For this discussion to be effective, let’s briefly identify the things that belong ‘above-the-fold’:

• Contact Information (Name, e-mail, phone, etc.)
• Objective Statement (Optional. But only new style, not old style)
• Summary Statement (aka Profile, Overview, Highlights, etc.)
• Job History (At least the most current job)
• Education (Above the fold for Educators or new Grads only)

Optionally we might see a “Keywords” or a “Skills” or another section that calls out some strong words or phrases (such as “Strategic Planning” or “Career Coaching” or others) that help strengthen what was covered in the Summary or Objective. However, beyond these items, everything else usually falls below the center (fold) of the first page. So, what’s below the fold and what shouldn’t be below the fold (or anywhere) on the resume?

The classic items that are usually found below the fold are older jobs, education, and any number of smaller (niche) sections that could be useful to the resume reader. Not every resume will have all of these, so don’t feel obligated to add them if you don’t need them.

Older Jobs – With a reverse chronological resume (the preferred resume for over 95% of job seekers), the jobs prior to your most current will generally end up below the middle of the first page. These will often continue on to the second page for most workers with longer careers. Your career information can go back 10-12 years and still be of interest, but seldom is anything over 15 years useful. Keep it meaningful and filled with STAR statements.

Education (formal) – I’ve already covered this in a prior post, but let me add a few more thoughts on Education. Many resume writers suggest leaving off the year you got your degree since it dates you. However, leaving it off can also make you seem older than you really are. The best guidance I can give you on this is really quite simple: How far back did you date your career entries? If you provided details all the way back to a job that you held in 1997 then feel free to list the date on your education if it is 1996 or more recent. But, in this example, if your degree was prior to 1995, then I’d leave it off in this case. In other words, if there’s a big gap between your degree dates and your oldest listed job dates, leave the years off the education.

Training – If you have two or more degrees that you consider a key strength of your talent, then don’t group Education and Training together, let them be separate sections so your advanced degrees stand out. If you have one degree, your degrees are not relevant to your current career, or you attended college but haven’t finished your degree, then you might want to merge the Education section with the Training section and highlight your informal or corporate training. Only list the courses that are relevant to your career and are less than 10 years old. This is a marketing document, not a diary…keep it relevant.

Certifications – Today, this is a valuable section. If you have industry-recognized certifications (e.g. Project Management Professional or Six Sigma Black Belt) and they are useful in your industry, career, or prior job roles, then definitely list them. Identify the year you received the certificate and make sure you keep the certifications current and valid (don’t let them expire).

Affiliations/Memberships – These are really quite important…if they are relevant and current. Any organization that you are active in that is related to your career or profession needs to be listed. Again, only list them if you are active in them (listing inactive groups can sometimes hurt you). Also, indicate the years you’ve been a member and list any leadership roles you’ve had. Don’t list too many…just the important ones. Too many “outside interests” can be a detriment as you might be seen as distracted, not job-focused, or “stacking” the resume.

Community/Volunteer – This is a good section to have — provide one or two current activities that show your involvement in civic or social activities. Groups like the Humane Society, neighborhood management organizations, and USO show your desire to “make a difference” in your world…recruiters and hiring managers generally like these traits. Like above, list the years in the group and any leadership roles you might have held. (The taboo on religious volunteer work or modest political support roles has diminished as long as it is balanced by other activities considered more “main-stream”.)

Technology/Computers – This is a section that has become a bit more “mandatory” as employers today want their staff to be comfortable with technology. For people in roles such as secretaries or office administrators, indicating a proficiency in Microsoft Office is a baseline…identify your level of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint skills as a minimum. For the “geeks”, where your prior career history clearly identified your technical prowess, you can skip the mundane software and use this section to point out your expertise with specific versions of various software packages (make sure the spelling is accurate for brand-name products). For managers, executives or others that really find calling out Office skills a bit demeaning, try what I do. I list more “advanced” products or features that I have skill in that imply a skill in the more basic software. For example, I list expertise in Publisher, Pivot-Tables, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Final Cut, Project, and Auto-Tune. The conclusion the recruiter reaches is, “This guy must know Office…he knows all this other good stuff.”

Hobbies – A remnant of resumes from years gone by, this section is generally left off, but in a few cases, it might be beneficial. For example, if you are in the Sports or Healthcare industry, then having running, tennis, or cycling as a hobby could be a plus. Another example might be if you are pursuing a career in the automotive industry, restoring classic cars could be a valuable hobby to list. The key here is…if your hobbies are not effectively related to your career, then don’t list a Hobby section at all.

