With available resources from BNET, Mind tools, Human Capital Institute and Resume Writing Academy, I will share with you some critical pointers in writing a compelling, relevant and job focused resume.
Of course, there is no “one size fits all” type of resume. While there is a certain professional format to follow, there is room for your own individuality to be expressed and communicated. The challenge is to create that fine balance between what is professional and what is personal.

Why Your Resume Needs To Stand Out

Virtually any career coach or HR professional will tell you that to stand out from the thousands of applications, you need to customize your resume to the job you want. The resume is your first communication piece with the corporate and outside world. How you write and what you write basically tell people, the kind of person you are. It is unfair but the truth is hirers will attempt to create an image of your personality, professionalism and potentials from your resume.

So don’t take it lightly! Be serious and be excellent about it!

Understand that a resume would not guarantee you a job. The objective of the resume is to enable you to be in the radar of recruiters – to be visible to them in a quick way. Your resume can fall in the hands of many people and while that is convenient, it can also be a double-edged sword. By that, I mean a badly written resume can render you unsuitable and unfavorable in the eyes of many, even your friends. And unfortunately, in resume vetting by potential employers, there is no second chance as the first impression is often the last impression. A strong and compelling resume, on the other hand, opens doors to the second phase of recruitment and gives you the opportunity to further “market” yourself in the hiring process.

Here are the steps to writing a strong and compelling resume
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1. Your resume reflects your integrity, honesty and credibility.
Never write what is not the truth about you and what you cannot validate and explain.
Remain in the realm of reality and do not cross the line between what is true and what is false. Otherwise, your character comes into question. Sure, there is a need to highlight your achievements, qualifications and accomplishments but exaggerating the wins without substantive data affects your reputation.
Instead, have a clear mind and write what you know are factual information that describes you. Validate the facts and figures of your achievements. Check and recheck these data as simple errors like an additional zero or wrong date can cause a huge negative impact on your credibility. If not sure, leave the data out. And that is why, it is important to update your resume regularly to reflect the actual progress of your career.

2. Be sure of the objectives of your resume.

A generic resume does not help hirers to know what your job intentions are. Applying for any job which is available would not position you strongly for that vacancy. Organisations want to recruit executives who are perceived to have that unique differentiation which could be of value to the companies.
Your task is to communicate that unique value to them. If your objective is to apply for a sales and marketing job, then writing relevant experiences which position you as the sales person to have, is the focus of the resume. If you are applying for a CEO position, then highlighting all the relevant compelling experiences and achievements of your previous jobs would take centre stage of the resume. Other unnecessary and not critical information would have to be left out. It is quality and not quantity which drives your writing approach. If you are unsure of what type of job to apply for, my advice is to seek help from a career coach. The coach would work with you to uncover your strengths, identify your passions and develop a career plan to achieve your career goals.

3. Put in the key words and phrases in the resume.

Hirers are hard pressed for time to read through all the resumes. Often they sieve out key words and phrases in the resumes which are descriptive of the job requirements. If your resume is not filled with the relevant vocabulary, then it is unlikely to be selected. Words like accomplish, achieve, secure, embark, attain and phrases like overcoming internal conflicts, achieving additional mindshare, establishing a strong presence are language distinctions that would capture the attention of the readers. See here for more examples.

4. Communicate your brand attributes.
Engage a personal brand expert or take a self-assessment tool to uncover your unique personal attributes and togather with your professional strengths, frame them as your brand equity to stand out.

5. Finally, manage your expectations.

This is important because ultimately, it is the hiring company’s perceptions of you that matter. It may sound silly but simple questions like do you have the necessary skills, abilities and personality for the job form the basis of their selection criteria. Too often, many job applicants set themselves up by applying for jobs that they do not meet the requirements. Be targeted and realistic when you embark on job search and you will find that getting the job that you can be happy, fulfilled and rewarded may not be that difficult.

After all, a job is just another component of your career vision. Even a great job does not grant you a safe passage to a successful career. You have to work hard to establish your credibility, increase your visibility and develop the critical skills to achieve the career success you want.

Resources for more information.
Resume Writing Academy http://www.resumewritingacademy.com/
CBS Interactive Business Network http://www.bnet.com

People buy into your future potentials and not just the current and certainly not your past achievements. Your value proposition is what you can bring to meet the aspirations of your future employers or clients.

