Confessions from the “Typo Police”

How important are writing skills to most jobs, really?  Sure, if you’re billing yourself as a marketing communications expert or a professional proofreader, you’d better have a keen eye for detail — and have gotten (received?) excellent grades in English class.  But if you’re a nurse?  Or a chef?  Or an engineer?  Or an accounts payable manager?  Is it imperative for folks in these professions to be extremely fluent in the written word?

I’d argue that it’s probably not.  Anybody who has enjoyed a number of years of success in these fields, after all, has most likely figured out how to communicate effectively with those around them to some extent.  You don’t see too many adults who are completely and utterly unable to get their point across.  And in the event a given individual may not be terribly comfortable expressing themselves in writing, there’s a good chance they’ve learned to err on the side of phone calls and verbal communication methods — or are resourceful enough to ask a friend for help in cases where they need to handle high-visibility written assignments.

And yet, regardless of which profession a person is in, there’s no FASTER way to get kicked out of the hiring process than to have a poorly-written cover letter or a resume with several major typos on it.  Why should this be the case, if written skills aren’t actually a significant part of a person’s job role?  Won’t a company miss out on some fantastic candidates if they automatically kick out everybody who accidentally spells the word “manager” as “manger” on their resume, despite the other formidable talents a person might possess?  Frankly, I think the answer is yes, and I’m starting to suspect that this happens a lot more frequently than most people might think!

There are two reasons behind such behavior, I’d argue.  First, since every employer wants to hire people committed to doing quality work, one’s resume is often viewed as a tangible “litmus test” of whether a person takes their career seriously and knows how to produce a quality finished product.  The second reason, however, is a little more nefarious — and one I haven’t seen talked about all that much.  Call me crazy, but I’d propose that the common practice of booting out great candidates based on minor resume typos is often a thinly-disguised power trip on behalf of front-line resume screeners and hiring managers.  It’s “revenge of the liberal arts majors” so to speak.  While I suppose I could be speaking only for myself, I readily admit I have an annoying superiority complex when it comes to writing — because it’s something I’ve always been pretty good at — and as a result, I’m sure I’ve penalized quite a few people to an unfair degree on this issue over the years and have allowed it to cloud my judgment in terms of their bona fide job capabilities.

Going forward, I’m going to try and lighten up on this issue a bit, since I’m realizing more and more that writing is only one of a great many diverse and wondrous talents that one can bring to bear to get exceptional workplace results.  And in fairness, if an employer were to test my math skills, the shoe would quickly be found on the other foot!  I’m pretty sure there are plenty of frustrated English majors and academic achievers out there, however, who have found themselves in lower-level admin positions and similar roles — and are taking every opportunity to “punish” those job candidates who don’t properly conjugate their verbs or who might misspell the word “there” as “their” every once in a while.   My question to these folks: does it really matter all that much?  Did you truly not understand what the person was trying to say?

In closing, I’m certainly not advocating that job seekers lessen their vigilance around this issue or allow careless mistakes to slip into their documents, but I just wanted to throw the idea out there/their as food for thought, since it was on my mind the other day.  As always, your thoughts and comments are welcomed!

P.S. Want a totally different perspective on the importance of writing in the workplace?  Check out the fascinating blog post here from author Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist.  She argues that people’s writing skills have never been better — it’s just that many of us “older folks” are viewing the concept of writing in old-fashioned, obsolete terms!

Career Q&A: How to Deal With Gaps On a Resume?

“Matt: Even though I consider myself to be a very loyal employee, I’m afraid that over the last several years I’ve bounced around to several different jobs, due to the economy, and also now have a few ‘gaps’ in my employment record that employers seem to be all freaked out about — to the point it’s costing me opportunities.  How would you recommend I handle these issues on my resume?”

As I’d suspect virtually all resume-writers and career coaches would agree, the issue above is the “big resume question of the new millennium” as companies still appear to place a big premium on finding stable/dedicated employees, but now tend to lay workers off so often, and so quickly, that candidates with unbroken work histories are getting almost impossible to find!  Fortunately, I think companies are waking up to the reality that the best candidates DON’T necessarily have a picture-perfect job chronology and that the hiring process needs to include a deeper examination of a person’s true skills, qualifications, and work capabilities.  Until the day arrives that the stigma around employment gaps disappears completely, however, job hunters will still have to deploy active countermeasures to minimize the impact of this issue on their self-marketing efforts.

