Should the education go on the 1^st or 2^nd page of the resume?  I recently got my master’s in May 09 and will be getting my MBA soon.

It really depends on how much relevant work experience you have.  If you have less than three years of professional-level experience or if you have changed your career objective and you are now pursuing a field that matches your education but not your work experience, I’d recommend you insert your educational credentials on the first page right beneath the Professional Objective & Profile.  If you have been in the workplace longer than three years, it’s generally best to reference your education at the end of the resume.  Just be sure your work experience truly complements your education and doesn’t detract from your overall qualifications.  For instance, if you are seeking management positions but your jobs have all been at hourly jobs, your soon-to-be-earned MBA should get top billing.

How do you handle putting temp jobs on the resume?  I have had six temp jobs since being laid off.

Treat them all as one experience under the job title of  Contracting Assignments and use one time reference to capture them all (e.g., 2008 to Present).  Depending on your actual responsibilities, begin the “job” description with something like, “Delivered critical project management support in various contract and temporary assignments.  Responsibilities included . . .” In interviews, be prepared to provide a list of the six temporary assignments and the durations of each assignment.  Chances are, however, you will only need to verbally summarize who they were.

What is the strategy when an online application asks minimum salary requirements? The box has to be filled and you do not know the range of the role applying for. You risk the chance of putting in a salary that’s too high or too low.

Use a conservative number that is less than what you really want but not so low you’d never consider accepting it.  For instance, if you are used to making $60,000 and that’s the figure you really want, you may want to enter $45,000.  It’s still in the ballpark and may help you get an interview – which is precisely what you want.  That’s because if you do well in the interviewing process, most employers are willing to negotiate a higher salary for the right candidate (I once received an offer with a salary that was 33% more than what the headhunter told me the employer was willing to pay for the position).  If you disqualify yourself too soon by inserting a salary requirement that is too high, however, you’ll never get that chance.   

If you end up receiving an offer for the salary amount you submitted, don’t feel like you are under any obligation to accept it.  If the employer questions why you are asking for a higher salary, simply and politely explain that through the interviewing process you learned the role and the responsibilities are greater than what you understood from the online job posting.

Even if you reply with a low minimum salary and it turns out to be non-negotiable, there may be other things that will make the position attractive such as the benefits, bonuses, commissions, working conditions, commute, hours, etc.  Unless you first get an interview, you may never find out about these things.

How can I make my resume more attractive if I am trying to relocate to Orlando?

If you are concerned employers may not want to hire someone from outside the area, you may want to ask any friends or family living in Orlando if you can use their home address on your resume (if necessary, you can always explain that it’s your temporary residence).  If you feel that’s stretching the truth, on the cover letter mention you are in the process of relocating to Orlando.  Either way, prospective employers will know you don’t expect relocation assistance – which few employers are willing to offer in this economy, anyway.

The more you can convey you are already established in Orlando (or soon will be), the less likely your actual location will prompt employers to disqualify you as a job candidate.

Does it make a difference to apply through a Web site like Hcareers as opposed to applying through a company’s Web site?

It shouldn’t make a difference, but the best bet is to apply on both Web sites. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

When I was looking to fill positions in my corporate jobs, I generally had job openings first posted on my employer’s Web site and then on job boards if I didn’t get a sufficient supply of qualified candidates.  Not only did I never “penalize” anyone for posting their resume on both sites, but sometimes the same resume would end up on my desk from one source but not the other.  What that implies is one of their two submissions had been rejected and had it not been for their decision to post their resume on both sites, I would have never seen it.

Do people really look at executive resumes submitted online (i.e. Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.)?

Actually, they do.  In today’s economy, many hiring managers and HR departments are sourcing executive job candidates through job boards and their employer’s Web sites versus through executive search firms.  While search firms are popular when the labor market is tight, there’s such a tremendous supply of unemployed executive talent that many cost-conscious employers are opting to conduct the searches themselves rather than pay placement fees that can easily run into six-figures for a single executive job opening.  In addition, many search firms routinely post job openings on CareerBuilder and Monster when sourcing job candidates for their clients. 

While CareerBuilder and Monster are the two biggest job boards based on the number of postings, The Ladders (www.theladders.com) specializes in executive job postings.  Unlike the other two, you must pay a fee to apply for the jobs they have listed.  Another job board worth checking out is www.indeed.com.  Indeed conveniently pulls the job openings listed on other job boards as well as from employer Web sites so that you don’t have to go to multiple sites in search of a job that may be of interest to you.

I worked in two positions at one company; the older one was longer and more impressive. Can I put this first?

It really depends on how much more impressive the former job was and how long you were in the most recent position.  Generally, you want to stay with the chronological order unless you were in a position for a very short time and it was more transitional in nature (for instance, a project or temporary role).  If the less impressive position was clearly a demotion, consider not listing the job title in the same place as the former role and instead reference in the text section where you cite your experience, responsibilities and accomplishments.  For instance, if you were the President of a division and subsequently moved into a Vice President of Sales role, the very last line or bullet point in that section may read something like, “Assigned to sales leadership role responsible for driving revenue growth by 18% in new product category.”

The challenge here is you need to be truthful so you will need to reference your last job somewhere in the space where you are describing your duties with the employer.  At the same time, you don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to a position you’d rather not spend much time talking about.  An exception is if you were in the position for a very short period of time (e.g., less than three or four months).  For instance, in my upcoming book, Job Search Skills from the Reluctant Expert, I share how I referenced events after a re-organization prompted me to leave one company where I was the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for a smaller role as the Global Vice President of Talent Management for another.  After working 20 days with my new employer, a worldwide restructuring resulted in the elimination of my job and the entire global team.

Rather than include such a short stint on my resume and risk it diverting valuable interviewing time away from more relevant experiences, I would mention the job in interviews by simply saying, “I didn’t even bother putting it on my resume as I was there such a short time.”  By always bringing up the job in the interviews and including it on the application, I was able to focus the interviewer on what was important (i.e., my previous positions) while protecting myself from potential claims the omission was somehow dishonest.