Relying solely on your professional qualifications or work experiences do not set you apart from your competitors because there will always be someone out there who is better qualified and more competent. When you are a new and aspiring entrepreneur, your customer and client wants to know if you are trust worthy, credible and reliable. Competiting on cheap pricing is not a long term solution. The market is full of cheap and low cost providers.

As an executive, you need to present a powerful vision of who you are that will be a strong asset to the organization.
As an entrepreneur, you need to present solutions which can meet your customer’s future aspirations and goals.

People want to identify with an individual who can empower, enable and energise them to a higher level of vision and possible futures. But developing your personal brand might not be as simple as you might hope: it’s not just a matter of buying a domain name and putting together a business card.

Developing and managing your personal brand requires a unique combination of skill, knowledge, discipline, self-perspective, future-oriented thinking, and tools & techniques in order to make YOU standout from the rest of the competition.

With the availability of technology through internet search engines, social media and community blogs, employers and recruitment experts have at their disposal tools to search for and qualify potential career executive candidates.
Customers too are “googling” the names of companies CEOs to know the companies better. And as a new company, your personal brand is critical to attracting potential customers (including organisations), suppliers and partners who are assured of working with you.

If you do not have a blog to communicate your skills, talents and more importantly too, your unique personality to the global marketplace, you have unintentionally put yourself at a disadvantage. Many professionals and executives, including the senior management executives and successful entrepreneurs are maximizing and leveraging on the powers of social media to enhance their personal brands.

And many more are doing or have already done so!

And if you have already an existing blog to promote yourself, are you creating an attractive and powerful brand to communicate who you are or has the blog on the contrary diminish the value of your brand?

Don’t let your personal brand be controlled and determined by others for very often even your closest partner or friend may not truly know who you are.

The opportunity cost is just way too high!

Find out how Executives Branding can create the value in your personal brand so that YOU, Inc can generate rewarding benefits resulting from who you are and what you do!

Their meaning of work has taken on a different understanding.
Work is a service of what you do

Work has historically been thought of as a job. The word “job” originates from the Middle English jobbe, meaning “mouthful.” People then worked to eat, to live, to provide for their families and they were contented to work as long as their basic needs were met. We are familiar with Maslow’s theory of hierarchy needs, isn’t it? With the advent of the industrial revolution, we thought things would change but no the work itself was just as drudgery and draining. Devoid of spirit, the worker was dehumanized of energy and not particularly required to think, let alone dream or imagine. For the masses, it was life in the dead zone.

The industrial revolution spawned the Information Age.
Were things different, this time?

Well, depends on who you ask.
For some, the information age was an awakening of all sorts; truths were challenged, experts were “born” overnight, learnings were quickened, business cycles were shortened. For others, there was greater confusion, indecisiveness, chaos and instability. Knowledge management and information overload were common issues with this age. People were trying to make sense of the data collected and using these pockets of information and analysed them as knowledge to better understand employees, clients, customers.

Then came the digital or connected age, the age where social connectivity is the context for everything that we do. The smart phones, the tablets, the net books were just gadgets to enable us to connect with other better. The need to socialise is so great that businesses are now using these social media to promote their products and services.
The boundaries of work has expanded and intruded into the personal space of many of us. Work is no longer confined in the domains of the office or building and certainly not from 9 am to 5 pm.
People are working from home and are available from 24/7 all week and at times all months. In social circles and networks, people are quietly “working” by sharing what they know to who they know.

The key to value in all of these changes is

•   Is your work a value proposition to others?  
•  Are you providing something intangible that others need?  
•  How are you serving them?

Whether the person is your employee or boss or potential client, are you sharing information or knowledge that will benefit them? It is about meeting their needs, aspirations or even wants and not merely about what you do.
Frame your thinking in these few ways to bring value to your work of service.

Be sensitized to your environment.
v   Seize the opportunity to live out your Personal Brand

The last ten years and perhaps the next ten years would continue to see changes, restructuring, downsizing and chaos in the corporate world. As middle level management and senior executives, your jobs are often on the line. As the apex of the corporate triangle becomes sharper at and near the top, less and less of these executives are needed and more and more is expected from those who are still around.

