Make yourself different

Jane Porter writes about finetuning your resume—WSJ, June 2, 2009.

The other day my kid was going to fax a resume to a vet’s office—I said, tell them you have a dog and three cats, you love animals, make yourself stand out.

Everyone needs to hop out of the blah-blah-blah these days.

Porter advises—make a wish list. Pick out companies at a convenient location, or companies that favor working mothers, or whatever. Have targets that YOU want.

Use keywords to your advantage. If you want an HR position, put in words like “recruiting” and “hiring” right up top.

Don’t use bullet points unless you have written out the whole story of duties or projects—then whittle THAT down to bullets.

Try to find an insider at your target—network.

Maybe try a handwritten cover—talking about the last quarterly earnings, something specific to the company.

If you have been sending the same res out for a month—go over it again.

Talking about pets would not be right for every job, but was sure worth a try to become the woman who coaxes the dog onto the scale at the vet.

So far, though—no answer. Not even a bark.