Hooray! You found your dream job in a recent position announcement. The skills and experience being sought by the employer seem to be a perfect match to your background, qualifications, and career aspirations. There’s only one problem: a bachelor’s degree is listed as one of the “must-have” requirements, and you never finished your degree.

Is it hopeless to apply for a position when you don’t meet the education requirements listed in the job ad?

Not necessarily!

Employers are often willing to overlook the absence of a degree if a candidate has ample experience related to the job in question. So your resume needs to highlight precisely that by showcasing your history of proven performance. It will be especially important for you to include quantifiable examples (using numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, and/or before/after comparisons) of how you have improved operations, profits, team performance, customer service, market share, etc. on your resume.

In addition, even though you didn’t graduate from a university or college, mention college studies that you did complete. This can be an excellent way to add in keywords (such as “BA” or “BS”) to your resume that would otherwise be missing — without being misleading or dishonest. Here’s an example:

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA – Tuscaloosa, AL

Coursework toward a BA in Advertising, 2004 to 2006

Completed half of degree program requirements prior to being recruited by XYZ Company to join their account executive team.

Job seekers without a college degree should also include highlights of any professional development completed to show a commitment to lifelong learning. Here’s an example:

Professional Development: Completed numerous seminars and courses on topics including:

Legal & Regulatory Affairs / Leadership & Supervision / Six Sigma Principles / Performance Management / Finance for Non-Financial Managers / Strategic Business Plans / Balanced Scorecards

So don’t be discouraged if you find a job posting that interests you but you lack the educational requirements. It’s worth a shot to apply for the position, and highlight the value you bring to the table through your experience and proven track record.

Wishing you a successful job search!

Karen Hofferber

Senior Resume Writer, ResumePower.com

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If you have a gap in your employment history, you may have concerns about how to explain this on your resume.

Keep in mind that many people step away from the workplace each year to raise children, care for ill/aging family members, return to school, recover from an illness/accident, or for some other reason. So the good news is that there is less of a stigma attached to this than there used to be.

It’s possible that you may not even need to explain the gap. For example, if you were away from the workforce from February 2006 to October 2007, you can de-emphasize the 20-month gap by listing years of employment (vs. months and years).

But if the gap spans multiple years, and especially if the gap has occurred within the last five years, then it may need to be addressed on either the resume or the cover letter. Employers like to see the work chronology, and may wonder what you were doing if large gaps are present.

Serving as the primary caregiver for a family member or taking a sabbatical to pursue a degree are valid explanations for a gap. You can also fill this time period by showcasing any volunteerism, consulting, or self-study you completed. Treat this experience just as you would a paid, full-time position, and try to include examples of key contributions you made. For example, if you helped with a school fundraising drive, mention how your efforts were instrumental in meeting or exceeding the giving goal. Be sure to emphasize skills and accomplishments that are relevant to your current career objective.

Best wishes for job search success!

Karen Hofferber

Senior Resume Writer, ResumePower.com

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The U.S. housing crisis has led to a mass exodus of mortgage professionals from this industry. With foreclosures and defaults skyrocketing, lending guidelines tightening, and home values plummeting, opportunities for commissions are scarce and layoffs are increasing. It’s tough to make a living originating mortgages when lenders and their loan products are dwindling and qualified borrowers are difficult to locate.

If you’re a mortgage lending professional and considering a career change, here’s some good news: armed with a powerful career change resume, you can successfully break into a new industry. Here’s how to make your resume shine:

1. State your goal. Remove guesswork for employers by clearly stating your career goal towards the beginning of your resume. There are several ways you can do this. My favorite is to create a resume title that spells it out succinctly — such as “Career Goal: Medical/Pharmaceutical Sales.” Another option is to write an objective (but make sure that your objective focuses on employers’ needs and not just on what you want). A third choice (which I often use in conjunction with a resume title) is to incorporate your goal in a powerful opening profile summarizing your key strengths. (See #3, below.)

2. Emphasize your transferable skills. Loan officers bring a wealth of skills and knowledge to the workplace that are transferable to many industries. Examples include consultative selling, customer needs analysis, risk assessment, relationship building, presentation/communication skills, inside/outside sales, and computer proficiencies. But you have to spell out these transferable skills on your resume — don’t assume that these skills will be considered a “given” by employers outside the mortgage industry. You can incorporate your transferable skills into virtually all areas of the resume, including the qualifications summary, an “Expertise” (or “Key Skills”) list, and the “Experience” section.

3. Profile your most marketable strengths. A qualifications summary is a must for career changers. Written as a brief paragraph or a few bulleted statements, it gives you the opportunity to tell employers why they should interview you. For example:

“Multimillion-dollar producer motivated to leverage six-year record of commended sales performance to transition into new product lines and industries. Fast learner of complex products; ‘power user’ of MS Office; and expert prospector, negotiator, presenter, and closer. Consistently deliver quota-surpassing results, and excel in building rapport and enduring relationships with key accounts.”