Bottom Line: Recruiters focus on the part of your resume that is ‘above the fold’ to do the initial evaluation of a resume–so that part must be strong. If a hiring manager or recruiter manages to get past the fold, you need strong Education, Training, and Certification sections. In addition, it’s common to have technology skills, volunteer roles, and sometimes hobbies listed. But make sure all of these entries are current, targeted towards your career pursuit, and of interest to a potential reader. Don’t list too much…the resume is a marketing tool, not a diary.

Are you willing to relocate? (Yes/No)

I really want to answer, “Maybe” — but that’s not a choice. To help you determine an answer, let me ask you a few other questions:

1) If they offered you an excellent salary, would you consider moving?
2) Are you absolutely bound to your current geography?
3) Is there a support network where they might move you?

I’ve personally always answered the relocation question as “Yes”. If the compensation was adequate (say around a 7-digit salary), I’d relocate almost anywhere. For me, it’s a balance of compensation versus inconvenience. Sometimes you can’t relocate due to external issues (aging parents, legal issues, etc.), so saying “no” might be necessary. But think hard on this…is your answer based on a valid constraint or just a preference?

Outside of these first two options, you have to decide if it makes sense to move to a new city, state or country. I would hate to be stranded in a strange city, far from friends and family, when the company pulled the plug on my new job. So, I’d advise the safe approach of accepting relocation only to locations where you have a support system in place in case you need it. Moving to within 50 miles of friends or relatives gives you access to resources that you might need to get settled in or to even help out if the job opportunity falls through once you’ve moved.

So, my recommendation for relocation is to say “Yes” online, but when they talk with you, your answer can be “Yes…it depends.”

How much are you willing to travel? (0% – 100%)

Sometime the posting doesn’t indicate if it’s a travel job or not. So what’s the best answer? First, determine if you can travel at all! Some people have physical limitations or other valid reasons to travel only rarely…if at all. You probably want to go ahead and mark 25% even if you can handle only a couple of days a month. This gives the recruiter a realistic idea that you can travel, but only rarely. In general, if you can handle a modest amount of travel, go ahead and mark 50%, as this sets the tone with the recruiter that you can do what the job requires, but you value a certain work-life balance.

If the job posting says that it’s a travel position, then the recruiter is probably filtering off anyone that selected less than 50%. There are many consulting jobs where you fly out on Monday morning and return on Friday night. These are a bit less common than they used to be, but the job posts usually indicate it clearly as a “high travel” job and the recruiter expects you to answer 75% to 100%. If you can’t handle being out of town for at least 3 of every 4 weeks for the next 18 months, then answer truthfully at 50% or less.

For a basic rule of thumb…answering 0% or 100% usually indicates you are inflexible or you are overly anxious to land a job. Generally you should avoid these two values unless you want to send that message. Think about the next 12-18 months when responding to this question…and feel free to negotiate when you talk to them. You aren’t making a commitment with this information, you’re just providing guidance.

Desired Wages or Salary?

This is a tough one. There are two schools of thought on this. If you leave it blank, then the recruiter might favor a person that has listed their salary. However, if you enter it, you might be eliminated because your compensation requirement was outside the recruiter’s preferred range. What do you do?

First, you need to understand your Worth and your Baseline. How much is someone else, with your similar skill set, worth in today’s market? You might try exploring Salary.com, or a Jobstar.com salary link, or to the salary info at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to see what’s the norm in your geography. Next, look carefully at your budget and expenses. Cut out the non-essential things (Cable TV, sports club membership, etc.) and get down to just what you need to feed your family and keep from going bankrupt. That’s your baseline. Now, you should have 4 salary points…your baseline, your current/recent salary, the industry averages, and of course your desired salary.

Second, decide where you are in the job hunt. For example, if you have been unemployed and your funds are getting tight, entering a number between your baseline and your geography salaries increases the odds that you’ll be contacted. If you’re employed and looking for a change, then using a number between your geography and your current salary is a good choice. If you’re looking for an advancement and expect that your strong resume is enticing enough, you can fore-go posting the salary or you can list your desired salary.

I suggest you try it out a couple of different ways over the period of several weeks. Track the contacts you’re getting and decide which one is working the best for you.

Bottom Line: There are several questions on online applications or job sites that are for the benefit of the recruiter and not really for the benefit of the job seeker. Questions about salary, travel, and relocation are common on job or career sites. Assess the level of travel you can handle, but avoid the 0% and 100% answers. For relocation, I always like to say I’m open to considering it, but if you absolutely can’t move, then state it. And before you answer any questions about salary, understand your budget, your worth, and your geographic impact on wages. But when in doubt, leave these questions blank.

