4 Ways to Customize Your Resume Based on the Job Posting

Jessica Holbrook Hernandez of Great Resumes Fast

I’m sure you’ve heard me say before that it’s critically important to customize your resume when applying for positions—especially to online job postings. Hundreds of candidates apply to positions posted on job boards, and employers have become very savvy at weeding out those candidates who are not qualified. Or who at least do not appear to be qualified because of what is or is not (in most cases) on their resume. So I’m going to share some tips for making key adjustments to your resume to target it exactly for the position based on the job advertisement. Continue Reading

A Social Job Posting

By Peter Weddle, WEDDLE’s

Peter Weddle

Not much has changed with job postings since they first appeared in the early 1990′s. Today, they are, as they have always been, information-based ads that are shaped by their ancestors in the classified section of newspapers. What has changed, however, is the people who read job postings. They want a different experience, one that is social as well as informative.

Unfortunately, the Web is filled with poorly written job postings. These recruitment ads are nothing more than position descriptions or print classified ads repurposed online. They may work with the most desperate of job seekers, but for talented candidates with choices, they have all of the appeal of a wet blanket on a cold day. Continue Reading

You’ve heard of video resumes, but how about video job postings?

One of the most interesting organizations that I’ve run across recently is Deluxe Corporation. They’re headquartered in suburban Minneapolis and were founded way, way back in 1915. Most people likely aren’t familiar with Deluxe’s business and many of those who who think they are, well, aren’t.

If you’ve ever written a paper check, then you probably know Deluxe. They’re the king of paper check printing but we all know that’s a dying business as more and more of that business moves to on-line bill payments and other forms of electronic commerce. Deluxe saw this coming and about a decade ago began to transform its business. Just about everyone would agree they needed to adapt or perish, so the question wasn’t really if they should adapt but how they should adapt. Deluxe made a brilliant decision by recognizing that one of its greatest strengths was that it had a HUGE number of small business clients who knew and trusted Deluxe. So rather than looking to adapt based upon its existing products or even the skills of its current employees, Deluxe decided to adapt to fill a need that many of its clients had: information technology.

If you’re a small business and need a web site developed or a web site hosted or other information technology needs, you should know that you can and should consider Deluxe to fill those needs. But think about the incredible transformation in the types of employees they now need to hire. Rather than hiring a whole lot of pre-press and printing folks, they now need to hire a whole lot of information technology folks. So Deluxe needed — and has — gotten smart about hiring information technology people really, really quickly. Want proof? Have a look at this Talent Sourcer job posting video that they recently posted to their Facebook Fan Page. Keep going like this, guys, and you’re going to thrive for another 95 years.