August 2008 - Palladian Career Resources

Keyword Summaries on Resumes

If you are planning on posting your resume on the internet or applying to large corporate sites, it’s important to include keywords in your resume. It will be tough to be found if your resume doesn’t appear in the search results. This is even more of a problem if the company uses database software to conduct the first screen of the resume.

It’s easy to put keywords into your resume. They should naturally occur within the text. To ensure you appear in every search that matches your background, you may want to include a keyword summary section.

Here’s what I saw on a resume today. The resume started with an executive summary, then had a keyword summary and then the work experience. The job seeker was from a non-technical executive position. The keywords listed included things like training management, organizational development and project management.

The order is the first place where the job seeker got it wrong. The keyword summary isn’t important enough to go at the top of the resume. Having the words "organizational development" at the top of a resume do nothing to differentiate the candidate.

The other big mistake was calling the section a keyword summary. The keyword summary is essentially a listing of skills. Call it a skills section and write it in a format that appeals to a human reader. The content will still help with search results and it won’t detract from the presentation.

What if you’re in a highly technical field? Then you may want to put your technical skills near the top of your resume. For technical roles, the technical skills can be the most important information on your resume. They are one of the primary selling points for you. For most job seekers though, the skills section is information that is important, but a much lower priority than the work experience and education.

Employment Dates on Your Resume

While reading a resume today, I was reminded of a mistake some job seekers make with their employment dates.

When listing the current position the job seeker is in, the convention is the starting date to “Present.” If the job seeker is unemployed, they should list the starting and ending date.

The mistake I have noticed occasionally is listing the current date as the end date for job seekers that are still employed. This sends a mistaken message.

Here are some examples and how I would interpret them:

	12/94 to 4/08	Unemployed since April 2008
	1/00 to Present	Currently employed in a position since Jan. 2000
	2003 to 2008	Unemployed for part of 2008

These are three formats I commonly see. I don’t like the years only format. I prefer to have months listed. If the months aren’t listed, I ask for them in the interview – usually in the first phone screen. If the job seeker had a gap in their employment they were trying to hide, it’s eventually going to come out. When the gap is uncovered, it usually makes a worse impression than if it had just been listed on the resume. Part of the reason for this is that the job seeker is probably uncomfortable talking about the gap, otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to cover it up. They would have been better off to have disclosed it up front. If the gap is a significant factor on the resume, talk about it in the cover letter.

Ok, so back to the format…listing the years with an ending year implies the job seeker is unemployed. Although rare, some make the mistake of doing this while still employed. If you are employed, go with the 2nd format, listing the starting date to "Present."

Highlighting Poor Computer Skills on a Resume

On a resume of a financial services professional, I saw something that surprised me. It shouted “poor computer skills” because of a single omission.

The resume was for a sales rep in a financial services firm – someone that sells investment and insurance products to individuals and businesses. This is a field requiring excellent sales skills along with good quantitative and technical skills.

The resume had all the stuff you would expect… state and NASD licenses, sales numbers, client numbers and other details relevant to the industry. At the bottom, the resume had a Technical Skills section. This is what caught my eye. Here’s what the section contained:

Microsoft Windows XP and Word
Act! Contact Management
Proprietary in-house systems

The reason this caught my eye is that it doesn’t list Excel. I find it hard to believe someone could work in the industry without some Excel experience – it’s a basic tool that is almost fundamental to financial analysis.

Now if the resume didn’t have a technical skills section, I wouldn’t have noticed. It was the overt statement that the job seeker knows Windows and Word, without mentioning Excel that made this odd.

There’s a chance that this individual knows Excel and just forgot to list it. I’d probably give them a call to check, given that the rest of the resume is pretty strong. This wouldn’t kill the job seeker’s chances but it would cause me to question their technical skills more than I ordinarily might, since I would assume the skill level is low.

There are situations where this could be a deal killer. If the hiring manager considers Excel expertise a key priority, the resume has a fair chance of being discarded.

Remember that if you are highlighting your skills, create a complete picture of the skills relevant to a position. Listing Excel experience isn’t what’s important, it’s listing software that is a primary tool within the industry.

How to Update Your Resume

It’s been a few years and you’ve decided to brush off your resume and start looking… what now?
Many job seekers will simply tack on their current job and send it out. The problem with this is that your old resume might not be the best sales pitch for your current situation.

When you update your resume, you should reassess every bit of it. Start by looking at the structure.

