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Resumes are sorted in a logical manner But for you this information it is good news. You have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that you are the best person applying for the job by being very neat, using correct grammar, and answering the implied questions. Sloppy resumes are discarded without being read. The presentation tells me a lot about your interest in the job. To play on Hallmark Card's trademark: "If you (don't) care enough to send the very best. . . ." Did you notice this is a rephrasing of “It is not enough to care, you must give the appearances of caring?” This phrase and its variants will be your downfall if you do not live it in all aspects of your life. Many ask you to fax the resume. Do it but mail them a clean copy as well. Their fax machine could make your resume look bad and it's trashed. By mailing one you could have two copies in the pile. It never hurts. . . . Applicants from far away are discarded. Unless it is for a very special task, they do not want to get involved in moving expenses. You say you will move at your cost? No thanks. It is a big risk hiring a non-local person. If I let you go during the probationary period or if you are unhappy with the job I may hear from your lawyer. Your lawyer may claim that I mislead you about the job or you turned down a good local job based on my job offer. Your lawyer now wants the moving expenses paid (both ways) plus a little "extra." Thanks but no thanks, I’ll hire locally. So only the very neat, well-prepared resumes from local people are read. Very logical. There is an ocean of work to do before you start to write the resume. Much of the work is gathering information, improving some of your basic skills, and most of all, just thinking. Tailor Made Resumes Do not have just one resume. Tailor the resumes to suiting the specific job opportunities. If you are a skilled carpenter and the job is library research, you bore me with useless information telling me about your carpentry skills. Indeed, I might get the feeling that you are really interested in carpentry and this job is just a fill in until something better comes along. Each job opportunity must have its own resume. You are not a one-dimensional person. Show it by having the resume focus on the job and not speaking just about you. I care about the job, not you. Do not say you are looking for a job that offers advancements, a good pension plan etc. I simply do not care. I have a job that needs doing. Nothing more. Every word in your resume must be targeting this job opportunity, targeting my needs. When listing your job experiences do not say:
Tell me what you accomplished. Remember that I hire only to have work accomplished. You must build my confidence in you. Statement like:
Understand that I am not hiring a rocket scientist. Your accomplishments are important to me as they are the vital key in evaluating you. Read the Ad! Read the Ad! Sounds obvious? Few actually read the ad and most do not understand what is required of them to properly answer the ad. I recently placed an ad in the Star for a supervisor. It was about one column wide by about three inches tall. Ran one Saturday. Cost: $2868. Ignoring the address etc. the actual message describing the job was forty-two words long. At $68.29 per word you can be assured I chose my words carefully. You should read it as carefully as it was written. I received 114 replies. Except for the brief fax cover page referring to the job title, all ignored what the ad said. Of the 114 replies:
Think up a good reason for wanting the job. Simply saying you want the job is not enough. Give a true statement such as: you really do want to work nights (if only to be employed.) You must think about the ad. Consider how others will answer the ad. Find ways to one-up them. To maximize your opportunity you must think! More is involved than simply writing a brief cover letter and faxing it along with your standard Resume. Think! “Thinking is the hardest work there is which is probably The applicants were generally well educated. Yet in terms of replying to ads, 98% had poor skills in applying for a job. With work you can be in the top 2%. Concentrated on the job opportunity At least one-half of the resumes had their "Career Objective" unrelated to the this job opportunity. If you are applying for a job, surely that is your immediate objective! Frankly, I do not care about your objectives. As a minimum do not tell me, or, better still have the smarts to have your objective compatible with the job opportunity. Read the ad carefully. Answer every requirement. Try to answer in the order listed in the ad. I put the most important requirements first. I chose the words with great care. I have pride of authorship. For each requirement listed as desirable, answer it as best you can. Few understood that if I asked for qualities A, B, and C I expected a response addressing their A, B, and C qualities. Most rattled on about their unrelated D, E, and F qualities. I found it both insulting and stupid. The job was for the night shift, not a desirable shift for many. None said, “I want to work nights.” even if it was just to get the job. Explaining the Gaps Have you been out of work for a while? Is there a job in your past you would prefer not to mention? Then don’t. Leave it as a gap in your work history. How do you explain the gaps in your work history? You don’t. Let them detect the gap and ask about the gap. There is no problem even if you do not have an excellent reason for the gap in your employment. One reply that causes no concern or questions is downsizing. Simply say you were the victim of downsizing. Even if you were fired for poor performance you were the victim of downsizing, even the