4. Turn negatives into positives. The ability to survive during tough times is something to tout on your resume. If this is your story, consider adding a bulleted accomplishment or two highlighting this track record. For example:

• “Generated steady referral business despite the severe collapse in the industry. Found creative ways to structure deals and meet client needs while adhering to lending guidelines and preserving company profitability.”

5. Use comparisons, pipeline metrics, or previous production numbers if your current sales have declined. “What do I use for accomplishments when the mortgage industry has tanked?” is a question that was recently posed to me by a loan officer client. You have several options, and depending on the specifics of your situation, at least one of these should be relevant and applicable. Use comparisons to your peers if this presents you in a favorable light. For example, you may have only closed one deal last month, but if that tied for first place in your office then you can truthfully report that you achieved top ranking despite the industry’s decline. Or maybe you’ve been successful in generating a healthy pipeline even though some of these deals may not survive underwriting. Again, highlight the positive. And even if you haven’t received any sales awards this year, include previous honors. (Just remove references to the year that you received these, as in the last example, below.)

I’ve included a few sample bulleted accomplishment statements below. Not all of these may be applicable to you, but I hope it gives you a jumping-off point to create your own accomplishment statements:

• “Harnessed previously built relationships to continue bringing in deals and closing sales during period when few peers were able to achieve these results.”
• “Consistently led the office in sales volume, earning top rankings for production during periods of high growth as well as market decline.”
• “Maintained a strong pipeline (with over $4.5M in current pending deals) despite dwindling prospects and product availability.”
• “Honored with numerous awards during five-year tenure, including repeated ‘Top Sales’ distinction for record-breaking production (six months in a row of $1M+ volume).”

6. Minimize industry-specific terms. The widespread negative press the mortgage industry has received, including the largely unpopular bailout plan, has the unfortunate residual side-effect of “guilt by association” for hardworking professionals on the front-lines of this industry. Combat this problem by minimizing industry-specific terms on your resume. Now is not the time to be connected to Fannie or Freddie, and any mentions of “sub-prime,” “Option ARMs,” “Alt-A,” and even the term “mortgage” (use euphemisms, like “finance” and “financial services,” instead, wherever possible) should be used sparingly on your resume.

I hope this helps! If you need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if you’d like to explore having your resume professionally written.

Best wishes,

Karen Hofferber

Senior Resume Writer, ResumePower.com

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If you’re trying to select the best format for your resume, most likely a functional resume won’t work. Not convinced? Check out the following article by guest writer Jessie Richardson. Best wishes, Kim Isaacs

Resume Writing Tip: Format is Key to Success
By Jessie Richardson, CPRW

Many of my transitioning military clients are overwhelmed at the thought of capturing their experience in a resume, just like their civilian counterparts. Getting started with writing a resume can be overwhelming, but choosing the right resume format can be the key to getting your resume read. You may have heard that there are several resume styles from which to choose. Although technically that is true, there is really only one style that you should use. So heed this warning before you put that pen to paper - no matter who has “sold” you on a functional format - do not listen!

The two most popular resume formats are functional and reverse chronological. A reverse chronological resume lists employment with the most recent position first. Each entry includes the company, job title, dates, and a job description with an emphasis on accomplishments, and includes an education or certifications section. Functional resumes begin with a professional summary that lists primary functional skills, such as project management, maintenance, reorganization, etc. This is followed by skills and significant achievements for each of the primary functional skills. Next is a tabular summary of employment, followed by education and certifications.

There are three problems with functional resumes. First, they do not provide hiring managers with enough information. As a hiring authority, how am I to know if you have three months or three years of “project management” experience? Second, they come across as suspicious. Functional resumes are popular among people with something to hide, such as habitual “job hoppers” and those with large gaps in their employment history. Third, they tend to be heavy on empty phrases like, “exceptional leadership skills.” To a seasoned resume reviewer, this means nothing. A great resume leads the reader, on his or her own, to come up with the very assertions you would like to make. Aim to show not tell - a hard order to fill with a functional resume.

In summary, readers want the resume in a certain format. List your work experiences in reverse chronological order rather than by function performed. If collateral duties and multiple, simultaneous jobs make your reverse chronological timeline somewhat difficult to follow, add a “collateral duties” or “additional experience” section and keep the focus on experience most relevant to your target. While a functional resume may make you feel better about representing your skills, it will not please the reader and you could suffer the consequences because your resume ended up in the trash.

About the Author: Jessie Richardson directs operations for MilitaryResumes.com, the military-to-civilian transition experts. She is a Naval Academy graduate and a regular commentator on job search best practices for military-experienced job seekers. Her e-mail address is jrichardson at militaryresumes dot com.

