Telecommuting Resumes:
Tips and Tricks to Create a Professional Home Office Image
If you have spent any time at all in applying
for telecommuting positions, you already know how frustrating
the process can be.
First, you have to filter through all the
garbage to find those rare gems. Then, you need to send off
your resume to an employer who may never meet you and expect
that employer to hire you based on your existing resume.
Did you know that your resume for telecommuting
has to be different from your resume for regular onsite positions?
Your resume for a telecommuting job has to be your main sales
pitch. It says everything the employer needs to know to hire
you, so having a professional image is very important. You
may never have the chance to sell yourself in person with
an interview, so you need to make your first impression a
good one!
The standard resume has a goal of landing
you an interview, while the telecommuter's resume has the
goal of landing you the job. You need to include more information
in a compact format that sums up your most important assets
and employment history.
Important Resume Sections
Objective
This section provides a one paragraph overview
of what you want in a job and what you can offer the employer.
This is the first thing an employer will read, so make it
snappy and exciting!
Overview or Summary
This section should be a bulleted section
which briefly outlines your skills. Start each line with an
action word, like this:
- Designed an exciting website for a production
company
- Organized a team of sales professionals
- Created a new advertising concept for
a start up company which required an expert consultant
- Sold over One Million Dollars in computers
for an online business.
As you can see, these types of action words
get the attention of the reader.
Keywords
One of the most essential parts of a successful
telecommuter's resume is the keywords section. Many large
employers have a resume scanning program which scans in your
resume without anyone ever actually reading it. Create a section
called Technical Experience or Skills and make a list of every
software program you have ever worked with, including those
freeware programs you downloaded and played with. Separate
the words with commas, like this: Microsoft Word, Microsoft
Excel, etc. if your specialty is data processing, make sure
you include your fastest typing speed here and accuracy level.
Employment History
The most common section of any resume is
the employment history section. This is where you have the
chance to say where you worked and what you did there. The
common format employers are used to seeing is the chronological
format, with the most recent position listed first. Feel free
to be excited about your experience. Use a lot of action words
to describe what you did and how you contributed to the success
of the company you worked with.
Education
Outline your educational background here
and provide an overview of what you enjoyed most about the
courses you took.
Interests
In this section, try and make a note about
interests that relate to your work. I realize that some employers
are looking for what kinds of things you do outside of work,
but try to stay focused on things that relate to what you
do, like reading or research on the web.
Types of resumes you will need
You will need many different resumes in
anticipation of sending them in many formats.
You will need an ASCII text resume to paste
into an email or online application. If you rely only on your
Word formatted resume, employers may never read it. Some email
programs will automatically delete any attachments, so avoid
sending your resume as an attachment if you can. If you are
looking for more than one type of job description, be prepared
with different resumes for different occasions. Your resume
should focus on the type of job you are applying to.
You will need a formatted resume, preferably
created in Microsoft Word (the most common word processing
application) to send as an attachment only if the employer
has specified it.
Use colors to spice it up, but stay away
from red! Red evokes an angry emotion, and that is not the
goal! Use soft blues, grays, and soft greens to highlight
the sections. You will also need this to apply by mail or
fax. If you are looking for more than one type of job description,
be prepared with different resumes for different occasions.
Your resume should focus on the type of job you are applying
to.
You should have an online resume that is
created with meta tags firmly established. Some employers
and recruiters search the web for skilled personnel who have
their resume posted, so make sure yours can be found online!
There are many free webspace providers, but unfortunately,
those resumes aren't easily found, simply because the web
address is not unique. Your resume may not be indexed at all,
or it may be located in the 600th spot, which doesn't do you
any good. It may be worth it for your resume to be posted
on your own domain or with a service which gets good search
engine results like ours. You stand a better chance of being
found this way.
There are many telecommuting
positions out there if you know where to look, but that is
only the first step. You can beat out the competition if you
present a professional image to the employer. Don't forget
the importance of a good cover letter and have a few different
ones ready to send out to land the telecommuting job of your
dreams!
If you want more professional tips and telecommuter
resume templates, click
here to go to the You Can Work in Your PJs site.
You Can Work In Your PJs includes lots of templates and examples
for creating the perfect telecommuting resume, so you'll be
ready to put your best foot forward when applying for work
at home jobs.
Sylvie Fortin
Founder and CEO
Workaholics4hire.com Inc.
support@workaholics4hire.com
|
