Perfect Chaos: Pro Resumes Made Easy Book Review and Tour

I read Pro Resumes Made Easy (The Made Easy Series) in exchange for honest review from Reading Addiction Blog Tours. The book was written by Andrea Plum. This post does contain Amazon affiliate links and images.

Excerpt: From media kit.

Chapter 1 – Some basics

What is the purpose of a resume? If you ask most people, they will tell you it is “to get a job interview.” Yes, that’s right it is designed to get you a job interview. But a resume is also designed to sell you, or generate enough interest in you to make the reader make contact and schedule a meeting time. Your resume has had enough impact, that out of the hundreds of resumes a recruiter receives in their email inbox daily, yours has stood out.

If you’ve heard the saying that recruiter’s look at most resumes for between 5 and 20 seconds, it’s true. Add to that equation the fact that resumes are now received via email inbox, and you need to consider the fact that this means that the top third of your first page will be the first thing the recruiter sees when they click open the attachment.

I’ll be running you through the step by step process I use when writing a resume. My resumes are written in a way that they;

Catch the recruiters eye immediately
Give them a reason to keep on reading
Stand out by writing them in a way that only 5% of all job applicants use effectively; and
Works with scanning software sometimes used by recruiters
Makes the reader want to meet with you!

About the Author: from media kit

Andrea started her professional resume writing career in 1998, forming a professional resume writing service online for all professions.

In April 2011, she successfully transitioned the business over to new management, in order to focus on her specialty niche, IT professionals, Executives and Managers.

Why?

Well, in Andrea's words "Executives and Managers are accustomed to collaborating to produce cutting edge results, and so are professional in their dealings enabling a unique and top class result and enabling me to write even better career marketing documents."

This doesn't mean that if you are not an executive or Manager she can't help you. It simply means that unless you understand this is an investment and will involve some work on your part (providing the information needed) then it's probably best you look elsewhere that's all.

My Review:

I wanted to read the book after reading a post in a group on Facebook about how to create the perfect resume to get a job. The post was discussing the right length of a resume. For me, I was told a perfect resume was one to two pages from a recruiter at a job fair. She said she preferred one page and mine at that time was two pages. The recruiter basically said to keep it short and simple, and provided more details at the interview. Finally, the recruiter said to be more detailed. Instead of saying, you have responsibilities in x, y, and z, provided examples of x, y, and z instead.

Pro Resumes Made Easy (The Made Easy Series) consists of 18 chapters, which helps you create a professional resume, cover letter, and reference page, in addition to tips for job interviews and common mistakes with resumes. A resume is a summary of your current and past job experiences. A resume can help you get or not get a job. Job applicants need to create a resume, which will capture the recruiters attention quickly.

For example, Drew discussed how you don't need to use the word resume as the title of a resume. I am guilty of this big time. Next, Drew discussed how you don't need to include name, address, and telephone as headings.

Interesting story: I usually create my own resumes. A few years ago, a friend asked to re-do my resume and I gave him the information. When I got his revised copy, I was shocked. It was a nice resume, but he padded a lot of the information. For example, I used to work at a manufacturing plant. One of the first jobs I had was assembly and production. I later worked as a machine operator, material handler, and final tester. When I was working assembly and production, my job was to make boxes, then fill the boxes with completed parts, in addition to taking the production to the warehouse.

My new resume said I was responsible for floor layout. It also said I was fluent in software, I never heard of. I could not use the resume.

Other tips I liked in the book include:

Include the position you are applying for.
If you include hard skills, provide evidence of experience. Providing evidence helps your resume stand out more to the recruiter. For example, instead of saying I have customer service experience. I can say I received customer service training when I worked at both Aramark and Atlanta Expo Cafe. I can also provide examples of how I applied the training. For example, when I worked at the Cafe, a elderly lady in a wheelchair, needed assistance getting to a table. The restaurant space was small and not laid out for wheelchairs. I moved some tables and chairs around, then asked her if she wanted me to push her to where she wanted to go. I helped her through the food line, then sat her and her family down at their preferred table.
Drew mentioned how you can provide problems, discuss how you resolved the problem, and then provide the results.
Include keywords, just in case, the recruiter uses scanning software.
Don't forget to include your contact details. Contact details should include home phone number, cell phone number, and email address. You also can include address. On another note, I was told never to include address in a resume. The reason being is that some recruiters will not hire someone based on distance from home to the job. If they need you to come in at the last minute, and you live an hour away, the job may not be a fit for you. I have worked at jobs, which was over an hour away by public transportation. I had one job, which was 10 minutes by car, from my house, but over an hour away by bus. My house and job was on the same street, but since the street was long, it was covered by two busses. I had to catch one bus to get part of the way to the job and another bus to get to the job. I getting up earlier to walk to the one of two stops to catch the second bus, instead of waiting on two busses. I also have walked to the job, which took me about an hour as well. I stopped doing that quickly.

The book is available in paperback for $10.02 and on Kindle for $3.99. If you have Amazon Prime, the book is Prime-Eligible and you can receive it within 2 days.