Review the Structure – Did you have a functional or chronological structure last time? Is this still the best choice? The reasons you chose the structure may not be relevant today. For example, if you used a functional structure, there’s a good chance you chose this structure because you were changing career fields and wanted to highlight your skills over your progression. Hopefully, you’ve gained some valuable experience making your progression more impressive. Switching to a chronological format would make sense in this situation.
Add New Info – Write a description of your current job, along with accomplishments you want to highlight. At this stage, don’t worry about where you put the information you write. You may put skills or accomplishments in an executive summary, a skills section, an accomplishments section or somewhere else. For now, just add it all to the work experience section.
Prioritize Information – Identify the most important information that you want to highlight. This is the content that best sells you. The priorities will change over time. Two factors will affect this – time and relevance. As time passes, a very significant aspect of your background may lose importance. For example, for a recent college graduate, their education is probably the most significant thing on their resume. Ten or twenty years later, it’s still important, but not the top priority. The relevance of something may also change. As your career progresses, your responsibilities will change and the skills and accomplishments that demonstrate your potential to succeed in new roles will change.
Review the Structure Again – In step 1, you assessed the overall structure. Now that we have the prioritization of information, it’s time to review the order of information. Should your work experience go at the top, or your education? Do you want to add/remove an executive summary? How are you going to present your accomplishments?
Add/Delete Information – Over time, you will want to trim down descriptions to make room for newer content. Review everything on your resume and ask the question, is this important enough to keep? This will help you avoid preserving information that has no importance to your current career. For example, one job seeker I assessed was a senior executive with 30 years of experience. At the bottom of his resume he listed several accomplishments from the start of his career, including being an Eagle Scout. 30 years ago, this was fine to include. Today, it is almost comical… in 30 years, I would hope you have accomplishments significant enough to displace this.
Customize your resume – It’s unlikely you are pursuing the same job today that you were seeking the last time you sent out your resume. Make sure you are highlighting the skills and experiences that are most relevant to your current search. Are the skills you deemphasized before, skills that you now want to bring to the forefront? For example, if you were in a technical role and have since moved into a leadership position, you may want to deemphasize your technical skills in favor of highlighting your leadership.

Follow these six steps, and you will be well ahead of the majority of job seekers that only do Step 2 – pasting their newest info to the top of the work experience section.

Interview Recording Assessment

I’m continuing this week with the interview recording from the administrative assistant I started last week. The question in this recording is:

Tell me about a time when you helped a coworker improve their performance.

Listen to the Interview Answer(Time 1:37)
This is interview was recorded and posted with the permission of the job seeker.

The answer is in two parts – the initial answer and the follow up. The initial answer was pretty good. She described the situation and the actions she took well. I thought the description of the 360 feedback was great. This answer also gave her the opportunity to talk about the person she supervises. Many admin assistants have little to no supervisory experience. Highlighting that she manages someone in this role demonstrates leadership experience and shows that she was successful enough to be put in a lead position. All of this is good.

The thing that is missing is whether she was successful. My follow up question addressed this by asking what success she had had with this. Her answer focused on providing more details about the situation. She did indicate that there was improvement but it wasn’t clear how much improvement was made or the benefit to the company.

A much better answer would have included specific results. Did the person she coached perform better after the coaching? What feedback did they receive from others in the office? The coaching process started with a 360 feedback exercise – results of a follow up to this would be great to discuss. If there wasn’t a follow up, then the comments of one or more people in the office would help.

The key is to show a hiring manager success. Telling them that you were responsible for something doesn’t mean you were successful. You have to give examples to stand out.

Examples of Resumes that Link to a LinkedIn Profile

In yesterday’s article, I outlined pros and cons of adding a link to your LinkedIn profile to your resume. This got me thinking and I decided to take a look at what some job seekers are doing.

I did a quick search of 585 resumes and found four job seekers that mentioned their LinkedIn profile on their resume. Of these, two of the people put the link on both their cover letter and resume. Here are the examples, with names and contact info masked for confidentiality:

Job Seeker 1 – From the cover letter:

You may read recommendations from my past employers at http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

Job Seeker 2 – From the resume heading:

First Last, 123-456-7890 / 987-654-3210 (cell)
## Street Ave. name @ emaildomain.com
City, ST 00000 http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

Job Seeker 3 – From the cover letter heading:

First Last
name @ emaildomain.com
http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

Job Seeker 3 – From the resume heading:

First Last
name @ emaildomain.com
Cell: 123-456-7890
http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

Job Seeker 4 – From the cover letter signature:

Sincerely,

First Last
123-456-7890
http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

Job Seeker 4 – From the resume heading:

First Last
Home: 123-456-7890
name @ emaildomain.com
http: //www. Linkedin.com /in/name

My personal preference is the first listing where the profile is included within the cover letter with a reason why it should be viewed.

LinkedIn and Your Resume

I read an interesting question on LinkedIn today…

“Would you put a link to your LinkedIn profile on your resume?”

There have been a lot of good answers posted by LinkedIn users – some advocating and some discouraging this. I think it really depends on your resume and your LinkedIn Profile.

Your Profile

LinkedIn is essentially a social network – except that it focuses on careers. A profile on LinkedIn is similar to a resume, but the content is slightly different. You can be much freer about what information you include and how you describe it.

