The best professional recruiters offer you much more than job openings. Following are a few of the value-added services offered by Randstad:

Resume creation advice - you’ll learn that a resume is not a history lesson. Professional recruiting companies will help you create a resume that gets you noticed.

Interview success advice - a good professional recruitment company shows you the difference between a traditional interview and a behavioral interview. They’ll help you prepare intelligent answers to many common interview questions to improve your odds of having a successful meeting.

Job offer advice - good professional recruitment agencies may not single-handedly be able to get you a job offer, but they can help you structure your offer if you want some additional comfort.

Salary negotiation advice - even experienced executives often feel uncomfortable with salary negotiations.

An expert professional recruiter can help you get the salary you desire.

People often misunderstand the essence of a resume. It’s not about former jobs and dates. It’s about Y-O-U! Here are some other resume writing tips: Replace duties and responsibilities with your accomplishments. Showing what you’ve achieved predicts future behavior.

Determine a target or goal. What type of job do you want? In what industry or industries? Put it on your resume.

Job search opportunities don’t require listing every job you’ve ever held. List no more than about 15 years of jobs.

List all jobs that contributed to your experience for the position you want. (Even if over 15 years ago.)

Don’t include your hobbies, religious activities, or ethnic organizations. Stay focused.

Keep it simple. No brochure, colorful or avant garde resume styles.

These are a few tips on writing a resume that should help your job searching activities and success.

You should always have a clear target when writing a resume. Would you go to a restaurant and order “beef” or “fish”? Not likely. The wait staff will look for more specificity. Employers don’t have the time (nor do you) to waste interviewing candidates that are not sure they even want the job opening. Before you’re invited for an interview, you should try to give the impression that you’re the best candidate for the job by writing a good resume. Having a targeted resume that’s job, company, and industry-specific, will get you noticed.

Re-entering the workforce, especially as an older candidate can present challenges. Consider the following resume writing tips to improve your chances of getting an offer:

Use combination resumes. Combining a brief chronological history with effective achievement statements is the most important part of resume writing.

Make it clear that your expertise and technology skills are up-to-date. This negates the automatic impression that your technology abilities are stale.

Stress your current expertise to assure readers that your abilities are still relevant.

Help to clarify your employment gaps by stating anything you did that was noteworthy – even if unpaid – and why these activities bring value to a new employer.

The most valuable job search tips on writing a resume require that you dispel these assumptions.

Whether you plan to build a career as a contract worker or are using contract work to land a full-time job offer, there are a few tips for interview success that are universal:

Research the company and the specific job before the interview. A critical component of interviewing for success is knowledge of your prospective employer and their needs. This always helps to make a good impression.

Always get to the interview site on time. If you are unsure of the location of the interview site, make a “dry run” before the day of the interview. You should know where you’re going, but also leave time for traffic congestion issues. Leave well before normal driving time to be sure you are prompt – it never hurts to be early.

Relax and project a confident, comfortable image. Interviewers are aware that job candidates, for contract work or full-time employment, are typically stressed.

By projecting a smiling, relaxed and comfortable persona, you might be offered a contract work agreement after only one interview.

There are hundreds of interview questions you might face, but here are a few that normally appear during every job search:

What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? Be enthusiastic about your strengths. Frame your “weakness answers” in positive terms. For example, “I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m learning to balance my professional responsibilities.”

Why are you interested in this position? Always convey enthusiasm for the position, the company and the opportunity to meet with the interviewer.

What are your goals for the next three, five or ten years? Be reasonable and focus answers on growth and progression with this prospective employer.

Why would you like to work here? Use your preparation and company research to provide an answer that displays your employer knowledge.

What value can you add to our company? Give the interviewer examples of some accomplishments that would be relevant.

When conducting a job search, be ready for similar questions at both traditional and behavioral interviews. Be prepared.

Get references and letters of recommendation well before the interview process. Between three and six good references and/or letters should be sufficient.

Research the company. Always get information on prospective employers when interviewing for success.

Understand your abilities. Know your strengths and weaknesses.

Prepare, prepare, prepare. You can’t over-prepare for job interviewing success.

Learn about the ‘STAR’ (situation, task, action, results) technique for answering interview questions. Describe a situation or task you’ve faced, the action you took and the results you achieved.

Ask thoughtful questions. Prepare some appropriate questions for your interviewer.

Be positive and wildly enthusiastic. You’d be surprised how much success in a job interview you can achieve by enthusiasm.