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is that? A resume profile page is a keyword list a recruiter can scan to get a quick understanding of what you have to offer. When I was looking for work in 2002, I created an HTML version of my resume profile page and placed it online. Today, I am still being contacted by recruiters who have found my resume profile from a Google search. (See it for yourself: jimstroud.com/resume.htm.)

The moral of the story is simply this: If you position yourself to be found, you will not have to look so much. (Smile.)

Jim Stroud is a social media development manager for EnglishCafe, the premier English learning community for global professionals. Prior to EnglishCafe, Jim Stroud amassed a decade of recruiting experience consulting for such companies as Microsoft, Google, MCI, and Siemens. He can be reached via his web site: www.JimStroud.com.

GUERRILLA TIPS

• Use free resources first: Yellow Pages, Internet, and the library.

• The more specific you can be about what you are looking for, the more relevant will be your results.

• Use free government services—you have already paid for them.

• Determine which companies are doing business in your field.

• Narrow your choices geographically if appropriate—look locally first.

• Read this year’s annual report first and then compare it with last year’s.

• Start with the company web site.

• Run a Google search.

• Review appropriate blogs.

• Google former employees.

• Always weigh information with a critical eye.

Part II

Weapons That Make You a Guerrilla

Chapter 5

Resume Writing and Cover Letter Boot Camp

How to Overhaul Your Personal Marketing Materials

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Despite advances in technology and the ever-increasing sophistication of employers, job hunters have predictable habits. Most look for a job the same way they always have. They write a resume. Ask their friends. Respond to newspaper ads. Click and apply through job boards. And wait. And wait. And wait ... for something—anything—to happen. Not too terribly twenty-first century of them.

Guerrilla, your resume is a marketing tool. It must compel its reader to pick up the phone and call you. Job hunters who write conventional resumes can count on the competition to be fierce. Let me show you a more successful approach.

■ WHY YOUR RESUME MAY BE OVERLOOKED

My wife will periodically call me at the office and ask me to pass by the supermarket on my way home to pick up bread and milk to tide us over until her next trip to the store (we have 4 growing children). Like most men, I enter the supermarket on autopilot with my list in hand and head straight for the items I need. The nice displays and weekly specials blur past me. The way I shop for groceries is not unlike how your resume gets screened when you apply for a job. Generally the people who do the first pass on a stack of resumes are working off a list someone handed them. Their instructions are, “just whittle down this pile by looking for these skills/competencies or technologies,” so that’s all they scan for.

There isn’t really a lot of thinking beyond the exact list. If you have the right stuff, your resume goes into one pile if not ... well, you’re out. If the checklist says “Oracle” or “project manager” and yours says “database” or “construction manager” you’re out. There’s no time, and generally little incentive, ability, or interest, from the people who do the initial scan to “read between the lines.”

The one-size-fits-all mentality spills over into their cover letters, too. Many job hunters respond to the specifics of an ad in their cover letter and then cross their fingers and hope the reader connects the dots. In reality, though, cover letters are rarely read with interest because most are so vague or poorly written they add little value. It’s likely that only the opening line has been customized and the rest of it is as generic as the accompanying resume. People who spend even a minimum