June 2009 - Page 2 of 2 - Palladian Career Resources

How Far Back Does My Work Experience Need to Go?

For most job seekers, the work experience section of the resume contains the meat and potatoes of their background. This is usually the biggest section on a resume, containing half to three quarters of the content. It is easy to add content to your work experience until it is too long. It is more difficult deciding what to delete.

Knowing how many years your resume should cover is a big question. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard answer. There are some guidelines you can use. If you have been in the work force for less than ten years, you need to list everything. The last ten years of your work experience is required.

If you have been in the workforce for more ten years, you have some choices. You need to present the last ten years in detail. For many job seekers, presenting the last twenty years is a good idea. Any experience beyond twenty years is much less important.

Your most current experiences are the most significant to a hiring manager. If you haven’t worked in a field or used a skill for more than ten years, it is highly unlikely this background will help you. In my experience, I have found many job seekers don’t like hearing that a job they did very successfully more than ten years ago isn’t going to impress a hiring manager.

An easy way to picture how a hiring manager will look at your experience is to consider how you would assess a surgeon doing a complicated life-saving operation on you. Imagine this situation. You need a bypass operation. One of the doctors you talk to hasn’t performed a surgery in the last 15 years. In fact, he shifted 15 years ago into hospital administration and hasn’t practiced medicine since then. He now wants to get back into operating room and has told you he is confident he will be able to perform the surgery successfully.

The doctor may be capable of doing the surgery. Technology in the field has changed and his skills have gotten rusty, but that doesn’t guarantee he will fail. He might do a great job. Would you hire this doctor to save your life? Probably not. If he was the only doctor available and you would die if you didn’t hire him, I expect he would get the job, but not if there were any alternatives.

Hiring managers look at a job seeker’s background in a similar way. The skills used in the recent past – the last five to ten years – are the most significant. As you write your resume, you need to present this timeframe in detail. Beyond that, you can summarize your experience very briefly and even omit positions in the distant past.

Power Verbs for Your Resume

I’ve been getting a lot of resumes lately with very weak verbs. Many of them avoid using verbs entirely and just use the phrase “responsible for…” with everything on the resume.

I've been getting a lot of resumes lately with very weak verbs. Many of them avoid using verbs entirely and just use the phrase "responsible for…" with everything on the resume.

No one gets hired because they had responsibility for something. They get hired based on the results they delivered. This makes it essential to use verbs that convey success. If you're having trouble coming up with good, strong verbs for your resume, check out this list of power verbs.

Email Isn’t as Easy as it Looks

Email is an essential communication tool and this is especially true in a job search. The first communication between a candidate and company is often by email. Many hiring managers use email to schedule times for calls with candidates to avoid playing phone tag. This makes it essential to have a reliable email service.

John Snyder, Vice President of CareersPro, Inc wrote a good article about the frustrations of recruiters trying to get in touch with candidates. In “Are Spam Filters Keeping Your From Getting a Job,” John talks about the emails that don’t get to candidates due to spam filters.

As annoying as spam is, there is no perfect solution. Either you let a lot of spam in and get all your important messages, or you discard most of your spam but throw out important emails. In a job search, few can afford to throw away an invitation to interview.

One caution… if you have had a spam filter with very restrictive settings and turn it off, you will get lots of emails from people asking if they can give you money if you provide them with all of your financial account information. They usually request a small handling fee. These are scams. You have not won the multi-million dollar “World Lottery” (I can’t count how many times I’ve supposedly won) and no one is going to give you a few million dollars if you help them open a checking account.

Is Online Networking a Waste of Time?

There is a lot written about how networking online can propel your job search. Claims are made that social media can deliver a better job much faster than other job search techniques. Despite this, many job seekers are not using social media and online networking sites.

In a survey of job seekers conducted in Australia, less of than 20% of the job seekers thought social networking sites help a job search. Although this study was conducted in Australia, I expect the results would be very similar around the world.

There are a number of reasons job seekers don’t see value in social networking. The two biggest are related to not understanding how to use this tool. First, even though the growth of social media sites has been tremendous, everyone isn’t on Facebook or Twitter. If you haven’t used a tool, it would be difficult to see the value. Second, many job seekers adopt the wrong approach to social media, leading to poor results.