In terms of how to do this on the resume, itself, there are only a few options available — and while they may help to a certain degree, I’ll warn you up front, none of them are foolproof.  Here’s a breakdown of some of the techniques you could consider, ranked in rough order of how “risky” or “unorthodox” they are compared to traditional resume-writing standards:

1)  List your employment dates in years, not months. This is the oldest trick in the book and employers are most certainly aware of it, but whenever you’ve got a bunch of short-term jobs on your resume, it often paints a better picture if you describe them solely in terms of years (e.g. 2008-2009 instead of 10/08 to 02/09) instead of listing the actual months employed.  If you worked earlier this year, too, but are unemployed at present, listing your most recent job as being “through 2009″ also camouflages this issue to a certain extent.

2)  Insert the reason for leaving each job. I’ve met several diehard proponents of this strategy over the years, all of whom insist that professionals today should fully “tell the story” of why they left each job so that employers don’t automatically jump to incorrect assumptions (aka “you embezzled funds or had a drinking problem.”)  This camp would suggest you add a “Reason for Leaving:” line under each job title, after which you insert something like “Position was eliminated as part of corporate reorganization” or “Recruited out of company to a more senior opportunity” or something similar.  Personally, I’m not a big fan of this approach and don’t necessarily think it always solves the problem, but in some cases I can see where it might help, especially if the “reasons” you can offer are as pure and innocent as the driven snow.

3)  Leave off certain short-term jobs entirely: In the event you’ve had quite a few short-term jobs within a given year, it might be best to jettison one (or two) of them completely off the resume to diminish the “job hopper” perception, especially if you can employ technique #1 above to cover up the date range inconsistency.  The less relevant some of your shorter-term jobs have been, in fact, the more heavily I’d think about ditching them, unless they were legitimate contract positions — in which case you should identify them clearly as such, since employers are much more tolerant of such situations.  I’ve even had people identify full-time jobs as “contract” in nature, even when this wasn’t technically the truth.  This is a risky strategy, especially when it comes time for reference checks, but I know people who are ethically willing to do this — especially when they felt that the company brought them in for a short-term fix or misrepresented the long-term prospects of the job from the outset.

4)  Rearrange your work history in an unconventional way. Over the years, admittedly, there have been cases where I felt that peoples’ work chronology was in such bad shape, in terms of how it would be perceived by employers, that I recommended they completely break the mold and list their experience in a bizarre, unorthodox way.  In some cases, this meant creating a section called “Relevant Experience” where we presented the individual’s jobs not in date order, but in “relevance” order in terms of how closely their past positions matched their future target goals.  In other cases, we didn’t even include the actual dates of employment, but simply presented the time length of employment (e.g. we put “three years” instead of 2006-2009) and again, ranked the jobs in exactly the order we wanted employers to review them.  This technique is pretty devious, and again, will not endear you to a lot of recruiting personnel, but might still be worth the risk and nab you a phone call if your qualifications (outside of the date issue) are extremely relevant to the job at hand.

5)  Bite the bullet and shift to a “functional” resume format. Alas, once upon a time, a highly progressive resume format called the “functional style” emerged into the world,  where one’s skills and qualifications were liberated from the confines and restrictive nature of pesky employment dates.  If you’re not already familiar with this fairly infamous style, just type “functional resume examples” into Google and you’ll come across tons of them out there.  The problem with this resume methodology?  It developed a very negative rap among most employment circles, since the average types of people who gravitated to the functional style were military personnel, return-to-work homemakers, career-changers, ex-convicts, and the like — in other words, people who had “something to hide” (not in a bad way, please understand) in terms of their work background and employment dates.  As a result, companies now tend to associate this style with “people who are underqualified” and I find that functionally-formatted resumes still elicit a hostile reaction among the HR professionals, recruiting folks, and hiring managers I’ve surveyed.  Still, if you’ve got nothing to lose and think this approach would capture your credentials in the best possible light, go for it!  I still use them once in a blue moon, myself, especially for potential career-changers…

Ultimately, if you’ve only got some mild gaps in your employment history, you’ll probably fare just fine, especially as the hiring world realizes that fewer and fewer candidates are going to fit the “perfect” chronology they seek.  If you’ve got a much choppier story to tell, however, this can spell trouble, and you might test out some of the techniques above to see if they make a difference.  Even more importantly than resume tweaks, though, it will be imperative for you to adjust your job search strategy itself to place far less weight on resume-driven efforts (e.g. published job leads) and more on relationship-driven methods, such as networking, where you can present your capabilities free of intense date scrutiny.

