Resume Writing

I’ve recently interviewed our featured recruiter Michelle Owens (a recruiting expert in the local Puget Sound area) with Xtreme Consulting. The focus of our interview is “What’s changed in the job market recently and why is it so hard to get a job today?” This information and more is shared in our Career Search 2.0 Seminar twice a month.

Q. Tell me a little about yourself. How long have you been recruiting?

5 years. I started in this industry as a vendor at Microsoft where I was a Recruiting Coordinator. My next role was at Starbucks Corporation, where I met great candidates and worked with an amazing team. I actually left Starbucks because I received a call from a colleague who had left Microsoft to move over to Xtreme and wanted me to join the team. I had never worked for a smaller company before but I loved what I heard about Xtreme, what they were doing, and the way they treated their employees, so I decided to make the move as well. It is by far the best decision I have ever made – the owners of the company place so much value on every employee, have an open door policy at all times, and really allow people to grow in their careers – they are extremely supportive. The thing I probably love most about recruiting is that I have the chance to meet fascinating people every day and learn so much by doing so. I love finding candidates the perfect position and seeing the excitement on their faces as they are getting ready to start on a new project – it’s a very rewarding position that I am in.

Q. What changes have you seen in the market recently?

Fierce competition:

Over-qualified candidates are willing to take anything; even less pay (i.e. Finance directors are taking financial analyst positions.) Candidates that used to meet the job description requirements are no longer being considered because there are so many over qualified candidates the hiring managers can choose from instead. These changes have been happening since last October. Prior to October, if you were unemployed for several months, we may have questioned why someone with your background had such a difficult time finding a new role, but these days it’s not uncommon to see a strong candidate unemployed for 6 – 8 months.

Q. What changes have you seen in the candidates recently?

• Poor attitude
• They keep saying “I can’t get a job. What’s wrong with me?”
• Financial Trouble: Losing their house, having a baby, depressed, parents flying in to come help them
• Poor body language (even during informational meetings)
• Upset about the economy

Q. What would discourage you from submitting a candidate to a hiring manager?

• Arrogance
• Someone with poor listening skills. Quickly glances over job description and says “Yep, I’ve done all that” without carefully making sure they’re a good fit.
• Shows lack of interest. During informational meetings if I feel like I have to pull teeth to get them to the meeting or get them interested in a position. I feel like they’re saying “why am I here meeting with you; you’re not the hiring manager”. Tell me when you have a position; I’m not interested in informational interviews.
• Not engaged enough in our conversation. When I ask walk me through your experience, they say “I did xyz at this company” and end right there. Even though it’s a casual environment, they fail to converse about their experience. What goes through my mind is if they don’t share their experience here, what’s going to happen during their “actual” interview?
• Lying on their resumes. I talk to candidates with steady employment “on paper” but when I ask detailed questions about their background I realize that this is not the case. Their fear of looking bad on paper causes them to lie which is not acceptable.

Q. What should candidates be aware of in this market?

• Treat recruiters with utmost respect; befriend them. Recruiting especially in Seattle is a small world. Word about a candidate will get around quickly. There is a so-called recruiters blacklist; “don’t interview this candidate, rude, etc”
• Check into non-competes, contract language, contract length etc. Many larger firms won’t tell you what you’re getting into and many candidates wanting a job will take something that locks them into non-appropriate situations regarding their career. An example is taking a “a-“ position at Microsoft (even for 1 day) will force you to take 100-day mandatory break when your assignment is complete and/or if you want to switch to a “v-“ positions. Some companies will make you sign a 1 year or 18-months non-compete form. If they’re unable to find you a job when your contract is over; other recruiting companies might be unable to help you.
• Find recruiters, go through their LinkedIn, find hiring managers you want to connect to and do informational interviews. Many times hiring managers have positions that are not listed and if you connect with them soon enough, you might be that lucky candidate. You can then go through Xtreme Consulting for the vendor process (which will charge a smaller rate compared to if they found you the position, etc).
• Connect with previous hiring managers, old colleagues on LinkedIn and leverage them to meet new people.
• Use the Status Update on LinkedIn to let recruiters know exactly what you’re looking for. Many times when we contact candidates we get a non-pleasant response that they’re not looking. It will make our lives much easier if you publicly tell us you are the one we should contact! Also let them know if you’re looking to network openly or meet certain people.
• Make sure you get recommendations and endorsements on LinkedIn. They’re very powerful in building trust and reputation.
• Go to the Seattle Job Social and similar events. People these days are helping other people; make sure you utilize the power of other people to find your next position.
• Don’t LinkedIn with a recruiter (or any other person for that matter) with a template email. Don’t spam people. Make sure your message is personalized. The standard “since you’re a person I trust…” is not the best way to meet a stranger or connect with us. Be really polite, tell them why you’re reaching out and potentially what you might be able to offer them. Always give someone a reason to connect with you.

