Job Hunting in a Tough Economy

Build an Effective Resume

When was the last time you updated your resume? If the answer is 10 years ago, you have work to do. Your resume is what employers see first. This is your first impression, and first impressions can be opportunity breakers.

Building a resume takes time and effort. When you are ready to update your resume, remember the following helpful tips:

• Keep it short. Don’t make your resume longer than one page because employers don’t have the time to read through too many pages.
• Be concise, to the point, and always use action words to describe previous job responsibilities. 
• Use bullet points to organize your resume. Bullet points highlight important details such as specialized skills, job experience, training courses and educational achievements.
• Be honest. Enhancing your past experience or listing qualifications that you don’t possess will only hurt you in the end.
• Don’t forget to covert your paper resume to an electronic format. Today, the pre-screening for any job is done electronically.

Networking

Remember the times when networking meant going to career fairs and industry events with your paper resumes and business cards in hand? Well networking today has a completely different meaning. Now, technology allows you to network on cyberspace.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn, Ecademy, Ryze or another professional networking account—or perhaps all of them—don’t wait one more day and open one.

What are these social networks and how do they work?

LinkedIn is an international network of 30 million professionals in 150+ industries and a business-oriented social network that keeps you in touch with industry colleagues and experts. It helps job seekers make contacts and enhance their careers through industry networking opportunities.

Ecademy is a business networking site with 150,000 members worldwide. This social network includes blog capabilities, marketplace listings, news feeds, events and mrore.

Ryze is another business networking site that hosts 250,000 members who are working towards making new business connections. Rize helps its members build up their careers, while helping them find jobs or make sales connections.

Don’t limit your cyber networking to just one site. Re-visit CareerBuilder, Hotjobs and Monster.com if you previously uploaded your resume to those sites. Don’t forget to update all personal information and revise your employment search preferences.

If you want an industry niche career source, join Control Connection at no cost. Control Connection connects our Control members with new employment opportunities. In this space employers and recruiters have access to our specialized niche where they can view resumes and post jobs. Job seekers can post anonymous resumes, view jobs and sign up to receive personal job alerts.

Job hunting can be stressful, especially in today’s economy. Embrace the economic crisis and take the time to evaluate your skills to prepare for a future career if needed and to use your networking skills.

If you are lucky enough to keep your current job, be prepared to work additional hours, take on additional responsibilities and learn technologies you haven’t worked with before. If you are laid off, keep a positive attitude.

Study the market, study your options and be prepared for the future. The current economic crisis will pass,  and when does, you should be prepared to be even further ahead of your competition.

Katherine Bonfante is Control’s digital managing editor.