Ed. note: Laurie Dillon-Schalk teaches the downsized how to use social media to get a job and is the author of Social Wisdom. You can reach Laurie Dillon-Schalk by leaving a comment here, on twitter @ldillonschalk or emailing 405club@gmail.com.

Writer’s Preface: I am often asked how to set up linkedin’s privacy settings in order to maximize profiles for being job found and candidate considered.   To make this easier for the individuals who attend my ‘Using Social Media for Job Search” presentations, I have made a handout of my personal settings as a reference guide for job searchers.  Simply follow my settings to set up your account in Linkedin.   [note: this is available in slideshare under my linkedin profile]

1.  In Profile Settings:  Make your profile public

For job searching – you will need to open up your public profile so that prospective employers and recruiters can find you.

Make your profile photo visible and display the full profile information.  On the next page, you will see which items you can check off for public publishing.  I recommend checking off EVERYTHING while you are job searching.  Once you have a job – you can scale it back.

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It’s Sunday, so don’t forget to claim your weekly unemployment benefits from the NY Department of Labor Site.

Got questions about benefits? Perhaps our tips section can help.

You can also join some of our discussions about benefits in the forum here.

It’s Sunday, so don’t forget to claim your weekly unemployment benefits from the NY Department of Labor Site.

Got questions about benefits? Perhaps our tips section can help.

You can also join some of our discussions about benefits in the forum here.

Part 1

Resumes: we all hate them, but they’re the key to even landing the job interview. You want it to be clean, concise, eye-catching, and most importantly, accessible. You can build them in Word, but then formatting changes based on the computer. PDFs are better because they render better, but creating them is often a painful process.

JobSpice, a new startup funded by YCombinator, seeks to simplify the entire resume process by providing a clean and straightforward tool for building resumes, turning them into PDFs, and sharing them with the gatekeepers to your dream job. And from what we’ve seen and tried out, the JobSpice method of resume creation is shockingly simple.

When you land on the page, it’s immediately apparent how to create a new resume – just fill in the blanks. Seriously, the process is just about placing in key information and adding new sections. It allows you to add work experience, contact info, your education history, and more. There is also the ability to create custom sections. What’s nice is that it only takes a few clicks and keyword changes to personalize multiple resume for multiple jobs.

Want your resume to stand out? Styling is not a problem either. JobSpice has about a dozen design templates. If none of them suit you though, and you know CSS and HTML, you can create your own style tailored to your personality.

The biggest thing though is that JobSpice resumes are easy to publish and share. You can just click “Share,” type up a username and password, add a custom URL, and your resume is ready-to-go. Here is a very basic one created in less than five minutes. Within a few hours, you could develop a killer resume.

If you need full control over the design, you might be better off utilizing your own design and Photoshop tools. But if you need to create a simple, shareable resume, JobSpice works like a charm.

-Reblogged from Mashable’s Ben Parr.

Part 2

So now that you’ve got an incredibly easy way to retool your resume and make it stand out, you’re set right? Wrong.  “Content is king” they say,but what if you have writer’s block? What if you don’t know as much about the position as maybe you should because the job posting is unclear or not detailed enough?

I introduce to you your new best friend in beta, RezRedo. 

Brainchild of entrepreneurs Gerrit Hall and Joshua “Red” Russak,” RezRedo is the first database of “other people’s resumes” that you can view for free.  With a simple and intuitive search field on the home page you can search by company or title and find the job descriptions you’re looking for.

As aforementioned, the database is in it’s beta form but still worth the search and gleams with potential as it continues to grow.

As the job search takes place online more and more, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from Rezzy and J-Spice very soon!

-By Garrett Dale, Founding Member, Online Marketing Expert, Music Industry Professional and actively seeking employment opportunities.

