or her company in this position.

But, how to write a professional CV that brings job? What recruitment manager is really looking for in your CV?

The employer will read between the lines and look for intuitive abilities and intelligence that a potential employee possesses. The new hire should have the ability to predict challenges and problems instinctively and be able to face and eliminate them. If you’re hired as a technician in a factory and your job is to repair equipments when break down, you’re also expected to track the equipment performance, work on preventive maintenance and keep a healthy spare parts inventory.

To rise above competition, you have to go beyond the job description!

While your CV looks good on paper, you need to include a few statements that express what else you could offer beyond the job description.

Here are a few examples:

1. Able to represent senior executive to attend corporate meeting when he or she is unavailable.
2. Able to chair a sales conference meeting when the director is away on emergency business trip.
3. Help CEO to free himself from the time-consuming and draining entanglements.
4. Able to lead a special task force to investigate problem, make improvement and prevent re-occurrence.

An employee with extra value often goes beyond what the job requires him or her to do.  Base on own intuition and attentiveness, he or she moves the extra steps, and this is the type of worker the employer will hire. If you’re pondering how to write a good CV, check out the Amazing Resume Creator.

Likewise you can also make use of the professional writing service.

Many job hunters add a brief career objective in their resumes. Including a clear reference on career goal is the most critical part in preparing a winning resume.

What is a career objective statement?

It is a power statement to be placed on top of your resume, usually with one to two rows of words. The reference will clearly specify the position you want to apply, your ideal type of organization, your qualifications and the value you can bring to the prospective company.

Why do you need to include a power statement?

Specifying a clear career goal will significantly improve your chance for getting a job interview. The power words help to

1. inform the employer for the position you’re targeting
2. provide a summary of qualifications so that the recruitment personnel can match an appropriate job for you
3. provide a professional identity and value that align with the needs of the organization

How to draft an objective statement?

Given below are guidelines to prepare your resume:

• To make your job search package more effective, you should consider tailoring your resume and aligning it with the job requirement. If you’re reacting to a particular position in an advert, you can make use of the same keywords and job title as mentioned in the ad to prepare your short headline.
• Being as specific as possible and offer a high-impact reference of what you can offer to the potential employer

The don’ts

The most common mistakes made by many job seekers in their objective statements are being too general and vague. You can definitely avoid making such mistakes if you pay special attention to the followings:

• Avoid general terms like “looking for a challenging position.” The recruitment personnel will struggle to understand which opening can really offer you a challenging work.
• Don’t use phases like “tasks that will develop my skill and career goals.” To emphasize the value you can offer to the potential employer, consider using “position to add value to your company.”
• Exclude articles such as “the,” “a,” and “an,” and personal pronouns like “me” or “I.” Use simple language and sentences.

For instant, if you write…

“I am looking for an engineer position in the failure analysis laboratory”

You should change it to…

“seeking engineer position in failure analysis laboratory”

• Don’t include any unnecessary particulars in the objective statement. Only put in items that bring value.

• If you don’t want to see your resume to end up in trash, make every effort to ensure it is free from spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. Get a friend to proofread it for you.

Examples of objective statements:

For entry level machinist position

Machinist, seeking position in precision machining tool shop where excellent grinding and milling hands-on skills can add values to metal fabrications.

For experience position in manufacturing line

Black-belt Lean Facilitator, position in manufacturing line where 8 years of experience in driving lean manufacturing projects to improve productivity and profitability to organization.