I just read an article in Shine, Yahoo’s women’s portal about “What NOT to do: 7 Ways to Ruin Your Resume.” I thought I would tag onto that and write some of the things you should do, especially since they were just focusing on things you shouldn’t. While some of the tips are really good, and some are great reminders, I thought others were just too obvious. So here you are: 3 Must Have Things For Your Resume so you can get ahead and land that next great job.

1. Relevant Keywords Describing Your Skills: The first thing to note is that HR and recruiters scan through these resumes really quickly. Sometimes, they even have the computer automatically scan the resumes. This means that there is a high likelihood that they will never even look at your resume. Instead, they will use quick searches to find the resumes with keywords that match the criteria they are looking for. For example, if they are recruiting for a Marketing Manager, they may look for people with SEO experience. If you have that relevant experience, make sure it is clearly listed on your resume. Additionally, make sure you have other marketing keywords listed on there as well in case they are scanning for multiple keywords. Therefore, you should not only have “SEO knowledge,” but also have such keywords as “customer acquisition campaign, agency account management” and so on. A quick way to check for specific keywords that the company might like is to look through the job description. Don’t just look through that company’s job description, look through many job descriptions of the same job and try to pull out all of the relevant keywords that stand out. Use those words to describe your own experience on your resume in order to stand out more.

2. Keep it to 1 page: Have you ever sat down to a 4 page restaurant menu, flipped through it, and at the end, didn’t have any idea what to order? Those big, large menus are oftentimes really overwhelming. At the end of it, you haven’t remembered a single thing. This holds trueyou’re your resume. Unless you’ve worked for more than 20 years or unless you’ve had a lot of different jobs that are all relevant to the job you are applying for, keep your resume to 1 page. Again, you have less than a minute to impress the hiring manager so don’t try to expand your resume beyond 1 page. If you can’t state all of the main points in 1 page, then you are being too descriptive and using too many words. Be succinct and be clear. State your experience, but don’t go on and on about it. Don’t let the HR manager get so overwhelmed with all of your flowery words that s/he forgets what is actually on your resume.

3. Give clear examples: One problem people often have is that lots of skills are stated, but there are no relevant examples. Everyone can say that they balanced a budget or released a new product, but the question is – how did that affect your company’s bottom line? Did you increase the customer base by 10%, did you grow revenues by 15%, what were the results of your efforts? For a great resume, try to give clear examples of the results of your effort so people can see how your work helped the company you were at. It does no good to say you have all of these skills when the skills have not translated to clear results. Hiring managers want to see results, not just statements of skills.

Finally, people often debate whether or not they should put other interests and skills such as running, cooking, etc. In my opinion, this doesn’t hurt if you have the space. If this takes up a line and you have to remove the part about one of your accomplishments, do not put this on. But, if you find yourself at the end of the resume and still have one line to spare, why not add it to your resume? A friend of mine went to one interview which started out about her recent triathlon. It turns out that the hiring manager was preparing for his first triathlon and the two spent the first 10 minutes talking about this. My friend gave the manager a few pointers and was very clear in her process. The manager liked her approach and the two of them got along really well after that. In the end, my friend got the interview. One reason that the HR department cited was her “communication skills” and how social she was. I bet this had a lot to do with that first 10 minutes where she and the manager discussed the triathlon training. So, if you have the room, go ahead and put it in. It never hurts to tell your prospective employers a bit about you and your interests.

It’s time to get those annual reviews and I’ve gotten some letters recently about people getting passed over for a promotion they felt they deserved. I’m going to share with you a particular letter and my thoughts on what this person should do and what people should do in general. This will be something I do from time to time so we can all learn from different people’s experiences.

Dear Savvy Life Coach,

Help! I am so mad right now! I just got my review from my boss and I was told that I wasn’t getting a promotion. I’ve worked in this same job for the last 5 years and I feel like I deserve to be promoted. My boss told me I was doing really well and there were no negative comments. But, he also told me that my co-worker who just started 2 years ago was going to be promoted. Last year, he told me I had a chance of being promoted so I worked extra hard this year. I always stayed late and I turned in all of my work early. When I asked why I wasn’t going to be promoted, my boss said that it was because he didn’t feel I had demonstrated the “right leadership skills.” What should I do to get promoted?