And last but not least, whether addressing the “job gap” dilemma or any other areas of vulnerability you might have as a candidate, I’ll let you in on one additional secret.  As opposed to raging against the injustice of the process, and the superficial assumptions companies make about dates and such, try putting yourself in the employer’s shoes and seeing the issue from their point of view.  While I’m sure YOU are a phenomenally committed employee, I can assure you that there are plenty of slackers, ne’er-do-wells, and bona fide job hoppers around that lead to very expensive, messy hiring mistakes.  What other methods can you use to convince employers you’re not one of these people?  What would persuade you, if you were hiring, to overlook some perceived weaknesses of this kind on the written materials of somebody you’ve never met?  Answering that question successfully might lead you to some strategies and techniques well beyond what I’ve outlined in this posting — in which case, please comment, since I’d love to feature them!

Great Cover Letter Example!

I can’t resist cross-linking to a recent post over at “The HR Capitalist” blog that highlights an extremely creative cover letter the author received — and one that many people, including myself, would hold up as an example of superior cover letter copywriting.  Take a moment to click here and read the posting in question.

Pretty original, eh?  You certainly won’t find many people out there putting this much thought into their materials or going to such lengths to argue why they should receive an interview despite their “underdog” status.  It’s really quite brilliant.  The only small problem (despite the factual error one of the blog reviewers pointed out, which was that Jordan was drafted as the third pick when he entered the NBA, not the second) is that these types of letters can’t really be duplicated — or used in any effective capacity as a template.  They’re so original that you’d have to be the one who comes up with the initial idea yourself, or one like it, since duplicating this letter “as is” would expose you to easily-discoverable plagiarism.

So going forward, at least you now have an example of the type of cover letter you COULD write if suitable circumstances presented themselves and you had a major stroke of inspiration.  In the meantime, don’t worry if you’re not quite turning out pieces at this level.  Millions of people still get hired by simply submitting their resume, along with a straightforward, more pedestrian cover note that explains why they’re writing and a few key qualifications they could bring to the job in question.

If the spirit so moves you, however, you can try taking more of a creative risk like the individual showcased above.  I’ve certainly seen many such examples during my tenure as a career coach and would be happy to offer feedback on any such draft you put together.  There’s a fine line between “clever” and “gimmicky” and if you stay on the right side of it, there’s no question about it — you can really get an employer’s attention!

Matt’s 3-Step Cover Letter Formula

While many folks get a knot in their stomach at the thought of writing their own resume, even more job hunters, I’ve found, experience heartburn trying to unlock the secrets behind writing an effective cover letter.

Simply put, cover letters are a FAR more nebulous writing exercise than the resume document, in most cases, since with resumes you’ve at least got a rough sense of the type of content (e.g. work history, education, key qualifications, etc.) that you’re supposed to include.  With cover letters, however, almost anything goes.  You can fill that blank page with anything from a poem to an aggressive sales pitch to a “your needs/my skills” matrix to a bulleted list of your top 10 qualifications for a given job.  It’s this dizzying range of options that often leads people to experience severe writer’s block — or to spend hours of time trying to cobble together an appropriate letter for a single published opportunity.

From my point of view, this is not a very productive use of time for the average job seeker.  So let’s put a stop to it.  For starters, in a blog article I published earlier this year, available here, I expressed my belief (shared with most career coaches and hiring managers) that the cover letter as we used to know it is pretty much extinct.  Few employers today seem to have any interest in reading a traditional one- or two-page letter, formatted in MS Word and e-mailed along as a separate attachment.  They just don’t have time to deal with them — and have found that most letters never say anything interesting, anyway.  They contain a bunch of overly-polite, stilted “filler” language and then go on to regurgitate the exact same material the candidate has already included on their resume.

