By Karen Gore, Co-Founder and Co-Owner Virtual Business Associates and Virtual HR Associates

In this continuing series of articles, we strive to provide the reader with simple and easy ways to follow steps in finding a job.  If you are easily offended by the truth, step away from the monitor now…. I don’t pull any punches in my articles …this is about getting you a job.

Over the last 23 years of recruiting and hiring thousands of people which required reading their resumes, there are some basics in finding a job that remain a constant.   I would like to share some of these with you in this article.  You are receiving for free, what I normally charge good money for….enjoy.

The resume is your calling card, marketing and sales tool.  It’s what makes someone want to ask you in for an interview.

What does it say about you and what you have achieved?

The resume is most important when starting your job search.  Have five people read it before you EVER send it out.  Ask them to read it for understanding, grammar, spelling and flow.  Remember this is your marketing tool, what does it say about YOU?  So many times I have read resumes from very talented people that tell me nothing about them, only what their job duties were. 

Would you be interested in test driving or buying a new car based on an advertisement that said “this car has an engine and four tires”?  NO!  Why not?  You would buy it because all cars have an engine and four tires!  An advertisement that states this car “has all the features you need and want at a great price, including superior gas mileage, cool sun roof”, etc., those things you might want in a car, would make you want to check it out…right?  The same is true for a winning resume….what are your “special” features, skills, knowledge, or talents that set you apart from the dozens, if not, hundreds of resumes received. 

Have the five people looking at your resume, ask themselves this question and have them answer truthfully, based on JUST the RESUME: Would they call you in for an interview?  If yes, as them what in the RESUME trigger this reaction?  If no, ask them what in the RESUME triggered this reaction?   Don’t take it personal if the answer is no, see it as a learning experience and start over on the resume.

When I am working with a client on building their resume, there is a series of questions I ask, one of them is:  “What did you do in this position that makes you stand out from others in this position”.  This will take some hard analysis on your part, go back to what you did or are doing in your job.  No, not the job description stuff you read when you were hired or applied for the job.  What we are looking for here are the achievements and contributions you are making to the company or organization that are NOT in the job description.

Think about it in this light, if all you have to offer me as an employer, are the very same abilities that every other person who has had the same/similar job, why should I hire you over someone else?  By answering this question with point by point contributions to your employer, you have earned my interest in you as a candidate.  As examples of what makes for good achievements:

Sale person – Increased overall sales revenue by XX% year over year. Or successfully landed a renewal contract with a previously dissatisfied customer by providing outstanding customer service.

Technology person – successfully produced code that passed QA without bugs, on time and under budget. OR critical to the development of the XYZ product launched successfully on time and under budget.

Executive Assistant – responsible for reducing the cost of business meetings and travel by 30% through development of vendor relationships, research of services and creative problem solving. OR successfully managed a $500K project full cycle that allowed for increased productivity of senior managers and support staff.

I know what you are going to say, “I did not have the opportunity to do these types of things”.  Really?  Let’s examine the sales person’s bullet statements first.  The job of any sales person is to sell.  Most sales jobs come with sales quotas, meet them or you lose your job.  So, if you are doing a good job and have met or beat your quota, why are you not bragging about it?  Keeping customers happy and getting them to renew contracts or come back to the store and buy more is part of the job.  Mostly likely you do this on a daily basis….so tell me about it.

The craziest thing on resumes from people looking for a sales job is NO NUMBERS.  How can a reader know if you are any good, if there are not sales numbers?  Tell me about your achieving and exceeding your annual sales quotas.  It is so easy to do, 2008 achieved 103% of quota, 2009 achieved 100% of quota, 2010 and so on.  If you missed your quota one year, but met it every other year, so be it, the other numbers of meeting or surpassing in other years tell me you can do the job.

For many people, especially women, bragging is hard.  We have been taught most of our lives that is not polite or good manners to do so.  Well that does not apply in the job market.  Other cultures competing for YOUR job have been trained from birth that bragging is a must to achieve success.  Now don’t confuse lying with hooting your own horn or bragging, on a resume.  Lying is never a good idea.  Pointing out your skills, talents and knowledge is a GREAT idea.

She’s NOT going to marry you before she finds a job!   Great video, affirming and entertaining all at the same time.  This is DEFINITELY a Babe In Total Charge of Herself!  Enjoy.

