With all the recent M&A activity in the finance community, many job seekers now face a new challenge when updating their resumes: “How do I accurately describe my work history on my resume without confusing my reader, offering misleading information, or looking like a job hopper?” Frequently I review resumes from candidates that list each company separately, even if they became an employee of that company through a merger and even if their job title and scope of responsibilities stayed the same. This creates redundancy and wastes space on the printed page…and from a marketing perspective, your interests may not be best served by listing so many companies. While right now, everyone is cognizant of who bought who, some of that knowledge will wane in time and the recruiter or hiring manager reviewing your resume may make some incorrect assumptions about your chronology and work performance when so many companies are listed.An alternative to listing each employer separately is to use the company name that best positions you and then give a brief explanation of the M&A activity or former company. For example, if your specialty is in trusts and wealth management and you worked at U.S. Trust before it was bought by Bank of America, your resume might say: U.S. TRUST (now Bank of America) because you want your expertise in the trusts field to be prominent.If you worked for a troubled company that was acquired by another company, list the new company first and put the former company in parenthesis: BANK OF AMERICA (formerly Merrill Lynch). This strategy allows you to call attention to the great work you did at Merrill without putting the transitional phase in the spotlight. If the merger you were involved in occurred a long time ago and dates you, you can choose to leave that company name off and just go with the newer, more relevant company. For example, if you started in the industry at Bankers Trust, but worked there when they were acquired by Deutsche Bank or if you worked with State Street before Deutsche Bank took over, it may be in your best interest to just list Deutsche Bank. You should still list your full chronology, but leave off the name of the company that no longer exists.

In the recent McCain/Palin interview with Katie Couric, the candidates referred to the interview as “gotcha journalism.” Job seekers often feel that the job interview process is a similar “gotcha” experience, full of potential land mines and trick questions. It isn’t. When a job seeker walks into an interview, they are a risk. The interviewer is trying to assess:

• Are you as good as your resume says you are?
• Do you have past experiences that have prepared you to carry out this new role successfully?
• How long will it take you to get up to speed and add value to the role/organization?
• Do you have any weaknesses or limitations that will be a liability in this position?
• Are you ethical, trustworthy, and loyal and do you have tangible proof of these traits?

The whole interview process is about developing rapport and credibility with the hiring authority and proving through accomplishment-focused, metrics-driven examples that you have the competencies and experience to be successful in the role. Whether you are applying for the role of sales person, CEO, or U.S. President/Vice President, the concerns are the same. Hiring managers cast their “vote” for the job applicant that does the best job of proving their abilities and fostering trust. Know your value proposition and your stories of success before you go into the interview and continuously showcase these stories of success to answer interview questions and inspire trust. Come prepared and you won’t feel like the interview was a “gotcha.”

I recently attended the National Resume Writers’ Association annual conference in San Diego and had the pleasure of hearing Paul Forster, Co-Founder and CEO of Indeed.com speak. Paul offered some excellent tips for resume optimization that can help job seekers increase the chances that they will be found on a job board. Here are my favorites:

Use full and abbreviated words in your resume. For example, a CFO should include both CFO and Chief Financial Officer in the body of the document. A candidate in the pharmaceuticals industry should use both pharmaceuticals and pharma to describe their industry.

Stem keywords and vary your word choices. For example, rather than just using the word analyst on your resume, include variants such as analysis or financial analyst as well. 

Use a text only version of your resume for online posting. Many companies use parsing technology to locate the information they need on a resume. Heavily formatted Word  documents may be compromised or unreadable when uploaded into their databases.  Save a copy of your resume as an ASCII, plain text document to maximize the chances of having your document read.

Refresh your resume. Recent, fresh resumes appear higher in the database cue. By changing something on the resume you have uploaded to a job board, you increase your chances of being found online. Be careful not to use this technique too frequently or your resume could be perceived as spam.

Don’t compromise the reader. While it is important to optimize the resume, it must be done in a way that it still makes sense to the human reader. Be sure to balance the needs of the human reader with search engine optimization techniques to create the best results. Weave word variations into your document in a logical and natural way. 