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Recently, a number of job seekers have asked me if it’s okay to drop undesirable jobs from their resumes. The reasons varied, but most had to do with holding short-term positions, leaving jobs on bad terms, getting fired, and changing careers.

In the past, I would have considered that approach. After all, a resume is a marketing piece and should present only the qualifications that would help “sell” the candidate. Now I’m revisiting this issue, and my advice is that you shouldn’t omit positions from your resume just to make your work history look more desirable.

Okay, I shouldn’t use absolutes. Someone asked if a job she held for several days can be dropped. Yes, it can! An extremely short-term job is not significant enough to be listed in your employment history. Also, if you’re only including employment history from the last 10-15 years or so, of course you can omit older jobs. As is the case for most resume strategy decisions, use your judgment.

Here are the top reasons why it’s usually not a good idea to omit jobs from the resume:

1. You will look like a liar when the employer finds out during a background check, and then you’ll have some explaining to do (if a job offer is still a possibility).

2. Although resumes aren’t officially signed, legal documents like applications are, employers are expecting you to provide a thorough, honest work history. The omitted job may go unnoticed for now, but could come back to haunt you after you’re hired. Your job–and reputation–could be in jeopardy.

3. In some cases, listing the job will look better than showing a “gap.” Yes, you were employed (even if for a short time), and that will remove the employer’s concern about what you were doing during that time period.

4. It doesn’t look as bad as you think it looks. I understand that it’s a competitive job market and everyone wants to have a “perfect” work history, but very few people offer such a history. You’re human. You took a job that was a bad fit. You got fired. So what? We tend to magnify our own flaws, even when others wouldn’t notice there’s a problem.

I’m not saying that providing a complete, truthful work history is the easy approach. You could be hit with tough interview questions, but you should do fine if you anticipate the questions and prepare responses before heading into the interview.

The bottom line: You will get a new job, and can proceed with a clear conscience.

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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I’m sometimes asked if people should write their own resumes. After all, who knows more about the job seeker’s accomplishments than the job seeker himself? So I’ve compiled this list of the top ten reasons why you shouldn’t write your own resume:

Top Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Write Your Own Resume

10. Last time you wrote your resume, it was confused with your six-year-old’s homework assignment.

9. Your self-composed resume left you amongst the long-term unemployed.

8. You struggle with how to word your Objective section and keep coming back to the old standby, “Seeking a challenging position with a growth-oriented company.”

7. The latest version of your resume leads with your 1972 babysitting gig.

6. You’re using an IBM Selectric to format your resume’s layout.

5. You think keywords have something to do with the Dewey Decimal System.

4. Your son’s resume is more impressive than yours, and he has never held a job.

3. You’re trying to sum up a long-term career history on a one-page resume.

2. You were always the first to be eliminated in spelling bees, but there’s always spellcheck, write?

And the #1 reason why you shouldn’t write your own resume…

1. Hiring managers have an uncontrollable bout of the giggles when reading your resume.

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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Newspapers, blogs, sales letters, and other marketing documents use headlines to draw readers in and make them want to continue reading.

Using the same concept as headlines for sales copy (Michel Fortin’s blog post on the subject is a must-read), adding one to your resume can give you an edge over other candidates.

If you’re boring employers to tears with a ho-hum “Objective” section that focuses on you and your needs, try using a headline instead and see if that makes a difference in your resume’s response rate. I bet it does!

The goal of a headline is to capture the reader’s attention, so it should contain your value proposition. Don’t even try to create one unless you can succinctly express why the employer should hire you. Once that is clear in your mind, you can create a headline that gets noticed and makes the hiring manager want to read the rest of your resume.

Have you replaced your “Objective” section with a headline? If so, I would love to hear how it’s been working for you. Feel free to post a comment below or send me an email .

To your success,

Kim Isaacs

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I loved Norma’s post on the Monster Blog about the right way to go after an internal transfer, and I’m glad Norma pointed out the importance of updating your resume to “sell” yourself for an internal move.

If you’re trying to move up within your company, check out this article that includes strategies for an internal promotion: Resume Writing Tips for an Internal Promotion

For lateral transfers, I would add that it’s important to demonstrate transferable skills that are relevant to the new position. Find out which skills are important in the job you’re targeting, and incorporate your matching skills and accomplishments in the resume. It’s also important to show that you’ve successfully met diverse job challenges and that you quickly learn and master new skills.

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

P.S.: You guys are keeping me busy with free resume reviews! My schedule is starting to get pretty hectic, so I might have to close this offer in the near future. If you would like a free review of your resume, hop on over to this thread and post your resume in the “Comments” section — before it’s too late. Thank you!

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