Read Each One Carefully & Think About It a Second or Two

 2. Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they   don’t love you with all they have.

3. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand & touches your heart. 

4. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can’t have them. 

5. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

6. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world. 

7. Don’t waste your time on someone, who isn’t willing to waste their time on you. 

8. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful. 

 9. Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened. 

 10. There’s always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting & just be more careful about who you trust next time around. 

 11. Make yourself a better person & know who you are before you try & know someone else & expect them to know you.

 12. Don’t try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS HAPPENS FOR A REASON. 

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Submitted with love by Eric Wilson

Joan Pinder’s Story

Babe In Total Charge of Herself.com is proud to introduce you to Kirsti Walent and her story of survival and life with cancer.  Please click on her link below.

Camarillo woman fights cancer

Allegiance:  loyalty to or support for a person, cause, or group

I pledge allegiance to myself and

the happiness I deserve

And to the people

I love in my life

To be one family,

Dysfunction free

For the health and welfare of all

Just as we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, knowing to do so will ultimately require some kind of sacrifice, mentally healthy human beings need to pledge allegiance to ourselves with the same expectation of loss.  To eliminate dysfunctional people from our lives (an act of functional being)is no less a herculean task than ridding the world of dysfunctional leadership; it’s just being done on a much smaller scale….well, depending on how populated your dysfunctional world is.  When a certain someone or a group of certain someone’s take control of your life then proceeds to cause you pain, fear, and anxiety which ultimately damages your self esteem you, my friend, are at war!  Your objective:  survival. 

Survival can be achieved in a couple of ways. There is the often popular Vietnam strategy which involves a tremendous amount of behind the scenes maneuvering, manipulating, capitulating and plain old butt kissing which will take years and years and years of effort, a tremendous amount of your resources and a huge loss of personal life for absolutely nothing …not my personal favorite.  Or there is the Desert Storm approach which involves coming in with everything you’ve got, getting it done quickly and getting out as fast as you can.   Personally, I’ve grown to appreciate approach number two because I tried approach number one and, honestly, it SUCKS!  The truth is when you are dealing with a dysfunctional world leader, ideology, friend or family member, no amount of ass kissing or negotiating or capitulating or threatening is going to make a whit of difference to them because they cannot and, in many cases, WILL NOT acknowledge that their way of being is harmful and should be changed.  More often than not (perhaps as high as 99.9%) of the time they will let you know it’s YOU that is the problem, not them, therefore justifying their immensely self serving behaviors and their perceived right to rule and dominate.  These kinds of dysfunctional people can only be made to understand the need for change through threat of loss, they need to understand there will be a high price to pay for them to remain in the position they’ve taken.  For those who are fighting this oppression, difficult choices are going to have to be made and terrifying actions are going to have to be taken.   

Warning: These choices and actions will not be appreciated by the dysfunctionist who will probably react adversely….

Now, once you decide you’re going to declare war on dysfunction in your life, both on your own personal behaviors and that of others, the planning phase begins.  No good battle strategist charges in unprepared. 

The first thing you will need to do is enter into an allegiance to yourself, to your own mental health and the mental health and welfare of those you love who are also being hurt by the behaviors.  It’s a battle and it’s a difficult, painful and scary thing to do and more often than not will come with a high price.  You need to be prepared to lose your relationship with the dysfunctional entities because it’s a high probability that they will not appreciate being confronted or challenged and will eliminate you from their lives through emotional hostage taking.  As the United States does not negotiate with terrorists, you need to be prepared to stand your ground as well and not give in to their manipulations.  You need to be prepared to experience a huge push back from not only the dysfunctional people you are dealing with but also others around you who are watching you do what you do.  This may come in the form of belittling, harassing, reputation bashing, sabotage with friends and family, being ostracized and alienated, criticized, admonished and for some, threats to your personal well being.   

This is where allies come in, in this battle for your very life you will need to create a support system (allies) around you. 

This support system needs to be made up of those people who you know will be there for you when you need your wounds tended to, your broken heart assuaged and your funny bone tickled in order to put you back in balance for the next foray into battle.   You need to believe that this battle may take a while to fight but that the rewards at the end will all be worth it, no matter how high the price. 

So you’re probably saying to yourself right about now, “Ah, yah, well this sounds like a very difficult and painful process to go through and why would I do it anyway?  Hey, I’m used to being in this crazy situation!” 

