Sheila Musgrove spoke at Lakeland College in Vermilion on January 10. Photo Angela Mouly
Best-Selling Author, Sheila Musgrove, delivered a presentation to assist audience members with making their resumes shine at the Alumni Theatre in Vermilion on January 10.
In her best-selling book, “Hired! How To Get The Zippy Gig,” she sourced the Financial Post’s Peter Harris who in September of 2016, said, “Eighty per cent of resumes are rejected within 11 seconds.”
To help people get more than 11 seconds, Musgrove wrote the book describing how to create a winning, shiny resume to have an applicant’s phone ring off the hook. Her two-step resume formula covers a person’s key successes and highlights their results for future employers.
“The biggest mistake people make with resumes is filling them with bullets describing functional responsibilities,” said Sheila Musgrove.
She suggests only using bullets to list key successes, versus a long list of personal attributes or job description points.
The model in her book encourages people to describe succinctly what their previous role was by answering what level they reported to, what their job was, and what their scope was.
The model also encourages readers to describe how well they did their previous job, by answering how big, how much, and how many about some of their key successes.
“Numbers and percentages are powerful,” said Musgrove.
She suggests that to prepare for an interview people should rehearse their resume out loud.
“In stressful situations, your short-term memory will not fail you,” said Musgrove.
She noted that people should bring references with them to an interview but only leave them if asked. According to Musgrove, the ideal resume length is two pages long. She suggested that after ten years, people can remove the dates for their career and education history. She noted that target positions and career summaries are often not read. She also mentioned that as many as 93 percent of employers will review social media.
To read “Hired! How To Get The Zippy Gig,” you can visit the Vermilion Public Library. For more information, you can visit www.sheilamusgrove.com, www.hideseekfind.com, or follow ‘TAG Recruitment Group’ on Facebook or LinkedIn.