Hi there networking contact... What do you think of my resume ( other things you wish you had never said) - by Mary Elizabeth Bradford

Hi there networking contact... What do you think of my resume ( other things you wish you had never said) - by Mary Elizabeth Bradford I am fortunate this week to share a guest blog from Mary Elizabeth Bradford, award-winning creator of the Job Search Success System. She warns, This article contains some tough talk and will probably offend some readers. Since her article did not offend me and in fact rather inspired me, Im posting it here with Mary Elizabeths blessing! Remember as you read this article, as I pointed out in my article What Do Recruiters Want in a Resume? Answers Within, you only need to impress one person with your resumeand thats the person who hires you! Hi There Networking Contact What Do You Think of My Resume? ( Other Things You Wish You Never Said) How to Network Without Losing Your Confidence or Your Mind By Mary Elizabeth Bradford *Warning: this article contains some tough talk and will probably offend some readers. Sometimes I will have a client call me and share that while networking, they showed their new professionally designed resume to: Their friend or business mentor whose opinion they trust A powerful networking connection A human resources person A recruiter And my client posed the question, what do you think of my resume? Well, a large amount of the time, if you have had your resume professionally written by an experienced and certified writer, the response will be positive. But sometimes they will interpret your question as an opportunity to attack your resume using all their powers of critical analysis – in the name of helping you (gee, thanks). If you have ever been in this situation, you know the result your confidence is shaken; you begin to doubt yourself; the focus becomes that there is something wrong with your resume. You call your writer demanding to know why they used that particular color or font because Suzie who just got a job in the HR department at Target last week knows well that this font color will keep you from realizing your dreams – or at least ever landing a job at Target. Okay, I am being a little sarcastic, but isnt that the weight that we end up putting on all these opinions we open ourselves up to? Some people are very caustic; they will tell you with authority they absolutely know what they are talking about (I have seen this to be true especially with College Career Counselors and recruiters. No offense – just stating fact). So who, or what are you to believe? In a job search, common sense tells us we must preserve our energy, our positive attitude and our confidence. Rather than asking everyone who will give you 5 minutes what they think of your resume, the wisest thing to do is ASK A CERTIFIED, EXPERIENCED RESUME WRITER. This does not mean asking THE LADDERS or JOB FOX, who will give you a free resume critique, and no matter how wonderful your resume is and how much you invested to have it properly done, they will most likely tell you it stinks and you need to pay them $700 to rewrite it. No, I mean going to Career Directors International and looking up the award winning writers, the Certified Writers, the Writers who have their work in reputable Resume and Career books and/or the writers who may specialize in your field. And although this does not completely shield you from conflicting advice, it does dramatically improve your chances of getting a professional and discerning critique of what your resume truly needs (or might already hav e) in order for you to achieve your career goals. Please, refrain from asking everyone what they think of your resume. This opens you up to criticism from people who are may only be partially (at best), qualified to critique how your resume lines you up for your next career move. Instead, get a clear focus of direction on what you want including industry, position title and your driving motivators like ideal companies and positions, your compensation range, where you want to live, and how much you will travel, to name a few things. Couple that with a little research on growing and stable industries. Dont say you are wide open to explore a wide range of opportunities, because in todays job market, you have to demonstrate your value very specifically (this is part of the whole branding thing you hear everyone talking about). You need to demonstrate that you know what you want. This builds your networks confidence IN YOU. You dont have the luxury of being wide open, so please start taking control of your situation and embrace a self-directed and entrepreneurial approach to your job search. This is what is working in todays job market. Once you have your game plan down regarding your focus of direction and where you want to steer your career, ask your friends how they can help you with that. Dont ask them to help you find a job and dont ask them who is hiring and dont ask them what they think of your resume! This is a waste of your time! Learn how to network so that you stay in control of the conversation. I think the reason people hate job searching the most is because they feel they have to take such a passive, submissive role in it. