Some good advice on resumes

Good Monday morning, Matt,

After his first sentence, I knew this guy's job hunt wasn't going anywhere.

Sure he was a smart guy, with great experience, but that's just not enough these days.

I was at our Live Event in Atlanta last Tuesday when I met "Tim," a Sales and Marketing guy from Atlanta. I asked him what type of job he would be a fit for.

"Well, I love fixing things, so I can fix things real well. And I am also interested in high-tech and getting things off the ground."

And sure enough, that's just about what his resume said, too.

And right there, folks, you have the biggest mistake that people make in their job hunt. It is so sad, and so preventable.

You see, so many job seekers look at the job hunt from their own point of view: "I want to fix" or "I like to grow." And that's exactly the kind of error that can be deadly to your job hunt.

So I said, "Sorry, Tim, but nobody today is hiring somebody who likes to fix things or gets things off the ground. The recruiter or HR person who looks at your resume has a job to fill – and a hiring manager expecting them to find a great person for that particular job, whether its an operations professional or a sales person, or what have you."

"You need to tell them what you are going to do for them, and then tell them specifically what you have done in the past: cut costs, increased sales, reduced headcount, or expanded market share."

"But what you can't do, what you mustn't do, is think about your resume from your point of view."

Look, it's like this. Since I've been travelling so much, I traded in about 35,000 of my American Express Rewards Points for a pair of those nice Bose noise cancelling headphones. They are really fantastic, they cut out all the background noise and let me listen to all the "I Know You Rider" and "Scarlet Begonias" that I want.

I guess I got attracted to them by the ads I'd seen and the people on planes really enjoying their time in the skies with their QuietComfort headphones.

And then it struck me. The difference between the resumes people write for themselves and a professionally written resume is like the difference between a product manual and an ad.

They're both true, they both concern the same product, but one just "tells" while the other "sells."

Most people write their resumes like a Product Manual...

Bose Manual

It's all true; it's got all the data in there. But it's boring. And it simply tells you what the product does.

While a good resume, like a great ad, tells you the benefits that you will get from the product:

Bose Ad

These headphones "dramatically fade distractions," the "patented acoustic design delivers lifelike audio," and the "patented ear cushions maximize comfortable fit."

As a music listener, I want fewer distractions, lifelike audio, and a maximized fit.

Similarly, as a recruiter, I want a sales or operations or tech or marketing or HR person who cut, grew, reduced, or increased. I'm less interested in somebody who "would like to," or "managed" or was "responsible for."

It's the difference between a product manual – that tells you everything about the product – and a great advertisement – which sells you the benefits that you will get from that product.

And having spent so much time with you, and really caring about the outcome of your job hunt, I can only ask you: please, please, get your resume professionally written. If not by us here at TheLadders, then by another CPRW (Certified Professional Resume Writer) accredited by the PARWCC.

You wouldn't hire an amateur to write your will, do your taxes, write the ad copy for your new product, or even cut your hair. So please, please, please, avoid the biggest mistake that people make in their job hunt and have a professional re-write your resume today.

It will help me help you so much more easily!

Have a great week, Readers!

Warmest regards,
Marc Cenedella
Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.

HILARIOUS

Water Sliced

Sooooo, I wanted some freaking water ice on Friday since the first day of spring meant free water ice at Rita's!! Well, I searched through all what God calls Suburban Station and could NOT find the freaking Rita's in there (this was on Friday). I putzed back to my office cordially and sat in a slump of despair wonder if I will ever get my free water ice; knowing I would drive by a Rita's on my journey home from work lifted my spirits since I knew I could obtain the long and ever-lasting refreshedness that I was soon to feel from my icy treat.

Well, let me tell you something, my daydreaming on the drive home (not safe) was brought to an abrupt hault (not by the car's brakes), but by the freaking line at Rita's! There were seriously about 55 people in the line (no BS) and I refused to wait in a line that was longer than the freaking Medusa roller coaster at Six Flags during the peak of summer of sweat, BO and foreign languages thralling your ears.

Well, last night, Meggy took me for a icy, creamy treat! We went to Rita's, stood there in the 37 degree, 20mph wind, and 28 degree wind chill to get our treats. Some awkward lady in front of us kept eavesdropping in on our conversations to which we made a fast 90 to the other line since our cashier person must have started working at Rita's for the first time in his life.

I got Key Lime and Vanilla Custard and Megs got Mango and Vanilla Custard! It was splendid!

Oh - I also had a wonderful weekend as well! On saturday I went to see Bloc Party at the Electric Factory and I washed, waxed and basically made out with my car by taking some raunchy photos of her at DCCC's parking lot while I made Meggy sit in boredom (I felt bad) reading a book. I love her though, any woman that would do that for me (knowing or even unknowingly) is a definite keeper in my book! She's great, but sometimes a punk, but it's okay - I can be as well!!