The solution is simple, give social media a try and adopt a strategy that will work. Ok, that’s easy to say, but how do you do it?

Imagine social media sites as being a huge sidewalk in the business district of your city. There are an overwhelming number of people walking by. Some can help you with your job search, most can’t. There are two approaches people new to social media try. They either hold a sign and hope people will read it, even though there are millions of other people standing there with signs too, or they randomly walk up to people and ask for a job. How effective would your job search be if you went to busy street corner and tried this?

The key to social media is building relationships. The 80% of job seekers who think social media will not help are right if you expect to be able to go to a networking site, ask people you don't know for a job online and get results. Use social media to identify people you know that can help you. Connect with friends, family, former coworkers and others you know online. As you identify opportunities that interest you, ask your network what they know about the company. It is likely someone you know will know someone that works for the company. That individual can give valuable insight into the hiring process and priorities of the company.

Gathering this research is the biggest benefit of social media. You can tailor your approach to the company to their goals and values, and improve your odds of getting hired.

A Resume Longer than War and Peace

When I get an extremely long resume, I check the word count. Up to now, resumes with 2500 to 3000 words have been the longest I have seen. I have received a number of resumes at this length, but nothing over 3,000 words. Today, a job seeker set a new record…

When I get an extremely long resume, I check the word count. After upgrading to Word 2007 last year, it’s easy. The word count is displayed at all times on the bottom left of the window. Up to now, resumes with 2500 to 3000 words have been the longest I have seen. I have received a number of resumes at this length, but nothing over 3,000 words. Today, a job seeker set a new record…

4,480 words

Most people read at 200-250 words per minute – so it would take 20 minutes to read through this resume, and that’s not even reading closely. The resume is from an IT candidate and written with a lot of technical terms and descriptions throughout – not something that is easy to read quickly.

There is so much detail in the resume, it is almost impossible to tell what the strengths of the candidate are. The candidate has a PhD, two masters degrees, a bachelor’s and a two pages of continuing education classes. Despite this, the only IT training was a six month IT program the job seeker did not complete. All of the other education is in other fields.

Every aspect of the resume is extremely long. The objective section is 155 words and lists eighteen separate job titles and thirty different technologies. Most of these are listed with only acronyms.

At least two thirds of the resume is completely unrelated to the IT field. It includes detailed descriptions of finance positions from the early ‘70s, medical positions from the late ‘70s and consulting roles in the ‘80s. This experience only serves to make the resume more confusing. The candidate has been in the IT field for nine years, but this is only a small percentage of the resume.

Recommendations

First, check the word count on your resume. Work to make the content more concise and eliminate extraneous details.

Second, make sure your strengths are clearly displayed. This resume lists so many different technologies, in long paragraphs, that everything runs together. Focusing on a few key strengths will improve the impression the resume makes.

Third, include accomplishments prominently within the resume. The first accomplishment listed on this resume was at the bottom of the fourth page. It is likely most hiring manager will stop reading long before this.

Information on a Military Resume

In our Military Resume Benchmarking Report, we found military personnel frequently omitted key data from their resume. Every resume needs to include a few basic pieces of information. Without the education, job titles, employers, dates of employment and a description of each job, you don’t have a resume. This information is just the starting point. Resumes should include accomplishments, key skills and other a wide range of other details demonstrating the candidate’s capability. For military personnel transitioning a variety of these key details were missing from the resumes.

The most common detail omitted by military personnel was the military rank. Military personnel receive a lot of advice about removing military terms and translating their experience into civilian terms. This is important advice and should be followed. It is possible to go overboard. We found 81% of military resumes did not include the rank of the individual. Many hiring managers have a military background and would find the rank valuable. In addition, listing the rank of the individual throughout their career shows the pattern of promotions – valuable information for anyone reading the resume.

Another key detail often omitted from military resumes was the name of the employer. 30% of the resumes in the study failed to list an employer. For someone transitioning from the military, it may seem obvious they were in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy or Coast Guard. Even if it is obvious to most people where you worked, you should still include your employer. This ensures there is no confusion about your background.