There’s not a pleasant place to be but with proper coaching and brand positioning, your organisation will find it hard to let you go. One critical frame of thinking to acquire is be sensitized to your internal (immediate) and external environment. By that I mean, to know the underlying sentiments moving in your environments (group to department to company) and understand how those sentiments have impacted people’s work.
During a retrenchment or restructuring exercise, it is obvious that most people in the organisation are nervous and fearful. People tend to get territorial and defensive and often a small issue can be blown up into big proportions.

When you are focused on building your Personal Brand in the company, isn’t this a wonderful opportunity for you to prove your value, your future worth?      

 The company is looking for inspiring leaders, resourceful managers, peace makers to build a positive environment (though it is difficult) and loyalty when others are jumping ship. What would you do to bring out your Personal Brand? (Read What Makes Our Work Special & Different From All The Rest)

Often what is needed is a clear head free of emotional entanglements and persistently focused on the larger picture of turning the ship around

v   Be an entrepreneur futurist
As an entrepreneur, what have you noticed about your market’s behaviours and spending patterns?

To stay ahead of the curve, you need to research the future trends, customers’ aspirations and not needs and understand the future underlying behavioural psychology of the markets. Being sensitized to your markets would require you to ask yourself these questions,

?   What are their frustrations with the current products and services?
?   What are they reading and learning about these days?
?   Who is not meeting their aspirations (by that I mean their desires to live more productive, more empowering lives)
?   What value can I provide to make their lives even better and more rewarding?

Remember, when you are sensitized to your market, you are meeting their future goals and people generally are willing to pay a premium for something which gives them a future value.
Think Apple, think applications and you will realise that it is not just the IPHONE which drives Apple’s success but the fact that applications are available to meet a customer’s current and future needs makes it exceptionally attractive! Apple knows that the Generation Y, being tech savvy would orient their lives around the products that they were brought up with – computer and tech gadgets and they are quick to develop electronic devices to connect with this generation.

Timothy Mack, President of the World Future Society said,

We believe that people can create a better future for themselves and all humankind by studying possible future developments and making wise choices. We believe that a better tomorrow is built today.”

Find out how Executives Branding can create the value in your personal brand so that YOU, Inc can generate rewarding benefits resulting from who you are and what you do!

Their meaning of work has taken on a different understanding.

“Today, people want jobs that matter,”

says John Challenger, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, an international outplacement company based in Chicago. Challenger, who has been in the business for 34 years, says he has never heard so many people talk about finding meaning in their work.

Employees are no longer content with just a pay check and good benefits; they want meaning and passion. Entrepreneurs are no longer just interested to start businesses which promises great rewards but offers no or little fulfillment. After all, if they were to spend longer hours at work, they might as well find something that could be rewarding, fulfilling and meaningful. Better still if it could leave behind a legacy for the future generations!

Interestingly, when people devote their time to meaningful work, they become more energetic, flexible, and creative and possibility minded. In fact, people who do work that they are passionate about don’t feel as if they’re working at all. Work allows them to express their values, passions, interests and knowledge of who they are and what they do. Work defines who they are as professionals in a setting where respect, pride (not egos), praise and acknowledgment and rewards can be earned.

Work also brings out the best potentials in a person as the beneficiaries of your work are the people who will determine your value. The greater is your value, the more they will benefit.

So, what then is the value that you can bring to your work?
Ask five other people what makes their work of great value to the people they serve and you will get five different answers, including developing people, initiating and driving change, building operations and infrastructure and negotiating and maintaining the peace.

Your value is as unique as your fingerprints and as executives right their in your organisations, have you been able to “stamp” your value for others to benefit from your work?
Perhaps, it is time to think of ways where you can create value to the people you serve, bosses, colleagues, employees, clients or even suppliers. Perhaps then, your work is no longer a job but a career which you have the power to build, develop and enhance to bring you satisfaction and fulfilment.

Richard Bach said,
“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”

There are 2 purposes which inspire successful people like you to work. 

1   Live A Life Of Success 
Success goes beyond meeting your material needs though they are important especially for those who have just started out in your business or career.
You want to ensure that there are sufficient reserves for yourself, family and your company if you are the founder of the business. It makes perfectly good sense to strive to be a fundamentally strong and cash rich company so that it can be better prepared to ride through the economic storms which have been happening rather frequently. With business cycles getting shorter, the need to reinvent, innovate and compete in the market place in the shortest time is becoming a necessity. And all these priorities require resources to materialise.

