Most people say the headings shown above match her salary goal of $33,000. However, her response had been to substantially weaken these headings. The night after class she came back with a resume using the headings shown below:

What salary range do you think, these headings present her at? Why do you think she weakened these headings? Like many people, her reaction was to create headings that reflected her self-image or personal view of her skills. Since she had not been called a Customer Service Representative she felt somewhat uncomfortable using that description--even though, as a Directory Operator, she had been given the special task of providing extensive customer service to the governmental officials in our state.

She further weakened her resume by changing Marketing and Administrative Management to Administration and eliminated the heading of Staff Supervision and Training. Yet, this person had owned a business, performed all marketing duties along with hiring and training staff--but it was for a Christmas Tree farm. In her mind, she recalled being in jeans, working in a nice office but in a dirty production area or field planting, cutting, or shipping trees. This image, or memory, didn't match her image of a corporate business - so she greatly discounted the skills she had gained while managing her Christmas Tree business. Such feelings greatly impacted her resume.

What she hadn't realized was that by weakening her resume, she was presenting herself in the $22,000 to $24,000 range --- $9,000 to $11,000 less than her goal. This would have been detrimental to her job search if we, as a class, had not convinced her that the first set of headings shown above were true and that she indeed did have those skills and should use them.

This story is very typical of a great many job seekers who weaken their resumes in a negative way. Resume writing requires an ability to market our skills to the highest level while being entirely truthful. I always ask people these three questions: Did you do this? Can you do it again? And, are your answers truthful and accurate? If a job seeker can answer, "Yes," to all three questions they should use the strongest language possible.

As this story illustrates, writing an effective resume often requires that we stretch our comfort zones and learn to use new and better labels to describe our skills and abilities.

Resume writing is also negatively impacted because a great many people are given job titles that do not accurately reflect the level of work they do. I've worked with many job seekers who have been given titles like Sales Associate, Retail Clerk or Sales Assistant. Yet these people are often responsible for overseeing retail departments, training other sales staff, and being responsible for closing and opening operations for units with sales of up to $1 million or more annually.

Giving weak titles--that do not reflect the actual work being performed by staff--is highly advantageous for employers because it often results in lower pay rates.

In such positions, employees often gain a wide variety of skills but discount the level of skills they've developed because the work environment they are in treats the employee with little respect or acknowledgement for the level of work that they do. This, in turn, causes the employee to question such higher level skills and feel guilty, or feel like they are lying, when they present such higher level skills.

Become very aware of any feelings you experience that make you feel like you are exaggerating or lying when you create a strong skill heading or statement for your resume. Question Yourself...ask yourself the three questions discussed above. If you can answer, "Yes," to all three--then write your resume as strongly as possible.

Resume writing can build confidence when true skills are identified. Resumes that maximize skills also result in more interviews and higher salary offers.

To learn more about resumes, how to control the image you present in your resume, generate more interviews and higher salary offers visit my website workshops. Creating effective resumes also requires a strong knowledge of how to create design that grabs employers' attention with content that makes them want to interview you. You will learn a wealth of information--for free--in my online workshops.

When given the proper tools and understanding of how to write a resume--resume writing can become a rewarding and enjoyable task that pays off big by increasing self-esteem and in gaining a true knowledge and value of your job market skills.

Good luck writing your resume and in your job search!