Happy Tuesday - is it Friday, 5pm yet? It's always 5pm somewhere!

Been a while; starting off another lovely work week!!

This weekend I saw my sister off to her "Soph Hop". You know you're getting old when she is starting to get all "grown" up! We are separated by 8 years, so her being 16 and in high school shows how "old" I am! Falling asleep by 10pm on a weekday is nothing new anymore and nothing of a surprise as I thought I'd never be that person all by the age of 24, but the work week is tiresome as my parents used to say, and that it is!

Megan got new bangs, by new I mean created bangs; they're hot, she's hot and I'd be damn jealous if I wasn't me as well!!

.....

Ha, Megan and I watched American Pie 2 last night. I originally thought that that was the worse out of all 3 American Pie's; granted I think American Wedding is the best. It actually wasn't that bad, I enjoyed it more this time than when I watched it the first time, like 6 years ago. It's quite funny when watching a "new" older movie like that since the soundtrack in which they thought was so cool then, is actually pretty bad and corny. It amuses me; and honestly, that would be one of my top 5 dream jobs; movie soundtrack/music producer; placing music in certain parts of the movie that fit perfectly.....

That leads to my next question, besides the job you have, love or hate, what is your top 5 dream jobs?

Me?

1. Auto Designer/Engineer
2. Indy Car Driver
3. Video Game Designer
4. Work at Google (even if I'm a janitor - seriously)
5. R&D for a famous Food Company (ice cream, Maggiano's, etc.)


Cheers.

Let them fail .... then again, maybe not.

More taxpayer bucks to bail out AIG, $61 billion loser

American International Group just got $30 billion more of our money over the weekend. There were no pesky Congress members debating whether to give it our billions -- just a feverish weekend of negotiations among unnamed government officials and AIG executives.

How did these folks settle on $30 billion? Why not just let AIG fail? How much more will we need to spend before we start getting our money back? The answers to the first and third questions are: "I don't know" and to the second, I'd say, "Systemically costly derivatives contracts."

Meanwhile, AIG set an impressive record -- losing more in a quarter than any company in history -- $61.7 billion (just $1.7 billion more than had been rumored last week). For the year, AIG lost $99.3 billion, which seems like quite a bit of money to lose. And thanks to free market principles, which allow executives to keep the profits in good times and share their losses with taxpayers, the U.S. has so far given AIG a $60 billion loan, a $40 billion purchase of preferred shares and $50 billion to soak up AIG's toxic assets. Due to that record loss, we'll kick in another $30 billion to bring the total to $180 billion.

Here's where the systemically expensive derivatives contracts come in: This loss put credit rating agencies in the mood for downgrading AIG. That downgrade would be a violation of AIG's debt contracts and AIG would respond by defaulting on its debt. This default would trigger derivatives contracts held by banks who would ask AIG to pay them collateral as part of the terms of those contracts. But AIG doesn't have enough cash to meet these collateral demands. So the banks holding those contracts would not get their money. And the U.S. believes that that this failure to collect would damage the entire financial system.

******** The stated above clearly explains why some companies actually need $$ from the governments; it's a sticky situation, but with companies like AIG I believe they actually should go bankrupt. You'd take a hit in the short term and save in the long term; instead of bailing there big-wigs out! **********

As it turns out, AIG's loss put the U.S. over a barrel in keeping the ratings agencies from downgrading AIG's debt and creating this systemic problem. In addition to putting $30 billion in TARP into paying AIG if it needs the money, here are some other government gifts to AIG:

Dividend cut. AIG will get a break on its previous deal with the U.S. It will exchange $40 billion in preferred nonvoting shares, which paid a 10% dividend, for new preferred shares with no dividend -- saving AIG $4 billion a year.

Debt for equity swap. Instead of paying back $38 billion in cash with interest that it has used from a federal credit line, the U.S. will get equity in two of AIG's profitable subsidiaries in Asia -- American International Assurance and the American Life Insurance Company.

Below market borrowing rates. The U.S. will cut by 3 percentage points the rate it charges AIG on government loans to the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).

And now the ratings agencies will refrain from downgrading AIG's debt. It is ironic that the ratings agencies are now trying to do their job after it's too late. During the bubble blow up phase, the ratings agencies put AAA ratings on anything as long as they got their fees from investment banks. Now it takes taxpayer money to keep the ratings agencies from putting the appropriate rating on debt.

The lesson here is timeless, if you owe the bank $1,000 and can't pay it back, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $1 trillion and can't repay, it's the bank's problem.

Snow

Sooooo, I had no idea it was supposed to snow 1530290 inches of snow last night into this morning until around 1pm, yesterday. I need to stay current with the news! Shame on me.

I found out that my car does not move at all in snow, when I say at all, I literally mean at all. Damn summer tires!

My feet are cold, but my boss isn't here today! Woohoo!