Resumes are defensive. The purpose is to get you an interview rather than being discarded within a 30 second scan. HR people are looking for red flags to cull through the applicants as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

There are many different priorities in Human Resource Departments. In researching and talking to HR personnel, they often contradict each other in what will get a resume tossed. Some love buzzwords, others will discard a resume simply based on the use of these words. “It favors style over substance.” Some say resumes should be no longer than one page, but most agree that two pages is now the standard.  And some people find that mission statements are a very important part of any resume and a necessity, others intensely dislike the mission statement and say they are not needed unless you are submitting a resume without a particular job referenced.

The following list includes the “red flags” that most HR people seem to agree upon.

Spelling and Grammar Mistakes - this is the most obvious and the most damning, yet it frequently occurs. This is why it is so important to have others read your resume and cover letter prior to sending it anywhere.

Poorly Constructed Resume - it doesn’t matter if a resume contains the greatest work history in the world, if it is hard to follow the flow of information, no one will spend the time reading it.

Functional Resume - as we have reported in several previous editions, functional resumes are used by those who need to hide something in their employment history. Do not use a functional resume unless absolutely necessary.

Embellishment - either in facts or job titles. It is easier now to check on the facts on anyone’s resume. Many companies check resumes against the application and find a startling amount of discrepancies. And if the job title seems more impressive than the job itself… red flag.

Worked For Companies That No Longer Exist - companies do fail but if there is no or little history of the company, it becomes worrisome. Many restaurant workers “create” eating establishments to pad their resume, this practice has unfortunately spread to other industries.

Job Description - if a resume explains more about the job rather than one’s accomplishments while employed in the job, it is reasonable to infer there weren’t many accomplishments.

Qualifiers - if a description is qualified with “had exposure to” or other similar phrases, it may mean the person was a bystander and not actually involved in the process.

Out of Date Reference Contact Information - if the contact information provided for any reference is incorrect, the potential employee is either careless or trying to hide something. Either will get the resume tossed.

Job Hopping - short tenures at various jobs may create a problem; however, if the reasons are clearly defined and are reasonable, this problem may be avoided. But even in the most positive light of constantly being hired away, it does demonstrate a lack of loyalty.

Outsized Results in a Small Amount of Time - someone may be that good, but more frequently, the person has benefitted from good timing and just claiming ownership.

-By John Cox, Editor of Cynopsis: Classified Advantage. For Cynopsis Media’s free e-publications and extensive Job Postings visit www.cynopsis.com

Last week, I wrote about the Occupational Outlook Handbook a handy reference guide in career exploration. The week before, I explained ONET online, another career exploration/information tool. This week, I describe the attributes of NY Career Zone for exploring careers for career change and oneself in how he/she relates to chosen fields in a professional capacity.

New York State offers a wealth of free information on everything you’ve always wanted to know about careers but might not have known where to find it. A treasure trove of career and occupational information is just a few clicks away.

NY Career Zone www.nycareerzone.org is an affiliate resource sight to ONET online and also created by the New York State Department of Labor and United States Department of Labor.

In a wide array of in-depth career research, self assessments and other resources, the individual seeking an occupational pursuit complimentary to his or her talents, passion, strengths, temperaments and interests, can obtain a profile of one’s ideal or dream job. Equipping oneself with the answers to questions and necessary tools is the first critical step in preparation for pursuing and training for a chosen occupation.

NY Career Zone offers career groupings, like the other two resources online, and self assessments in the form of interest inventories, personality and work ethic/style maps. You winning combinations are one of a kind, as are your fingerprints. Are you investigative or artistic? Social or conventional? Realistic or enterprising?

NY Career Zone also offers personal budgeting assistance and all grade level teaching tools for teachers and guidance counselors to assist their students.

You can record your online exploration results and self-tests in a career zone section called the Portfolio and return to your saved record at another time.

If you’ve longed for the privilege of self discovery or need to explore your intellectual interests and interior terrain for your next job and cannot afford the paid services of a private career counselor, these free, sophisticated resources are a right-hand aid you can count on in the privacy of your own home and online space.

-By The Job Enthusiast Who Won’t Rest Till Everyone Is Put To Work!

Read about more helpful resources from The Job Enthusiast here.