So as a more modern alternative, I now recommend that my clients forego the traditional cover letter submission entirely (unless instructed otherwise) and instead forward their resume to employers along with an e-mail cover note consisting of three short paragraphs — devoid of any fancy formatting or attachments to slow things down.  Here’s the formula that this note should be built around:

Paragraph #1: What job are you applying for?
Paragraph #2: What’s one good reason you should be considered?
Paragraph #3: What next steps would you like to see happen?

If it helps, think of this formula using a sandwich metaphor.  The first and last paragraphs are simply thin slices of bread that hold in the real “meat” of the sandwich, which is the one attention-getting thing you have to say for yourself, relative to the job opportunity at hand.  And in terms of this meaty filling, there are generally three topics that do the trick.  You can either 1) Say something unique/distinctive/memorable about WHY you’re interested in the particular job at hand; 2) Say something unique/distinctive/memorable about WHY you’re interested in working for the organization in question; or 3) Say something unique/distinctive/memorable about a qualification you possess that SETS YOU APART or ADDS VALUE beyond what your competitors can likely offer.

I realize this last part is easier to say than to do, but for a cover letter to have any impact whatsoever, it’s critical that it show originality and reflect some serious thought on your part as a candidate.  Me-too letters are doomed for the round file and aren’t really worth sending, since they add zero marketability to the equation.  So take whatever time I might have saved you by absolving you of the need to write a long, flowery formatted letter — and devote this time, instead, to researching the job description and the company carefully in order to come up with that one brilliant insight you can use to capture the employer’s imagination.

If you put some serious thought into it (the essential ingredient of all good writing) and keep your message brief, you maybe, just maybe, might tip the scales in your favor — and won’t have to rely quite so heavily on the pass/fail qualifications of your resume to carry the day!

“Hail Mary” Cover Letters Don’t Work!

If you’re in the market for a new job, it’s imperative that you give off winning, confident signals to everybody you encounter and that you remain highly conscious of how you represent yourself in every professional interaction.  This includes all forms of written correspondence, as well, whether they involve sending a cover letter to a prospective employer, writing a LinkedIn “Request for Introduction” script, or e-mailing the friend of a friend for networking purposes.

Unfortunately, one doesn’t see a lot of confident communication these days in the job market arena.  I routinely receive e-mail notes, for example, that make a very poor first impression — and send off signals that the individual in question is lazy, ambivalent, sloppy, and/or extremely desperate in terms of how they’re approaching their next career move.

Here’s a quick case in point I received just the other day:

“A friend of mine recently forwarded along a newsletter relating to jobs that you have listed or identified as available. While I am currently employed, I am in a commission-based position in an intensely volatile industry. I would love to find a position that will allow me some security and consistency in my income. However, I don’t know that I am qualified in fields for which you secure placement.

I am a mortgage loan officer and have been since the late 1990’s. Prior to that I was broker of two real estate branches and had managed the relocation and property management departments before taking over the broker’s position. I am not looking for another position with a lending institution as a mortgage loan officer, but would not be averse to working in the lending industry in a non commission position. Of course, I am willing to step out of the lending industry and into other fields of endeavour if that option is available to me after all these many years in such a specific industry.

I have attached my resume to this e-mail. If you feel that you maintain job postings within your business structure that would allow you to be of assistance to me in my quest for a more secure job, please let me know. I am willing to extend my commute range into King County for a secure position and I am most certainly willing to learn new skills and try new fields of employment in which my existing skills can be applied.

I’m not very good at the whole job hunting thing, so I really do defer to your judgement on whether or not you feel your company can help me. If not, do you have a suggestion of another employment organization which might be more in line with my skill set?

My thanks for your consideration and assistance in this matter.”

Is this letter atrocious and without redeeming value?  By no means!  I’ve got an Outlook folder I could share with you that contains far worse examples of e-mail communication than this piece.  This one is actually pretty darn good, at least in terms of politeness, length, and grammar.  I chose to use it for illustration, in fact, for the very reason that it’s not a total train wreck like so many pieces.  Instead, I think it’s pretty average in terms of what people tend to be sending out there, and will therefore make for a more valuable teaching opportunity — since the mistakes it makes (in my opinion) are much more subtle ones.