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE! You dont have to feel hat-in-hand, begging for a job. I teach my clients in my Job Search Success System how to network in a confident and dignified way and they love it. It preserves their sanity, confidence and gets them great results! There is absolutely no reason why you have to roll over in complete submission just because you are in a job search. Do not discount the power of critical feedback! You may LOVE your resume and so do 50 other people, but I have seen it time and time again that a single negative critique will leave you doubting everything you ever thought was true! You cannot afford to go there in your job search! Its not the most exacting comparison, but will 50 people look at a piece of famous art from an abstract expressionist and have the same exact option about it? I think you know the answer. If you have not had your resume professionally written and you want someone to critique it, your best and safest bet is to go to Career Directors International and look for help and support there. Generally speaking, resume writers are a heart-centered group (especially women) and they find genuinely helping others get what they want in their careers deeply satisfying. You have a great shot at talking to a person who really cares and can really help you at CDI. Writers who take the time to obtain difficult certifications and pay money to keep them current every year generally take their career as seriously as you probably do. And in an unregulated industry such as Career Services, you need that insurance to help protect your interests and investment. If you HAVE had your resume professionally done, then I will share with you what I share with all my clients, which is this you need 3 main things in your job search to be successful: A clear focus of direction. A great resume and value proposition (cover) letter that supports your focus The right job search strategies As a general rule, after you have paid a certified writer to analyze your career situation and craft you a resume to get you where you want to go, your entire focus should be on the right job search strategies. I am primarily focused on showing my clients how to go direct to companies by tapping the hidden job market because it works so well, but every job search is different and some job search strategies will work better than others. You may take a multi-pronged approach to your job search strategies, which could include recruiter, venture capital and/or private equity firm distributions, direct mail, targeted networking, working through associations, and learning how to use social networking like LinkedIn to land interviews, to name a few. [These strategies are all taught in the Job Search Success System, an easy, affordable way to get the advice you need). In closing, I have not seen it beneficial for you as a job seeker to hold up your resume and state WHAT DO YOU THINK? Not because I as a writer am trying to avoid criticism, nor because I am trying to protect other professional resume writers. And I am not stating that there might indeed be things in your resume that need improving. But if you want the right advice, your safest bet is to go to the experts. Doing otherwise may derail you and detract from your ultimate goal.

The Best SAT Diagnostic Test

The Best SAT Diagnostic Test SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you’re preparing for the SAT, you may know how important it is to take a diagnostic test early on in your studying.An SAT diagnostic test will give you a baseline score you can use to develop an individualized study plan that’ll target your weaknesses and help you reach your target SAT score. In this guide, we’ll explain what an SAT diagnostic test is, where you can find the best free SAT diagnostic tests, and exactly how you can use every piece of information you get from the diagnostic test to create the best SAT study plan for you. What Is an SAT Diagnostic Test? How Can It Help You? An SAT diagnostic test is a practice test that you take at the beginning of your SAT prep to determine what your strengths and weaknesses are and how much you need to improve. Your diagnostic results give you an estimate of how well you’re currently scoring on the SAT and which parts of the test you’re struggling with.Without an SAT diagnostic test, it’s much harder to study effectively for the SAT because you don’t know how much progress you need to make or in which areas. Before you take a diagnostic SAT, you should know your goal score. A goal score is the score you're aiming for on the SAT, and it's based on the average SAT scores of admitted students for the colleges you're interested in attending. Check out our guide to learn how to set your own goal score. Where Can You Find the Best SAT Diagnostic Tests? The best SAT practice tests are always official tests, and this is also true for SAT diagnostic tests.Official practice SATs are made by the same people who create the actual SAT. This means that, if you take an official practice test for your SAT diagnostic, you can be sure you’re getting an accurate idea of the real SAT's content and difficulty, as well as how the questions are worded and how they can trick you. We have links to every free and official SAT available online. Use one of these for your free SAT diagnostic test.You can also take an official SAT practice test on Khan Academy which will automatically score your results for you. However, we don't recommend taking your SAT diagnostic test online since you'll be taking the real SAT with pencil and paper. Are there shorter options for a diagnostic test?We highly recommend taking a full-length SAT as your diagnostic test to give you the most accurate results, but if you really can’t find the time to do this, Khan Academy does offer short diagnostic quizzes for the SAT on its website. There are four quizzes for SAT Math and four for SAT Reading. Each quiz is ten questions long. You won’t be able to translate these results into an estimated score for the SAT since the format is so different, but they can be used to help you figure out which areas you need to improve the most in. How Should You Take Your SAT Diagnostic Test? When you take your SAT diagnostic, it’s very important to mimic real testing conditions as closely as possible so that you can get the most accurate score from your diagnostic. If you give yourself more breaks or time than you’d get on the real test, your diagnostic test results won’t be as useful because the extra time could cause you to get a higher score than you would on the real SAT. Here are the main rules you should follow when taking your diagnostic: Take the test with pencil and paper Take the test all in one sitting Keep strict timing for each section (don’t give yourself even one minute extra to complete a section!) Use only the breaks