The most surprising finding from the resume study was that one in six military resumes failed to provide job titles for each job. Job titles are an absolute requirement for a resume. It is very difficult to understand the background of an individual without job titles. In the military, the job titles often use specialized terminology. Civilians without a military background may find these terms difficult to understand. This doesn’t mean you should drop your job title. It just makes it important for you to explain the position.

Proofreading Your Contact Information

I received a couple resumes this week with mistakes in the candidate’s contact information. Neither of the errors were caught by spell check. Despite this, they were clear mistakes.

The first resume had an error in the job seeker’s street address. I wanted to check if a job was within commuting distance for the candidate and decided to go to google maps. I copied the address straight off the resume and pasted it into the search bar. The address came up as non-existent. The candidate had misspelled the street name by missing one letter.

The second resume had an error in the email address. The candidate transposed letters in the address. This is an even bigger problem than the street address.

Both mistakes were very minor typos – only one or two letters wrong. Despite this, they could cause a significant problem. A wrong email could prevent a hiring manager from getting in contact with the candidate. The street address could become a problem at the time of an offer. Many companies will overnight a formal offer letter to the candidate. If this goes to the wrong address or is returned, it can delay the entire process.

Mistakes in the contact information are especially tough to identify. You know the information incredibly well and see what it is supposed to be – not what it is. To ensure you don’t have a mistake, read the contact information letter by letter and word by word. Check the contact info periodically. It is easy to make a minor change and add a mistake and never realize it.

Searching for Opportunities

There was a time when advertising jobs was expensive and extremely difficult to do. This led to the rule of thumb that 80% of jobs are unpublished and make up the “hidden job market.” The job market was never hidden. The logistics of advertising jobs was difficult and job seekers did not have a simple way to search efficiently.

Today, all a company needs is a webpage and they can start promoting their jobs around the world. Companies want to hire the best people and actively try to attract these individuals. Few jobs today are kept secret and typically these are only senior level positions. The reason the company doesn’t disclose the search is usually because there is only one person in the position in the company and that person is going to be replaced.

The vast majority of jobs are actively advertised by companies. This doesn’t make it easy to find all the opportunities. There are so many advertised jobs and places to look it can be overwhelming just sorting through the listings.

When companies advertise jobs, they will usually use a number of tools. The company website is the first place jobs appear. After that, the jobs may be posted on community sites, niche job boards and the big job boards. Many of these sites charge significant fees to post jobs, so it is rare for a company to post on all the big job sites. This makes it essential for a job seeker to use a variety of sites to find a position.

Two of the tools to make the process easier for job seekers are Indeed and SimplyHired. Both sites are job aggregators. They search the web for jobs listed on other sites and repost them. The search functions have some limitations because the jobs come from such varied sources, but this is more than made up for by the ease of searching so many sources at once.

Active job seekers should use one of these tools. Both have email alerts and RSS feeds to update the job seeker about new jobs that fit saved searches. This can help ensure the job seeker does not miss a good opportunity.

Using these tools should not replace all other job search tools. As broad as the selection of jobs is, no tool is completely comprehensive. Using a job aggregator along with a variety of job sites that suit the specific goals of the job seeker can provide a comprehensive approach to finding opportunities.

Retiree Returning to the Workforce

Two weeks ago, I talked with an individual who retired several years ago. The job seeker had decided to return to the workforce to offset the impact of the financial markets. This individual had spent the last 25 years of his career with the same company and had not written a resume or gone on a job interview in more than 30 years.

I reviewed the first draft he wrote of his resume and it was terrible. The resume started with an objective statement listing the job seeker’s goals. It said something to the effect that the job seeker need to supplement his retirement income and is looking for a position to do that. This reminded me of the interview from the movie The Wedding Singer. In the scene, Adam Sandler’s character talks about he likes money and is looking for a job where he can get more money. Although his interest is probably the same as many job seekers, talking about how your only goal or concern is to get more money is not a good strategy.

The remainder of the resume wasn’t any better. It contained very little information about the experience of the job seeker. The information he provided was limited to basic responsibilities – the type of tasks anyone that held the job titles would have done. There was nothing to differentiate the job seeker from other candidates.

The bottom third of the resume focused on the hobbies of the job seeker in retirement.I understand why he did this. The hobbies show his current active lifestyle and are the most recent elements of his background. Unfortunately, they do little to show the candidate’s qualifications for the job he is pursuing.

