How to edit your resume to get that interview

Resumes used to be what you created only when you were looking for a new job. Avjobs has changed all that. Today, everyone can keep their resume polished by keeping their Avjobs master profile up-to-date.

Why Keep Your Avjobs Profile Current?

There are many advantages to keeping your Avjobs profile current instead of having your resume online somewhere else:

• Avjobs profiles are not only for job seekers, so your current employer won’t be suspicious
• Opportunities you don’t expect can come your way because recruiters love Avjobs
• Co-workers, peers and even your manager can find out more about your accomplishments

Not having an Avjobs profile today is a serious misstep. Avjobs is becoming more and more important. Even if you have no intention of every working again it is still wise to optimize that profile.

Keeping Your Resume Current

With the economy the way it is, it wouldn’t hurt to have both digital and written copies of an actual resume available. Writing it while you are employed and relaxed is likely to generate better results to doing it when you are upset and stressed out over having been laid off or worse.

If you don’t have a resume when you need one, having all the details saved on Avjobs will make the challenge easier. There are many reasons to keep your resume up-to-date:

• Refer to it just before your annual review
• Use it to apply to speak at a conference or join a professional aviation organization
• Details can be used to nominate you for an award
• Share it with collaborators
• Take it to networking events

Make Yourself More Impressive

The stronger your resume, the better you can compete for any openings that do exist.  Consider simplifying what is on your resume to make the first cut. Then have a really impressive Avjobs profile so you stand out.

In today’s aviation industry, “Everyone Sells”.  Use your resume to sell yourself.  Read your resume and then ask yourself – Why should I hire you.  Your resume needs to tell the reader exactly why they should hire you.  Just because you didn’t take any sick days doesn’t make you more hirable than the next person.  I like to add the phrase “So what?” to the end of every statement on a resume.  Try it yourself.  If you’re not able to justify the statement with something that sets you apart from the stack of 100 other applicants, you may as well leave it off your resume.

You have to remember the other 100 applicants for this job all had the same jobs you have had.  They have all worked at the same companies or ones very similar.  They have all had the same duties and responsibilities and they all had perfect attendance.  “So What?”  So what makes you different than the other 100 applicants?  Tell me on your resume.  Tell me how you did the job better than anyone else – with examples.

Employers are not looking for more employees that just show up at 8 and leave at 5.  These days that’s just not good enough.  They ARE looking for contributors to the bottom line, improvers of processes, increasers of revenues, reducers of time (you get the point).

Check out these tips in Why Smart People Don’t Get Hired:

“Most people don’t understand that hiring managers aren’t looking at resumes to find the right candidate. They use them to eliminate the, “wrong,” ones. When faced with a stack to read through, they will often eliminate the shorter less descriptive resumes as a matter of course.

Most people only do their job just exactly as well as they have to. Most hiring managers are looking to solve a problem. If your resume happens to show that you are a person with the skills to solve that particular problem, you’re in. If not, you’re in the round file.

Don't Miss These Tips

“You would be surprised. A couple of years ago when I was on the job search, I made myself a very polished two-page resume which I tried to make as elegant as possible. Really, I tried my hardest to make sure it was well-written and “flowed” like an article. Did an email blast (maybe 20-30 emails), got maybe 1 response and even that was a recruiter.

Then, I asked a good friend of mine to look at it. His response was “dude, tear all this crap out – it doesn’t belong here! First, a resume doesn't have to be only 1 page. Second, pretend you barely speak any English at all (no bullet point should be longer than one, or in exceptional cases, two sentences, and all sentences should have no more than 5-10 words of boilerplate (any word that isn’t a aviation name, keyword or acronym)), and in many cases you should just downright resort to listing bare technologies separated by commas. Trust me.” (This is not, by any means, an exaggeration!)

I was so shocked at the feedback that I laughed at first, but then figured – why not try it? So I dumbed down my resume to literally the level of someone with a couple of years of English taken in high school in their native country, who just arrived into the US. And, to my (COMPLETE) shock, about half of the emails I sent received replies (including from companies directly; one small airline company’s reply stood out to me as particularly straightforward: “When can you come in for an interview?”).

I actually ended up landing something very close to (at that time) my dream job from that email blast. That’s when I learned my lesson. These days, when I work on my resume, I first write it how I’d like it to look, and then iterate over it multiple times until it is at a point that it can be understood by a 3rd-grader (barring acronyms and buzzwords).

However, I will mention that I could not understand this system and thought it was unfair, only until I found myself getting tons of call and emails for interviews.

