Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011
Although this may seem like a simple question with an equally simple answer – my objective, work experience and academic history – it’s not really. It’s also the incorrect way to look at a resume.
What you want on your resume doesn’t matter at all. What the hiring manager or recruiter expects or hopes to see on the document is all that counts.
An effective, interview-generating resume will have the following attributes:
1. An opening summary with an overview of your skills that proves you’re the best candidate for the position. To support this statement, you should include one, preferably two, recent/relevant/quantified accomplishments. What you want from the job/company isn’t important. How you can fulfill the employer’s needs is paramount.
2. Quantified accomplishments. Note: not daily duties, but the results of those duties. Coming to work on time isn’t an accomplishment. It’s expected. Saving your company money or making it money – that’s an achievement. Employers are particularly drawn to accomplishment-oriented individuals. Past performance is generally predictive of future performance.
3. Work history that is tailored to the job you’re targeting. If you taught history but are now in accounting and you load your resume down with the tasks you did while teaching, you won’t be getting an interview. Stay on point. Provide only those tasks that are accounting related. The rest isn’t important to the employer and should be excluded from your resume.
4. Academic history that supports your ability to do the job. Again, if you have a PhD in history but are targeting a new field – accounting – list only the degree you have in it. A PhD in history won’t impress someone who’s looking for an accountant. It could very well confuse hiring managers and make them pass you over for an interview.
5. A business oriented focus. That means, no listing of hobbies, at home activities, likes or dislikes. Hiring managers don’t care if you love baking, walking your dog, gardening, going to Boy Scouts with your kids or anything else that’s personal. They want to know if you can do the job. Leave the personal details to the interview or after you’ve received an offer.
Remember: What you want to see on your resume isn’t as important as what an employer hopes to see. Your audience is the person who can grant you an interview and make you an offer. To succeed, keep their preferences in mind.
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
They should.
Namely, that you have advanced in your career/company/industry and that a new employer would be lucky to have you.
If your accomplishments don’t point to your success, then they’re not achievements. Most likely, they’re daily duties.
How can you tell the difference?
Duties are the tasks you do that have no quantified result. For example, simply doing your job. Yes, you’ve answered client calls and have kept customers happy, but how has that added to the bottom line? If you can’t quantify it, then it’s not an accomplishment.
An achievement, on the other hand, makes the company money or saves it money. It might gain recognition for a product, which in turn keeps the company in the black.
Whenever you’re dealing with accomplishments, you need to quantify the data, to tell a story of how you’ve succeeded. One way to do this is to use the challenge-action-result model. You write the challenge – “To turn around weak performance in the teen clothing sector.” Then you write the action – “Hired award-winning, trendy designers; advertised clothing on MTV and other sites with a demographic in the 13-20 age range.” You then add the result – “Increased sales by 58% within 6 months.”
That tells a story. It shows a hiring manager how you took a failing line and made it a success.
Not many job seekers take the time to do that in their resumes. The smart ones will. They’re the candidates who get called in to interview and get the job.
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
We all like to think that we’re good at our job; that we not only deserve what we’re being paid but should possibly be earning far more.
However, it’s one thing to consider yourself the best at what you do, and quite another to present that attitude at a job or when you’re seeking employment.
In this economy, it’s a hiring manager’s market. They have dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of equally-qualified individuals all wanting to be hired – or to take your place.
If you arrive for your interview with the attitude that the employer is lucky to be interviewing you, don’t expect to be called back. In today’s workplace, a sense of entitlement is a job killer. If you’re continually whining at work about how you’re not appreciated or you’re misunderstood, don’t expect to be there long.
What companies are looking for are individuals with a collaborative spirit, the proverbial team players. Those who accept responsibility easily and own up to any mistakes.
Is that you? Or do you duck projects whenever you can and make excuse after excuse as to why your work product wasn’t up to par?
If you’re finding it hard to get a job, or to keep one, it’s time to look at what you’re doing wrong. Could be your sense of entitlement is the 500 pound gorilla in the room. One you refuse to recognize.
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
Too many of us apply for a position, wait hopefully for that all important phone call or email, and then when it doesn’t come fall into a slump. For hours or days, we complain to anyone who might listen about rotten luck or forces we have no control over. Maybe our email was lost in cyberspace. Maybe the person who was supposed to read it, deleted it by mistake. Maybe the job posting was really an identity scam waiting to get our information.
Or maybe there were so many candidates applying for the same position, our resume and cover letter got lost in the avalanche.
So what do we do? Give up and move on? Most will. Of course, there are a few who will opt for a follow-up letter to remind the hiring manager or recruiter about their interest and expertise for the position.
Think that’s a waste of time if the first email received no response? Think again. Accidents do happen. Emails are deleted or never arrive. Harried hiring managers and recruiters may have opened your email, were interrupted, then closed it believing they’d already read its contents.
Since they did not, a follow-up letter will remind them of what they missed.
The letter should reiterate interest in the position and detail again, as the cover letter did, a candidate’s expertise and a request to interview.
Who knows, the follow-up letter may be what gets noticed. It may result in an interview. One thing is for certain, giving up will most certainly mean the job will never be yours.
