OT: Resumes

[Chin Diesel]

For those on the Boneyard who have experience reading and using resumes as part of the hiring process, what's some good advice beyond the standard stuff you can google or get from any career class?

What are the key phrases, showstoppers or things that grab your attention (in a good or bad way).

How many pages, how far back in to career history, cover pages?

I'm curious as to what this board can come up with for suggestions.

 

[Palatine]

One simple thing. You should have both hard copies and an online versions of your resume. And be sure to bring the hard copy to an interview. On your hard copy, use good paper.

Resumes are about experience. Keep the fluff to a minimum. A short sweet set up is best. I would cover all work experience but the further in the past the shorter the entry.

I like to see where a person went to school and their degree. I also like an outside interest entry at the end of the resume. Something that gives the person a little depth. Painting or photography or astronomy or softball may seem unrelated but sometimes they can strike a chord with the interviewer.

 

[Husky25]

For those on the Boneyard who have experience reading and using resumes as part of the hiring process, what's some good advice beyond the standard stuff you can google or get from any career class?

What are the key phrases, showstoppers or things that grab your attention (in a good or bad way).

How many pages, how far back in to career history, cover pages?

I'm curious as to what this board can come up with for suggestions.

1. If you have been in the workforce for any substantial length of time, drop Education to the bottom and start with Experience under the Overview.
2. An established resume can go over 1 page but keep it to 2. It is not unusual to play with margins and font to keep it to a reasonable length. For example, my font is 10 pts. and the margins are .75in or less.
3. If it is a chronological resume, provide at least one bullet point for every year in a particular position. Describe your day to day responsibilities in a manner that illustrates achievement.
4. Keep in mind that the reader will spend less than 30 seconds skimming your resume and is looking for key words in your industry.
5. Don't underestimate relevant designations and affiliations.
6. It is okay to have more than one resume tailored to what ever position you are shooting for.
7. Do not include "References Available upon Request." It is assumed, it take up valuable space, and that part of the process comes later in the job hunt process.
8. Don't blatantly lie.
9. If you are answering an ad, yes, create a cover letter. Otherwise the head hunter has probably already introduced you.
10. Always send a thank you note within 24 hours after the interview. I e-mailed the TY note for my current position and well...here I am...

 

[Carl Spackler]

Your resume needs to match your personality, and you need to spend a ton of time, thinking about who you are as a person, and how you want to present yourself on paper, and continually tweak it. If you do that, it will stand out, whether it be digital or hard copy paper. I actually think that with digital resumes the opportunities to build fantastic cover letter, intro work is much more effective than on hard copy paper. You can use slide shows, music, etc. A paper is a single sheet of paper, and you don't have much room or space to expose your personality. If you're a no-nonsense person, your cover/intro should reflect it, if you're a loud mouth opinion spewer, your cover should be loud and obnoxious, etc. If you get to interview and your presentation doesn't match your personality and presence in person - it will create doubt.

Getting noticed in the resume stage is much more important than the content of the resume itself, and finding a way to make the reader know that you have a personal connection to the work is huge. That's all I'll say.

If you take the time and effort to build a resume cover/intro that fits your personality to a T, and find a way to make the reader know that you have personal interests outside work, and that it can tie into the work - it will stand out and you'll get to interview stage.

Manufactured, robotic resumes are shredder material.

Last thing - when you get to the interview stage, look the interviewer in the eyes when you speak. Nothing annoyed me more, and sent people home without work, than a well qualified, interesting person that came for interview and looked away or at the floor all the time when talking.

Good luck.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Thanks for the tips so far.

Good news is that none of the above responses were earthshattering, Holy Crap moments.

Truth be told, I'm working to avoid this all together. The goal is to use the networking, handshaking and contacts I've built up over the years to work my way in to a job to the point where the resume and interview are formalities.

 

[huskypantz]

• I personally like seeing a resume that starts with a "key accomplishments" section - and it should include measurables if at all possible.
• Customize the resume for the company/position you're applying to. Which means research the company and position as much as possible before sending the resume too.

 

[JaYnYcE]

Make sure your purpose / objective is clear. It helps if you're experience help shape what your objective is as well.


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[geordi]

Start the resume by sitting down with a piece of paper and thoroughly thinking through the last several jobs you've had. Begin to jot down those things that you are most proud of accomplishing. Focus on the result. Then put together "PAR" statements. Describe the Problem you were trying to address - BRIEFLY. Describe what Action you took to solve the problem - BRIEFLY. Then describe the Result - ONE SENTENCE. i.e. Increased sales by 62% over previous year. (By writing out the PAR statements, you can review them before you get into an interview and be able to clearly and concisely answer questions about your performance.) Start each result line with an action word. Increased, Created, Doubled, Tripled, Managed, etc.

Then take each PAR statement and determine exactly what skills you brought to bear on the issue. Planning, Marketing, Communications, Finance, etc. When you review the skills for all the results statements, those that appear the most are what you are selling to the prospective hirer.

Start the resume with a description of yourself. "Experienced results oriented sales executive with strong interpersonal skills yadda, yadda, yadda with special expertise in (the skills statements listed in bullet points - no more than 6 or so.). Don't put in an 'objective.' No hirer cares what your objective is. Their objective is to hire someone so they don't have to do two jobs.

Most hirers are more familiar with chronological resumes...so tend toward that. You don't want to make them uncomfortable in finding out about you, especially since you are only going to get the resume in front of them for 30 seconds. List each job, company and title, along with a VERY BRIEF perhaps 3 line description of responsibilities including number of staff you supervised and amount of budget for which you were responsible. Then list 3 - 5 bullet points of what you accomplished (the Results part of the PAR statements). Fewer bullets as you go back in time. Don't get too wordy about jobs that you had more than 10 years ago. A list of them is sufficient.

Then put in education. Don't put in the years in which you got your degree, especially if you are over 40.
Create the resume on high, high quality paper preferably off-white and leave as much margin as possible. Don't go under 1 inch margins if you can help it. No more than two pages. And don't create different resumes for different jobs. You won't remember what you said in one vs another. You can highlight experience specific to a job in your cover letter.

Good luck! That will be $500 for the consulting service.

 

[Chin Diesel]

$500?

You only mentioned PAR. What about CAR or STAR?

Thanks. Jives with everything we went over in the resume writing class this morning. of course that was no cost.

 

[Samoo]

- Quantify your achievements (I managed $10 million program, supervised 20 people, oversaw the paving of 100 miles of new highway)
- Not a single typo or error

 

[intlzncster]

If you are looking overseas, a bit longer is the go. 2-3 pages in Australia for example. And title it Curriculum Vitae, not Resume.

 

[intlzncster]

Last thing - when you get to the interview stage, look the interviewer in the eyes when you speak. Nothing annoyed me more, and sent people home without work, than a well qualified, interesting person that came for interview and looked away or at the floor all the time when talking.

If someone looks off to the side and above, while thinking or starting their answer, they are "accessing" (don't remember if it is to the right or left). It's a term used for the technique of people visualizing the answer to a question. Performing this action is actually the result of critical thinking and honesty. Not performing it is generally an indication of an overly rehearsed answer or misinformation.

Looking down is generally a no-no, as it implies potential dishonesty or lack of confidence.

 

[BugsyCT]

Objectives aren't being used so much anymore. A better way to go is to have a career summary at the top of your resume.

And structure your resume to emphasize your strong points first so a prospective employer can see it right away. (They spend very little time scanning resumes since they usually go through many, so the vital info needs to be there to see easily & clearly)

 

[intlzncster]

Objectives aren't being used so much anymore. A better way to go is to have a career summary at the top of your resume.

And structure your resume to emphasize your strong points first so a prospective employer can see it right away. (They spend very little time scanning resumes since they usually go through many, so the vital info needs to be there to see easily & clearly)

But what if you are trying to switch careers?

 

[StoweD210]

Last thing - when you get to the interview stage, look the interviewer in the eyes when you speak. Nothing annoyed me more, and sent people home without work, than a well qualified, interesting person that came for interview and looked away or at the floor all the time when talking.

Eye Contact = Good

Piercing Stare of a Psychopath = Bad

It's a fine line...

 

[Kgun7]

I love the BY for these discussions ... wealth of knowledge and great suggestions ... I can also learn things when others ask the questions.

BTW - something I tell my kids all the time: High school and college english teachers give writing assignments with minimum word counts, forcing you to fluff, stuff, and BS the crap out of a good paper. Then when you graduate you'll spend the rest of your life trying to summarize what you want to say with the least amount of words, or in 30 seconds or less. Great anti-life lessons ...

 

[Husky25]

But what if you are trying to switch careers?

You'd be writing a topical resume, as opposed to a chronological one. For instance, instead of listing positions and companies, you'd list industry specific attributes, with bullet points from your past experience that support those attributes.

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[Chin Diesel]

Good stuff.

As I wrote in the earlier post I'm curious more than anything else.

The military's latest attempt at transitioning classes is heavily focused on the "how to" of getting jobs. Everything from resumes and cover letters to how to dress for interviews.

Most everything posted here aligns with the training we are getting.

Being in the Navy our annual performance review lends itself towards resumes and bullet format. I have 18 lines of text, 72 characters per line to document my performance for the year.

Leading pronouns are excluded, and starting the bullet with action verbs followed by the action and result is expected. Showing how the cause/effect benefit the organization is crucial too.

 

[J187Money]

Eye Contact = Good

Piercing Stare of a Psychopath = Bad

It's a fine line...

Overly enthused candidate.

 

[RedSoloCup]

Once (if) you get out, use every resource they offer to fine tune your resume and to help figure out what type of work will interest you.

Also, not to pump a website, but LinkedIn is a good way to have an online profile, keep track of professional information and your professional contacts. Not a social site like FB but good ways to connect with past colleagues and follow companies and interests that you have. It also passes me about 5-6 new jobs that are relevant each week even though I am not searching for one, just watching the queue.

 

[jbdphi]

If you are looking overseas, a bit longer is the go. 2-3 pages in Australia for example. And title it Curriculum Vitae, not Resume.

When I moved to Australia, I had to convert my one-page resume into a four page CV. What a huge pain in the a**.

A few other tips for Chin which probably reiterate a thing or two:
- No typos, grammatical slips or punctuation inconsistencies (i.e. ending some sentences with periods and other don't) - when I used to review resume's when there were basic mistakes like that, it's an easy excuse to toss that one into the reject pile. It sounds harsh but in an environment when you have so many qualified people, you need to cut the list down and attention to detail is critical for what I do for a living.
- If you are looking to network, I highly recommend joining LinkedIn if you haven't already. The basic membership is free and you can use it to catch up easily with old work friends and colleagues, some of which you may have lost touch with.

Best of luck.

 

[J187Money]

When I review resumes I want to see progression. Aside from all of the other descriptive nonsense that I tend to discount I want to know if this is a person that is continually given more responsibility over time. I also pay attention to the job changes. Understanding why someone changes jobs especially if the progression isn't logical is important.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I'm intrigued by LinkedIn. I have my profile, follow the appropriate defense and aerospace companies and my contacts are inline with the expected careers. But 90% of my contacts I already know personally or come recommended from contacts I know.

I was weirdest out the first time I got a notification flag the first time a hiring manager viewed my profile. That reinforced keeping everything current and correct since you can't control when your profile is viewed.

 

[J187Money]

LinkedIn is great. It lets you know who your connections are connected to. So you can ask for introductions to people you might not think you could get to. I have helped a number of people land jobs that way-by making intros.