Likewise as an executive, it is no longer sufficient to just rely on a single skill set to attract better opportunities from employers. Executives are expected to manage, lead, transform and build departments and organisations. You need to be technically proficient and yet professionally savvy to lead teams to produce results. To be on top of your game, personal and professional development is critical to excel in your career.                                                             

Why then is there a need to excel after all success means different things to different people?  
                                                                                                                
The truth is winners attract winners.  
People want to join the club of the achievers because they know that there is much to learn from those who have succeeded. As high achievers, striving to achieve your successes in your areas of excellence will inevitably open doors for you to grow and acquire greater experiences to learn, discover and enjoy the fullest measure of your own potentials. An even higher level of achievements awaits you as you continue the journey to greater success.
And when you think you have reached that pinnacle of your achievements, it is no longer about the additional material reward isn’t it, which leads me to the next purpose?

2.   Live A Life Of Significance
Many of you who have invested years into your businesses and careers are still continuing to make the serious commitment to your work. Why, if I may ask?

You could pack up and move somewhere to merely enjoy the fruits of your labour. You could stop working and take a life long vacation to see the world and “enjoy” life. But you know that while you may take your rest periodically, you also realise that without work, there is no greater meaning in your life.
When you have attained the material successes in your life, you know that the purpose of your work is not about meeting your needs but is now about meeting others’ needs and aspirations, your employees’ futures, the company’s future growth, the potentials of your organisation, etc.

In fact, you are probably more excited about leaving a legacy for the next generation.

You desire is to prepare a better place for them to succeed where you were, when you first started and hopefully, in your own ways, you can create a better place to them to live and work.

And that is my primary motivation too. That is, to return to the work that gave me lots of enjoyment and fulfilment as a coach, seeing others enjoying and living out their successes in their personal and professional lives. By aligning your work goals to your values, you are establishing your integrity and building an Authentic Personal Brand which is attractive, fulfilling and rewarding.

Find out how Executives Branding can create the value in your personal brand so that YOU, Inc can generate rewarding benefits resulting from who you are and what you do!

DEFINE YOUR BRAND FOR YOUR BUSINESS OR CAREER

For many of us here in Singapore and even in Asia, branding ourselves is not a usual thing to do. Our cultures have time and again remind us that it is polite to remain humble by keeping silent, keep a low profile and not be visible. No wonder even with a bigger population size here in Asia than in America and Europe combined, there are fewer successful and respected individuals known to the public. 

Privacy is more important to us than publicity. But when privacy is hindering you from fulfilling your life long dream and aspirations, then the need to manage that balance between your privacy and public perception (could be your boss or customers) of who you are, is critical and important.  

And the reality is even if you do not intentionally want to brand yourself,  you already have a brand!Someone else out there has already branded you! That person could be your colleague, boss, customer, neighbour, your children’s teachers or even your good friend. The truth is we have already been branded by the people that surround our lives. This means that everyone in the world is branded and that personal branding is therefore inescapable and is in fact part of your life. It’s your DNA, uniquely special to you and yet, has a life of its own.

Your job is to understand who you are, what you do and who you serve, so you can better shape these perceptions and ‘own your brand.’
You cannot escape or deny the perceptions that people have of you. It’s their choice just as you have the choice to brand others. People will always judge you and box you up in their own perceptions and often inaccurate understanding of who you are.

You cannot stop them from interpreting but you can change their view of you by taking the responsibility to project that image and picture of who you want them to think of you as.

Personal branding goes beyond just ensuring that people get the right impression of you. Neither is it about just creating that “feel good” feeling about your self. In the words of Dan Schawbel, the author of Me 2.0 and a renowned brand expert, he says,

“Personal Branding allows you to monetize your passion, have meaning in your life and become very successful in your niche.”

When you are branded effectively and successively, your own brand can generate a sizable return on your life investment. Think of people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or the tennis supreme, Roger Federer who command huge salaries or advertising fees for their work.
Or how about that person in your company who seems to attract the right people and who frequently gains approvals from the bosses to his/her ideas and suggestions?
Or how about that business entrepreneur who is often featured favourably in the press and who seems to attract the right business connections for his company?

