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Creating a Brag Book for Your Resume

Why do you need a brag book for your resume?

A resume is more than a list of tasks that you accomplish every day. It describes your accomplishments—what you achieved with your skills, education, and experience. A brag book is a place to record achievements so that you do not forget them when it comes time to write your resume.

Many people dislike bragging or talking about themselves or feel they have nothing in their career to brag about anyway. A brag book is a way of putting your career in context; as time goes on you will see that you have actually developed knowledge and skills that you did not have at the start of your career.

What should you include in a brag book for your resume?

  • Copies or details of any awards, praise, or commendations you receive
  • Testimonials from current or former bosses—if you have none, ask for them
  • Important numbers you have achieved, such as a decrease in cost or increase in productivity, revenue, or customer satisfaction
  • Important numbers about your company, such as its number of employees or yearly revenue
  • Names and contact information of customers, colleagues, supervisors, and others who might be good additions to your networking pool
  • Descriptions of projects you were involved in and their results, including the number of people on a team and its goals
  • Descriptions of challenges you faced at work and what you learned from them
  • Copies of your evaluations, especially if the evaluator writes a favorable comment or ranks you high among your peers
  • Your old resumes, so that you do not forget dates and titles as time goes on
  • Copies of any certificates or other credentials from taking internal or external courses to develop your skills

How will the brag book help your job search?

Share the information in your brag book with your professional resume writer. Look at your brag book whenever you get discouraged by your job search. Read through the brag book before interviews to sharpen your memory about your achievements and prepare to answer questions.

Robin’s Resumes® can help you build a resume that draws on your brag book to convince hiring managers and recruiters that will make a valuable addition to any company.

Is a Professional Resume Writer Worth the Cost

When most people are deciding whether a professional resume writer is worth the cost, they usually calculate the length of time they saved in hunting for a job. Get hired a month or two earlier, and they have a lot more income in the bank—far more than a professional resume writer costs.

But payback for using a professional resume begins earlier: A professionally written resume renews your confidence in your abilities, reminding you of how much you have actually accomplished over your career; gives you the right words for dealing with any problems in your work history; and helps you project a stronger, more accurate image during interviews.

When you are considering if a professional resume writer is worth the cost, take note of these important points about resumes:

  1. A resume is a marketing document. Are you confused about the line between marketing, bragging, exaggerating, and outright lying? Are you wondering whether to mention a gap in employment, how to handle a career transition, or write about another employment anomaly? Are you confident that you know what should be on your resume and what does not need to be there? A professional resume writer will give your resume focus, take care of anomalies, and highlight those parts of your employment record that will get you the job you want now.
  2. A resume is more than a history of tasks—it is a record of accomplishments. Do you have a brag book where you have kept track of your accomplishments? Do you remember how much you learned from each job in your past and how much you contributed? A professional resume writer will help you recall your achievements and put them in context.
  3. A poorly written resume is a reflection on you as a potential employee. Are you sure about punctuation, grammar, and spelling? Are you ready to double-check every acronym and company name in your resume or will you just assume that they are correct? Do the dates of employment lining up and have you consistently used the past tense for former jobs? A professional resume writer will make sure that your resume is error-free.
  4. A resume must communicate. Is your resume able to pass through Applicant Tracking Systems so that recruiters and hiring managers actually have a chance to read it? Are you able to present technical or scientific information in a way that recruiters and hiring managers can understand? Does your resume align with your social media presence, or do you need to rethink your online image? A professional resume writer can help you bridge any communications gap.

At Robin’s Resumes®, our professionally written resumes have been worth the cost to thousands of job seekers. We prepare resumes that propel our clients from inquiry to interview. Contact us today.

Typos on Your Resume: A Deal Genuine Breaker

You have probably told yourself that one little mistake on your resume will not hurt your chances at a job. Please think again. A 2018 survey by CareerBuilder asked hiring managers about the most common resume mistakes that cause them to toss out a resume. Number one, the choice of 77% of respondents, was “typos or bad grammar.”

As a professional resume writer, I have a keen eye for typos and bad grammar. I use online spell checkers and grammar checkers, but I also proofread, because even the best spell checker and grammar checker can make mistakes.

For example, a spell checker will accept this sentence: “Collaborated with the manger of the fiancé department.” Every word is spelled correctly, but the sentence should have read: “Collaborated with the manager of the finance department.”