Unhappy

I got this email last week and thought a bit about it. Many of us have faced a similar position before. We’ve worked extra hard and we’ve done things early and on time, but still we haven’t gotten a promotion and our co-workers have. This could be a combination of a number of things. However, I’ve found that there are 3 main areas that will help you get in a better position to be promoted. Learn these, do this at work, and you just might find yourself with a new title next year.

Relationship Building
The first thing to understand as you move up is that it is often not about how hard you work, but about your abilities to build strong relationships with other people in the company. A manager needs to rely on multiple parties to get things done and this is where your ability to build relationships comes into play. Instead of just sitting at your desk and focusing on your own projects, take the time to build relationships with different people. Not only should you focus on people on your team, but you should also focus on your manager, your manager’s manager, and other managers of cross-functional teams. It is important that you build strong relationships with different people across the organization. This shows that you will be able to have the influence to advocate for your team when necessary. Also, this helps put your name in front of other teams so that your boss can hear how much other team members like working with you. The more people that like you, the better your reputation and the more likely your name will come up when discussing promotions.

Self-Promotion
Here is one I’ve talked about before. It involves bragging about yourself and you can find this in my How to Brag series. Self-promotion is key to success at work. Your boss knows what you did, but he may not know the extent of the work or the impact of the work. Other people such as his boss may not know this either. It is up to you to promote your work and yourself so that key people understand your skills and your abilities. You have to be your own biggest advocate, since you are the one that was closest to the work and the impact that you made.

Leadership
The final quality that most often is not demonstrated on a daily basis is leadership. In order to be promoted, you have to demonstrate that you can lead. This means, can you lead a team, can you lead a meeting, can you lead a project. You have to show that you can be a good leader and that people will listen to you and follow you. Otherwise, you will not be an effective manager. Every manager needs to be a good leader and you need to demonstrate this as much as you can. Even if you are not in a position of leadership, you can still demonstrate it in many other ways. You can speak up in meetings, lead the team brainstorms, volunteer to lead a project, train and mentor other people on the team, and continue to show others that you would be an effective leader. Make sure you are constantly demonstrating this quality if you want to be promoted.

If you want to avoid being passed over for a promotion, focus on relationship building, self-promotion and leadership and continually strive to demonstrate them to your manager and other managers around you.

If you do this successfully, you just might find yourself getting promoted sooner.

It is a tough job market out there. Things have definitely been getting better, but those looking for a new job will still find that employers are pickier and more demanding than ever. Fortunately, these days, thanks to the internet, there are more ways to get ahead. Below are 5 key preparation tips when preparing for a job interview.

1. Glassdoor.com: If you’ve never checked out this site and you are looking for a job, it might be time to get on it. This site lists thousands of employers along with reviews, interviews, and salaries. People anonymously enter the information so it might not all be correct, but the reviews and interviews are usually pretty insightful. The great thing is that people will talk about their interview experience and sometimes even write down a few questions that they were asked. Use this site for the following:

1. Confirm that the salary is in the range you want. Salaries may not be 100% correct, but if multiple people provide information, then you can get a pretty good estimate.
2. Read the reviews on the company. This will tell you whether or not people like working there. Even though you may be looking for a new job, you don’t want to jump to another company only to find that you dislike it. Be aware that the reviews may be a little biased since those who are unhappy are more likely to complain about something versus those that are happy.
3. Finally, use this for interview prep. Many people who have interviewed with the company will post their experience. The great thing is, you can not only get additional questions that you may be asked, but you can sometimes get insight into what the company is looking for based on people’s reviews. Read over interviews for other positions in the company since it can also give you a better idea of the questions and expectations of people in the company.