So what the heck is so terribly wrong with this note, you may be wondering?  Well, for starters, the person writing it appears to be mistaking Career Horizons for a staffing or recruiting firm, as evidenced by phrases such as “I don’t know that I am qualified in fields for which you secure placement.”  This single sentence, at the end of the first paragraph, suggests that the author didn’t actually take the time to visit my website or figure out what I do before sending their note along.  This is a cardinal sin in today’s world.  Given the competition level out there, and the ease at which a simple web search can turn up everything you need to know about a company before you contact them, it just doesn’t cut it to show a lack of familiarity/understanding with your audience.

Additionally, you’ll notice that the letter reveals a complete lack of clarity on the individual’s part in terms of what they want to do next.  In fact, it’s worse than that.  By including statements such as “I am willing to step out of the lending industry” and “I am willing to extend my commute range” and “I am most certainly willing to learn new skills and try new fields of employment” it suggests that the person doesn’t really understand how the job market works in these modern times.  There are millions of people right now, sadly, who are willing to do just about anything to find steady, stable employment.  Such a sentiment is therefore of no real value to employers — and even less so to recruiters, were it actually the case that I happened to be one, as the author originally thought.  Companies simply aren’t looking for people who are willing to do something or who will try to do something; they are on the hunt for folks who actually can do something that’s useful, productive, and beneficial to the bottom line.  So figuring out the useful solutions you can offer is critical before engaging in any serious outreach to employers or the staffing community.  The market isn’t going to figure out what you want to be now that you’ve grown up, I’m afraid.  That decision is your responsibility!

Lastly, while a relatively minor issue, I did notice that there are two typos in the letter (I left them in there as originally written) — and I also think it’s pretty obvious why including a clause like “I’m not very good at the whole job hunting thing” is probably not the best idea.  Sure, as a career coach, it’s understandable that most of my potential clients would feel this way, and I appreciate the honesty at one level, but it still concerns me that a person would reveal this much vulnerability, confusion, and lack of confidence when writing to somebody they haven’t met before.  It makes me suspect they’re allowing these emotions to “leak” into other aspects of their job hunting effort, as well, which could account for a big chunk of the lack of success they’re likely experiencing.

At any rate, given the importance of written correspondence in the job search process, I’m hoping it was useful to provide this quick analysis around a pretty ‘typical’ type of letter that people might send out to recruiters, employers, and networking acquaintances.  These letters, for the variety of reasons I outlined, are not likely to produce a positive result.  As one of my clients said the other day, they are essentially “Hail Mary” passes where the person is just throwing all of their problems down on paper and hoping somebody out there, somewhere, will be able to solve them.  It’s just not going to happen.

So instead of trying to get ahead by playing on peoples’ sympathies, seize control of your communication and infuse it with the level of confidence, clarity, and self-respect that I’m sure you deserve.  Even if you don’t have a clue about what you want to do next, you can still show that you’re in control of your destiny by saying things like “I’m in the process of researching my next career move and would therefore like to sit down with you for 15-20 minutes, if you’re available, to bounce some ideas off you and get your feedback on the game plan I’ve put together for making a successful shift into a new field.”

Make sense?  See the difference?  Feel the change in tone/attitude that comes across?

P.S.  And in the off-chance you’re reading this blog, and happen to be the author of the above letter, let me know!  I’d be happy to extend a free coaching session to you in exchange for the usage of your text…

Cover Letters: Time of Death, 2009…

As I shared with many of you in my latest newsletter, I’m finally throwing in the towel — and yielding to the overwhelming evidence suggesting that cover letters (at least in their traditional form) are no longer an effective or important part of the modern job search process.

This may not seem like a big deal, to some, but for those out of work this is a “tectonic” development with significant implications.  The reason?  The process of drafting cover letters tends to suck up hours and hours of time each week from the average job hunter’s efforts, and if nobody is reading these masterpieces, this time and energy can be invested much more productively somewhere else.  Additionally, many people despise the process of writing such letters, and will save themselves considerable psychic anguish if they are “absolved” from having to write these pieces for each and every resume submission.