Are you ready to update your resume? There is no time like the present.

New Editing Tool Makes Updating Your Resume Even Easier!

In the ever-changing aviation career environment, maintaining or transforming your resume is crucial to getting their foot in the door and land that perfect job. At Avjobs, we have now made it easier to shine a light on YOUR value as an employee.

Use Avjobs the text formatting editor within the Automated Resume Builder of your account. Now editing features, like those found in desktop editing applications like Microsoft Word and OpenOffice, provide easy and powerful solutions for our users. This means that as an applicant you now have a greater chance to stand out in the crowd with a more polished resume.

Understanding How This Amplifies Your Visibility in the System

The online application process provides a series of questions that when answered, automatically translates the application into an organized "Aviation Standards" Based resume. Whether you already have a refined resume or would like help building one, Avjobs online job application has many benefits and is worth taking the time to complete.

Increase your Chances with Employers

As an applicant, it is important for you to understand how the job application increases your chances with employers. When employers access our system and are searching for potential interview candidates, they are inputting key words like you would in any standard search engine. Once you fill in the job application, your resume now becomes 100% searchable for any employer in the system. The more fields you complete, the more chances you have to turn up in search results. The more you are in search results, the more chances for interviews.

Why this is Important for You

We often hear from applicants that they do not understand why they need to complete the job application when they already have a completed resume. Beyond being displayed in the search terms for employers, there are many reasons to complete to the job application. When seeking a new job, it is best to give yourself every opportunity. This is a chance to market yourself in an additional way and lead more employers in the system to find you!

If you take the time now to enter and regularly refresh your application, you are giving employers what they are looking for, access to all of your information in a standardized format. Being the channel of communication for both applicants and employers, Avjobs has developed questions tailored to employer requests. These answers are not often found in a standard resume, but answering them in the job application allows you to schedule that interview faster. Now their one minute glance can put you in the "Interview" pile and steer you towards your future. Furthermore, now the formatting tool allows you to take information in your existing resume and "copy and paste" it into the job duties. No more retyping or self-formatting when showcasing your accomplishments in previous employment. It's a breeze!

Think of the job application as an alternative tool to revisit areas of your job history you haven't explored in a while. It can jog memories to answer interview questions more completely, provide a way to highlight why employers should hire you, and help find effective resume material not previously considered.

How to Maximize This Benefit

As an applicant, you want all eyes on your resume. To do this, your resume needs to resonate with target company's needs and show how you solve their problems. Avjobs recommends highlighting what made you the best at your past or current positions. Try writing your job duties and responsibilities as positive statements that describe your accomplishments, achievements, awards, and results. For example, you can use statements like:

• Created marketing tools for hangar lease options resulting in full capacity in one year
• Assisted in compiling month end financial analysis, saving the comptroller over 25% of his time
• Generated a template system to prepare quotes for brokers and customers, cutting the return communication time by 50%

Avjobs wants to help you reach your goals. With our integrated resume builder, you can easily focus on landing that interview and taking the next step towards a new job. We have also tailored our system to reward those applicants who are the most motivated. Ambitious candidates are constantly updating their resumes and it works to their advantage in the applicant portal. Every time you update and edit your resume, it moves to the top of the list in the system. Anytime an employer logs in they will see your resume immediately on their screen. Showing your motivation to get to work soon and keeping your resume at the top of search results, let's recruiters and employers view your resume first and puts YOU in the spotlight.

In a perfect world the Avjobs system should...

Allow me to send my Avjobs resume as an attachment.

Of course, and Avjobs has created a shortcut for that.

From time to time you will notice that some employers request that you email your resume as an attachment. Or, once you have applied for a job, an employer may request an additional copy of your complete resume as an attachment.

Once you have completed the Online Job Application & Resume Builder, and you are ready to apply for open positions, you can select "Save Resume to Desktop" from the Navigation Menu, under "My Resume".

This will allow you to download a copy of your resume as a Word document, and save it to your Desktop, or destination of your choice.

Once you click "Save Resume to Desktop", you will receive a prompt, asking "Do you want to open or save this file? Click "Save"

A Dialogue Box will appear, prompting you to select where you want to save the file, and allowing you to change the name of the file if you like.

Remember - If you have made any additions or changes to your resume online, you will need to repeat the procedure above to ensure that you are sending the most updated version of your Avjobs Resume.

The best way to keep track of the positions you have applied for via email with an attachment, is to save the positions to your "Saved Jobs", and add a note that you applied via email, or attached as Word doc, etc.