You can expect that a hiring manager will Google your name while you are being consider, so there’s a good chance they will see your profile anyway. Just realize that this will be well into the hiring process. Many hiring managers will only put forth this type of effort once they are seriously considering making an offer. If you want your profile to be read early in the process, before interviews start, then you need to link to it.

What Value Does the Profile Offer to Your Resume

LinkedIn profiles have several pieces of information that may compliment your resume. The most obvious are the recommendations. Users can write recommendations for co-workers. This allows a hiring manager to read what is essentially a reference check long before they normally would conduct references.

Another benefit is seeing the connections you have. This can be particularly helpful for business development professionals where the largest rolodex wins.

The LinkedIn Answers is a place where you can answer questions asked by others. Having a strong track record of answering questions in a field may demonstrate expertise. I wouldn’t set out to answer questions just to highlight on your resume, but if you have a passion for participating in the discussion, it may help.

Finally, your profile personalizes your resume. Profiles usually focus much more on an individual’s interests and motivations than a resume does.

Why Shouldn’t I Add My Profile

First, if you have an incomplete or poorly written profile, don’t highlight it.

Second, are you going to leave something off your resume that is more valuable to make room for the link? If so, skip it.

Third, what message are sending with your profile? Is it creating a complimentary message to your resume and cover letter? Make sure it’s helping you in your search.

Bottom Line: Don’t add your profile unless it’s a really big selling point for the position you are pursuing. If you’re not sure, leave it off.

How Should I List It?

I see several ways of putting a Linked In profile on your resume. You can place the link in your contact information at the top of your resume.

Your could place it at the end of the resume under a heading indicating what you want to highlight. For example, after the last section of your resume, add a section titled “Recommendations” and place the link under it.

You could put the link in your cover letter, highlighting the information on your profile that you want the hiring manager to read. For example, you could call attention to the recommendations and provide the link.

Finally, you could imbed the link within another section in your resume. For example, if you had a great recommendation from a former boss on your profile, you might attach the link under that job.

Conclusion

For some job seekers, adding a link to their resume could be beneficial. For most, I wouldn’t do it. Make sure your profile is really good before doing this and have a clear plan for why you want to include it.

Check out the discussion on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/using-linkedIn/ULI/299873-11341068

I have close to 2000 direct connections on LinkedIn. Feel free to send an invitation to me (gcapone@palladianinternational.com) if you want to link.

Falsifying Education

A resume of very strong manufacturing job seeker came to my attention recently. The candidate looked great, but I didn’t recognize the school they attended. I’m not an expert on every school out there, so I use several research tools. In a few minutes, it was clear this school was not reputable. First, it’s not accredited, and second it awards degrees without requiring any course work. Just write a check and they mail a transcript and degree.

With an explosion of educational opportunities, it’s no surprise that a number of diploma mills have cropped up. If you’re not familiar with diploma mills, they are companies that issue degrees without requiring a single class. Some go so far as to offer overnight delivery of a degree – someone that didn’t graduate from high school can obtain degrees all the way through to a PhD in a matter of days.

Many of these programs market themselves as life experience degrees – degrees awarded solely based on the life experience of the individual. The requirements are less than stringent. Colby Nolan is a cat that received a Bachelor’s degree and an MBA from a diploma mill. Unfortunately, Colby is not alone – there a number of cats, dogs and other animals with degrees.

The job seeker I was assessing had a resume that looked great. With the complete fabrication of their education, there is no way to trust the job seeker. Unfortunately, if they are lying about their education, I have to assume they could be lying about everything in their background.

Now it may sound tempting to go from a high school grad to an MBA overnight, but it’s a fraud. States are cracking down on this, with a number having already passed legislation criminalizing the use of an unaccredited degree to obtain employment (or even a promotion in some cases). Additionally, the tools to check the validity of a degree are getting better and faster – it’s only takes a minute or two to check.

If you are looking to enhance your education, check the reputation and accreditation of the program. This isn’t difficult to do, but you do need to know where to look. The diploma mills often claim accreditation, but from accrediting bodies that either don’t exist or have standards as low as the diploma mills.

There are a lot of resources you can check. Two that I like are:

Council for Higher Education Accreditation: www.chea.org
State of Michigan: list of schools the state will not recognize – http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf

I’ve run into a number of job seekers that made the mistake of getting a fake degree. A few were able to use the degree to get a better job (although the odds of this go down as background checks get easier). This didn’t help in the long run though. With the lie, they end up stuck, unable to leave because the lie continues to be uncovered – and very bitter every time they are discovered.

Offer Time: Don’t Do This

One of the mistakes I see from job seekers is changing their compensation expectations during the interview process. It’s as if there is salary inflation causing their worth to go up over a period of weeks. I noticed this long before I became a recruiter – I made this mistake early in my career and it cost me a great opportunity.