In the business arena it is a widely accepted fact that dynamic CEOs become intrinsically linked to the companies they represent. (Eg. Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca). As such it is important not only for a company to brand its offerings but also its people and its leader.

Personal branding can help you to meet your career, business and professional goals. And beyond that, there are immeasurable returns like knowing who you are and what excites you every day.
You can focus on those goals which when aligned to your brand will produce greater results for your efforts. You will gain more confidence, become more self assured and be able to communicate better of what you do.

VALUES DEFINE WHO YOU ARE

Brian Tracy, the leading authority on personal development and effectiveness and a renowned business coach said, 
“Once you have decided that you are going to live consistent with a value, your level of integrity determines whether or not you follow through on your commitment. The more you discipline yourself to live consistent with the very best you know, the greater is your level of personal integrity. And the higher your level of integrity, the happier and more powerful you will feel in everything you do. Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, ”In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?” 

So, what are VALUES?   

Values are the keys to unlocking a person’s potentials to achieve success. Values are our lifestyle priorities and in many ways they define our goals. Values also explain a lot about who we are as individuals, the choices we make and how we live.
All of us have values even if they are not well defined, or at the forefront of our minds. Our values are our personal preferences and priorities, but they have often been passed down to us and reshaped or rejected at various times during our lives. One way to determine if something is a value is to see how you feel if you violate it. 

A friend who has a value of healthy living feels miserable when she eats junk food or does not exercise because she is being inconsistent with one of her most important values. But when she takes a vacation to the mountains or hiking and jogs every day, she is filled with energy and optimism. 
For many of us they are unconscious motivators. If your actions are not in alignment with your values you will start to feel uncomfortable and have inner conflict. This wastes both time and enormous personal energies. Some people become consumed by these conflicts without knowing why. 

However a few people use their values as conscious motivators, they guide their actions by their values, so the chances for conflict are minimised and real activity can be sustained and energy levels increased. You begin to be more synergised and effective in how you live out your life. The more effective you are, the more energies you create. Some people even start to discover not only their passions but also their purposes in life.  

Far too many people live their lives setting goals which are not aligned to who they want to be. Ever heard of individuals who, despite their riches and wealth are still unhappy and unfulfilled or high achievers who in the prime of their careers began to slowly lose their zeal for life or the many people out there who are just unhappy doing what they do.  

No one taught us that values are important and critical to our well being, not in schools or at homes and most likely not in the workplace. In fact, most of the time, our values are shaped by our environments, the schools with their excellence mottos; the companies with their mission, vision and values statements and the society’s norms and way of life. Even your group, community, professional organisations promote some form of values which attract you and hopefully endear you to them.  

Which is why as an individual who seeks to attract the right opportunities to your career or business, you want to discover and build the values and orient your message of life around them? People, whether your bosses or customers want to identify with someone who is real, human and honest about themselves, in order words being authentic about who you are and communicating that message across to the people, markets and organisations you are attracting.  

Think of William Hung and Susan Boyle of American and British Got Talent Idols respectively and you would realise how in their own simplicity, honesty and ordinary looks were able to attract large followings during the competitions. Now think of people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and reflect on how their creativity and passion for their work are drawing people to their beliefs, visions and lifestyles.  

•   You Cannot Be All Things To All People.
Key Point:        Be Who You Are And Attract The People Who Are Attracted To You. 
Too many people try to their best abilities to be all things to all people, thinking that by communicating not only who they are but also who they are not, they will maximise all the opportunities available to them. On the contrary, the end result often reveals that the people they want to attract are confused and less assured of the value they can receive.  

Think of Coca Cola selling coffee and tea beverages or imagine BMW selling top of the range hifi systems? They don’t fit with your brand image of their brands, isn’t it?
Well, what about Richard Branson, you may ask? Isn’t he into different sorts of products and services, like Virgin Airlines, Virgin Cola, etc? As business author and journalist Glenn Rifkin describes,   

“Branson has parlayed a lifelong disdain for conventional business wisdom into a $3.5 billion international conglomerate and one of the world’s most powerful and recognizable brands. Under the ubiquitous Virgin banner, Mr. Branson has ventured into panoply of businesses – from condoms to wedding gowns, from airlines to financial services – and in the process has taken on entrenched giants and wrested market share from them.”  
Richard Branson has sure didn’t reach his current superstar status through following conventions. 

