Recently I have been spending a lot of time recruiting for executive level positions, and I have been amazed at how poorly marketed many of these polished professionals are in their resume. In many cases, had I not personally known these candidates from professional associations, I would not have even considered them based on the resume alone.
A resume speaks volumes about a person's computer, communications, and presentation skills without even really reading the content. If a quick glance at a resume shows a lack of organization, no punctuation or use of bold, italics, or *bullets* to make pertinent information stand out... or worse yet, EVERTHING is bolded or bulleted or CAPITALIZED, then the first assumption is that this person is not going to be able to present ideas, proposals, or research data to me in a user friendly format when I need it nor are they likely to be someone who can put together a good training presentation, etc. If you are applying for a position that will require these skills, which includes most management positions, then you are selling yourself short with a poorly written resume.
Another resume pet peeve (that most hiring managers have) which you should be aware of... overly lengthy resumes with little content to justify the length. If you are a recent graduate with no experience, then you certainly should have only a one page resume, but you will need to make it stand out with academic accomplishments and volunteer experiences that are relevant to the job you are applying for. If you have 30 years of professional experience, it is expected that you probably won't fit all of that on one page. However, if you can't fit it on two pages, don't expect anyone to read what you've put on the 3rd page. When 100 or more resumes stream in for a highly sought after executive level position, hiring managers do not have time to read every word of every resume. Hiring managers will scan for highlights, achievements, tenure, job titles, and company names to make a quick determination of fit for the position to narrow down the pile from 100 to approximately 10 for initial interviews. If none of those 10 are a good fit, they may go back to the stack, but the trick is to be in that first group they select.
Some of the resumes I’ve seen lately are like the equivalent of dressing up in your finest suit and then throwing a trash bag full of garbage on top of yourself right before you try to make a good first impression. It makes no sense to be a polished professional with a resume that makes you look like a slob! If you can’t afford to have a professional bring a facelift to your resume, that’s ok. Here are some very simply steps to follow that can make a big impact. First, DO NOT BULLET EVERYTHING!!! Don’t use all capitals either. Make company names and job titles stand out by bolding them which helps separate one job from the next (but don’t start changing fonts). If the job you had is very self-explanatory, like accountant or secretary, don’t waste a lot of space regurgitating a job description on your resume. Instead, focus on the times in your job that you went above and beyond the call of duty, such as spearheading a project, or changing a process to improve efficiency that saved the company time and money. Use bullets only to highlight major accomplishments. Say what you need to say succinctly with short concise wording that gets your point across without wasting space. Condense your resume to one or two pages (no more than two.) If this means you have to drop off 10 years of experience off your resume, use a carefully worded letter of interest to discuss other RELEVANT experience that they may wish to know about that didn’t make the final cut on your resume.
No comments:
Post a Comment