Information overload!
You know you have to read up on resume writing to get your resume in the best shape possible. Where do you go to do it? If you’re like a lot of people, one of three places:
- All the job board sites, from Monster to The Ladders – of course they have resume advice for you!
- Online article directories are stuffed full of tips and tricks for getting your resume to stand out from the crowd.
- And the makers of the “Dummies” and “Complete Idiot’s Guide” how-to books probably picked resumes as one of the first topics they ever covered.
But ask yourself this: If you’re going to write your resume, or just punch up your resume, why not get your advice from as authoritative a source as possible?
That would be Susan Whitcomb. One of the nation’s top professional resume writers, her definitive work Resume Magic emerged in its 3rd Edition in September 2006.
How definitive? Originally published in 1999, Resume Magic holds an honest-to-goodness five-star rating on Amazon.com. (How many reference books can claim that honor over a seven-year-publication history?)
Whitcomb key to success is that she looks at resumes with an advertising maven’s eye. Some of the topics she covers include:
- Ad agency strategies you can apply to get noticed and hold interest
- Visual design and formatting
- Copywriting, including an extensive style guide
- Electronic resumes
- And, naturally, cover letters
Better yet, the level at which she drills down on this information is knock-you-socks-off powerful – even if you’re just reading the table of contents!
Speaking of which, you can get the table of contents (from an older edition), as well as a sample chapter. It’s Chapter 2, “How to Use Advertising Strategies to Get an Audience With Your Boss-to-Be,” and that chapter alone is worth dozens of times the very reasonable price of the book, which you can order right here from Amazon.com.
So if you’re feeling like there’s too much resume advice out there, and you don’t know who to listen to, take a step back and start over again with just one solid source of proven experience. Otherwise, information overload will just paralyze you and your job search.
