Cher Forman

"Ask Cher"

Cher Forman has over 20 years of domestic and international Human Resources experience in organizations ranging from startups to $3B. As Director or Vice President, she has managed Human Resources groups at Applied Materials, Stanford Telecom, Ask Computer Systems, Teledex and Tri-Data Corporation and consulted on H.R. philosophy, values and infrastructure with many start-ups as well. Cher has managed several of these firms through rapid expansion and significant organizational challenges. While at Applied Materials, she led her business unit as the company grew from 6,000 to 16,000 employees in three years. Ms. Forman has specific expertise in employment, corporate legal compliance, development of cost effective compensation/benefit strategies, organization development and international HR management. She has a degree in Organization Behavior from the University of San Francisco and has participated in advanced training at several other colleges and universities.

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Please fix my resume!!!!
November 11, 2011 by Cher Forman
Question:
 
Dear Cher,
I’ve been looking for a position for quite a while now without getting much activity from my resume. I see all sorts of articles in the papers, on websites, and I even get them from friends, about resume formats...what works and what doesn’t. Frankly, I find them overwhelming and don’t know what to do with all the different information. Can you give me some pointers?

Jake

Answer:

Dear Jake,
The frustration I read in your letter is felt by others as well. Writing resumes is not your career, and you don’t want to put all your energy into it. You just want to get a good job and dive in.!!!!!! It seems logical and easy when you look at it that way.   But, it’s not. Finding a job is a job in itself.
 
Thanks for including your resume in your letter. This document could have worked for you if it were the year 2007, but not today. Current resumes need to be organized differently and you have some catching up to do. I recognize why you don’t see resume writing and job search as a difficult job, but it is. It requires thoughtful deliberation and planning to get yourself noticed and land the best job for you.
 
The most obvious flaw in your current resume is that I can’t gaze over it rapidly and come up with a good feel for what you do best, and would like to do in your next position. The chronological listing of jobs and duties doesn’t tell me what your top skills are. Resume reviewers are deluged with resumes right now, and, unfortunately, they don’t have the time to read every one word by word before determining if it’s worth following up on. What you need to do is put your best effort into making it easy for them to pick out your added value and strengths on the first pass. The best way to do this is to begin your story with Key Accomplishments right at or near the top of the first page. 
 
The Key Accomplishments section should be comprised of several “stories” about how you successfully dealt with some difficult issues at your previous employers. Gazing through a first section like this gives a recruiter a much better and faster impression about the work you do, how you do it, and what you do particularly well.   At the  www.ourexperiencecounts.com website we provide on line training that will take you through every step of creating these accomplishment stories, which we call STaRs. That stands for Situation, Tactics and Results, the three elements of an accomplishment statement. The STaRs training is the first one in the group of resume workshops, called  It’s the STaRs that Get You Hired. I’m letting you know where to find it on the website because OurExperienceCounts.com is giving you a free one year Gold Membership (worth $179).  
Congratulations, Jake! I hope you will explore the other training workshops as well. They don’t take long, and you can go back and forth from one section to another so you can refer to another slide if you want to brush up on specific pieces of information. This entire package will give you all the information you need to know to manage your career now and into the future. It may be the best investment of time you’ll ever make.
 
Good luck to you both personally and in your job search. Keep asking questions, Jake. That’s the best way to find out what you need to be a winner.

Best, Cher
Categories: Ask Cher (HR Executive), Resumes & Cover Letters, Job Search Help
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