Money Instructor – Page 64 – Articles and Informational Resources: Money, Personal Finance, Business, Careers, Lifestyle

Everyone who looks for a professional or management job has to have a resume. If you are actively networking to find employment, a copy of your resume is with you 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, ready to give to anyone who asks for it or whom you decide might be able to pass it along to someone.

When you respond to classified ads or job listings on a Web site, you are expected to send your resume or to complete a resume form provided by the listing site.

Professional resume writers can help you by reviewing a resume you have written or writing your resume for you. Both options require you to pay a fee.

The process of creating a resume, however, forces you to take a close look at your skills and your experience and determine how to best present them to a potential employer.

Writing your resume is an invaluable experience, and it is not one you should forgo in favor of having someone do it for you.

“There are only two things you can be sure a hiring manager will do when reviewing your resume,” advises Colleen Sabitino, author of Play of Your Dreams.

“Hiring managers will begin reviewing a resume by starting at the top, and they will read the lines from left to right. Their first impression will have the greatest impact and will influence how they perceive you.”

“A good resume is a glorified application,” says Sabatino. “A great resume is a marketing brochure.”

Your resume is a sales tool, not a job application. It can get you interviews, but it cannot get you jobs. A job application is a business form. Everyone who applies for a job at a company may have to fill one out.

A resume is your opportunity to present yourself in the best possible light. Your resume need not (probably ought not) contain a list of every job you’ve ever held.

Include only those jobs that best demonstrate your experience, skills and achievements. Don’t repeat formal job description; explain how you improved operations, increased profits, or achieved record sales levels.

List the year you earned your degree and the college that granted your degree, not the five colleges you went to over 10 years to get that degree.

If you have limited experience in an industry, play up the aspects of the jobs you have held to show how they are similar to the job you seek. Explain how this work demonstrated the skills you need to succeed, such as communication, responsibility, and a strong customer-orientation.

You can sit down one afternoon and pound out a resume, but you will be wasting your time. Even a good resume requires thought and effort. A great resume requires thought, effort, creativity, and a thorough understanding of the job you want to secure and the company you want to offer you that job.

Career counselors agree that resumes get no more than 20-30 seconds of attention when they arrive on the desk of the first person who handles them as they arrive in the mail. This person makes three piles.

The “didn’t read the job description and has none of the required qualifications” pile.
The “can’t write a paragraph without misspelling words, using the wrong punctuation, or making a grammatical error” pile
The “might be what we are looking for” pile.

The first two piles are filed, but not in a drawer that is likely to be opened again in the next millennium. The last pile is handed-off to the person who decides who gets called for an interview. This may be a human resources recruiting specialist or it may be the hiring manager.

This person sorts the resumes again, and they spend less than 30 seconds with each resume as they sort.

An experienced recruiter or hiring manager is scanning resumes for words and phrases that signal the person fits the requirements stated in the position listing, and for information that demonstrates which candidates rise above the minimum requirements.

Dr. Ronald L. Krannich is a best-selling career book author and publisher. His book Change Your Job, Change Your Life has been in print since 1989. Kannich advises you to create a resume that incorporates these characteristics:

Clearly communication your purpose and competencies in relation to the employer’s need.
Be concise and easy to read.
Outline a pattern of success highlighted with examples of key accomplishments.
Motivate the reader to read it in-depth.
Tell employers that you are a responsible and purposeful individual – a doer who can quickly solve their problems.

Regulations have been a part of the corporate world for long, but, perhaps the emphasis on compliance has never been as great as today. The severe penalties that could be levied to the top management, including board members, and the organization as a whole have made regulatory compliance a top corporate priority.

The main aim of regulatory compliance is to ensure transparency, accuracy, and accountability in the financial information maintained by companies.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the U.S, and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are the main drivers of corporate regulatory compliance. There are many other regulations and legislations governing regulatory compliance for specific accounting entities, such as Governmental Funds and Financial Services.

The benefits of compliance are threefold. First, by providing transparency to financial and operational aspects, the companies develop trust among their stakeholders, including shareholders, suppliers, and customers, and regulatory authorities. Second, the companies show that they are meeting their legal requirements. Third, and perhaps the most important benefit to the companies themselves, is that by adopting regulatory compliance, the companies strengthen their operational controls and performance standards.

Let us have a look at the main compliance provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley Act—by far the most important set of regulations affecting U.S. companies. Section 302 of the act mandates the companies to design a set of internal procedures to ensure accurate financial disclosure. It also makes the officers signing the financial information responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls. The officers must also evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls and report their conclusions. This essentially translates into the CEO and CFO of the company certifying that they have reviewed the financial reports and that the reports ‘fairly represent’ the company’s financial position. This makes the top management of the companies responsible for the accuracy of financial information. Failure to perform this responsibility could lead to legal penalties and risk to reputation of the management personnel.

Section 404 of the act states that each annual report must include an “internal control report.” The report should affirm the responsibility of the management for establishing and maintaining an adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting. The report should also contain an assessment of the effectiveness of the internal control structure and financial reporting procedures certified by external auditors.

Section 409 of the act presses for real-time issues disclosures. The issuers are required to disclose material changes in the financial and operational condition of the company to the public on a current basis. The act warrants that these disclosures be in simple English and may include trends and qualitative information. Some examples of material changes include end of a business relationship with a significant customer, a change in a rating agency’s assessment, or a large restructuring charge.

Besides these three main sections, there are numerous others, such as establishing a public company accounting oversight board, and ensuring auditor independence and corporate responsibility.However, over the years companies have found these three sections most difficult in terms of compliance. This is partially because of the high costs of implementation for complying with these sections. However, as companies migrate more to IT based systems and procedures evolve, even smaller companies are starting to adopt the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in totality.

Get Your Resume into the Right Pile

Regulatory Compliance