2. LinkedIn.com: For those of you who are not yet on LinkedIn, make sure you sign up now. This is a great resource for researching companies, finding out about new jobs, connecting with recruiters, and just learning more about your interviewers. On LinkedIn, you will find profiles of almost everyone. One of the best things about LinkedIn is the ability to see whether or not you are connected to people at a certain company. If you want to increase your chances of getting an interview, ask that your resume be passed internally through someone in the company. Internal referrals are always given more consideration than external submissions such as sending it in via the company’s job platform. Finally, if you already have an interview and you know who the person is, do the following:

1. Read that person’s work history to understand their background and the things they are strong in. For example, if they have a strong finance background, make sure you are well versed in any analytical questions required for your job.
2. Read any recommendations they may have to get a possible glimpse about their personality and how you should interact with them on your interview.
3. See if you know anyone in common. If you and the interviewer know the same person, contact that person who knows the interviewer to see if you can get additional insights about them, their working style, and their preferences. Knowing this information will definitely help you be more prepared.

3. Company website: This last tip may seem obvious. Of course everyone checks out the company’s website before preparing for the interview. However, are you looking at the right areas? Also, are you looking at the additional websites that the company owns? Here are a few key areas that you should look through when reading through the company website:

1. Press releases: Read through the company’s press releases to see if there have been any new products, services or initiatives from the company. The press releases will show you what the company has been focusing on. Even if it is not an area where you are interviewing for, you can always ask a question about the company’s overall goals to demonstrate your interest.
2. Annual Report: The company’s annual report is a great place to get an overview of the company’s products, services, competitors, and goals. Sometimes, reading this provides great insight into the company’s activities.
3. Company blog: These days, a lot more companies have created a blog to talk about their initiatives. Read through the blog to get additional details about the company’s products, services, and initiatives.
4. Twitter or Facebook Pages: Many companies have started to have their own Twitter accounts or even Facebook Pages. These are great resources that demonstrate the company’s marketing initiatives and what they are trying to communicate to their customers. Understanding a company’s response to questions and the information they are sending out via Twitter will help you glean additional info that may help you in your preparation.

A job interview is always tough. Being as prepared as possible is the best way to ace the interview. I know some of you may be looking for other tips on job interviews. If so, email me or post it in the forums and I’ll answer your questions there.

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to the Bragging Contest.  Then, in Part 2, I taught you how people brag and how to play the game.  Now, I am going to tell you more about the judges of the contest.

Your reputation is based on what people think about you. People are judging you all the time. They are listening to what you say and do, and even what you don’t say and do. Lots of times, they are listening to what other people are saying about you and you have no control over that. To improve your reputation and win the Bragging Contest, you have to understand the group of judges you are trying to win over.

First, remember that the judges are everyone in the group that you are in. At work, they are all of your co-workers, your bosses, people on your team and other teams you work with. With friends, they are everyone in that group that you hang out with and all of the extra people that come along. With family they are your immediate family and then all of your aunts, cousins and extended family. The group can change when new people join, but for the most part it is the people that are interacting with you and forming an opinion about you. The one thing to remember though is that certain members of the group are more important than others.

Have you ever watched American Idol and listened to the judges’ reactions? In the past, Paula Abdul used to always be neutral. She would never really say anything extreme and most of the time she was pretty nice to people. On the opposite end would be Simon Cowell. He would always say something extremely good or extremely bad. Some people relied on his opinions since they felt like he knew more. Just like these judges, the judges in your groups are not all equal.

Everyone in the group is a judge, but every judge has a different amount of influence. In the Bragging Contest, it is the influential people that matter the most. To win, make sure that specific judges have heard you compete.

The 4 Influential Judges

1) Big Boss: This is the person that clearly is the leader of the group. At work, these people are easy to spot. They are your Vice Presidents, Senior Executives, Senior Manager and people in the group that are leading the team. With family and friends these people are easy to spot as well. They are the Godfather or the one that everyone looks to for direction. What they say usually goes and this is why they have a lot of influence. Their opinion of you matters much more than anyone else’s opinion.

2) Little Boss: This is the person that gets around the most and has the ear of the Big Boss. He is the Big Boss’ representative – when the Big Boss needs something done, this is the person that he sends to do it. This person most likely interacts with many people in the group and spends all day talking to different people. Because of his responsibilities for talking to different judges and the fact that he is the Big Boss’ representative, this person is capable of influencing a lot of people.

3) Everybody’s Friend: This is the person that everybody likes. Everyone will come and talk to him. He knows everything that goes on, but he doesn’t ask for it. People respect his opinions so they come and talk. He knows everyone really well, from the Big and Little Boss to the Secretary and children. Because he uses discretion, has a great reputation, listens more than he talks, and is well respected, this person is able to easily influence your reputation.

