Today we have a treat – my JibberJobber Partner (career coach and resume writer) Julie Walraven answers some questions I have about the objective statement on a resume.  You may have one of these on YOUR resume… if so, you’ll definitely want to read this.  If you don’t, read it and you’ll have peace of mind about why you don’t have it.  (Julie Walraven’s blog // Julie Walraven on Twitter)

Jason: What is the objective statement?

Julie: From my perspective, Jason, the better question is “What was the objective statement?” When thinking of the traditional objective statement, such as “I want a position that offers a challenge working with a committed team of people in a progressive environment,” this is an archaic phrasing that went away years ago.

Jason: What is the history of it? Was it controversial 5 or 10 years ago?

Julie: I researched my résumé books hoping to find an author that championed the objective statement in the above format. But even an old book that someone donated to my résumé book collection, written in 1983 by Herman Holtz, Beyond the Résumé: How to Land the Job You Want, I only found Holtz talking about why you want to be specific in your target.

The objective statement has been replaced by the banner headline of the résumé, which according to the notes from the “Mastering the Art of Résumé Writing” session at the 2010 Career Thought Leaders Conference & Symposium, says “Headline  Provides immediate focus.”Louise Kursmark and Wendy Enelow from the Résumé Writing Academy who have co-authored many of the best résumé books on the market have long advocated dropping that lengthy objective statement.

I will confess that before I turned to organizations like Career Thought Leaders and Career Directors International for my source of information, I put those archaic statements on resumes back in the 80’s.

Jason: What’s the big deal today, why are people saying to not put it on?

Julie: A résumé is a marketing tool. YOU, the jobseeker, are the product. Gayle Howard, one of the world’s leading résumé writers writes in her book, “PS, You’re a Résumé Expert,” a guidebook for Career Directors International’s résumé certification courses, “This is one of the most hackneyed phrases ever written, and it’s all about me, me, me” Gayle’s amusing example continues, “How many people would actually prefer working in “a treadmill position, surrounded by boring deadbeats, in a potentially bankrupt, and stultifying atmosphere?”

Jason: What’s a good alternative then, if you don’t put on the objective statement? Why?

Julie: You want a Banner Headline, such as Sales Manager, coupled with perhaps a branding statement which adds uniqueness and personality.

Sales Manager | Operations Manager | Business Coach

Talented Leader and Manager with initiative to move projects forward.
Excels in delivering exceptional customer experience and satisfaction.

You could offset that with graphic lines or put it in a text box to grab the reader’s attention. This strategy puts you back in a marketing mode, again selling YOU the product.

Jason: Would it ever make sense to have an objective statement on the résumé?

Julie: No! Make sure that the advice you are taking for your résumé and your career marketing strategies is from someone who is connected with the leading career minds in the world. If you are using an old business textbook, you will end up on the bottom of the résumé pile with no offers in your hand.

Thanks for the opportunity to visit, Jason!

Julie Walraven — Your Career Marketing Strategist “When I  began writing resumes, I had no idea it would become my career and drive me into exploring technology, career management, and recently, the intriguing world of social media. Networked with the best and brightest career minds in the world, I want to use my resources and knowledge to help you succeed in your career path.”

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this and have it be a good read for you.  I hope I can pull it off, otherwise this is just a braggy post.

Last week I went to the Career Management Alliance conference in New Orleans.  They just started a new recognition program where they have four awards that they give to people in the career industry (whether you are a member of CMA or not).  I was surprised and honored to have earned the award called the Mentor Award.

According to the Career Management Alliance website, the Mentor Award “honors those individuals who have guided, and inspired, their colleagues in tradecraft, entrepreneurship, and community building.”

I usually feel like a vendor… I’m not a career coach, resume writer, counselor or practitioner, so to get recognition like this for being a COLLEAGUE is a real honor.  I appreciate the nomination and any discussion about this from the CMA people… thank you!

Here are the other awards and winners:

What Color is Your Parachute Award – Deb Dib
In honor of the founder of modern career counseling and author of What Color is Your Parachute? — Dick Bolles — this award recognizes an individual who has made sustained, innovative contributions to the careers industry — someone who has stayed on the cutting edge and shared his or her knowledge on a wide scale…someone who has helped shape lives and inspired hope.

Bridge Award – Wendy Enelow and Elizabeth Craig
The Bridge Award recognizes one outstanding professional who has made a significant difference in the careers field by connecting professionals from a wide variety of sectors within the industry (e.g., government, academia, the corporate sector, nonprofits, and the entrepreneurial world).

Mentor Award – Diane Hudson Burns and me
The Mentor Award honors those individuals who have guided, and inspired, their colleagues in tradecraft, entrepreneurship, and community building.