I realize, of course, that I’m somewhat late to the party (at least among career coaching circles) in arriving at this conclusion.  There have been a number of articles, blog postings, and other pieces published over the last few years where knowledgeable folks have expressed their belief that cover letters have lost their luster.  In general, however, I tend to be wary of “faddish” career advice and wanted to make sure that the sudden anti-letter sentiment wasn’t simply being used by some folks as a form of shock value to raise the anxiety level of job seekers and sell more services.  After hearing a number of my recruiting friends mention that they never, ever read cover letters from job candidates anymore, however, followed by several of my HR acquaintances echoing this same sentiment, I started to believe the hype — and to examine whether my coaching philosophy on this issue had exceeded its shelf-life.

It was at that point, too, that I took matters into my own hands and started asking every hiring manager I came into contact with whether they felt the cover letter added any real value to the job application process.  In what was nearly a clean sweep, virtually every single one of them said “Honestly, no.  I don’t read the letters.  I just go right to the resume and it tells me what I need to know.”

So if the evidence is to be believed, job hunters should seriously curtail their letter-writing efforts and channel most of their writing mojo (including some serious customization) into the resume presentation itself.  The resume now needs to stand completely on its own two feet in terms of communicating your fit for a particular opportunity — and must clearly indicate your top qualifications for the role at hand, ideally through a list of 8-10 bullets near the top of the first page.  One size most definitely does not fit all, anymore.  You need to demonstrate to each employer, within a few seconds, that you have the exact set of skills they’re looking for if you want to land in the “interview” pile.

As for whether you should send any kind of covering document with your resume, well, it stands to reason that you have to say at least a little something about why you’re submitting your credentials to a given employer.  You can’t just send your resume ala carte and assume employers will know what to do with it.  So my advice to job hunters, going forward, will be that you e-mail your resume to employers using a crystal-clear subject line (e.g. “Resume of John Smith, Accounting Manager”) accompanied by a short one- or two-paragraph e-mail note explaining why you’re writing and perhaps highlighting one key thought or attention-grabbing statement of why you’d be a great fit for the job in question.

Along these lines, here are three types of “killer thoughts” you might consider highlighting in your e-mail cover note:

1)  A very specific, interesting reason as to why the job in question appeals to you

Example: “While I’ve applied to a number of inside sales jobs in the past few weeks, I was instantly drawn to your company’s advertisement because of your statement that you want somebody who openly embraces cold-calling as a way of driving revenue.  Trust me, this won’t be a problem should you end up adding me to your team.  I’ve got zero problem picking up the phone and reaching out to qualified customers — my last boss, in fact, commented that he never once had to worry about me violating his ‘no whining’ policy when it came to having to make such calls.”

2)  A very specific, interesting reason as to why the company in question appeals to you

Example: “Given current economic conditions, I’d imagine that numerous candidates are submitting their resume for this opportunity.  I’d like to emphasize, however, that I’m particularly drawn to Escapia due to the fact that I used to run a bed and breakfast, myself, and therefore have a detailed understanding of the tourism industry and its terminology.  So while I suppose my accounting skills could translate into just about any organization, I’d love the chance to get back into a company like your own that relates so closely to my interests and caters to my former peers in the hospitality world.”

3)  A very specific, interesting qualification that differentiates you from other candidates

Example: “As you’ll note from my resume, my experience to date touches upon almost every single one of the specific skills and qualifications requested in your advertisement.  On top of these credentials, however, I’d also emphasize that I helped my previous employer complete a major SAP installation just six short months ago — and that this entire process, including lessons learned, is completely fresh in my mind and ready to be brought to bear on your company’s pending SAP implementation effort.”

The statements above are obviously not intended to represent the entire e-mail note you’d send in response to an advertisement, of course, but should give you a flavor of the types of “zinger lines” that you can incorporate to help your submission stand out.  Will you win ‘em all?  Probably not, if employers these days are as militant as they claim about focusing solely on the resume document.  But at least you won’t need to channel tons of time into writing formal, fully-formatted letters of the old-fashioned variety any longer.  And if you DO manage to catch the employer’s eye with your short e-mail missive, there’s no question that it can still tip the scales in your favor.

