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Know why resumes fail?
 Here
are the reasons given in a survey of employers:
- No accomplishments (78%)
- Negative visual impact (55%)
- Lack of objective (40%)
- Inadequate job description (36%)
- Irrelevant data (29%)
- Poor or no cover letter (12%)
- Time gaps unexplained (10%)
Like most "high tech" recruiting firms today, we
receive dozens of resumes each week by Email, and Fax. However, since there are
only 24 hours in a day we need to determine the following fairly quickly:
- Is this person a "technical fit" for any "job
orders" that we are currently working on?
- If this resume does not match a current "job
order", should we keep this resume on file for any future "job orders" that we
expect to work on?
- If we decide to keep this resume on file, what
"buzzwords" should our computer associate with this person so we can find this
resume and person at a later date?
A resume's purpose is to get you noticed.
Once you're noticed, you shoot for the interview. At the interview, you shoot
for the job. If you ask a dozen people what a good resume looks like, you'll
probably get a dozen different answers. If you ask a career counselor, you'll
get one answer. If you ask a professional resume writer, you're likely to get
another answer. If you ask an outplacement agency employee, you'll probably get
a whole different answer. But keep this in mind as you build your resume, all
the above named professionals get paid for the "process" they perform.
Recruiters are paid for the "results" they deliver. If you hire one of the above
named professionals to help you write your resume, they are still paid even if
you DON'T get the job. A recruiter, on the other hand, only gets paid if you DO
get the job. With that in mind, who do you think is better equipped to give you
tips for interview-getting resumes?
Resume Do's
ALWAYS include some sort of JOB
OBJECTIVE. Without an objective, you're resume lacks focus. If you really
know the kind of work you want to do and will accept nothing less, spell it
out specifically on your resume. If, like most of us, you're willing to
consider a broad category of work (ie. Systems Development), write your
objective in broad, non-specific terms. If you're willing to consider two or
more broad categories of work (ie. Systems Development and Sales), write
distinctly different resumes, each resume with its own unique focus. |
Resume Don'ts
NEVER put important information in
your cover letter. Cover letters seldom get read, often get lost, and rarely
get filed in a company's tracking database. Rather than make a "generic"
resume with "specific" cover letters for each type of job you apply, write
"specific" resumes for each type of job you apply for. |
| ALWAYS spellcheck and
proofread your resume. Use both your computer and your eyes to check your
resume. In fact, recheck your resume every time you pass one out. Even if
you have your resume written by a professional, check it for errors several
times. The most minor error can become a major problem on the rough road to
an interview. |
NEVER use exotic fonts,
small print, or ALL CAPS. Try a medium-size Times Roman font for mailed or
hand-delivered resumes. However, since Times Roman font resumes do not fax
well, use Arial for resumes you intend to fax. |
| ALWAYS fax the first
copy of your resume to yourself or to a very close friend. We've seen some
great-looking resumes on the screens of word processors, but when fax'd from
that word processor the centering, line breaks, and page breaks were all
wrong when received by a fax. And then take your fax'd resume, and fax it to
yourself again. That's exactly what recruiters do, and that "fax of a fax"
better look good. Because if it doesn't look good, you don't look good! |
NEVER "pad" your resume
by saying the same thing over and over again. Short resumes are much easier
to read than long resumes. The first redundancy we see on a resume, we often
quit reading the rest of the resume. |
| ALWAYS be honest on your
resume. It's OK to "toot your horn" a little, but even those "little lies"
can get you in a lot of trouble!. |
NEVER waste space on
your resume with obvious comments. Short resumes get more attention than
long resumes. For example, "References Available Upon Request" is an obvious
comment. |
| ALWAYS put your name and
page number on every page of your resume. Recruiters get a lot of paper, and
multi-page resumes somehow always seem to find their way to separate desks! |
NEVER put a Title (ie.