Marketing Innovator of the Year – Jacqui Barrett Poindexter
The Marketing Innovator of the Year award is a great exaltation, recognizing a career management professional who has created and successfully implemented the most innovative practice for building business and enhancing their brand.

Congrats to all recipients and nominees, and thanks to CMA for the recognition

I just got information from my JibberJobber Partner, Beverly Harvey, about a telesminar she is hosting on Friday called “How To Conduct a Highly Successful Job Acquisition Campaign and Land Your Next Position ASAP”

The call is this Friday, Dec 18, at 1pm EST.  She says you’ll learn:

• Why the job acquisition techniques you used a few years ago aren’t working
• What decision makers and recruiters are really looking for
• Why you may not be getting called for interviews
• Why you can’t take any short cuts when it comes to your job acquisition campaign
• Why you need a well-though-out strategy, plan and system
• Why you must treat a job acquisition campaign like a marketing campaign
• Why a haphazard, trial-and-error approach won’t work in today’s market

You can register here (affiliate link – she’s introducing her Platinum Job Acquisition Progam on that call).

A little about Beverly: I have met Beverly a number of times at career conferences and have found her to be well-respected, and in fact she is involved in coaching and training job search coaches.  She is definitely current on job search (or, as she says, acquisition) strategies and techniques, and passionate about helping professionals move on.  Her reputation alone is well worth your time on her call on Friday…!

Tomorrow morning at 10MST (noon EST) I’ll host my first 45 minute BlogTalkRadio show.  You can listen live (through your speakers), call in with questions, or download and listen to the podcast later.  All the information you need should be on the BlogTalkRadio JibberJobber page (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JibberJobber).

To listen live with your speakers, just go to this page at the right time (10am MST): http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JibberJobber

To callin and chat, the number is: (718) 766-4825

Susan coauthored Job Search Bloopers, which I’ve read and loved.

We’ll see how I do as an interviewer, and not an interviewee!

I had an idea a few days ago, and my mind has been spinning since.  Today I’m announcing Jibberjobber One Thing, which will help people who are interested in nurturing their careers, or even protecting their careers, and wondering what they can proactively do to salvage some idea of job security.

JibberJobber One Thing is a Yahoo Group (sign up here) that you can join to receive ONE email a day.  The email will have ONE suggestion of something you can do for your career that day.  It will be very, very short (one or two sentences) and actionable (something you can do that day).  I brainstormed dozens of ideas, and will get more from my partners.

The idea is NOT to overwhelm you, rather to give you bite-sized things you can do, or at least think about, to move your career management in a positive direction.

JibberJobber One Thing will mature, I’m sure, but for now I see it as a very simple, non-intrusive tool to help you do what you need to do. 

We’ll start sending the emails out on Wednesday, October 1, 2008.  You can sign up here, and unsubscribe whenever you want.

Cool idea?

This post is sponsored by JibberJobber.com.  If you are going to do ONE THING for your career today, you should sign up for JibberJobber.com, get your free account, and start to manage career relationships.  If you are in an active job search, use JibberJobber as your job search tracker, or job search spreadsheet, and track and organize your job search efforts.

Actually, I usually hate it. It drove me mad last year, in the heat of my job search.

Why? Because I felt that most of it didn’t apply to me. For some reason, whether it was the city I lived in, the job titles I was going for, my background, my personality, or the income bracket I needed, the articles I read just didn’t do it for me. After a while, I got really frustrated – “oh no, another 10-point list that says to do these things and I’ll be successful.“

Really, I just needed someone who could pinpoint my problem. I needed someone to reach through my laptop and yell, “Jason! Your resume is keeping you from interviews because you put all your stuffed-shirt titles (like CIO, general manager, vice president) but you are applying for jobs at lower levels (like product manager, project manager and even business analyst)! Change the titles to be more general, or generic, because you are scaring off the hiring managers and confusing HR!!”

I would have replied with “ya but, I want them to see how cool and accomplished I am!” And the response would have been something like “You can be cool and accomplished, or you can start getting interviews, which do you prefer?”

That’s what I needed to hear. That was the biggest problem in my job search. If I had that I would have had a nice job over a year ago (and JibberJobber would have been nothing more than a dream).

But I never read that anywhere. I just read articles on what to wear to an interview (ironed clothes, dark and matching socks, etc.), how to interview (always ask them questions to show you are smart and prepared), and those magic lists that seemed to promise “do these 10 things and your wildest career dreams will come true.”

