How To Use This Site
Let the AJC – Career Strategy © Website be your career coach.  Here’s how to best use this site:
Home Page - Use the left hand column to find ideas, concepts, and strategies For Your Career Path.  These "mini-articles" are designed to provide some “ah-ha” moments and insights.  Want to know more?  Click on the Articles tab to find articles that amplify these mini-articles.
Articles - Click on the Articles tab, and click on any tab in the left-hand column for specific articles on:
(1) Planning & Strategy,
(2) Resume & Marketing Tools,
(3) Networking & Interviewing,
(4) Negotiating, and
(5) You've Got the Job - Now What?

I’ve included some short and some in-depth articles that follow the path of career transition from start to finish.  Look in the article for explanations of key steps and concepts as well as “How To'” implement these steps or concepts. 
1.  Just beginning your search?  You’ll want to start at the beginning with articles on
Planning and Strategy.   
2.  Beginning to market yourself?  Dig into
Resume and Marketing Tools for discussion of how to create and use marketing tools for your search.  Click on the tab Tools You Can Use for templates for the basic marketing tools.
3.  How do you talk to people about your job search?  And how do you find people to talk to?  Look for articles in
Networking & Interviewing for techniques and “How To’s.”
4.  Every thing’s negotiable - they say.  If true, what can you negotiate for in your next position.  Refer to articles about
Negotiation and your search.
5. 
You’ve Got the Job - Now What? provides information about when and how to close out your search.  Surprise!  - It’s not when you get the offer!
Tips - provide just that - useful quick tips about your career transition.
FAQs - offer a way for you to get personalized attention.  Get answers to your questions by contacting us.  Use the easy contact form to Contact Us or e-mail me directly at nancy@ajcglobal.com.
What's on your mind?  Contact us with your questions.

To read the answers, click on the question. When you finished, click on the question to close the answer.

I can understand your confusion:  I hear from clients that they are being told both - still today.  The short answer is "NOT TO."  I'll explain why.

Many years ago, it was common to see objectives on resumes.  However, for at least the past 20 years and probably more than that, the use of objectives at the top of page 1 of the resume has been replaced by the "Career Summary."  The Career Summary provides a short, strategic description of the job seeker, mentioning the job seekers' profession and including strategic information about his or her skills, strengths, and accomplishments.  It is more inclusive.  The objective, by its very nature, is more exclusive:  it states the job seeker's career objective.  If an employer sees it and says "We don't have that type of job opening, " the resume is put aside.  By providing a description of the job seeker's ability with mention of the profession, a prospective employer might read the resume, see the possibilities, and say "Hmm - we're looking for that skill or experience, etc."  

In a nutshell, the objective screens you out, the Career Summary screens you in.

For additional information, refer to other articles found in the Resume and Marketing Tools, and the Networking and Interviewing sections of the AJC website.
The answer to your question is simply "You can’t!"  It is not possible for anyone with 30 years of experiences to describe, and accomplishments to tout, to do it in 2 pages.  It won’t fit.

Ideally, a resume should be no more than 2 pages - 2 ½ at most.  It can be done.  Here’s what you should
know and do.

The most important thing to know is that the resume is NOT A “TELL-ALL REGURGITATION” of your entire work life.  It is, at its best, a strategic document that highlights work you have performed that relates to the position you are applying for and the work the employer wants done.  It is, in fact, a sales brochure  - your sales brochure. 

The most important thing to do is use the valuable space on those 2 pages to customize your resume for the position you are applying for.  Think about each job you’ve held; identify the types of duties you performed that relate to the position or company you are interested in.  Don’t neglect to add the outcome of performing that duty.

Using this technique, your response to employers will be one that is relevant to them and their needs and you can do it in 2 or 2 1/2 pages!
For additional information, refer to other articles found in the Resume and Marketing Tools section of the AJC website.
One of the toughest and most complex things a job seeker can do is to change careers.  It is a multi-step process and takes time.  It can be done but requires (1)  clarity about your objective, (2) dogged determination and persistence, (3)  ingenuity and (4) strategy.  Changing careers is a complex undertaking and space here does not allow me to adequately address it in FAQs.  Please refer to my article entitled The Art of Career Changing, in the Planning and Strategy section of this website. 

I'd also advise you to seek out a professional Career Strategy expert who can guide you in building a career changing strategy, and then guide you through the subtle nuances of carrying out your strategy. 