Resume, Fact Sheet, Curriculum Vitae, etc.) at the top of your resume. If it
isn't completely obvious from the very look of your carefully crafted piece
of paper that it's a resume, go buy a good resume book or hire a
professional resume writer. |
| ALWAYS include a "Skills
Summary" (or "Areas of Expertise" or something similar) on the first page of
your resume. If you have several years of experience, use the columns of a
table to break up this summary into sub-categories. These categories could
be: Databases, Development Tools, Operating Systems, etc. Always list your
skills in order of proficiency, highest proficiency to lowest proficiency. |
NEVER omit dates you
worked at past employers nor dates you received your degrees. You may think
you're fooling the reader into thinking you're younger or older than you
really are, but omitting dates is a real turn-off to seasoned recruiters. |
ALWAYS write your resume
in order of importance. Assume the reader will begin reading at the top and
then may quit about 1/3 of the way through your resume. In that 1/3 of your
resume, I want to know:
- what kind of work are you looking for?
- what skills do you offer me?
- who is your current employer?
College degrees? Although they're almost
required by today's corporate world, education should always appear at the
bottom of a seasoned professional's resume. If you have multiple degrees,
put them in chronological format, with the most recent degree first.
ALWAYS use the "chronological resume"
format. The chronological resume starts with your current or most recent
experience first, and then works backward in time to your first job (or ten
years into your past - whichever comes first). Any other format and today's
resume reader immediately thinks "This guy's hiding something!" If you are
trying to hide something like a period of unemployment or even current
unemployment, better to list that time period as "pursuing full-time
employment". After all, looking for a job in today's market is a full-time
endeavor! |
NEVER be verbose. Your
resume is not your life story. We've seen resumes that were 20 and even 30
pages in length! What could've possibly been in those 30 pages. We'll never
know! Here's some pages. We'll never know!
Here's some general rules of thumb:
- Less than 5 years related experience: 1
page
- Between 5 and 20 years of related
experience: 2 pages
- Greater than 20 years of related
experience: 3 pages
If you feel you need more space, consider
having 1 resume to "bait the hook" and a second "amplified" resume for the
interview. NOTE: make sure your recruiter has copies of both! |
| ALWAYS devote more
"resume space" to your most recent experience and progressively less space
to your past experiences. We've seen lots of resumes that seem to take a
"democratic" stance and give equal time to all past employers. Put the
emphasis on your most recent experience. No one really cares "exactly" what
you did as a "Management Trainee" position 10 years ago! |
NEVER state your
availability on your resume. If you're not available for the right
opportunity right now, why are you passing out resumes anyway? However,
there are a few exceptions to this rule. Planned military discharge, the
ending of an employment contract, announced company closings are a few good
reasons to state your future availability. |
| ALWAYS think in terms of
"value-added" when writing your resume. Shorter resumes are easier to read
and can be much more effective at getting interviews than longer resumes.
Look at EVERY line on your resume and ask yourself "what value does this
line add to the overall value I can bring to an organization?" Dated or
easy-to-learn technical skills like "WordStar" or "PC Paintbrush" probably
can be omitted from a Project Manager's resume. Lines like "Works well with
people" and "An extremely fast learner" can be omitted also. These
statements are "puffery", can only be substantiated during an interview, and
can even hurt you on an interview if you don't appear to "walk your talk." |
NEVER include the
following on your resume: reason for leaving, salary, lots of abbreviations,
excessive industry jargon, charts & graphs, personal information (ie. age,
race, religious preference, sex, photographs, current health, etc), personal
weaknesses, demands, early childhood experiences, or exaggerations. Include
any one of these and your resume loses power. It may even cost you the
interview! NEVER emphasize tools
or technologies on your resume that you never want to see again! We've seen
lots of resumes focus exclusively on Mainframe skills and activities, while
the owner of the resume wants to do only Client/Server or World Wide Web
work on their next job. Mainframe experience is very valuable, but don't
expect your next employer to train you in a "hot" new technology AND give
you an increase in salary at the same time. Here's a good rule-of-thumb to
follow: if you want to learn a "hot" new technology, find some way to
initially get some experience with that new technology at your current
employer even if its just training experience. Your next employer will
usually be much more receptive to enhancing your skills in that new
technology once you've at least worked with it for a while. |
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