Avjobs is always here to help.
Feel free to contact our office for additional assistance.

TIP: When you initially open your resume doc in Word, you will be able to see the actual table, however, it will not print this way. If you save the file as a .rtf it will remove the table lines. Word will spell check for you too!

Automated Document Preparation: Select (preview cover letter) on the job posting you are applying for and copy the text to insert into the body of your email. This will create a custom cover letter specifically for the job you are applying for.

In a perfect world the three (3) most important things this system should do are...

Your answers to this question are very important; in order to continue to better the system for you and to make sure you are aware of all of the benefits currently available.

These are actual questions and comments provided by active members. In the event you need additional answers please visit our Help Center for additional information.

In a perfect world the Avjobs system should...

- Have the ability to see who requests my resume.
- Supply information concerning who is viewing my resume (Company name).

Absolutely! Avjobs requires that all employers register prior to searching resumes. When any employer views your resume, you are immediately notified, via your "@myavjobs.com" email account. The subject of the email is "Avjobs Resume Hit - Company Name".


Each email contains:

• the exact date your resume was viewed
• the exact time your resume was viewed
• the company name
• a company web address
• and a short company description

This was set up to not only provide you with this information but to also remind you to keep your resume up-to-date. For the Employer, all Resume search results are sorted by edit date (most current resume at the top of the list).

FOR BEST RESULTS: Update your Resume now and often to go to the top of the Employer search results list.

You may turn this notification service on and off by changing your selections in the Personalization Settings area under My Account.

• Go to the "Personalize Your Settings" page. Select My Account > Personalize Settings (or use the Personalize Settings shortcut on the navigation menu).
  You will now be on the "Personalize Your Settings" page. You can visit this section to adjust your settings at any time.
• Find: "Resume Settings" select Yes for both "Resume Privacy:" and "Email me when Resume Viewed:".
• Scroll down and Save.

In a perfect world the three (3) most important things this system should do are...
Your answers to this question are very important; in order to continue to better the system for you and to make sure you are aware of all of the benefits currently available.

These are actual questions and comments provided by active members. In the event you need additional answers please visit our Help Center for additional information.

In a perfect world the Avjobs system should...

Allow me to copy and paste my existing resume.

You can copy and paste your existing resume...
If you already have your resume typed into a word processing program you can copy and paste the appropriate information into each corresponding field.

The resume database was created as a "Searchable" system for Employers to narrow their search and find the right candidate for the job. Employers have the option of searching many of the fields separately to help in the process. Therefore, it is important to fill out as many of the fields as possible.

What will the employer see?
As you complete and save each portion of your resume, you can click on the "View Resume" link located in the My Resume sub menu. This is exactly how an employer will see your resume in the resume database. Employers also have the option to view more detailed information about your resume/application but the initial view will be formatted as a professional aviation formatted resume.

Taking the extra time to complete the Online Job Application & Resume Builder correctly greatly increases your chances of coming back in an Employer's search.

Avjobs continues to connect job seekers and HR professionals in the aviation community everyday. We are positive that the Online Job Application &
Resume Builder will do just that.

TIP: The system will time-out after 30 minutes of sitting on any one page. If you have a lot of text to type on a particular page, you may want type the info in a word processing program first and then copy and paste the information into each field. This will spell check for you too!

*More: If you do not care about coming back in an employer search, and you absolutely want to copy and paste your existing resume; you can paste your entire resume into the system instead of copying and pasting parts of your current resume into their appropriate fields. You would do this under the "Personal Information" section of your resume, in the "Career Objective" field. You must still have provided your primary career interest and personal contact information, or your resume will not show up at all.

* Please remember that we do not promote this decision because the system is fully searchable for employers by the information entered into each field. Therefore you may not come back in an employer's specific search for employees.

In a perfect world the three (3) most important things this system should do are...
Your answers to this question are very important; in order to continue to better the system for you and to make sure you are aware of all of the benefits currently available.


These are actual questions and comments provided by active members. In the event you need additional answers please visit our Help Center for additional information.

Post your resume and apply for aviation jobs

As of today Avjobs has over 61,224 Aviation Career Opportunities that need to be filled ASAP. 58,324 new jobs have been posted in the last 30 days.

Another great way to get your resume in our system is to apply for jobs using our "Jobs Map" feature. It's quick, it's easy and it's fun to see where the aviation jobs are in your area and around the world. Pinpoint potential employers in your area or across the country and send in your resume.

[ad]