you’d get on the official exam (5 minutes after the Reading section, 5 minutes after the Math No Calculator section, and 5 minutes before the Essay if you’re taking it) Minimize distractions (no music, tv, people talking in the room, etc.) For a more in-depth look at the best way to take SAT practice tests, check out our guide specifically on the topic. How Should You Analyze Your SAT Diagnostic Results? Once you’ve taken your SAT diagnostic test, your work isn’t over! The reason you took the diagnostic was to get useful information from it, so these next two sections will explain how you should analyze your test results. In this section are four big picture questions you should ask yourself to see how much you need to study and what major areas your study plan should focus on. Grade your diagnostic test (all official practice tests include instructions on how to do this), then think about the following questions. How Far Are You From Your Goal Score? This is the key question. How far are your diagnostic test results from your SAT goal score? If you’re close to your target score, great! You may not have to do much studying beyond some quick review and taking a few more practice tests. If you’re farther from your SAT goal score, you’ll probably have to put some more time in, but that’s why you took the diagnostic test, to figure this out early so you have plenty of time to develop an SAT study plan. Keep reading for tips on how to figure out exactly where you can improve and what you can do to raise your score. Which Sections Did You Struggle the Most With? Now, look at each of your section scores. How do they compare to one another? Is your Reading score pretty good but your Math score far from where you want it to be? Then you know to focus more of your study time on math. Students often divide their study time equally between each of the SAT sections or read entire prep books all the way through to make sure they’re learning everything they can. However, if your section scores vary widely, this isn’t the most efficient use of your time. You want to concentrate more on the section(s) where you need to make the biggest improvement. That’s the way to raise your score a significant amount. Which Question Types Did You Struggle the Most With? Now go one step further. If you’re unhappy with your Math score, look more closely at which types of questions you answered incorrectly. Did you ace the algebra questions but struggle with geometry? Did the grid-in questions throw you for a loop? The more detailed your analysis is, the more it’ll help you develop a study plan that effectively targets your weaknesses and helps you raise your score.To help you with this, here are guides that explain every type of question you’ll see on SAT Math, Reading, and Writing. They’ll help you categorize the questions and figure out which ones you’re missing. Did You Run Out of Time on the Exam? Finally, did you struggle with the time limits on the SAT? Did you run out of time on any of the sections? Do you feel like you could have gotten a higher score if you’d had more time?The SAT expects you to answer a lot of questions in a short amount of time, and many students struggle with completing the test within the time limits. If you feel you knew most of the information being tested but simply didn’t have the time to answer all the questions completely, working on your timing skills will be key to improving your score. We explain how to do this in the next section. What Is the Best Way to Go Over Questions You Got Wrong? After you looked at the overall patterns in your diagnostic score results, it’s time for a more detailed analysis. To do this, you should go through every question you answered incorrectly and figure out why you got it wrong. This may seem time-consuming and boring, but don’t be tempted to skip it! Going over the answers you got wrong is the absolute best way to understand where you’re making mistakes and what you can do to correct them. Otherwise you’ll just keep repeating those same mistakes and not make improvements. For each question you answered incorrectly on your diagnostic, think about why you got it wrong. There are generally four reasons people make mistakes on exams: Time Issue: You were pressed for time. Question Comprehension Issue: You had the knowledge to get the right answer, but the question was too complicated, you weren’t exactly sure what was being asked, or you were tricked by the question. Procedural/Content Issue: You didn’t know how to solve a question, or you didn’t have the background knowledge needed to answer the question. Careless Error: Often the most frustrating mistake, this is when you knew exactly how to get the right answer, but you made a silly mistake that caused you to choose the wrong answer. We give detailed explanations for how to overcome each of these issues in our guide to going over SAT questions you missed, but below are key solutions for each of the four issues. Time Issues To figure out if you have time management issues, take a timed practice test (under realistic conditions). If you run out of time to answer all of the questions, continue answering questions, but mark the questions for which you needed the extra time. How many questions did you get right with the extra time, compared to the number of questions you answered correctly within the official time limits? If your scaled scores differ by more than either 50 points on any section of the SAT, then you have a time management problem. We have guides specifically on how to stop running out of time on SAT Math andSAT Reading, but below are a few key tips for helping you manage your time on the SAT better. Know how long you have for each question:Having an idea of how long to spend on each question will help you plan out your time better and make it easier to stay on track. Move on if you're stuck on a question:If you’ve stared at a question for 60 seconds and have no idea how to solve it, skip it and move on. Practice, practice, practice:There’s a reason we keep encouraging you