myplantosucceed.com Blog

The following FREE Resume and “Can’t Find a Job?” seminar will be given by Planning For Success, LLC:
5/19/2009: Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd, Ashburn, VA 20147 from 6-7 PM.
Please RSVP at www.MyPlanToSucceed.com on the Contact Us page.

Customer recommendation for Planning For Success from the Merchant Circle site:
May 03, 2009 by R.HOLTE in Gainesville, VA
Great experience. Terri was very timely and great to work with. I will use her services in the future.
Wendell Williams, Winchester, VA:
“I was looking for a cheap economic way of getting my resume update and giving a complete make over. Then I run into Terry Berry’s ad online in the directory. I called Terry and the rest is history. >From the first phone call to the finish product. She showed experience, class, knowledge , and the ability to ask and listen to me about what I was looking for and what I wanted. She made my resume from average to way above average marks. Her ability to take what ever your career is or your past experience and present it in your resume is second to none. Every sentence will make the reader smile and crave to keep on reading your resume to find out more about your experience and career. I will urge anyone considering upgrading thier resume or trying to create one to consider Planning for Sucess for their resume source. Her price is very reasonable and affordable, and the finish product is an absolute art work of resume writing. Please consider using Planning for Success. I would ”

March 26, 2009 by Chelsea M. in Ashburn, VA: Someone else to do your dirty work!
As if looking for a job isn’t difficult enough! I loved being able to meet face to face with Terri to discuss and review my resume. The final product was wonderful, and I got the hard copy. A very affordable but decidedly not cheap resource to assist you overcoming the first (and sometimes the hardest) obstacle in job hunting. Writing your own resume can be like cutting your own hair!

As I have provided resume writing services to job-seekers over the last 10 years, it is purely amazing what I have seen! I grew up in the NYC public school system which undoubtedly is not and was not in the TOP 10 list of America’s Number One public school systems. I can attest to the fact that grammar was definitely taught in my school by a set of pretty sharp individuals. Therefore, I have no idea where some of the currently brightest and highest-paid individuals went to school whose crappy resumes have come across my desk. Now this is no fault of theirs. Most of us find resume updating as something that “has” to be done because we either got fired, laid off, or hate our boss and need to get away…FAST. For many, preparing a resume is comparable to that William Shakespeare essay we had to write in high school on “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. In other words, it is a TASK…a DRAG. We wait until the last minute and then just spew out anything. So, as many of you have done in high school (or college), you go and contract this service out to a professional. That is where I come in. Me…. The Professional. The Resume-Writing Professional ! Did I flunk English 101 in college? Sure did! But they say the 2nd time around is the charm and I took it from a “D” to an “A” – or maybe that was the third time. (Hey, I was a MATH major!) In any case, this Math major has now become a writer and has dedicated my time to those of you who wish to contract out this service of resume writing. So what is it that I do you may ask? Most importantly, you may ask WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) if I pay you? Well, I am about to tell you.
Are you one of the three types below?
1) A High-Achiever with great communications skills, great career goals and experience (over 10 year’s worth) and a go-getter. You are focused and driven and reach out for opportunity but you don’t like your job and can’t seem to get out of it.
2) A Middle-of-the-Road Achiever who may have attended college or not. You work hard but you get nowhere in your career. You try hard but not hard enough. You beat yourself up and stop to wonder why you find yourself “stuck” in this occupational demise. You make the first move and try for something better but to no avail. You find yourself in an undesirable position and you do not like your job.
3) A Low-Achiever. This level comes in two forms. The Slouch: Someone with sub-par communications skills. Someone who has a job mainly because you need to eat. If you have a job, you may have had the same job that you now hate for some time. You are probably quite adept at your job because it is easy. You work as opposed to having a career. You call in sick on days that you are well and go to work on days you are sick and produce nothing. You blow all of your money on the lottery hoping your ship will soon come in. The world owes you something but you won’t reach for it. You will just wait for it. Then there’s the Ambitious Low-Achiever. Someone with bashful vocals. They are articulate but rarely speak up. This is the guy at the meeting who only speaks up when the loudest guy in the room speaks up and their voice is so non-commanding that it just gets drowned out by the loudest guy in the room. They accept not being heard. This individual may have a good job, is good at it but just sits there and complains that he hates his job. This person would like something new and may work towards it but they are not knocking down any doors to get to it.
(Wow…we have so much to say about the Low Achiever, don’t we?).
What do these three characters have in common? They are all unhappy with their jobs. We can see that the High and Middle Achievers have at least tried to make a change. The Low Achiever (the slouch)….well, he’s probably asked around to friends about “giving” him a job so he is trying also.
The Ambitious Low-Achiever, well, he has made attempts at branching out but has done a little here – a little there. He doesn’t put much effort into anything.
What’s the problem here? On the assumption that all of the above are pretty adept at their jobs, would like a change and have more than likely submitted their resume at one time or another for a better job, none can find a way out of their current situations.
PERHAPS IT’S THEIR RESUME!
Stay tuned for more. To Be Continued…… Next Up: Self-Marketing and Branding 101
**Keep your eyes peeled on this space for examples displaying the “wrongs” and the “rights” of job-seeking as it pertains to resume writing along with “Good” vs. “Bad” sentence structure and phrasing in the world of resume writing.

Did you know when you apply for just ONE job on the internet, there could be up to 1000 other applicants applying for the same job? Did you also know that when sending your resume out electronically and it leaves your computer, the first stop it makes is not a human but another computer – with a software program designed to scan your resume seeking particular keywords and phrases before it ever reaches the eyes of a human HR person. Does this mean you should compose your resume as if you are speaking to a machine or PC – in desperate need of a spell check and devoid of any emotion and enthusiasm? No. Yet, this is the way many resumes in their BEFORE stages reach my desk. So what can be done to breathe life into your resume? What are these mysterious software programs that seek these mysterious keywords that no one knows about? Why hasn’t anyone ever told you?!
**Keep your eyes peeled to this space for more on this subject