Q. What about job boards? Craigslist, Monster, Career Builder, Dice, Indeed, etc? Do these really work? Do you look at them?

Job boards are perfect for generic jobs or for those “hard to fill” positions you’re not going to find in your everyday candidate. Good candidates are not on Monster; good candidates are either employed or actively networking and reaching out. I get so many referrals on a daily basis that I don’t need to search on job boards.

Q. What else are strong candidates doing that you would recommend others should follow?

• Good candidates are researching the recruiting companies, finding their contact information and actively reaching out. If someone connects to us through our site, we’ll meet them. Larger firms might take more work but you should target who you want to meet and then take action to go meet them. Target your search instead of randomly applying to hundreds of different positions.
• Good candidates ask the recruiters how best to follow up with them. Some recruiters don’t want regular follow up while others like me love regular status updates. If you are the one in 20 Project Managers that keep in touch regularly, when I have a PM position open up; I’m sure to call you.
• Good candidates take the meetings with recruiters seriously. Even if we don’t have a position today, that doesn’t mean we won’t get a req tomorrow. If you leave a good impression, we’ll remember you for that next position.

Q. Michelle, what should someone do if they need a job “yesterday”?

Submit your resume to the larger vendors and keep your options open. You probably won’t get the position you want, but it’s a good way to get out of the mud. I asked our Staffing Director his thoughts on this particular question too. He also mentioned that a few of his friends have taken unpaid “intern like” positions with startups that don’t have enough funding for a full time position yet. People are doing this to stay fresh on their skills, keep their brain active, and if the startup takes off and they do have funding for a full time position, you will be the first person they hire.

You can contact Michelle by visiting Xtreme Consulting or emailing her at michelle@xtremeconsulting.com.

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Learn more about the author Paul Anderson.

I went to a Private Career Fair the other day hosted by a large bank that failed in Seattle and received over 100 resumes with various backgrounds (executive, project management, IT, finance, legal, etc). Apparently this failed bank is using 30 or so career counselors and are providing this service to their x-employees as a layoff package to help them become employed again. In my opinion they’re doing them more harm than good. I almost called this post “Why YOU SHOULDN’T Use Your Company’s Career Transition Services“.

I would no longer like to receive resumes that don’t fit the minimum guidelines below: (hopefully the career transition folks will read this and update their own skills before giving bad advice to people!)