Yes, I understand the perceived position of safety you would be giving up.  Note the word “perceived” as our perceptions are warped and distorted by dysfunction.  That’s what is so amazing about us human beings – the ability to adapt to just about anything including abuse.  That is what allows a woman who is beat by her husband to defend and protect that same man if he is picked up by the police…she’s used to it.  However, just for this moment, consider just a few of the reasons you might want to step out and take the risks and deal with the hurts.  Knowledge opens the world of choices to us and choices give us power.  When you make the right choices you eliminate the drama in your life which drains and distracts and eats you alive, you eliminate the vast majority of the pain in your life which can be physical, spiritual and mental, you  eliminate the vast majority of shame in your life which is probably what immersed you in dysfunction in the first place and is keeping you here and you eliminate the vast majority of the sorrow in your life, a sorrow you aren’t even fully aware you have until you begin to take the steps away from the dysfunction.  Once all the above is taken care of it creates room for all the good things to come in, i.e. joy, peace, happiness, self control, self esteem, confidence, and freedom from fear to name just a few. 

We all have a certain amount of dysfunction in our lives and we will never truly remove all of it but for some of us every day is lived immersed in it.  We walk around others as though we’re walking on precious china cups terrified we’re going to break one and upset our keepers.  We lose personal freedom and even, for some, our families are sacrificed to the relationship.  We lose and lose and lose and lose and have very little in our pockets at the end of the day.   Isn’t it time to stand up and take the risk needed in order to create our own happiness, our own way in life without catering to the needs and fears and demands of those who are trained to destroy us?   

Take the pledge and declare your freedom.

Suggested reading: http://www.flashlightworthybooks.com/Dealing-with-Codependency-Books/455

                

This is a tribute and a memorium to my friend and past partner Bessie Mae Fulton who passed from this life in August of 2010.  She was the co-founder of this site and though she is gone from us, far sooner than any of us would have wanted or were prepared for, we will never forget her place in the history of this business and in our lives.  Bessie, rest in the peace that you so richly deserve and every once in a while check in and see how we are doing, we’d love to chat with you.  Hugs and kisses my friend!

“Hi! I’m Bess, the other half of BiTCH,inc….the big dreamer and girlie girl side of things. Euphemistically speaking, I refer to myself as a woman of the nineties, sometimes from the 1990’s other times from the 1890’s and that remains true in this new millennium, I just haven’t come up with an adequate updated version of the motto. I’ve been the good daughter, wife and mother; have gone through the empty nest phase of my life, am currently menopausal and a woman in transition….evolving, redefining, realizing my full potential as a woman, my own woman…

“A few months ago I woke up, admitted that I wasn’t happy with my life, acknowledged that I was wasting some of the most productive years of my life – the time in life where I’m only responsible for me possessing the opportunity and abilities to soar far above where I’d flown in my youth, to places I’ve never before been able to go. Well, that day I stopped wasting my time being resigned. Further, I stopped believing that I was an over the hill, middle aged “has been” who’s time had passed. I made myself a promise to start living again, believing in me and the power of attraction to open the doors to a new direction in life.
I realized that all my home management skills, community service experience added to the previous years’ professional background was indeed of value. I had accomplished many things in my life, things I am proud of and it was now time to cash in on them. So I got my act together, jumped back out there and into the game not allowing myself to be intimidated by change nor hindered by my fears of the unknown. Once I took those first few steps, the world began to open up. I began to realize so many other ways in which I had been on the shelf, having placed myself on hold for a later time. Well that time has come. So I’ve been taking all those talents, skills, abilities, dreams off hold – removing them from their shelves – one by one, dusting them off, cleaning them up, polishing them and finding ways to put them back to use, to work for me….creating an updated, revitalized me – seizing upon the vast opportunities that lie ahead for me in my future.
That’s what this website is all about….living our best lives as Oprah says it, living it as full grown, fully mature, wise, accomplished, financially secure and beautiful women in the new millennium. The sky is no longer the limit…..we have the power to reach for the stars, the moon and even the sun if we so dare.”