The key?  Just don’t make them open any extra attachments or go through the apparently arduous task of scrolling down in their e-mail browser…

Get ‘Em While They’re Hot: 3 Resume Tricks

With so many books, websites, and other resources available these days to help individuals with the resume-writing process, as well as hundreds of samples available via the Internet, it is much easier than it used to be for the average person to put together a decent resume for themselves.   In fact, I would argue that the value of hiring a professional resume writer has diminished greatly now that “desktop publishing” has become a skill set possessed by the typical computer user.  This is in stark contrast to the old days when half the battle involved simply taking a typewritten (or believe it or not, handwritten!) resume and laying it out electronically using word processing software.  Times have sure changed!

The value of professional resume assistance therefore now lies almost entirely in the area of content, as opposed to format, and the #1 benefit most resume consultants currently have to offer is the ability to draw out a number of skills, accomplishments, and career highlights that the candidate in question has overlooked — either due to the lack of objectivity, or in some cases, an overdeveloped (and career endangering) sense of modesty.  Good resume writers can also, of course, advise job seekers around the buzzwords that seem most appealing to employers at the moment, as well as help tighten up the copywriting on the resume to ensure that the document is crisp, concise, and attention-grabbing.

Back to the main point, however.  The truth is that in today’s information age, most of the “tricks” and “secrets” that resume-writing professionals once held close to the vest are no longer all that tricky, nor secret.  And yet, there are three techniques that Career Horizons regularly recommends that we still haven’t seen copied or referenced very often by other books or resume-writing firms.  These are:

1)  Add your LinkedIn profile address to the “contact information” header at the top of your resume, especially if you’re in the field of sales, marketing, or technology; the LinkedIn system has grown so popular that this inclusion signals that you’re up-to-speed on the latest technology — and invites people to visit your profile and read more about your wonderful capabilities!

2)  Consider adding a “Current Reading” section at the bottom of your resume, or in the Education section, that outlines a few book titles you’re currently reviewing; not only can this lead to some stimulating and rapport-building small talk, but it also gets some great keywords on your resume (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley for Dummies) and shows your next employer you’re committed to continuous learning.

3) If you have a formal degree, especially an MBA, consider including a breakdown of the specific classes and coursework you’ve completed (e.g. Corporate Tax Planning, Business Law, Financial Planning & Forecasting, etc.) so that, again, you get some juicy keywords embedded in your document and squeeze maximum value out of the educational credential that you’ve attained.

Not all of the above techniques make sense for every candidate, of course, and you certainly wouldn’t want to sacrifice other legitimate content to force these sections into your piece.  But at the very least, they’re worth considering — especially since we haven’t seen them advocated anywhere else!

Resume Revisions: Stop the Insanity!

Despite hundreds of books available on the subject, and the thousands of templates now available via software and the Internet, one of the most confusing aspects of job searching continues to be the “packaging” aspect — how does one capture one’s background most effectively in the unique written construct that’s known as a resume?  With so many divergent opinions out there on the topic, and many experts claiming job hunters shouldn’t have a resume at all, how does the average professional possibly come up with a presentation that will be universally loved, respected, and admired?

Two words: they can’t!  In fact, one of the most important interventions we have to stage with our clients at Career Horizons is to wean them off the idea that such a thing as a “perfect resume format” actually exists.  Like any creative endeavor, the idea of a “great” resume is highly subjective, and we therefore tell our clients that once they’ve come up with their initial resume draft and had it carefully reviewed by one or two trusted advisors, working on the resume further often tends to be an avoidance strategy that will greatly diminish their eventual success by taking time away from more productive activities.

Again, however, we empathize with most candidates on this issue because we realize there are so many conflicting opinions on resume writing and development — and it’s human nature to want to work on these materials as long as it takes to try and avoid criticism from any possible angle.  And yet, at the end of the day, we maintain there are only three cardinal rules that a candidate needs to concentrate on in order to ensure their presentation is of the “very good” variety and ready for action:

#1. Zero Mistakes: Without question, the most common (yet most avoidable) turnoffs on resumes continue to be typographical errors and poor grammar.  It’s assumed by the employer that the resume is the highest quality of work you’re capable of producing, so if your resume is sloppy or has significant errors in it, what does that imply about the attention to detail you would likely demonstrate as an actual employee, if hired?  Make sure your presentation is perfect by having at least two or three people you trust go through it with a fine-toothed comb — and avoid reliance on spell-checkers at all costs!