4) Gossip: This is the person that is the biggest gossip of the group. He talks to everyone and spends all day spreading news. People like talking to him although they might not respect him. The reason the Gossip is so influential is because he talks so much. People may not always believe him, but people will repeat what he says. Even if something is not true, if many people know about it and talk about it, they may start to think it’s true. That’s why the Gossip ends up with so much influence.

Each of these judges have a lot of influence in the group. The Big Boss tends to direct opinions more while the Gossip tends to spread it, but Everybody’s Friend can change the group’s opinion really fast. That’s why it is so important to pay attention to who the influencers are. You won’t win anything if your reputation hasn’t improved.

You have to play in front of an influencer to truly win the Bragging Contest.

It is these influencers that will change the opinions of the group a lot faster than other people. You can play the game all day in front of non-influencers and you might only improve your reputation a little. You can play all day in front of your friends, the people that already have a good opinion about you and your reputation won’t improve much.

You are trying to change the opinion of the group. Your friends, non-influencers, and the same people will all have the same opinion. Playing in front of them won’t make much of an impact and therefore won’t allow you to win. Next time you play, consider who you are playing in front of. Don’t bother to enter the contest if you are not playing in front of the right person. That will do nothing, take up a lot of your time, and take away your advantage. Now that you understand the judges better, I will talk to you about how to win. In the next article I will show you how to play the game and teach you strategies to improve your chances of becoming a winner of the bragging game.

Now that you know about the Bragging Contest, and you know that you have to enter, how do you know when people are playing? To know when it happens, learn what the main types of bragging contests revolve around and then learn to identify when they occur.

Types of Bragging Contests

The Bragging Contest is all about improving your reputation. The key to understanding when these contests happen is to understand what the group values and thinks is important. This will help you see what type of reputation you have to build up. Every group values something different. Know what the group values so you can improve your reputation in those areas. Below, I have listed the main contests that happen in the 2 key groups of your life: Work and Friends & Family. Using these contests as examples, you can start to figure out the contests going on in your groups.

Work
What is valued: Your reputation at work revolves around how you help the company achieve its goals. Everything related to what you do and how you accomplish your work is important to your reputation.

Key Contests:

1. I am a Hard Worker
2. I have Great Ideas
3. I am Smart
4. I Am A Leader
5. I take Initiative
6. I have Skills – These skills can be in different areas such as “I’m a Great Developer,” “I’m a great Designer,” “I’m a great Salesperson,” etc. Just remember, the more skills you have, the better.
7. I do Great Work
8. I am Dependable
9. The Senior people trust me and like me

Friends & Family
What is valued: With friends & family, the values are really different. With them, it’s all about the softer things and what you give and receive.

Key Contests:

1. I can be Counted On / I am Reliable
2. I am Fun
3. I am Generous
4. I am Loyal
5. I give Good Advice
6. I Share
7. I am not Judgmental
8. I am a Good Listener
9. I am Thoughtful

You are probably part of many different groups. Their values and the resulting Bragging Contests will most likely be a combination of the things above. If you aren’t sure what those values are, start by figuring out what the contests are.

Identifying the Bragging Contests
The trick to identifying the contests is to know the different ways people are bragging. People brag all the time. Some people are obvious and you will know right away that they are trying to brag. Others are more subtle and you may not know until the contest is over.

Pay attention to how people brag so you can enter the Bragging Contests.

Here are 5 ways that people brag about themselves. By learning how other people brag, you can start to identify when the contests are happening . This way, not only can you enter them yourself, but you can also use these methods to start your own contests.

How People Brag

1. Direct Brag: This is the most obvious brag to spot because the person just tells you his brag without hiding it behind anything. A lot of times, you will hear the name of the contest in the person’s brag.

Examples:
• “I have Great Ideas” Bragging Contest: A person who says it directly would say “I have so many great ideas that my team never knows which one to choose.”
• “I’m a Great Salesperson” Bragging Contest: A direct person would say “I’m such a great salesperson, I brought in 5 clients this month.”

How to spot this brag: It’s really easy to spot the brag since a person will just use the name of the contest in his brag. So, “I have great ideas blah, blah, blah.”

