Fearless Resumes: The Proven Method for Getting a Great Job Fast

By Marky Stein

“Marky cuts to the core of what it takes to quickly attract the eye of an interviewer. Fearless Résumés is sure to be a winner for the serious job seeker.”
—Lynn Joseph, Ph.D., bestselling author of The Job-Loss Recovery Program Guide

Bestselling author and renowned career coach Marky Stein provides the edge you need in today’s ultracompetitive job market. With Fearless Résumés you will transform your résumé from words on paper into a vibrant self-presentation that tells prospective employers what they want to hear.

In no time, you’ll be crafting a résumé that hooks prospective employers’ attention, turns boring past duties into dynamic personal statements, transforms weaknesses into strengths—and gets your name on top of the résumé heap in any HR office.

Fearless Résumés shows how to

• Use words and phrases employers look for
• Prove your value to the company
• Turn weaknesses into strengths
• Avoid common snares

Unlike dry, run-of-the-mill guides consisting of little more than a sample résumé, Fearless Résumés is a quick and fun book that provides a proven résumé-crafting strategy from a top expert in her field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Sep 4, 2009
• ISBN: 9780071713177

Marky Stein

Marky Stein is a three-time best-selling author of the renowned Fearless career series, a Fortune 100 consultant, a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, a career coach, and a college and corporate speaker. Ms. Steins Fearless Interviewing was hailed as one of the 100 Best Career Books of All Time by onlinecollege.org and is ranked number two of the 100 Inspirational Books Every Job Seeker Should Read by onlineuniversities.com. Barbara Sher, PBS television personality, life coach, and New York Times best-selling author of Wishcraft, calls Markys books clear, kind, wise, practical, inspired, and full of good advice. From Freshman to Fortune 500: Seven Secrets to Success for Grads, Undergrads, and Career Changers is based on her more than twenty years of actual career-counseling experience, coaching students and executives in just about every industry and walk of life. The author was recently named by the popular networking site, LinkedIn, as one of the nations top career experts. She is also on the Advisory Board of College Recruiter, rated by Forbes as one of the leading job search websites for internships and entry level positions in the world. She resides in a beach house in Santa Cruz, California, where she writes, meditates, hikes, trains other career coaches, and enjoys the sunshine.

Book preview

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CHAPTER 1

Why Fearless Résumés?

Writing a résumé can really be scary! After all, unless all you have to do is fill out an application to get an interview, writing a résumé is just about the only way you have to get your foot in the door.

• Up until now, many doors may have been closed to you. You may not even have had the chance to go to an interview yet. You may be getting some interviews, but not the ones you really want. You may love your résumé or hate your résumé or not even have one, but those doors seem to be shut tighter and tighter. Not for long.

The guide you’re holding is not a book about proper grammar or about making your résumé look fancy and expensive. Yes, those things may be nice, but we’re going to take it just one step further.

A Strategic Approach to Writing Résumés

Fearless Résumés presents you with a tested and unbeatable strategy, proven time after time, to get people just like you the job offers you’re dreaming of and working so hard to get.

Having personally tested the Fearless Résumés strategy on more than 15,000 clients since 1989, I’m here to take their successes and pass these job-seeking secrets on to you. You’ll find this strategy for writing a résumé as simple, powerful, and effective as it was for those job seekers.

• I didn’t say it would be easy, but I will tell you that writing your résumé will be far simpler than you ever imagined it could be.

Why?

Because I’ve boiled down what makes a résumé work to a few straightforward but extremely potent ideas that anyone, whether a student, at entry level, or an executive, can use.

In the few hours you spend reading this book and doing the concrete and practical exercises it contains, you’re going to create a résumé that pries open those closely guarded doors and knocks them right down, allowing you to see and talk to the people you need to know in order to get the job or career that you’ve been striving so vigorously for.

A Brand New Approach to Résumé Writing

If you’re at the bookstore, leafing through the many books on résumés that are for sale, you’ll quickly see that Fearless Résumés is different from the others.

This is not just an ordinary résumé book, with hundreds of résumés for you to choose from and customize for yourself. In fact, this book takes an utterly brand new and tested approach to the often terrible task of crafting that all-important treatment.

As I said before, Fearless Résumés is going to teach you a carefully planned strategy, based upon what employers are really looking for, that will carry you through your job search, your interview, and finally to the offers you’ve been waiting for.

• It doesn’t matter if writing a résumé or talking about yourself in an interview has been difficult or frustrating before.

You’re going to learn a new and totally natural way to penetrate the employer’s emotions, persuade his intelligence, and present yourself at your best. In the chapters that follow, you’ll discover the secret of how employers, in fact, treat and look at your document.

You’ll know the commonsense truth about what really motivates them, and it will make all the difference in what you say to them and how you say it in your Fearless Résumé.

In fact, it’s been proven time and time again that using the secret you’re about to learn will make employers pick up and pointedly concentrate on reading your Fearless Résumé at a moment’s glance, while your competitors’ résumés are swirling in the paper shredder.

I know you may have struggled with ordinary résumé writing before, and I know just how demoralizing and frustrating that can be. I know, too, that you may have spent hours and even days editing the résumé that you already have, but that just isn’t delivering what you need or expect. You may feel puzzled about what to do and worried about whether you’ll ever get the interviews or the job offers you want.

• You’re not alone anymore in the task of creating this very important document that will influence the future of your work and your life. Together, you and I are going to wage an all-out war as an unstoppable team, and we’re going to win!

How Can This Book Help You?

If you already have a résumé and you’re getting lots of interviews with it, you may not need to read this book. Save your money and buy a few Starbucks coffees with it or take your best friend to lunch.

On the other hand, if your résumé is producing interviews for you, but you’re having trouble in your interviews supporting what your résumé says about you, your résumé is probably not a good fit for you in the real world.

If that’s the case, put a hold on that mocha chocolate nonfat extra foamy latte and invest in this book. You’ll be very glad that you did.

• So, you may be worried that you really don’t have a good existing résumé at all. You may also have a fear of writing your very first résumé or of crafting the document after being out of the job market for a while or changing your focus to a whole new industry.

You’re going to learn how to tackle those problems and many more, but there may be a score of other worries you have about your résumé. Most people do. Let’s look at some of them that will be answered for you as you progress through the pages of your new guide.