The sobering developments at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have served as a catalyst for many to examine their current work situations and future career management strategies. Here’s some food for thought as we navigate through these difficult times.

1.  Make sure you have electronic copies of your previous performance reviews, letters of recommendation, and non-proprietary samples of your work. These documents will prove invaluable when you update your resume and other personal marketing collateral.
2. Audit your online identity. Do a Google search on yourself by putting your full name in quotes and review the results. Would it be easy for a hiring manager or recruiter to find you online and what type of information is reported about you? If you don’t exist on Google, or are hard to find online, consider creating online identity profiles on tools such as LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Ziggs.
3. Organize and reconnect with your contacts. Start examining your rolodex or contact management system and begin developing a strategy for reconnecting with contacts.
4. Be responsive to recruiters. Rather than feeling like “fresh prey” acknowledge the situation as a possible win-win for both you and the recruiter. Even if you are not the right fit for their open opportunity, you may be able to help them fill their pipeline for other positions. By building the relationship now, you are more likely to be considered for relevant openings in the future.
5. Get your finances in order. Examine your fixed and variable expenses and if necessary, make decisions regarding your assets. 
6. Schedule appointments with healthcare providers. Take care of basic check ups now while you can still count on your benefits coverage.
7.  Maintain open communications with your family. It’s important to be transparent about what is going on in your industry or company, even with young children. Explain your situation in an age-appropriate, non-threatening way…both teenagers and small children are able to make small sacrifices when they understand a situation.
8. Buddy up with someone who truly understands your situation. Whether it is a colleague, friend, mentor, spouse, support group, or career professional, try to create a dialogue with someone who can share your concerns, offer advice, and act as an advocate for your career goals.

On September 11, 2001, we realized how precious and fragile life is and how important it is to stay connected to family, friends, and colleagues. I’d like to think that everyone became a little bit more caring and human that day.I frequently blog about the importance and power of networking and building trusting and authentic relationships. Yes, staying connected is a great career management strategy, but beyond that, it’s a way to show that you care.Who are the people in your life that you’ve lost touch with and what could you do tomorrow to reignite those relationships? Don’t wait…life’s too short.�

On October 2, 2008, the Human Resources Association of New York (HRNY) is celebrating their 60th anniversary with a wine tasting event at Club 101 in New York City. If you are an HR professional, this is a great way to meet other professionals in your field and if you are a job seeker, this is a great way to meet recruiters from area agencies and some of New York’s top employers. In addition to wine, there will be food, music, giveaways, and lots and lots of networking. You can learn more about the event here.

Career Solvers will be presenting three resume workshops for the National Society for Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) at Columbia University on Saturday, September 13, 2008 to help prepare participants for the association’s national conference in Atlanta in October. Over 300 companies will be interviewing at the national conference and New York area participants will have the opportunity to brush up on their resume writing, networking, and interview skills at the New York event. Click here to learn more about the event and register.

According to 24/7 Wall Street, some of the country’s most well-known companies including Citibank, Sears, Washington Mutual, AT&T, IBM Merck, Ford, Circuit City, Rite-Aid, Gap, and AIG will need to cut thousands of jobs before the end of the year in order to make ends meet or improve earnings.I’ve worked with thousands of professionals who were downsized from their organizations. Some saw the writing on the wall well in advance and others were totally blindsided. If you lost your job tommorrow, would you have a financial plan in place to carry you through a six to twelve month search?  People who proactively manage their finances and create a financial safety net tend to have more productive searches and make better decisions about future employment opportunities…decisions that are fueled by passion for the work and a fit with the corporate culture rather than an immediate need for money. If you think you need to do a better job of planning for your financial future, here are some free resources from financial planner, Paul Levy of UBS.

I just got an invitation to connect from someone on LinkedIn with the following message: “Since you are a person I trust, I want to invite you to join my network on LinkedIn.” I have some real issues with this invitation and here’s why:

1.  This message was obviously created using a LinkedIn template. The sender put absolutely no time or effort into writing me a personalized invitation or explaining how connecting to him might have value for him or me.
2. I have never met this person in my life, so writing that I am someone he trusts is inappropriate and frankly a little bit creepy.
3. This person is affiliated with a company where I have worked, so my guess is that he has mined the LinkedIn database to connect with whoever he can from the company. It appears that this person is doing a good job of gathering information on other people for his own benefit rather than fostering reciprocity and authenticity to build the relationship.