Sometimes we can do it on our own, taking a few hours to learn and apply. But sometimes it makes sense to get help. I just spent four action-packed days with resume and career professionals in Savannah, and it was… incredible. This is my second conference with many of these professionals and I am always amazed at what drives them, and what their value prop to a job seeker is.

I’m hooked – I’m a believer. Sure you can do it on your own, but if you are stuck, seriously consider getting help. It can be free (you can get free help from the state, or a religious entity), or you can find a professional that specializes in what you do. For example:

Kim Batson specializes in C-level and senior technology (IT) executives. She gave a presentation about IT resumes that taught me about my own industry – she knows her stuff!

Deb Dib specializes in senior-level executives who are entrepreneurial and want to make a difference in the world. Deb is very respected in the industry and helps her peers and her clients get laser-focus to acheive what they really want, with tools, techniques and strategies.

Susan Whitcomb has written a number of books on resume, job search, interview, etc. She has researched and studied this stuff for years, and even certifies coaches in an accredited program she developed – Susan knows how to find out what your problem is and help you develop the right solution.

Claudine Vainrub specializes in educational consulting and helps you get into the schools you want. Her clients have called on her services to get into Harvard and other top-league schools … she has “been there, done that” and instead of taking a gamble on getting in, you need to check out what she can do for you!

My point? There are lists, and there is generic advice. But sometimes what we need is more than a list. We need a guru that can draw on experience and wisdom, someone who understands hiring trends and tactics, and someone who can identify our own issues. If you are stuck, or know that you want to accelerate the process for that next great step in your career, check out one of my partners (all four above have partnered with JibberJobber).

A few weeks ago I announced the Career Management Toolbox that I’m working on, with significant input from my partners. I said it would be live and available within a week … and then got busy on my book! Nonetheless, I received some excellent feedback and resources from my partners and thought that I should get this rolling out right now.

There is a new “page” (that’s what a blog calls something that isn’t a “post”) called Career Toolbox. You can always find it by mousing over Pages and then clicking on Career Toolbox. I really want to call it Career Management Toolbox but that was too long for the menu .

This looks very elementary right now, without many links. But you’ll get a chance to see what I’m thinking. There are a number of resources that I haven’t put in yet and will be fleshing it out over time – for now I need to work on my book (I need to send the first draft to an editor this weekend!!)!

If you have any suggestions on what other topics or resources should be in the Career Management Toolbox, please let me know! You can leave a comment here (I turned comments to that page off).

(if you haven’t found the other four links to the Career Management Toolbox yet, click here to check it out )

The National Networker!

The National Networker provides free newsletters to over 15,000 subscribers that are interested in various aspects of networking. I really like how they have divided up the interests between local and topical subjects.

The local networking articles are written by Bureau Chiefs, covering various regions of the U.S. (and one chief for Canada).

The topical articles cover the following topics: Career Transition, Entrepreneurial, Politics, Sales & Marketing, Minority-Based Networking, Financial Services, Women’s Networking, Legal, Social Networking, Arts & Entertainment, Sports, Technology, Real Estate, Health & Wellness and Network Marketing.

In addition there are big-name “contributing writers” that are major players in networking or sales success and training.

It is an honor to be the Career Transition Editor – and I’m proud to announce my first article (I personally think its REALLY cool): How To Be Visible – Virtually.

I hope you enjoy this article, and I encourage you to read through some of the other articles sent out this week (you can find them on the front page of TheNationalNetworker). Also, note on the top right there is a “Subscribe Today” button where you can subscribe and get the newsletter in your e-mail. Of course, I encourage you to subscribe to the newsletter

Here are links to the blogs that I found of the other writers:

TheNationalNetworker Blog

Jane Greer – All in favor of TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION, jump! – one of the cleverist bits of writing I’ve seen. I love reading Jane’s stuff – its witty, very smart and refreshing.

Lori Richardson – Sales Coach on AllBusiness.com

Mark Sturgell – Intersection of Purpose and Now

Zale Tabakman (Canada) – Create Sales Success From Your Marketing Efforts – Today!

Matthew Best (Politics) – writes at Courage of Conviction

Maria Elena Duron (Minority-Based NetWorking) – The Buzz 101 – Attraction Brand© Coach- “where connecting gets personal”

Nancy Laine (Social Networking) – Powerful Intentions – the Law of Attraction community

Question: What do JibberJobber, NetSuite, SalesForce.com and JigSaw have in common?

Answer: We all integrate the Anagram software so that you can easily enter data to our systems!

Note: this is FREE for regular and premium users. Please continue reading to see how it works (its super easy).

Anagram is one of those cool little programs that makes your life easier – basically it allows you to copy and paste data into a box and have it auto-populate the entire form.