Much like Oprah Winfrey, Branson has purposefully stayed true to his core values, including adventure, excitement and risk-taking. By sticking to what makes him happy, he would often times do exactly what other business leaders cautioned against, including wild publicity stunts like driving down Fifth Avenue in a tank for Virgin Cola. However unconventional, his unorthodox style and commitment to his own passions won in the end. 

When you develop your personal branding profile, you reflect back on who you want to be and select those values that best represent you and resonate well with you. Don’t attempt to be someone else. You are uniquely different and special and there are people, customers and organisations out there who value your real YOU and are happy to work with you.

Many people craft their personal visions from the ‘Who’ stage and then search for the attributes of the ‘Who’ identity to determine what they should be. An illustration is a high achiever who being mentored by his department boss (the No 2 man of the company) decides to follow his footsteps to the T. 

He communicates, talks, thinks and leads like his boss without realising that sooner or later, much as he tries, he would not be able to step into his boss’s shoes (that’s why coaching is so powerful). For the simple reason, that they are different people with different values, passions and abilities.
You cannot become who you are until you know how your values will impact the choices you make. If you know what are important to you as an individual, then you orient your life in the best possible manner to bring out your best abilities in the context of your different roles, as an entrepreneur, a senior executive of the firm or as a parent to your children. 

My children know me intimately as a person developer, a coach. While my love for them is undisputed, they know that Dad is always there to support them in their personal and academic development. Dad will be there to challenge their thinkings, stretch their abilities and empower them with opportunities to try new things, new ways of doing and attempt higher degrees of challenges with lots of love, support and understanding. 

Because one of my values is to develop others as I enjoy seeing people maximise their potentials, I decided years ago to become a person’s developer (what I want to become, taking into consideration my values). And after much introspection and personal discovery, I realise that being a coach is who I want to be. I could have been a trainer, motivational speaker, HRD personnel or even a banker who develops up and rising executives. 

Indeed, it is not often that you come across a personal branding and coaching company all roll into one.
Our services are specifically targeted at the middle level  and senior management executives,  people who often need a fresh baptism of fire to reignite their visions and aspirations.

Being stuck, frustrated and unfulfilled are common setbacks with these high achievers who believe that they have more to offer but are not sure how to communicate those intentions to internal bosses or external potential employers. They know they have the necessary skills and experiences to achieve further but the lack of a differentiated and valued Personal Brand is affecting their career prospects in the organisation and in the industry too.

Executives Branding coaches these individuals to strengthen their brand presence and develop strategies to communicate their unique promise of value to their respective target audience. 
Some of the ideas that these Executives can focus to increase their Personal Branding Values are: 

• Crafting a high impact plan to increase visibility 
• Initiating a 100 day breakthrough project
• Developing a network of strong relationships within the company
• Mentoring or coaching rising stars in the company
• Giving a listening ear to bosses and keeping the confidentiality
• Organising motivation talks, outdoor activities to rally the troops
• Initiating and writing an internal newsletter on current topics and issues
• Organising fellow middle management leaders into brainstorming groups to increase operational efficiencies, marketing efforts, people development, etc 
• Volunteering their expertise to professional organisations
• Contributing written articles, research papers and research to relevant bodies in the industry
• Speaking in important seminars, forums and workshops
• Networking with strategic executive head hunters or successful recruitment consultants
• Joining professional or industry organisations and taking up an active role to serve
• Regularly contributing positive feedback and sound ideas to relevant government bodies
• Build a powerful online presence using blog, LinkedIn profile.
• Build your Personal brand with clarity, consistency and constancy
• Be your corporate brand ambassador in your personal time
• Organise your team to support a needy cause of the country
• Give a greater commitment to your company during hard times
• Speak in international conferences of your target market at your own time and expense
• Consciously and consistently build your Personal Brand Resume by achieving these goals progressively on an annual basis.
• Attend talks, seminars organised by other institutions 

Find out how Executives Branding can create the value in your personal brand so that YOU, Inc can generate rewarding benefits resulting from who you are and what you do!