The Company’s Perspective

When a company interviews a job seeker, they want to make sure that the individual will accept an offer if they extend one. For this reason, hiring managers are very complimentary during the process. Many will even discuss things like, “when you’re on board, you’re going to be very successful fixing this,” with “this” being some major problem.

This type of language is polite and in the company’s best interest. They want the job seeker to feel good about joining the company. Receiving compliments during an interview does not mean the hiring manager is going to want to hire you. All it means is that the hiring manager is being polite and is trying to insure that you want the job – in case they decide to hire you.

The Job Seeker’s Perspective

Job seekers should feel proud that they are being courted. Unfortunately some make the mistake of assuming that they “have the job” and forget to continue to sell themselves. Worse, some job seekers interpret every compliment as an indication that they should expect a higher salary. This is the mistake I made and the mistake I’ve seen other job seekers make.

Most companies have salary guidelines for each position. Large companies will have salary ranges and guidelines for how different experience levels affect the placement in a range. Although it’s not completely scientific, there is often a lot of analysis that goes into setting salaries.

My Mistake

Now lets look at a real life example – the mistake I made early in my career. I was being considered for a position that was in many respects, absolutely ideal. It was a significant promotion over my current role. It had a great opportunity for advancement. It was in a much better location (and had paid relo). It had a better compensation level. Finally, the type of work was closer to what I wanted to do than my job at the time. But I didn’t get the job – and I was the one that caused it to fall apart.

When I started the interview process, I was told the compensation range (I was working with a recruiter and they filled me in). The bottom of the range was above my current comp and acceptable to me. In the first interview it was clear my experience was less than they wanted (remember this would have been a big promotion for me). There were other skills that made me an attractive candidate, but experience wasn’t one of them.

Through the interview process, everything went well and I demonstrated enough potential to get an offer. Unfortunately, every time I heard that I would be very successful with them, that I would have a good chance of getting promoted quickly and that I would be a key part of the team, I concluded they were getting desperate to hire me. All of this made me conclude that they wouldn’t offer the bottom of their range, they would offer something higher. I started expecting an offer around the mid-point.

The Offer

When they made the offer, it was below the bottom of the range I had been told at the beginning – not by a lot, but definitely below the range. This was justifiable since I really didn’t have the experience for the job and would have to grow into it. The problem was that I didn’t think about that until it was too late. I was so convinced they would offer a figure well above the bottom of the range that I was actually shocked by the offer. My reaction, immature and arrogant, led to the offer being pulled.

In hindsight, the offer was good, the opportunity was phenomenal and the company wanted me. And yet, I didn’t get the job.

It was an important lesson. First, no matter what I thought of the offer, I should have reacted positively. Second, I should have recognized that when they complimented me, they were being polite and when they said I really didn’t have as much experience as they wanted, they were discounting my salary. I did the opposite of these.

Bottom Line: React positively when an offer is made. You can assess the value after the call. This doesn’t mean you don’t negotiate the best deal. Just don’t let emotions dictate the result.

Recorded Job Interview

For the last month, I’ve been posting recordings from an interview with a transitioning military officer. This week, I’m making a shift to another job seeker – a professional administrative assistant. Top-notch admin assistants are unbelievably valuable to the companies and executives they work for. This individual has some great experiences, but has never been trained to interview effectively.

This is the first question from the interview:

Tell Me About Yourself

Listen to the Answer

(Time 1:08)
This is interview was recorded and posted with the permission of the job seeker.

Like many job seekers I’ve interviewed, this individual didn’t see the point of the Tell Me About Yourself question. It’s not designed to find out about an individual’s personal life. It’s intended to get picture of the professional’s background, experience and potential. (By the way, I’ve heard how many dogs and cats job seekers have as an answer to this more times than I can count – it has yet to persuade me to hire someone or put them in front of a client.)

After her answer, I had to ask the follow up question, “Walk me through your career progression” to get at the information I was looking for. Even with the answer to the follow up question, the job seeker missed a great opportunity to highlight why she should be hired. This answer was a list of facts about what roles she had held. This is the time in an interview that she should be highlighting her best accomplishments and why she is successful.

Another problem with this answer is that it’s way too short. This candidate has done some great things in her career but the entire question, answer, follow up and answer took only a minute and eight seconds. The amount of time she spent on her current role – a position she has held for several years, was two seconds.

One last note about this answer… The job seeker starts by saying they are a “full adult.” This may seem like a very odd thing in an interview, but it’s a result of the misconceptions that surround admin assistants. It stems from the stereotype that admin’s are teenagers right out of high school doing menial hourly work. The truth is far from this. Good admin assistants are not kids and the work they do is not menial. Many executives will say that a good admin assistant is the most valuable member of their team. It unfortunately most don’t get the respect they deserve.