Mistakes like this are extremely common. There are very few people who can sit down and write a great resume if they haven’t written a resume in more than 20 years. Even job seekers with more recent job search experience struggle. It is very difficult become really good at resume writing when it is a skills only used every few years.

The solution very few job seekers adopt is hiring a professional resume writer. The retiree asked me to rewrite his resume for him.It only took a few days and we developed an impressive presentation of his experience and accomplishments. The job seeker also asked for some one-on-one coaching to teach him how to search for jobs on the internet, how to apply and how to write an impressive cover letter.

I completed the resume and the coaching two weeks ago.Earlier this week, the candidate let me know he landed a job that was almost an ideal match to his goals and wrote “There is no question I could not have gotten a job so quickly without your help, thanks.”

It is very rare that a job seeker can land a job this quickly. Few companies have a hiring process this rapid and the economic situation has made it more difficult.The candidate had a couple advantages – he is in a part of the country that is holding up better than most and he was seeking a job a level or two below the last position he held. With these advantages, an impressive resume and a good job search plan, the candidate was able to capitalize on this opportunity immediately.

Whether you are returning to the workforce after years off, or are actively employed and looking for a change – get help with your search.

Eliminate “Responsible for” From Your Resume

Job seekers overuse the phrase “Responsible for” on their resumes. It is an easy phrase to use. Just put “responsible for” at the start of a bullet and describe some aspect of the job.

Writing a resume like this will not make a good impression. A resume I read today illustrates this very well. The resume is from an insurance agent, but it makes it hard to determine whether the agent was successful. The resume and cover letter contained details that fail to create a clear picture of the job seeker’s performance.

A resume should provide a clear statement of the success of the job seeker. Instead, it lists a number of responsibilities and sales goals. The resume never comes right out and says whether the job seeker achieved the goals. Below are the bullets under the most recent job listed:

Responsible for sales, management, marketing and service of commercial, life, group, LTC, and voluntary benefit insurance products, as well as pension plans
Directly responsible for increasing the territory book of commercial business from $#.# million to $#.# million over a # year period.
Responsible for increasing group life customer base from 0 to ## current groups.
Responsible for increasing LTC book from $0 to $###,000.
Responsible for increasing territory pension assets from $#.# million to over $#.# million in just over # years.
Directly responsible for increasing current commercial client base from ## accounts to ## accounts.
Responsible for increasing life insurance book from $##,000 to $###,000 over # years.

There are two ways to read this. You can assume the statements are a list of sales goals the agent was responsible for hitting, or you can assume the statements detail the specific results the agent achieved. If they are goals, there is nothing to indicate the agent was successful in achieving them. When a hiring manager is screening hundreds of resumes, and only spends a very short time skimming each, you can count on the hiring manager to be very skeptical. Most will assume the job seeker was unsuccessful if the job seeker does not specifically detail the successes.

Further hurting the presentation, the job seeker uses two different phrases, “responsible for” and “directly responsible for” in the bullets. There’s a chance the job seeker is just trying to vary the structure and reduce the repetitiveness of the resume. It is also possible the job seeker is showing the difference between individual and group goals or accomplishments.

Recommendations

The changes to correct this are easy to implement. If the bullets detail specific accomplishments and not sales goals, each bullet (except the first) should be changed to eliminate the “responsible for.” Below are the revised bullets:

Responsible for sales, management, marketing and service of commercial, life, group, LTC, and voluntary benefit insurance products, as well as pension plans
Increased the territory book of commercial business from $#.# million to $#.# million over a # year period.
Developed the group life customer base from 0 to ## current groups.
Developed the LTC book from $0 to $###,000.
Increased the territory pension assets from $#.# million to over $#.# million in just over # years.
Grew the current commercial client base from ## accounts to ## accounts.
Increased the life insurance book from $##,000 to $###,000 over # years.

This reads much better and provides a stronger impact. The contributions of the job seeker are clear after these minor changes.

If the job seeker did not achieve these goals, rewriting the bullets will take a little more work. The job seeker will need to identify their specific accomplishments and write about these. The numbers may not be as impressive, but they will be genuine and honest. This will help the impression the resume makes.