How Do You Get Your Resume To The Right Person?

In today's' economy there are so many resumes and people out there--especially in a growing field like medicine.

You can barely get a word in edgewise, because there are so many people jockeying for position. This is the time to get creative and work out a way to get your resume in front of the right people at the right time. It's not easy, but it can be done. Let's start thinking about we can make you stand out AND not look like a desperate person at the same time.

Your resume is the only thing most people will ever see of you. They might assume you're a nice person, but they haven't met you and all they have is this piece of paper to go by. What do you put on that stupid thing? How do you make it "not boring". Well, I would suggest something--let's be smart!

You need to talk about everything you can in one page. Sometimes a resume that's too long is off-putting and that's because the person who has to read it is getting drowned by all the other work they're doing BESIDES hiring folks.

Make sure your resume is BOLD. Don't use a font that's too cute. As lovely as the font may be there is no way in the world someone is going to get out a microscope to decipher the print when they don't have time to eat their lunch.

Make sure your resume is relevant. You can talk about community service-type things--but let's keep everything that seems irrelevant to a minimum. If you made All-State Band--good job--but an HR Manager just can't care right now.

If you graduated with distinction or did any kind of training on anything--that's good. Schooling is always good. There's no problem with telling someone you are academically distinguished--but don't put your GPA on your resume. It will make you seem a little "uppity". Lots of people didn't have the best GPA but they are great workers.

Also, don't be afraid to put a purpose statement on there and be HONEST. If you're looking for gainful employment, but you're going to work your hardest--then write it down. Be real with people. Saying something flittery isn't going to cut it. Everybody's heard that crap. They want to know if you aren't going to mince words when you're on the job.

Oh, and one more thing--make sure you understand that you are IMPORTANT. Be polite and professional, but when you go to hand someone a resume you need to make sure it gets put somewhere where it will get read. It only take 5 seconds to at least HAND the document to the right person. At least that way they would have to TRY to avoid it. Dropping it off means it will get lost and signals that you don't think you're important enough to have your resume even considered.

In the end, just be smart about your resume. Write it up the way I've shown you and be cool about how you handle it. Doing those two things in tandem should REALLY help you!