Professional Resume Writing – Time and Research
How much time are you spending to research organizations prior to sending out your resume for a potential job? Noting specific details about the company in your cover letter could impress the reader and set you apart from your competition. However, noting incorrect details could be enough to eliminate you as a potential candidate. Anyone can apply for a job but there will only be a few who will stand out because they have invested their time in doing a little extra research.
Standing out from the competition involves convincing a potential employer that you go the extra mile; that you have ideas, initiative and motivation that add up to tangible benefits for the employer.
The following scenarios show potential applicants who did not spend the time to go the extra mile and research a job and as a result were eliminated from consideration:
You have a professionally written resume and you send it along with your cover letter to a potential employer. You are aware that the position is the assistant to the CEO and requires initiative and research skills. You send your resume, which highlights your research skills and a cover letter, “To Whom it May Concern” as did over 90% of the applicants. All were looked over because fewer than 10% of the applicants bothered to “research” for the name of the CEO!
Your cover letter is outstanding and includes the sentence, “My qualifications meet and exceed all your requirements and your CEO won’t know what he did without me”. This statement would have been much more impressive if the proper research had been done to find out that the CEO was a female!
You’ve heard a company is in trouble and decide to send your resume, highlighting your attention to detail and qualifications along with a cover letter. The company has suffered a mass exodus of sales people to a competitor and you have the experience and contacts to rebuild a sales team for them. Unfortunately the company your friend told you about was Riker Systems, not Riser Systems! After mailing your resume you went online to discover that not only did Riser Systems not require a new sales team, the owner was the sales manager!
You have every opportunity to show a potential employer that you have “gone the extra mile” by investing the time to research the position, the employees, the company and even past employees prior to sending out your resume. If your actions or lack of action results in applying to a potential employer with inaccurate or missing information, you’ve just lost all credibility!
Don’t take any chances on a lost opportunity! Acquire a free resume critique by a Certified Professional Resume Writer.
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