A grammar checker will accept this sentence: “Lead a team of engineers that delivered a project under budget.” The sentence was part of a past job description and should have read: “Led a team of engineers who delivered a project under budget.”

When I proofread, I check for items that are easy to overlook and that grammar and spelling checkers will not catch:

  • Missing periods at the ends of sentences; a missing parenthesis or quotation mark in a pair; or a switch from serial comma (before “and”) to no comma.
  • Changes in spacing between bullets or headlines or between words.
  • Inconsistent dates. On the CareerBuilder survey, one human resource manager mentioned a resume where every job listed had the same employment dates.
  • Inconsistent spelling and capitalization. For example, “start-up” and “startup” are both correct spellings for the noun but you should stick with one. Most people now spell “cloud” with a lower-case c, but if you want to spell it “Cloud,” make sure you do that consistently.
  • Mistakes in acronyms or association names. For example, SHRM is the Society for Human Resource Management. If you call it SFHRM or Human Resource Managers Society (HRMS), you are making a mistake.

Make sure that you print and proofread your resume several times before you send it out. If you do not feel confident in your grammar and spelling skills, please contact me.

What to Do If Your Job Search Has Stalled

As a certified career coach, I can recommend many job hunting strategies that will complement your resume and increase your chances of finding that perfect job. I recommend a balanced set of job search techniques; if there is one you have not tried, now is your chance to charge up your job search.

  1. Search Online vs. Networking In-Person

Both online job searches and in-person networking are essential. Online, make sure your LinkedIn and other profiles and all your social media accounts are professional. For the time being, either make your social media accounts private or wash them clean of anything that might undermine your professional image.

At the same time, network in person: Get yourself out among people, spreading the word about your job hunt and letting them see what a great employee you would make. Talk to family, friends and former colleagues; attend business networking events and expos; and always remember to open a conversation by finding out about the other person first. You are not out to harangue people but to see if there they have (or know of) a business problem you can solve.

  1. Keep Working in Your Field vs. Broadening Your Skills When Unemployed

If you are out of work right now, you might want to take on freelance and consultant opportunities that could become job offers. But at least you are bringing in income and keeping your skills sharp and building contacts. However, if finding freelance work is not an option, you have the time now to also take professional courses or to volunteer for organizations that can use or expand your skills. The more value you bring to a company, the happier they will be to interview you.

  1. Stick with Your Current Resume vs. Building a New Resume

If your current resume is bringing you an invitation to interviews, there may be no need to re-write it. The problem may rest with your interviews. Make sure that your interview skills support your resume; if you flounder when describing previous accomplishments, the hiring manager or recruiter will begin to doubt you.

However, if you are not getting to the interview stage, you should consider hiring a professional resume writer to rewrite your resume. Maybe it is not targeted enough to your chosen position or industry. Maybe it is too repetitive, vague, long, short, quirky, or dull. The objective, informed opinion of a professional resume writer and career coach will help set you and your resume on track.

Do you need help upgrading your resume or with any other aspect of your job search? Contact Robin’s Resumes® and let a professional resume writer help.

Resume Q&A: I’m Not Getting Interviews

Q. I think I have a great resume, but clearly employers do not feel the same way. I cannot get an interview. Why would a resume fail over and over again? What can I do?

A. The reasons why a resume fails to gain interviews may be entirely out of your hands. For example, financial difficulties in the industry where you are applying may lead to cutbacks or employment freezes. Changes in industry regulations or qualifications for the position you want may mean that you need a new certification or additional training before you would be considered.

If the problem is a mismatch between your skills and employer expectations, then now is the time for you to brush up on your skills or take additional courses. You should be reading job advertisements and postings carefully to make sure you understand what each company is looking for—and customizing your resume each time to make sure the company understands how qualified you are.

Make sure you have explored every avenue for finding a new job. Simply searching the internet for help wanted is not enough. You need to network in person—attend meetings of professional organizations; talk to former employers and peers who might recommend you for new openings; and become more active in the community, perhaps by volunteering, so that your name and talents are better known.

You might also want to send your resume to a professional resume writer. A truly professional resume writer will interview you and work with you one-on-one to see if there is anything that can be added to or better emphasized in your current resume.

As a certified career coach, I can also offer you suggestions for reframing your resume for careers, positions, or industries you might not have considered. You probably have many transferable skills and achievements that would land you a job on a career path slightly different from your current path.

Please contact me if I can be of further help to prepare your resume for the next great interview.