You see, over the last several years, it has become common for recruiters and hiring managers to “look at you” online before they hire you. In fact, a recent survey indicated that almost 90% (yes, 9 out of 10) U.S. companies will use social networking for recruiting in 2011. So what does this mean for the average job seeker? And will this make an impact on the average person’s job search?

First…let’s do a simple test. Using both Google and Bing, search for yourself. Try both your legal name and your common name – for example, if your first name is William, also look for Bill. By looking carefully at every entry returned on the first two pages (probably 40 lines total) of results from Bing and Google, answer these questions:

1. Of the 40 or so results returned by both searches, how many of them were definitely you and not just advertisements with your name displayed? If the result is 20 or more, you have a strong start on a digital identity, if it’s less than 5, then you are not well identified. Anything in the middle is a minor digital identity.
2. Looking just at the results that are definitely related to you from step 1, are they presenting you as a strong professional, are they showing you in an un-professional light, or is it something in-between? If over 25% of your results are showing the “professional you”, then you’re on the right track.
3. And of these professional results from step 2, is there at least one result that was provided by another professional that is referencing your professional work or your professional skills? If yes, then you have a modestly strong peer-relevance…a good thing.

If you can say that you are easily located and identified using both Bing and Google and that the findings are professional and others recognize your skills, then you are on the way to having a decent digital career identity!

However, if the results are mostly photos of you dancing on the table at a keg party, or text from online discussions where you are ranting about Obama-care or the Bush Tax Cuts, or your name didn’t show up much at all, then you have a potential digital career identity problem. You see, most companies that might want to hire you will want you to effectively represent them to their clients. And if the first (or most dominant) things that they find of you online are un-professional or undesirable, then they will pass over hiring you…they have plenty of other candidates to choose from.

OK, so let’s assume for the moment that the results from the above test were inconclusive (or you want a 2nd opinion regarding the diagnosis), try out some of these sites:

• Here’s a decent online identity calculator that uses a similar approach to my steps above, but they drill down a little deeper in the analysis.
• If you’ve had any “public records” that are of a concern, the 123people or peekyou websites probably knows about it. Again, make sure to try out variations of your name (e.g., Bill, Willie, William)
• Of course there’s LinkedIn…how complete and engaging is your profile? You need a solid summary, at least a 90% profile completion, and 3 or more recommendations to be taken seriously.
• If you are active with Twitter or Facebook, then check out Klout or Branchout to see how you compare with others (shows interaction with others of significance).

Now that you have a sense of your current digital identity, what do you do to make it better?

• As I said in my previous post, start a blog that shares your professional and technical talents (not what you had for lunch today, or political rantings, or your beliefs in alien abductions).
• Spend some time in LinkedIn and post some well-considered questions or answers in the Answers area. Focus on answering questions to show your skill and knowledge in your profession or to refer to an expert in your network, thus showing your industry knowledge or connections.
• Find a few profession-oriented blogs and discussions on the Internet and engage in debate or opinion that shows you’ve studied — offering references to well-respected professionals shows you are well read and capable of research.
• Locate the job/career related social sites that are less well known and post your profile there – places like Spoke, Plaxo, Visible.Me, and others.

Also, I should mention a few things you should avoid doing online that will not help your online career reputation:

• Don’t engage in the “banter” of responding to online news articles. There are inevitably people that will disagree with you and belittle you — and trying to defend yourself in these arenas is a useless effort that only serves to tarnish your reputation.
• Unless you are pursuing a life in politics, don’t ever discuss a political issue online. If you do, try to stay “center” and “neutral” — a strong liberal or conservative stance can hurt your opportunities with some firms. Also, avoid other “boundary” topics like religion, race, immigration, bigfoot, etc.
• Set your “visibility” on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social sites to only show your “public” face to people who are not in your group/circle/network. For example, in LinkedIn you can choose to have your photo or your education only available to your network and not the entire world.
• Go back onto Facebook and un-tag all the photos that are un-professional. No, on Facebook you don’t have to be someone you aren’t, just don’t let everyone see whom you happened to be when you weren’t thinking about whom you would want to be.

Let me leave you with a digital identity warning…the Web seldom forgets. It is almost impossible to clean-up or remove your “blemishes” from the Web. Some companies, like Reputation Defender, charge big bucks to help clean up your mess (or clear your name), but even these can’t resolve all your identity challenges. Be proactive and manage your identity by posting things you want your future employers to see. This way, when the recruiter or hiring manager is looking at you online, you can be all they want you to be!

Bottom Line: Building a career-oriented online reputation is key in today’s job search. Be aware of what the Internet knows about you. Make sure that you can be found easily via a web search and that it displays a modest amount of your professional talents, not just your social interactions. Take some time to clean up any items than might be a detractor for a potential employer and then spend time to propagate your “professional self” to key professional websites.