I’d like to address your statement “It doesn’t look like there is anything more for me in my current firm.”  While you don’t say it outright, your statement leads me to believe that you may be thinking of quitting to pursue your objective full-time.  If you are, I would caution you against doing so.  You don’t say if your have discussed this with your boss recently and regularly, but if you have not been doing this, I would encourage you to do so.  Having an internal champion is an asset as valuable as gold.  Use your boss as a source of internal networking and ask whom he could refer you to in your firm’s IA area.  Then, develop relationships within your firm in the area in which you want to work.  Letting people in your firm know of your interest, is probably the quickest way to a career change since you have a history, a track record, and a reputation.  You are a known entity, and if your record is a good one, there is less risk for the firm in hiring you to do a job that would be a change in direction for you.
I’ve heard from so many job seekers asking this question in one way or another.  They want to know what is that one thing they could do, that if they did it, they’d find their next job.  Unfortunately, there is no magic pill!

Generally, when I hear from a client or a job seeker that they have sent “100's” of resumes out with no response, it tells me that they are probably concentrating on the “Open Job Market”  –  employment sources such as websites and newspapers that are advertising positions for all to see; hence the name "the open market."  While this market may give job seekers a lot of jobs to apply for, it also gives employers 100's of resumes to scan.  The competition for these job is fierce!

If I were to guess "the thing” that you may not be doing in your search, or need to do more of, it is NETWORKING.  Networking still remains the best  way to uncover and identify opportunities.  Opportunities identified through networking are often never advertised openly and therefore the competition is less.

I would also caution you against looking for that “one thing” you should be doing that you're not!  Finding a job requires following a complex process  –  not doing a singular task.  You should be using all the avenues available into the employment market.

For additional information, refer to other articles found in the Resume and Marketing Tools section of the AJC website.
To vacation or not to vacation – that is the question!  Here are some thoughts to help you put things into perspective.
 
First, I’d like to put into perspective the “cost” of a vacation in terms of “time” away from your search.  You wrote: “It’s only a week.”  I would challenge that by saying that is rarely the case.  If you think about vacations past, you probably, if you are like most of us, spend considerable time getting ready to go on vacation:  (1)  That’s a week.  (2)  Then you are away for the week of vacation.  (3)  The week after your vacation  –  well, if you’re like most of us  –  is spent getting back on track. 
 

That's 3 weeks!  So that one week away is more likely to total 3 weeks of time taken away from your search.  The question to ask yourself is:  “Can I afford to take 3 weeks (or any amount of time) away from my job search?”
 
I can not tell you whether to vacation or not.  However, look seriously at your current job search activity.  If you are busy, generating lots of activity, a week away will slow if not curtail this activity.  However, there can be some advantages to vacationing if you are traveling to a location which you know to be ripe with opportunities for your job search.
It all depends on YOUR situation. 

Generally speaking, though, I advise clients I am working with to hold off on the vacation until they land their next position.  Then, the week spent away, after you have signed on with your new firm, can be one of your best vacations ever!
For additional information, refer to other articles found in the Planning and Strategy section of the AJC website.
Yours is a situation that is more common than you may think.  Over the years, I’ve heard many clients say: “I know what I DON'T want to do but I don’t know what I want to do!”  So what do you do?  The answer lies in recalling the many, many things you’ve done over the course of your career and life, and doing some critical thinking about those you enjoyed and why  --  or why not!  Knowing what you don’t want to do is important.  It can  prevent you from “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire."

Here's an exercise to help identify what you do want to do.
Step 1:  On a sheet of paper, draw a “T” chart.  On one side of the “T” list things you don’t want to do.  Jot down why you found performing these jobs, or job duties, distasteful, unrewarding, and problematic.  Analyze the task or activity.  Was it the entire task or duty that you disliked, or only certain aspects of it?  Did you enjoy and have success performing the duty for another employer, or as a volunteer activity/hobby?  Again ask why?

Step 2: On the other side of the “T” list things you really enjoyed doing.  Identify job duties, tasks, activities, projects, etc. that you enjoyed and had success performing.  Again, ask yourself why you enjoyed performing these activities.

Step 3: This exercise will probably you take you some time to complete - days even weeks.  That’s okay.  Just keep adding to your lists as well as editing your lists as your recall of past events brings keener insights and begins to reveal a picture of you performing at your best.  This picture that is developing is a picture of your ideal work or job.  Summarize the duties and characteristics of your ideal job.

Step 4: Now find descriptions of positions that are advertised on jobs search engines and in company websites.  Compare your summary to job descriptions that you see.  Where you find an over 50% match, you may have just found your ideal job!

For additional information, refer to other articles found in the Planning and Strategy section of the AJC website.
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