to take practice tests; they’re one of the best ways to get faster on the SAT.When you take practice SATs, you become more familiar with the exam and get a better idea of how long you can spend on each question, both of which help with your time management skills. Question Comprehension Issue This issue is especially common with people who read questions quickly in hopes of saving time. Even though you’ll be pressed for time on the SAT, spending an extra few seconds to figure out exactly what a question is asking you is well worth your time. Many students underline key parts of a question to make sure they’re not missing any important information when they read it. It may also help you to write out the info a question gives you in a simpler form to help you understand it. This can be especially helpful with math questions that dump a lot of info on you in the question. Procedural/Comprehension Issue Both of these issues can be solved by building up your knowledge of what the SAT tests and how it tests it.For procedural problems, the best way to improve is to answer lot of practice questions so you become familiar with what SAT questions look like and the ways they ask information. Prep books can also give you insight into how to solve questions. For comprehension issues, you can brush up on the content the SAT tests by using class notes, textbooks on the material, an SAT prep book or a complete prep program like PrepScholar. Careless Error The best way to overcome careless errors is to stop and think about why you’re making them. Were you pressed for time? Then improving your time management skills will help.Did you get tripped up by one of the SAT’s common tricks, like only solving for x when you were supposed to give the answer for 3x? Then taking more practice tests will help you identify these tricks more easily.Leaving yourself a few minutes at the end of each section to go over your answers can also help you avoid careless mistakes. How Can You Create the Best SAT Study Plan for You? Once you’ve taken your SAT diagnostic test and gone over your results, you can use that information to develop an SAT study plan completely tailored to you. Below are the five steps to follow to create a study plan that’ll help you build up your weaknesses and reach your target score. #1: Figure Out How Much Time You Need to Study Your first step for your study plan is to figure out how many hours you need to devote to studying. This is based on how much you want to improve from your diagnostic score results. Here are our estimates for the total number of hours you'll need to prep based on the SAT score improvement you want: 0-30 point improvement: 10 hours 30-70 point improvement: 20 hours 70-130 point improvement: 40 hours 130-200 point improvement: 80 hours 200-330 point improvement: 150 hours+ Once you know the number of hours you plan on studying, you can decide how many hours you want to study a week and work backwards to figure out how many weeks/months you’ll need to prepare and when you should take the SAT. For example, if you’re hoping to improve your score by 150 points, you’ll need to spend about 80 hours studying. If you can manage ten hours of SAT prep a week, it’ll take you about ten weeks, or 2.5 months to be fully prepared. #2: Get High-Quality Prep Materials You can create the perfect study plan, but if you’re using low-quality materials, it’ll be hard for you to make real improvements.We’ve already mentioned the importance of using official practice tests when you study. Unofficial practice tests can sometimes vary greatly from the real SAT, which means you’ll be taking tests that don’t help or, worse, prepare you for the wrong material. Always use official practice tests when you can. A prep book can also be one of the most useful tools for your SAT studying. They can be especially helpful at explaining difficult concepts and breaking down how to solve different types of SAT problems.Check out our guide to the best SAT prep books to learn which are the best prep books out there. #3: Drill Your Content Weaknesses As we mentioned above, it’s important to identify your weak areas and prioritize strengthening them. Once you know which subjects or question types you want to improve in, there are several ways to go about doing this: Reviewing content, either in a prep book or school notes Answer practice questions Asking for help if needed. If you’ve read through all your relevant notes on a subject, you may want to try asking a classmate who’s also taking the SAT for help or look into getting a tutor. #4: Take Regular Practice Tests Your SAT diagnostic test isn’t the only practice test you should take before exam day. Regular practice tests will help you track your progress and get more familiar with the exam.We recommend taking three to six full-length practice SATs.There are currently eight official practice SATs available for free, so definitely make good use of them. #5: Analyze Your Progress During your preparation for the SAT, you should regularly step back and analyze how things are going. Are you making the progress you’re wanting? If not, what do you think you should change about your study plan? Are you able to get in the number of study hours you want to? Where are you still struggling? How can you fix that issue? This is a really important step to follow because if something’s not working, you’re not going to see the improvements you want, no matter how often you keep doing it. If you’re stuck you might consider looking at tutors or reading our list of the 23 best tips for the SAT to get some new study ideas. What's Next? Want to get a perfect SAT score?Take a look atour famous guide to a 1600,written by an expert 2400 SAT scorer. Looking for practice tests?We have links to every free and official SAT practice exam available. Aiming high on each SAT section? Then read our individual, in-depth strategy guides to help you reach an800 on SAT Reading, SAT Math, and SAT Writing. Disappointed with your scores? Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: