Ptorchwood Ptales & Ptimely Pthoughts

Here's what I'm offering up this year. It's not an icon or fic cause there are far better qualified LJers providing that service.

I don't talk much about my job, and I won't here (I'd like to stay employed) but I will tell you that a portion of my job involves looking at resumes. Lots of resumes. Often hundreds of resumes. I've seen the good, the bad, and the really, really, bad. I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that I am a resume maven.

So my holiday gift is to beta your resume. Admittedly, I have my own biases and I will be totally frank if I don't like something (I also acknowledge that my skill lies within the US/Canadian market for the most part), but it's the one thing I can offer that may be of practical use to some of you.

You may send me your resume via PM, you can use your on-line name if you like, you can even obscure the company names (e.g. put Well Known Cell Phone Manufacturer instead of Nokia). But obviously, there has to be enough 'real' information and a layout for me to work with. And either a LJ linked PM or other PM to send my comments to. 

Remember, your resume is your opportunity to show a potential employer what you have to offer. So even if you think your resume if fine - please take a moment to read the following and make sure you aren't a resume rule violator.

TOP TEN RESUME 'BADS'

1.  Typos, wrong word choice, grammar errors. About 30% of the resumes I see have at least one of these. This will get you into the reject pile unless you are a techie. Exceptions may be made for a software engineer, but not for a marketing, or sales or legal or any other administrative professional.

2.  Company name spelled wrong. Yeah, this happens more than you'd think. Especially if the company you are applying to has a non-English word in its name, or perhaps its a UK company in the US/US company in UK so the spelling is different.  In this case, spell-check is not your friend. Particularly if you are applying for a job in the writing or editorial field, nothing will get you into the reject pile faster than spelling the company's name wrong. (I actually received an email from a candidate berating me that the ad in question had the company name spelled wrong. - Uh no, and you get an extra  -10 points for being an arrogant git as well).

3. Generic or inappropriate goal.  I personally don't see the point to goals at the top of resumes. Things like "I want to work for a company where I can work hard and contribute my expertise" tell me nothing. Is anyone going to put "I'd like to work for a company where I can surf the net and look at porn all day?"  And if you are applying for, let's say, a job at a hospital, your goal probably shouldn't be,"I want to work for a major medical equipment manufacturer."
 
4. One resume for all circumstances.  You've got to have what the employer is looking for and they need to be able to recognize that. Often times we've done a lot of different things in our jobs. Loading that all onto a resume will probably obscure the important stuff.  Let's say you're applying for a job to be an Email Marketing Coordinator. Your resume mentions items related to this but spends most of its time talking about the other marketing stuff (running trade shows, designing brochures, photo-shopping skills, designing presentations). You need to adjust your resume to emphasize your email marketing skills (what programs have you used, how have you utilized social networking tools, etc) and less about your trade shows.

5. Let the employer know you meet the qualifications.  Read the requirements of the job. If there are five requirements, does your resume reflect experience in all five areas? No? If you've got experience in all areas make sure that your resume reflects this. Let's say you are a tech person and the job lists software applications which you have but also specifies the need for presentation skills. Now maybe you've done lots of presentations to management but its not normally something you put on your resume.  Add it. Make sure its noticeable.  Mentioning the skill in a cover letter is not enough. Most managers don't read cover letters. If you want it to count, it needs to be in your resume.

6.  Jargon, buzzwords.  This one is a little tricky. Many companies use computer based screening tools that look for key words on your resume. So check out on-line resources to make sure you've included these words on your resume. On the other hand, unless you are in a technical area, you don't want your resume to read like a list of words. Do be careful that you don't use a lot of buzzwords that might be company specific or industry specific (if you are attempting to change industries).

7. Use your cover letter as a sales tool.  I do, and its actually worked well for me. Again, if the job ad has five bullet points of job requirements, I style my cover letter to have five bullet points that emphasize what's on my resume that meets those five requirements. And if its not obvious from the name of the company you've worked for what the product line is and the ad specifies experience in a particular industry, make sure you point that out (especially if its the only experience you have in the desired industry).

8. Don't be a pest. Its tough times and you really need to find a job. But please remember that managers are busy and they generally don't appreciate direct contact, especially if an ad specifies 'no phone calls.' Don't call the HR department and ask if they got your resume. If you emailed it, they did, along with 500 other resumes.
 
I personally think its OK to send a resume to a company that you are interested in that doesn't have a current opening which meets your skill sets. The worst that will happen is that it gets tossed. I know of several situations where people have been hired based on an unsolicited resume. But please make sure that the company does actually hire people with your skills. Sending your resume to a company that has no use your skills is a waste of your time and theirs. 

9. Don't send a teaser and expect a company to contact you. "I have great skills and would be perfect for this job. Please contact me if you are interested." Yeah, you and 500 other people who have already sent their credentials. You will not get called back. Ditto for asking for more information about the job. You won't get it.

10.  Personal information.  No. No. No!  I don't care if you are a good Christian (or Jew, or Hindu), I don't care if you are married, or single, have kids or don't. I don't care. Now some companies might, I'm sure some small privately held companies might say, great, married, he'll be concentrating on the job. Unfortunately, it more likely that this will raise suspicions about you. "He's says he's a Christian, is he going to be proselytizing my very religiously diverse work force? She says she's a single Mom, is she letting me know she's going to need a lot of time off to take care of her kids?"  Now that may not be true in either case, but you are opening yourself up to speculation and biases based on this information.  Don't.

I'm happy to answer questions about these points and other related matters. You may send these to me in the comments section or via PM. To protect your privacy, please send any resumes to my PM. I will give you my honest assessment of your resume - and of course you are free to accept or ignore anything I have to say.