Month: April 2010

Prioritizing Information on Your Resume

I reviewed a resume today that made a common mistake.  The resume listed unimportant information first, and the important stuff last.  When a hiring manager reviews your resume, they will scan quickly to see if you are in the ballpark of what they want.  If you are, they will read in more detail.  If you aren’t, you get discarded.  This first decision is often made in the first 15 to 30 seconds.  That’s only enough time to read a few lines.  If you want to make it past this, you need to show very quickly that you are worth additional time.

The resume I reviewed failed to do this.  The candidate is a Distribution Manager and has spent his entire career in inventory management and distribution management roles.  Here’s how the resume was laid out:

  • Objective (five lines of generic text – “…a dynamic, growth oriented business… capitalize on my education and training…  help realize the company’s strategic business plan…”)
  • Professional Profile (eight lines describing the industry and career of the job seeker – not great but much better than the Objective)
  • Summary of Qualifications (four lines listing a variety of skills, lacking any details on the job seeker’s skill level or amount of experience with these skills)
  • Computer Technology (three lines of computer programs and programming languages, with nothing detailing the skill level with each)
  • Professional Experience (the work experience of the job seeker)
  • Education (the degrees the job seeker has)

This structure is ok, it’s the content that is a problem.  The objective, professional summary and summary of qualifications sections make up the top half of the first page, but they add almost no value.  They are little more than a list of keywords put into sentences.  There is nothing that indicates whether the job seeker is any good at any of the skills they mention, and there are no accomplishments to show the success of the job seeker.

Even worse, after the first three sections, the job seeker moves into their computer technology experience.  The section is essentially a list of microsoft products, a couple proprietary software systems and a few programming languages.  This is far from being high priority information.  Even worse, the information listed is obviously out of date.  For example, the programming languages listed have all been replaced over the last two decades.  The job seeker completed a computer science associates degree in 1986, but never worked in an IT position.  So, this candidate is prioritizing that they learned Cobol 24 years ago above their 24 years of distribution experience.  Why would the 24 year old computer skills make a hiring manager want to hire them as a distribution manager?

Review your resume and look for information with limited value to the position you are pursuing.  It can be tough to cut out details that you are proud of, or that were very significant to your career in the past.  Just remember, you need to tailor your sales pitch to the job you are pursuing today – not something you did twenty years ago.

Volunteering to Gain Experience

It’s a challenge to break into a new a career.  Companies want experience when hiring, but you can’t get the experience they want without getting hired first.  This catch-22 is frustrating and difficult to overcome.  For college students, gaining experience is also important.  The job market for college students has been very tight.  Gaining a little work experience during college can help a person standout and land a job. 

The solution for many is to work internships.  An internship is a short term position where the intern is exposed to some of the work in a career field.  The company tries to provide an experience that will help develop the intern while gaining some benefits from the work performed.  Internships can be vary in length from a few weeks to more than a year. 

Historically, there have been both unpaid and paid internships.  Many people recognize the value of the experience they will gain and are willing to work for free to gain that experience.  For a college student, who is paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for an education, gaining experience without having to pay tution can be a good deal. 

The rules are changing, though.  The Department of Labor has indicated that it may crack down on unpaid internships.  The DoL considers an unpaid internship a violation of minimum wage law, since the company is not paying the intern the minimum wage. 

This change in policy could have a significant impact on the way college students gain experience.  Many companies will cancel their internship programs.  For many firms, the cost of managing the internship program and mentoring the intern exceed the value the intern provides.  Companies offer the internships to assess students they may one day hire and to help develop a new generation of professionals in their industry.  Rarely will the company gain significant value for the work the intern performs.  Usually, the company could have completed the same work much faster and cheaper by using the companies employees instead of an intern.

By requiring companies to pay interns, the government will eliminate a valuable professional development tool many college students rely on.  If you are in college, it will become even more important to land a paid internship while in school, and competition for these slots will increase.

Internships aren’t the only area where companies do not pay employees.  Many business startups rely on the contributions of a team of people before the company can start hiring.  Usually, these people are owners in the business and exempt from minimum wage law.  Occasionally, they are friends and associates who are willing to invest some time to build the business on the hope they will be hired when things take off.  For a senior executive, this tactic – trying to create the job you want – can be effective.  While job hunting, the individual contributes to a startup without pay.  Eventually, the company grows and the executive is hired into a key role.  These situations are likely to also be reduced by the DoL’s new policy.