Here are some examples of alternative messages this gentleman could have sent me that probably would have resulted in an accepted invitation:

1.  Create common ground. Hi! I noticed that you and I are affiliated with the same company and since you are a career strategist and I am a recruiter, I think there may be ways that we can help feed each others’ pipeline. I’d love to learn more about what you do and share some information about my practice as well. Would love to connect.
2. Start an authentic relationship. Barbara…I decided to skip the boring LinkedIn template and just introduce myself to you. We are both in the business of helping people find better jobs and more fulfilling careers and I would be interested in sharing best practices with you. Do you have time to talk?
3. Focus on the affinity. I’ve recently been reviewing the profiles of people who have worked for the same companies as me and I came across your information. While I know we’ve never met, I’ve found that people who have worked for the same employer can often benefit from sharing information and experiences. Would you like to connect through LinkedIn?
4. Give something before you expect to get something. I see from your profile that you help people who are in a job search. I work with many clients who would benefit from your expertise. By connecting on LinkedIn, I can share more information about these clients with you.

Invest the few extra minutes to craft personalized and authentic messages to people you want to connect with. You will be glad that you did.�

Over on the Stealth Networking Blog, Liz Lynch writes about networking apathy and ways to overcome it. Sometimes people who struggle with networking resist it because they feel the process is unnatural and puts them in situations where they are not comfortable. The key is to find communities that are aligned with who you are and what you are passionate about, rather than morphing yourself into someone you are not, just to get into the networking scene. When you network within a group where you feel there is a common bond or interest, authentic relationships, information sharing, and reciprocity will naturally follow. You connect with members of the group because of the affinity, but that affinity may be leveraged later on to garner information about other topics of interest to you, including your job search. Here are a few suggestions for networking sites that are off the beaten path from LinkedIn or Facebook, but can still provide enormous value to job seekers because they are based on an affinity relationship.�

Classmates www.classmates.com

Classmates enables users to locate and interact with friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, trade school, college, graduate school, or the military. One of the features I love about Classmates is that users can search on a maiden name, so it’s easier to find people than if you were using that same name in a traditional search engine. The free level of membership lets you create bulletin board notes on your profile for others to read, read stories and Q&As posted by members, and view photos. The gold membership lets you see where your friends live now, send and see emails, track who visits your profile, and plan reunions and events. 

Military Planet www.militaryplanet.com

Military Planet is a social network for past and current members of the military. Through the buddy search feature, members can search for each other based on a branch number, unit category, location, or station. Members can communicate with each other by blogging or posting messages on forums.

Living Social www.livingsocial.com

Living Social lets you catalog your interests, browse what your friends enjoy, and find others with the same interests as you. The communities include reading social, tune social, reel social, dining social, gaming social, and drinking social. Your account can be linked directly to Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, and other social networking sites.

Work It, Mom! www.workitmom.com

Work It, Mom is a community for working moms to share their experiences, advice, and support. Members can ask questions to the group, view blogs that deal with work/family balance, read and write articles, participate in and create groups, view and vote on news articles on topics that affect working moms, and purchase products and services that working moms want and need. 

Weight Watchers www.weightwatchers.com

Weight Watchers members have access to a number of message boards where they can post questions, tips, recipes, observations, and recommendations. There are different groups to join based on age, lifestyle, and weight loss goals, and several of the threads focus on keeping members encouraged and motivated. Members often rely on these boards for inspiration and it’s also a way for people who attend the program’s face to face meetings to continue the dialogue and rapport-building in between meetings.

Digg www.digg.com

On Digg, users can submit and vote on their favorite articles, videos, or podcasts. Users can then build a network by inviting friends or finding them on Digg. Friends can track what others are “Digging” or share opinions by commenting on the items they “Digg”. Users can also create a profile and add links to pages on Facebook, MySpace, their blog, or their own favorite web pages.