Think you’re ready to make a career move? Think again …

So …. you’ve made the decision to put yourself out there. No, we’re not talking about online dating. We’re talking about your next career move. It’s a big decision; therefore it’s critical to make sure that you prepare properly to position yourself well in today’s super-competitive marketplace. Before you start firing off your resume to every job that looks interesting, take a moment to get yourself in top form.

Your #1 priority is getting yourself ‘branded’ properly. This means figuring out what you want to be known for. Some suggested descriptions are: motivated, persuasive, resourceful, outgoing, flexible, organized, collaborative, enterprising, and visionary. Take some time to think reflect on this, as this tells recruiters who you are, and what you’re about.

Once you have a better idea of how you want to brand yourself, there are things you should consider before even applying for a job or talking to a company about a new opportunity:

Check yourself out on Google
See what others can easily see about you. Even though it’s hard to change what’s been posted about you, at least you can answer to it if asked about it in an interview. Savvy recruiters will look you up on Google, so you might as well be prepared.

Clean up your Facebook account
We know that it’s great to see how much fun you had at the bar doing shots, but your new boss may not be as amused as your good buddies. If you’re in the job market, make sure that a prospective employer isn’t going to be surprised if they see these pictures and wonder why you had a live monkey on your head at your recent trip to Cancun. They might have a hard time envisioning you representing them in a meeting, you know? Over 90% of employers are using social media to get to know you better – don’t underestimate this and make the assumption that “they’ll just think I’m a fun person” – trust us, they won’t.

Update your LinkedIn profile
Considered the “online resume”, make sure your LinkedIn profile is professional and easy to follow. Here are the golden rules: 1) Post a professional photo of yourself, or get a friend to take a photo of how you would look on the job – no selfies! 2) Ensure your LI profile contains the exact same information as your resume 3) No spelling or grammar mistakes, ever 4) Incomplete profiles are considered sloppy, so take the time to finish yours properly .

Sign up for email alerts
If you’re targeting a specific company, you can go onto their Careers page and register for email alerts for a specific field of interest. Also, we suggest that you register for email alerts with the more general job-seeking websites, such as: indeed, workopolis, monster and jobs.

Get help with your resume
Your resume has one very important job – it has to get you an interview. Sorry, but no matter how good you think you are at writing your resume, homemade resumes just aren’t going to be noticed through the 250 resumes (on average) that recruiters receive for any one job vacancy. Recruiters will most likely put a resume immediately in the “no” pile for the following reasons: just one spelling or grammatical error, a ‘cute’ email address, attaching a picture of yourself to the resume, resume is too long (as in 3+ pages), missing information (such as your address or phone number), and unexplainable gaps in your employment history.

Resumes need to tell a story about you are “on paper”. Recruiters spend an average of 6 seconds looking at a resume, so you need to know how to format your resume in a way that captures their attention right away, and entices them to continue reading past the 6-second mark. No matter what type of work you do, it’s worth it to invest in a professional resume writing service at least once in your career.

We can help
And yes, we provide a professional resume writing service for $95, so if you want to take your resume (and your career) to the next level, send us your current resume and we’ll turn it into an impressive document that will get you noticed, and will get you that very important first interview. Good luck!