downsizing of one person: you! Or you could say you were caught up in the reorganization of the company. While not true, you answer is not unethical. You sole intent is to be employed and be a productive employee. You motive is good, the objective is good and you method harms no one. Will they notice there was a two-year gap in your employment history? Let them ask why the gap if they spot it. But have a good reason ready. You do not have to list ever job. Consider not listing more than four jobs. I am only interested in the last ten to fifteen years of your employment. Is it unethical to not mention negative items about you? No. Your goal is to help yourself and help the company by working for them. That is hardly unethical. The Ad did not mention the unpleasant aspects of the job. Why should you list unfortunate jobs or any of your weaknesses? Ignore Time Limits Reply to Old Ads. Forget the specific time limits such as: Please respond before February 32, 1902. Perhaps the job posting is six months old. Apply anyway. All it costs is a stamp. Many jobs are not filled from the job posting. Perhaps they could not find a suitable candidate or the hiring was stalled for whatever reason. Go to the library and read all the ads for the last six months. Send a tailored resume Dealing with your References You must coach your references. First, you must ask the person's permission to use them as a reference. Never give out the reference names unless asked. Now here is the trick most miss: Once you do give out your reference's names quickly get to them telling them to expect a call. Tell them why you would do a good job. Explain why your abilities fit the job's needs. Coach them. The last thing you want is to have the person phoned by a stranger when they are not prepared for it. Perhaps it is an inconvenient time. Perhaps they do not know what to say "off-the-cuff" and ramble on or say nothing. Perhaps they accidentally say something negative in relation to the job's skill needs. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Dozens of reasons the phone call could prove useless or disastrous. Coach them. Having been coached, they will not be accidentally unfriendly or curt. They will be expecting the call and having been coached, feel comfortable answering the questions. The right words come without effort. Very impressive when they say just what the interviewer wanted to hear. Over Qualified? There is no obligation to tell about all your good points such as your higher education. Many will not hire the over qualified. And for good reason as they assume you are need employment until something better comes along. And it may well be true. If you need a job, you need a job. Over qualified or not, you need to eat. Simply omit your over qualifications. It is simple as that. Leaving out some of your qualifications is hardly lying. If challenged, simply say you took the courses but realized you would not like it as a career. What's Legal and What's Not? As you know, there are a lot of things the potential employer cannot legally ask: sex, age, race, religion, etc. While it is illegal for the employer to ask certain questions it is not illegal for you to tell them. But this is a dangerous game. Human Relations do not want to know these things for fear of discrimination claims If being female is important, and you are, tell them. If you think they are looking for mature person and you are, tell them your age. Tell them whatever helps. But do it in a roundabout way. For example, noting your graduation year gives them a clue to your age. A little poetic license is allowed (and expected) but never lie unethically. Unethical behavior is like a plague rotting your soul. Normally resumes are sent to the Human Relations Department. They arrange for the Ads to be placed and have the resumes mailed to them. They sort through the resumes and rarely pass all resumes along to the candidate's eventual boss. In some organizations the boss has little influence in the actual hiring. How are we to avoid being discarded without the boss even knowing of our existence, our impress skills and our unbounded ability to do him proud? Send the boss a letter, but not in a resume format. Be sure it is not a duplicate of what you sent in reply to the ad. Rephrase it in the form of a letter addressed to the boss. It will certainly catch their interest as they initiated the job search. If they are not the correct person they will know who is hiring and pass it on. Asking the Employee Relations Department who the potential boss is will not get you good Brownie points with them. Here is a simple, almost foolproof way to get the name. Lets assume it is a sales job you are applying for and you expect your future bosses title would be "Sales Manager." Based on the fact that most telephone receptionists have not been with the company that long, phone them. and the conversation goes something like this: "Hello, I am updating my companies mailing list. Is Mr. A. K. Townsend still the Sales Manager?" Unless the person has been there "forever" they will assume it is a past manager. "I'm sorry, there is no Mr. Townsend here" they reply. "Oh, I'm glad I checked. Can you please tell me the new Sales Manager’s name?" you ask. "Mr. John Williams" is the reply. "And is 'Sales Manager' still the correct title?" you ask. "No, it is Sales and Marketing Manager." they reply. So there you have it. Neat simple and gets the job done with little fuss. Is this lying to get information unethical? No. Your aim was to benefit them by you working there and your method harmed no one. See the page on Ethics for a brief explanation of Ethics. Now mail out letter to the future boss as well as mailing in your response to the ad.
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