I just spent one of the most fun weekends I’ve had in an extremely long time with old friends and new friends up in a little Bavarian style town in the Cascade mountains. My “old” friends were friends I had before I met my now ex husband, friends who fell away because of that relationship and the “new”ones are friends of theirs that they’ve known for over twenty plus years.  I was invited to come along on their traditional yearly Christmas trek which has been going on for almost as long as they’ve known each other.  This little town tucked away in the mountains goes all out each year dressing itself up as a Christmas village with carolers, Mr. and Mrs. Claus and Father Christmas wandering up and down the main street giving photo opportunities to the visitors alongside an assortment of animal characters for the kids. On main street is a town square with a stage located next door to the sledding area for the kids. All the shops along the main street are decked out in holiday style and every shop offers something tempting whether it be clothing, candy, hats, wine tasting or fishing gear, it’s all there for you to look through and wish for or buy.  It’s a marvelous place to be during the Christmas holiday and the room we stayed in was right across the street from it all with a balcony from which you could look over the huge crowd that spreads out from one end of the small town to the other during the nightly tree and town lighting ceremony or just stand and watch the entertainment happening on the stage directly in front of you.  People watching is one of the main highlights as you look down on all the heads which are covered in a wide assortment of hats, many of them from the crazy hat shop in town where people line up and sometimes stand for hours to get their traditional holiday hat which could consist of anything from a chicken drinking a beer to something the Grinch would wear with stripes and spirals.  I even saw a whole Bavarian village go by on the top of several men’s heads as they walked together through the crowd.   A marvelous place to reacquaint myself with my friends and get to know new ones.  I quickly found out there are several unspoken but seriously adhered to rules which must be followed in order to belong in this group: Rule #1: drink as much as you want as there is no need to drive anywhere.  Rule #2: shop as much as you like when and wherever you like and Rule #3: have the best possible time you can; three rules I had no problem following!  During one of several trips into the shops we ended up in one that sold almost exclusively purses and bags of all kinds whether you were looking for something to go with your Christmas party outfit or something to hike with or put your laptop in.  I had absolutely no intention of buying a purse since I already had several I wasn’t even using but to get into the spirit of it all I picked up a bright pink leather purse that, should I ever be interested in a bright pink leather purse, might just be the one I’d buy.  As I was wandering around checking in periodically with my friends and their finds one of the workers announced that everything in the store, regardless of price tag is now $21!  WHAT! The $80 pink purse in my hands suddenly became a much less crazy idea!  Just then one of my new friends called me over to a rack she was looking at.  I had mentioned earlier to her that I was looking for a red purse.  She pulled out three!  Now I had this bright pink purse and the red one I’d been searching for but she wasn’t done.  On the next rack she showed me a lime green shoulder sachel and it was a done deal.  Now, with no intent what so ever of buying a purse, I was now buying three for less than the price of one!  Impulsive buying?  Maybe but one that it also  became a metaphor for the relationships I had at one time with my two oldest friends, one of whom I have actually known for 50 years and the other who was my maid of honor at my wedding when I married the man who’s influence on me coupled with my own dysfunction would lead me to stop seeing her.  Now, suddenly, all three of us were back together after a nearly 36 year separation and we looked good.  Like those three purses when they came together, it was clearly meant to be and I am now one of the luckiest people alive and have the purses to prove it.  LOL!

The man moves stealthily never taking his eyes off his prey, a woman walking just a short distance from him. She’s not a stranger to him, in fact he knows her extremely well and has grown exceptionally familiar with the anger he has for her, with the hurt he feels she gave to him and that he resents as she walks along so carefree, so unencumbered by the anger and resentment he is carrying inside.  She has no idea he’s stalking her, no idea what he has in mind, what he’s going to do to her to make her hurt like he’s hurting, to make her suffer like he’s suffering and the best part is she won’t see it coming until it’s too late, won’t begin to suspect what he’s about to do because he has never spoken badly of her to anyone and has made sure to mention to all his friends how much he wants her to be happy in her new life…..he’s been very, very careful about that.  Suddenly the thrill of the hunt permeates his being when he notices she’s moving in a direction that will ultimately intersect their paths and she will unknowingly provide him the perfect moment when he can make his move. He shudders with anticipation,  marveling at the thrill though this isn’t the first time he’s done this, in fact he’s done it over and over and over again and the foolish woman never sees him coming!  Good God, it’s almost as though she trusts him!  What a stupid, pathetic woman she is, always blind sided so easily because, trust and stupidity aside, he does happen to be very good at what he does and the growing thought of his intellectual superiority over her and everyone that he’s fooled causes him to smile at himself.   He’s particularly satisfied he  can get away with it just because he never says anything bad about her….