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Show bu/ine// B6 MONDAY* SEPTEMBER 26-2005 Career builders 101: How to build a resume and prepare for a job interview Pete Walters Business Editor So you've typed the resume, you've written the letters, you've sent them off and you've been called back. How do you feel? Most people would feel pretty good, but scared. How can you go into your interview with confidence? How can you relax and be yourself? Most importantly, what are the two things that every potential employer absolutely must sense from you before they are ready to hire you? Let's discuss each of these points. Confidence in the Interview Human beings are sensory. Particularly we are visual and aural. We can be tricked, seduced, deceived, lied to, and we like it. We want to be deceived. Most people are looking for a leader, whether they know it or not. They are looking for the man or woman with the answers. How can you use this natural human tendency to your advantage? Buy or borrow a tape recorder and give yourself an interview. Listen to your voice. Would you hire you? Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. The purpose here is to listen for those moments of hesitation and uncertainty and learn how to correct them. Be sure of who you are and what you you're looking for. Do you say "urn" too much? Are you too quiet? Lying through you teeth? A word of caution. If you have never recorded and listened to your voice before, you're in for a shock. Most people can't stand the sound of their voice recorded. There is a difference between the voice we hear with our own ears and the voice other people hear with theirs. Don't let this bother you. Your voice sounds natural and wonderful to others. Don't worry about your tone and timbre. Focus on the pauses, the hesitations— the subconscious indicators of uncertainty and weakness. It matters less what image you think you are sending out, and matters more what image your interviewer is receiving. Relax Walking into a random building you've never set foot in before can be quite intimidating, particularly if you feel that all eyes are upon you. Visit the building a day or two in advance. Walk in, introduce yourself to the receptionist if there is one. Tell him or her that you've got a job appointment in a few days and you thought you would test the waters. Ask the receptionist how he/she likes his/her job. Make friends. When you come back in a few days, much tension will be alleviated. Assuming the same receptionist is behind the counter when you arrive for your interview, you're likely to be met with a friendly smile rather than blank, impersonal procedure. This will give you a slight advantage and a shot of courage on the actual day of your interview. Know the building ahead of time; walk in proud and smiling. Tell yourself, "I own this company!" Don't let yourself believe that you are a stranger there. Tell yourself that you belong. Think of someone you know who emulates confidence. Keep this person in your mind as the type of image you want to project. Don't view the various workers you see coming and going as foreign things to be feared. Imagine yourself engaged in conversation with them, fitting in. Remember, however, that in the midst of all this confident relaxing, that you are here to be yourself. You are here to match your individual skills and behavior with the needs and atmosphere of the company. If it's not a goodfit,you won't feel happy. The company has no upperhand over you. They need you as much as you need them. The neediness is mutual. It's a neediness festival. The company has an abundance of money and a lack of qualified staff; you have an abundance of qualified skills and a lack of money. All you have to do, is demonstrate two things and you're home free. The Two Magic Ingredients What are the two things that every potential employer absolutely must sense from you before they are ready to hire you? No pulling punches here: your expertise, and your humanity. Memorize them. Employers often don't know that this is what they are looking for. Rather, it's something they will "sense" from you. You now have an advantage for the rest of your life. You are now forever consciously aware of the two magic ingredients of persuasion, marketing and success. Employers need to know that you're qualified. They need to know you have the skill-sets and education they're looking for. If you've done your homework, you've already matched up the educational requirements of the position with your own background. Now it's time to show them the person behind the resume. What do I mean by humanity? You've got to show them that you're a live, breathing, unforgettable individual. You've got to show them what it is about you that cannot be ignored. There may be ten qualified applicants as far as education and background are concerned. But in the end, the applicant who demonstrates their sense of humanity will, in the end, win out. Nobody wants to hire a potato bug. After the applicants have been interviewed, the interviewer will sit again down with a stack of resumes and reflect upon each of the interviewer's. What will he or she remember about you? That you were quiet and pretty much sleeping? Or that you were filled with a can-do attitude? Were you humorous? Were you a delight to have around? Did you make an impression? Will youfitin with the team? These are the gut reactions that the interviewer bases his or her final decision upon: your expertise, combined with your overall oomph as a human being. Give your interviewer a reason to remember you. Do your best to ensure that the recalled memories are pleasant and delightful. It really all comes down to those two things. Everything you do during your entire application process is to prove your expertise and your humanity. Everything falls under one of those two categories. Remember Mr. E and Mr. H for the rest of your life and they will serve you well. Having just read some 25 resumes in the past week, most of them downright embarrassing, I've decided to pass along some of the best resume writing advice anyone has ever given to me. Now pay attention because we're going to go fast. First and Foremost There is one crucial element that most beginning resume writers fail to include in their resumes: white space. No joke. Respect "the void." If you come across as verbose and chaotic, you're not going to make a good impression or get called back. Think "streamline." Narrow it down. Focus every detail down to a point. Down to a sentence. The idea is to deliver your information to the brain of each potential interviewer as easily and unobtrusive as possible. Nobody likes to see big long blocks of heavy black text. (Well, nobody who's going to be giving you a job at any rate.) So remember this simple resume tip and remember the power of white space. Speaking of Simple Keep it that way. The less heavy underlining and bolding and italicizing and columnizing you do, the better. Avoid the chaotic constellation look. Bolded splatterings of text will send a subtle message of confusion. Just because you know how to click those [B] [I] [U] buttons doesn't mean you have to. Use them like over the counter pain medication: only as needed. Horizontal Field Avoid writing any entry over three lines long. Two looks even nicer. And try to structure your resume in such a way that the actual substance and details of your resume are written in a space of no more than four to five horizontal inches from left to right. Why? Anything longer than that is subconsciously irritating. Have you ever visited a website with text that sprawls all the way across your monitor from one edge of the screen to the other? It's mildly hypnotizing and rather disconcerting. It's a strain to the eyes of the reader. Try to avoid it. Furthermore, by accentuating the left to right, you're inducing the "no" effect. Create an up-down resume (the "yes" effect) as opposed to a left-right resume. I have two vertical columns in my resume: one for listing the main categories (the left third of the page) and one for explaining all the details (the right two-thirds of the page). This structure is also an ode to white space. The Rule of Thirds Remember that photography class you took in high school? Our eyes are pleased when we see images organized in thirds, and we are glad and filled with light and happiness. Beyond merely presenting information, your resume should look nice. Think of the paper as your canvass and construct a visual masterpiece. Space it out. Be clear on how you are going to divide your information. Try to separate your information both visually and spatially. Division of Information Aside from my contact information, I have always, ALWAYS, been able to generate call backs with the following three resume categories: Professional, Experience, Education. I find that those categories best describe me to an employer. I don't need to go on and on about my computer skills, my punctuality, my "completeness" (whatever that is). I have three points of emphasis in each of those three categories. Below those categories are three simple references. This works like a charm for me. Ever send off a resume and later see it in printed form and thought it looked ridiculous? You may have written it in Word, but your interviewer may have opened it with WordPerfect. Consider writing your resume as an Adobe PDF file, where formatting is never messed up. 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