Structure & Grammar

• Spelling: I didn’t see a lot of spelling errors on these resumes but I still review quite a bit of resumes with spelling mistakes. You can’t trust your spell checker because the word “Baked” and “Backed” are both valid but don’t read well in this sentence: “I baked up critical server data.”
• Grammar: At the minimum please pick 1 tense and focus on it. If you’re going to write 1st person, stick to it; if you’re going to write 3rd person, please keep it consistent throughout the document. Also make sure you have no sentence fragments because Microsoft Word underlines them with green marks and it doesn’t look good when the hiring managers open the document. They don’t read well and are distracting.
• Structure: If you don’t make it easy for hiring managers and recruiters to scan your resume, it’s not going to be read. I see a lot of paragraphs in resumes and to be honest with you, not many people read them. In this day and age where there is information overload, non-scannable resumes don’t have a chance. Make sure you have professional sections (education, career history, professional summary, etc), as well as bullets within the sections that make it easy to scan. In my Resume Writing 2.0 Seminar, I show different types of resumes and which are easier/harder to read.
• Pages: Have a 1 or 1.5 page resume if you’re a college graduate, not if you have 5 or more years of experience. I would like to see at least 2 – 3 pages of quality content for senior professionals. If you’re in technology, you can even go up to 4 pages but no more than 4 pages is needed. When I was a hiring manager, I once got a resume that was 17 pages long! This person had every certificate that was offered in the market and more. We simply didn’t choose to interview him. While shorter resumes might have worked last year, they don’t work that well this year because of the number of submissions that recruiters get for one job posting. Longer resumes are able to optimize for keywords therefore appearing higher in the search results. Shorter resumes don’t get to enjoy this and therefore might not be found.
• Contact Information: Please make sure you use a separate professional-sounding email address. Butterfly@email.com or cutie231@email.com isn’t appropriate on your resume. If you plan on relocating or job searching outside of your state, go ahead and drop your contact address because many resume search engines ignore out-of-state candidates. Please pick 1 or 2 phone numbers max. I once saw a resume with 4 contact numbers. Do they really need your 1-800/fax number?
• Education: I get asked “Should my education be listed on the top or at the bottom of my resume?” Let me ask you a question. Is it a prestigious degree/school? Did you graduate with honors? Hopefully that will help you decide.

Content

• Not Enough Information: I see so many resumes that are about 2-3 sentences long for 2-3 years of job history. Please tell me that you did more than 2-3 things at your previous position. What if you’re resume is already too long? Well, make sure those 2-3 sentences are the strongest sentences that are going to sell you to the new position.
• Too much Information: While some candidates don’t put enough information on their resumes, some put paragraphs upon paragraphs! Ask yourself this one question. What is the purpose of your resume? The purpose should be to highlight your experience to the prospective employer and sell you to the new position. If you write too much information, you overload the recruiter/hiring manager and they’re inclined to review the next resume because yours is too much work! Also, too much info applies to candidates with a decade or more of experience that is trying to get credit or list every position they ever held. Your resume is not a job application; it’s a sales tool. Make sure it’s selling you properly. In my Advanced Resume Writing Workshop we first go over your personal branding, define your career objectives, and then we start to craft a resume that highlights that path.
• Worthless Information: There are such things as “worthless information” on one’s resume. I saw a 1.25 page resume that highlighted a skill “Taught introductory Spanish lessons” back in the 1970s. The position he was applying for was accounting. I don’t see the relevancy here, do you? Also I see some candidates that put what they did as extracurricular activities that doesn’t show relevancy for the position they are applying for. Think of your resume as a marketing brochure. Ask yourself, what would you put on your brochure to get the customer to buy?
• Worthless Skills: I was surprised to see so many professionals that listed Microsoft Word, Windows, Typing, etc as their top skills when they were mid to senior level professionals. If you’ve been a Project Manager for 5 years and use Microsoft Project, I’m going to assume you know how to use Excel and Word. If you’re going to highlight technical skills, please make sure you list the strong ones. For IT Professionals this can be a little different. We actually want to see how many technical skills you’ve been in contact with. Make sure to categorize them under programming languages, networking, operating systems, etc if you have enough under each bucket.
• Objective: I get asked a lot, “Paul, should I have an objective on my resume?” I always respond “If it’s relevant to the position you’re applying for and it’s selling you to the job you’re applying for.” Objectives can come across as “This is what I want” vs. “Here is what I can do for you”. If you choose to put an objective, make sure it has the client in mind, not yourself. I personally avoid using objectives and instead rely on Professional Summaries. They’re cleaner and can highlight your expertise while keeping the client’s best interests in mind.
• Personal Information: Coaching your son’s basketball team, being on “Who wants to be a millionaire“, likes knitting at night is information you should probably put on your Facebook/MySpace page instead not on your resume.

While I can go on and on about resume writing tips, I’m hoping that this will give you an opportunity to review the basics on your resume and make sure you aren’t making the mistake the masses are making. If you only take away one point from all of this, it should be: Your Resume is a Sales Tool. Make sure it helps you STAND OUT!

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To read more articles on the 2009 job searching strategies, career development, psychology of interviewing, and resume techniques, subscribe to our RSS feed or get updates by email.

Learn more about the author Paul Anderson.