TheLadders Blog

As a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, I speak on the phone with job seekers every day. I work with clients from places as far-flung as South Korea, to those based right here in New York City. Often, the only way for me to determine my client’s personality type is to assess how he or she behaves over the phone. A thorough conversation usually tells me whether my client is professional, prepared, confident and composed.

For those preparing to launch a job search, or who are in the midst of one right now, here are some tips to improve your chances of clearing the phone interview.

Record a Voicemail

Make sure to update your voicemail before prospective employers and recruiters reach out to you. Include your full name and a promise to respond within 24 hours. Ringback tones must be in good taste.

Answer the Phone

Hello? doesn’t cut it when you’re in the middle of a job search. Instead, answer the phone with authority and competence. Identify yourself by saying, “Hi, this is Joe” or “Hello, Joe speaking.”

Communicate Concisely

Don’t let your answers exceed the scope of the questions. Your response time should be one minute or less. Get a list together of common interview questions and formulate concise responses. Read them aloud, time yourself, never rush, and speak confidently.

If you follow these guidelines, your chances of making a positive impression will improve greatly and will set you apart from the competition.

Dylan Houle is a CPRW and has written over 600 executive-level resumes and cover letters. Originally from San Francisco, Dylan now resides in Brooklyn.

If you were taking a road trip from New York to Miami, you wouldn’t start the trip by heading northwest for the first few hours, would you?  Probably not. It doesn’t make sense and would take you away from your goal. You’d be much more strategic – planning your route, mapping out possible detours and even forecasting layover spots along the way…and heading due south.

A strategic job search is much like a roadmap for a trip.  Your career goal serves as the ultimate destination, and the strategies and tactics you employ comprise your roadmap and itinerary.

Have you considered your job search in light of an overall strategy?  Sometimes, job seekers expend precious time and energy on activities that don’t get them closer to their goal.  When I speak with job seekers, I almost always use the phrase ‘strategic job search’ as each day’s and week’s tasks should align with a larger plan. This strategic job search plan then informs the overall search process.

On January 10th, I shared seven job search tips in my presentation at The Ladders’ Job Central event at Grand Central Terminal in NYC (for more information, read Forbes columnist Jenna Goudreau’s article, “Seven Strategies To Reboot Your Job Search In 2013”). As you develop your strategy, consider these tips and how they can support you as you move closer to your career goal.

With a strategic job search plan in place, commit to working your plan and moving closer to your goal each and every day. In this competitive employment landscape, working strategically, smartly and steadily are essential to your success.

 Carol Camerino, CCMC, CTTCC                  Back to Work Strategist, Resume Writer &  Career Coach www.LookingForTheOnRamp.com

You hear a lot these days about how a powerful resume can make all the difference in the job search. The web is full of tips on writing, rewriting, polishing, and re-polishing your resume. There’s certainly value in learning what goes where, how keywords work, what to say and, especially, what not to say. While there’s something to be said for the DIY approach, it’s also worth considering how a professional approaches a complex and challenging resume. We often talk about how a resume should tell your story, but this is the story of the resume itself.

Meet Aaron.

Aaron came to us as a VP of product development with an Ivy League degree and some seriously varied experience. In addition to his VP role, he’s successfully launched his own magazine and held a director-level position at a digital agency. As if this budding career wasn’t varied enough, he told us that his next challenge would be landing an executive-level marketing position. Aaron had never held a marketing title, but he was convinced of his ability to land the job.  Upon review of his resume, it became clear that the skills were there, but the resume itself was a muddled hodge-podge of tasks and achievements without any trajectory or context.

Certified Professional Resume Writer Michael Cirigliano with TheLadders said that the biggest challenge was prioritizing the focus of Aaron’s resume. He had great experience in many different areas, but not all of it was applicable to the positions he was interested in.

During the initial call with Aaron, Michael spent about 30 minutes digging through the existing resume and placing all of his accomplishments in their proper functional context. The next step was to turn the Aaron’s accomplishments into a narrative. Deconstructing all of his experience in e-commerce, marketing, and business development provided a more complete picture of him as a professional.

Within 48 hours, Aaron had a new resume that told the story of his career path, highlighting key attributes that would make him an attractive candidate for an executive-level marketing position.

About six weeks had passed before Michael received the following email from Aaron.

Hi Michael,

Not sure if your remember me, but you helped craft my resume a few weeks back.  I wanted to let you know that the first company that received the revised resume has hired me as their Chief Marketing Officer — an ideal position that I’m very excited to begin.  I’m certain that the extraordinary version of the resume significantly helped this process, and I wanted to personally thank you for your help.

If there’s anything I can do recommend your work, please let me know and I’ll be happy to assist.

While the typical executive-level job search takes several months, lightning sometimes strikes. We wish Aaron the best of luck in his new position, and are so happy to have been a part of his success story.

Do you have a resume success story? We’d love to hear from you! Email us at resumesuccess@theladders.com. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more resume wins in the weeks to come.

Ryan Galloway is the Content Development Manager for the TheLadders’ Career Services Team. He helps writers develop innovative strategies that make members’ job search documents more effective. When he’s not working, he’s out buying way too many books. But he doesn’t have a problem. Really.

Wow! We have come a long way. This week, TheLadders surpassed five million members. That’s five million people that we are helping with their job search. We work to help these members find their next calling in life however we can, whether it’s through our job matching expertise, our personalized products and services or our world class career advice.

We’ve been working for nine years to learn the science of the job search and share that insight with our members. More importantly, we’re happy that we can deliver results for our customers. In 2010 alone, a Harris Interactive study* showed that over 500,000 $100K+ professionals credited TheLadders with helping them find a new job. Most recently, we launched our Signature program, which offers members personalized help navigating their job search and a guaranteed job offer within six months or their money back. That’s how strongly we believe in the program.

We certainly have come a long way as a company and have a lot to be proud of. When I started at TheLadders in 2004, we had just reached 9,000 members. Since then, not only have we grown our member base to 5 million, we’ve expanded to all professional level jobs and have grown our jobs onsite by 3x just in the last 6 months alone. We’ve attracted over 17,000 new recruiters to our site to connect with job seekers and launched countless products and features for users to take advantage of during their job search.

I’m proud to be part of a company committed to finding the right person for the right job – and helping so many members move their careers forward. Great job, team!

Leslie Semegran is Vice President of Marketing and Engagement and has been with TheLadders since 2004, in various capacities across Marketing and Sales. When she’s not endlessly searching for ways to engage and help members, she’s at home running around after her nine-month-old daughter.

At TheLadders, we’ve always believed strongly in the providing you with the right piece of career advice. After all, writing the perfect cover letter or asking the right questions in an interview can make all the difference in your job search.

You’ve always had access to our original and exclusive career advice on TheLadders.com, but in 2011, we decided to bring our advice right to you.

That meant Twitter, and @TheLadders.

It’s not just working, it’s crushing. We put a superstar copywriter, Kate Addicott, in charge, and @TheLadders now has over 20,000 followers! Not only have we been able to help our customers, but the relationships we’ve developed with job seekers, recruiters, employers and industry experts have been invaluable to us, too.

We hope you’re enjoying @TheLadders and all of our original career advice and job search content. You can check it out on our Twylah page.

Great work, Kate!

And if you’re not already, you should follow us on Twitter here.

Bill Beard is the Associate Creative Director of Copy for TheLadders. He (obviously) loves to travel, always has ESPN.com open, and always takes the cheese option when it’s offered.