On the Add Network Contact page there is a new box on the left (see image above). You can copy and paste an e-mail signature, or a block of text from a chat or a website or anything into this box.

Then, click on the “<< Fill Out Form” button and Anagram will take this information and fill out the Add Contact form – its that easy!!

Is this cool or what? Go check it out, for me this reduces the amount of time to create a new entry from 60 seconds to… 10 seconds!

Please be a little forgiving with this feature – I found that some signatures are not optimized for the Anagram logic so I had to do a little more copying and pasting once the form was filled out.

For example, I had “CEO, JibberJobber LLC” which all went into the Company field.

The easiest way to fix this is in the big box, put each thing on its own line. So after I made it look like this:

CEO
JibberJobber LLC

and then it went to the right boxes.

Is this cool or what??? (yes, I’m excited!)

To try it for yourself just add a new contact (Network, Add Contact). The box is on the right. Note that you can even just type things in this box and then hit the “Fill Out Form” button, instead of tabbing through the form.

What? Don’t have an account on JibberJobber yet? Why not?? Go get one for free.

In my post yesteday announcing my new relationship with a company that specializes in helping you rollover your retirement accounts into a personal account, here is more information…

Yesterday I had a question/comment to my post from David Grubman:

But Jason…. you can roll over your old retirement savings plans (401k or 457 or 403….) to any qualified IRA. Not sure I get the unique value proposition of these guys.. you can do the same with Vanguard or Fidelity.

Good question… I’ll let the CEO (Brandon Small) answer it:

Absolutely. You can rollover to anything – from anything. But neither Vanguard or Fidelity do the tracking. And the paperwork leads many to not do their rollover.

I’m not saying we invented the wheel. But we are focusing our efforts on a specific niche. It’s like your site, there are other “similar” sites, but you do it differently – choosing to focus on topics you think are important.

I’ve found Brandon’s service to be exactly what I needed. When I went through this process I had a number of questions to ask, and he had the time and knowledge I was looking for. I didn’t want to be sold a complementary service… it was very straightforward, but he respected my “unique situation.” I like service providers that provide… old fashioned service. I can vouch for Brandon and his company.

Here are a few more “details” that came up:

401k Accounts only??

No, that is my myopic name for “retirement savings account”… it applies to various plans, which you can see on their website. When in doubt just fill out the form and they’ll get back to you to discuss it.

What is the cost to do a rollover?

On the transfer (rollover) we are charging nothing nor does the client incur any cost.

How does Rollover Express make money (I get this question all the time):

The fee is between .5 % and 1.5 %, charged quarterly – so 1/4 of that will be deducted as a fee (from your principle (total assets)) every 3 months.

Most advisors that provide fee-only have a minimum of $150k to $200k. We have no minimum – this is a function of our lower costs and competitive edge. This is the preferred fee structure for investors.

What is your motivation for serving me, as a client?

We charge a flat annual fee for managing assets, .5-1.5%. Commission advisors charge 4-6% upon investment. Because of this compensation structure we are naturally service centered, not sales centered. Fee-only is also the direction most advisors are going.

Discount brokerages, like ETrade and TDAmeritrade and Scott Trade, charge for every transaction – like $10 for a stock trade or other, but you get no investment service/advice.

I asked my LinkedIn network (using the new Answers feature) and got some outstanding replies and information – here’s one that I think it really noteworthy, from Frank Galea, CFA, who is a Mutual Funds Compliance Manager:

The only hitch is that you would not want to commingle rollover funds with additional personal contributions because the latter will not be eligible for rolling into a future employer plan and can lead to accounting headaches to figure out ratio of eligible vs. non-eligible funds.

One of the answers I got on LinkedIn was from David Craker in Australia – it kind of suprised me:

Jason, this is a global forum, please remember this… A 401k is nothing that anyone else is interested in other than the USA… We do not have these issues and constraints by the US Government rulings in Australia unless we are directly US citizens that need comply with this for the USA… Here we are ruled by Australian Taxation Office, possibly the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investment Commission if it involves investments.

Why did this surprise me? The point of this entire topic is managing your own career, which includes planning for and managing retirement. I don’t care where you live, or what great company that you work for that has a great retirement plan (can you say E-N-R-O-N??) – I don’t even pretend to know the options in other countries – but my message is FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. Don’t leave this to an employer, or a government. You can if you want, but I’m a little skeptical after my experience last year of getting booted out the door. I’m all about figuring out what YOUR plan is for YOU.

Is this interesting? Do you have a plan? If you are in the US (thanks for the reminder David) then go fill out the form and get the ball … er, rolling