#2. All the Right Buzzwords: In order to catch the attention of busy hiring managers and recruiters, as well as computer scanners, it’s critical that your resume clearly calls out the buzzwords, terminology, and competencies most relevant to your employment goals.  Make sure to study relevant job advertisements carefully for clues as to the appropriate “power language” you need to include in your presentation, and then find a way to work this material into the top third of the first page of your document.

#3. Quantifiable Accomplishments: It’s not usually enough to show that you simply did a job; to get credit and be called in for an interview, you have to provide proof that you actually did it well.  That’s where the issue of “quantifiability” comes in.  After each job listing or responsibility, think about whether you could add some specific metrics (e.g. dollar figures, percentages, awards, etc.) that would indicate you did a great job on the task at hand and provided “ROI” to the employer who paid your paycheck.

While there are certainly other strategic factors that need to be considered on a resume, and judgment calls that must be made, the above three rules comprise the backbone of what goes into a high-quality resume these days — and following these guidelines will get you 97% or more of the way there.  As for whether you invest dozens of hours trying to get your resume up to the 98% or 99th percentile, that’s up to you, obviously, but we’d recommend against it in most cases.  So while the “perfect resume” may yet exist, and have the power to win the hearts and minds of every single hiring manager out there, we have a hunch you’ll have to leap the fountain of youth and fight through some unicorns to find it…

Want to Dig Up the Resumes of Your Competition?

Want to know how your resume and qualifications stack up to the competition?  Well, in the old days, there weren’t many options for making this happen.  In fact, perhaps the only reliable (if ethically-challenged) approach available was one that was introduced to me by my brother-in-law, who ran a “blind ad” in the local newspaper directing any interested accounting candidates to submit their materials to an anonymous PO Box which, as it turned out, was his own.  Turns out this trick worked like a champ, and after receiving 20-30 resumes from the people with whom he was directly competing with for opportunities, he figured out exactly what he was doing wrong and how to tweak his materials for increased effect.   Needless to say, his interview rate skyrocketed after this point!

In the modern day, luckily, we don’t have to be quite this devious to access the resumes of other candidates who might in a very similar field or occupation to our own.  All you have to do is visit www.google.com and use the little-known syntax parameter “filetype” to scour the Web for certain types of documents that are likely to be resumes.  Below, we’ve put together three search strings that will find resumes for marketing, finance, and human resource professionals, respectively — and by simply swapping out the obvious keyword parameters, you should be able to create a search that will pull up resumes in your target field, as well!

(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf) AND intitle:resume AND (“director of marketing” OR “marketing manager”)
(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf) AND intitle:”resume” AND (“director of finance” OR “chief financial”)
(filetype:doc OR filetype:pdf) AND intitle:”resume” AND (“HR generalist” OR “director of human”)

It might take a little fine-tuning to get the exact results you want, but the samples above should get you headed in the right direction — and keep in mind that the “OR” and “AND” connecting words must be typed in all capital letters for these searches to work properly…

Fudging On Your Resume? Be Careful!

While two instances doesn’t necessarily a “pattern” make, I wanted to remind everyone in job search mode of the potential consequences of playing too fast and loose with your resume and written materials.  Two clients of mine recently had reference-checking issues come up after accepting an offer, since in both cases, there were slight discrepancies on the resume which got flagged during a background check and almost put the kibosh on both deals.  Luckily, both of the individuals in question were able to resolve this issue successfully, but this might still signal a trend toward increased vigilance by employers in today’s market.  Don’t assume you’re safe once you get the job offer, either, since most offers are contingent on a reference check and employment can be revoked at any time if the employer discovers they hired somebody under false pretenses.  So while occasional errors of omission might be warranted with your materials, be careful about stripping out too much background information, fudging numbers, or “dumbing down” your resume to the point that you appear chronically disingenuous!