2. Not Really Related Brag: This is when someone takes the main topic of conversation and turns it into a brag by relating the topic to something they did. The topic could be anything and the person could use that topic to reference an accomplishment or something he is good at.

Examples:
• “I do Great Work” Bragging Contest: Here, imagine a group of people talking about launching a new shopping website. A bragger could insert his brag by saying something like “I launched a social network website last year. My social network website was really successful and I created all of the important features.”
• “I have Good Taste” Bragging Contest: Here, people may be talking about someone’s fantastic new jeans from Macy’s. A person will then try to brag by saying something like “I just bought a great shirt from Neiman Marcus.”

How to spot this brag: In these 2 examples, the bragger took the topic of conversation, but then used it to talk about himself. You can spot this brag if you hear someone go off the main topic of conversation and say something about himself that is not related to what everyone was talking about. The first person talked about how he built a social network website, something that wasn’t related to the shopping website. The second person talked about buying their shirt from Neiman Marcus, something not related to the jeans from Macy’s.

3. Feelings Brag: This is when a person talks about how they feel and inserts a brag at the end. By talking about their feelings, other people are thrown off and the brag comes unexpectedly.

Example:
• “I take Initiative” Bragging Contest: A group of people could be talking about their weekend. The bragger could say something like “I feel so tired. I hardly got any rest. I was doing this new project all weekend that the boss didn’t even ask for.”
• “I give Good Advice” Bragging Contest: A group of people could be talking about a friend who went through a hard time. A bragger could tell his friends the following: “I am so happy she took my advice and made some changes in her life.”

How to Spot: Listen up for people who talk about their feelings, but also say something about themselves. In the first example, the bragger used his own feelings “I feel tired” and extended those feelings to a brag about how he took initiative. In the second example, the bragger did something similar by telling everyone he was “so happy” because he gave advice to their friend. Using feelings is harder to spot since it is masked by someone’s feelings. To hear the brag, you have to keep listening past the feelings and see if the person tries to add something extra about those feelings.

4. Share Brag: This happens when the bragger shares something about himself, but within that something are details to show how good that thing is. Though it is bragging, it sounds less like bragging and more like being open and friendly. This type of brag occurs in all types of Bragging Contests.

Example:
• “I am Generous” Bragging Contest: A group of friends could be talking about an upcoming birthday and how to best celebrate this birthday for their friend. A bragger could easily “share” how he bought a fantastic present for his friend and say something like “I just bought my present. It’s this beautiful Louis Vuitton wallet.”

How to spot: In the example above, the bragger shared how he had already purchased the gift.  He shares the brand of the gift so people will know how expensive it was. By sharing this piece of information, he has now conveyed how generous he is. However, since it was in the context of sharing what he did, it doesn’t look like he is bragging at all. Instead it just sounds like he is sharing his plans for celebrating his friend’s birthday. This style is a lot harder to spot since it is masked in the form of sharing.

5. Compliments Brag: This final style is the hardest to detect. This happens when the bragger gives a compliment, but within the compliment is hidden a brag about himself. It is heard like a compliment and taken like a compliment, but people also remember the brag.

Example: “I Know Many Important People” Bragging Contest. An easy way this occurs is when the bragger compliments a person, but references someone else in the process. She could say “Congratulations on your success. I heard from that you signed a big client.”

How to spot: Spot this one, by listening for something about the bragger within a compliment. In the above example, the bragger has now given a compliment, but also indicated that she heard the news from an important person. This is a subtle way of bragging about the important person (Mr. VIP) that she knows, but is given in the form of a compliment so it is much harder to detect.

There are other ways that people brag besides the 5 I describe above. The key to discovering them is to pay attention to what people are saying and figure out whether or not there is a brag hidden in there. Listen for times when people are talking about themselves. Watch how other people brag so you can copy them or learn what not to do when you are playing in the contests.

Knowing the types of contests and identifying how they occur are 2 very important parts of playing the Bragging Contest. Now that you know when to play, you have to learn how to win. Winning requires a whole new level of understanding. To win requires you to understand who the judges are and tactics for winning. I will cover that in the next 2 articles. Stay tuned…