gcapone, Author at Palladian Career Resources

Resume of a Fired CEO

Rick Wagoner resigned on Monday after being asked by the President Obama to step down as CEO of GM. Wagoner joins millions of unemployed that lost their jobs. One trend I see with people that have been fired is they do a poor job of presenting their strengths and accomplishments. They allow the reason they were fired to define them. How Wagoner might present his resume demonstrates how to approach you resume if you were fired.

It's easy to demonize the CEO of a company on the verge of bankruptcy. It is much more difficult to fix problems that have been building for fifty years at a company as large and complex as GM. Is Rick Wagoner a good CEO? Did he do a good job or a bad one? I don't have these answers. What I do know is Wagoner has excellent experience and numerous accomplishments in his career.

The accomplishments should be the focus of the resume. They demonstrate the value that Wagoner has achieved in his career and show the potential value he would provide an employer. With a little research, I uncovered enough information to get his resume started and to give an idea of how to market someone being fired in a very public way.

Professional Summary

Senior executive with 32 years of progressively increasing responsibilities, leading to Chairman and CEO of the fourth largest company in the United States. Extensive international experience, including leadership roles in Brazil, Canada and Europe.

Successfully led union contract changes that shifted $50 billion of health care costs from GM to the UAW.

Shut down the Oldsmobile division, resulting in substantial cost savings.

Purchased Daewoo, gaining substantial inroads into compact and sub-compact car markets.

Turned around GM's North American Operations. Losses in the three years prior to becoming President of NAO totaled $11 billion. Each of the four years managing NAO were profitable with total profits of $6.6 billion.

Work Experience

General Motors 1977 to 2009

Chairman and CEO, GM 2003-2009

President and CEO, GM 2000-2003

President and COO, GM 1998-2000

President NAO, GM 1994-1998

Executive VP and CFO, GM 1992-1994

President, GM Brazil 1991-1992

VP of Finance, GM Europe 1989-1990

Various Positions in GM Brazil and GM Canada, 1981-1989

Analyst, Treasury Department, GM 1977-1981

Education

Master's degree in Business Administration, Harvard University

Bachelor's degree in Economics, Duke University

This is just an outline of what a resume of Rich Wagoner might look like. At every step in his career, he has had significant accomplishments. The changes he made at GM are substantial. Shutting down Oldsmobile and shifting health care costs of retirees to the UAW are major improvements. Reducing labor and retiree costs are key priorities for turning around GM. Wagoner has shown an ability to work with the union and achieve substantial modifications to the contract structure. All of this points to a track record of success.

The problem with Wagoner's situation is the successes haven't added up to deliver overall corporate success. Does he just need more time? Did he start making these changes too late to save the company? Is there more he could have done? I can't answer these questions. I do know that the track record of Wagoner indicates he could add significant value to other companies. His very public profile poses a marketing challenge. Without this, he could be a very marketable candidate despite being fired. Being fired did not change the experience, knowledge, skills and potential of Wagoner.

If you were fired, your potential remains, also. Do not focus on the reasons you were fired. You can't ignore them, but you shouldn't let them define you.

In your job search, you need to present the value you delivered. This requires listing accomplishments. In my resume for Wagoner, I led off with a professional summary section and four accomplishments. They could be a lot stronger (I had to piece together the info from news articles), but they show significant contributions. The accomplishments also focus on the key challenges that GM faces: labor costs, unprofitable businesses, expanding into more fuel efficient vehicles and turning around divisions losing money. If no one knew Rick Wagoner, his resume would be a very close match to the ideal candidate for the GM CEO job.

If you lost your job, either through a layoff or being fired, don't discount the value you have provided. It is very easy to dwell on the negatives. Instead, focus on the positives – the accomplishments, successes and contributions in your career.

Know the Pace of the Hiring Process

One of the biggest mistakes I see job seekers make is pushing the hiring process faster than the company wants. Most hiring managers and companies have a process they follow. The process is designed to meet their needs, not the job seeker’s.

For a company, the hiring process is have four primary steps. The process starts with identifying qualified candidates and selecting the best to interview. In the second step, the company assesses the job seekers in a series of interviews. In the third step, the company makes an offer to a candidate and tries to reach an agreement to hire. Finally, the process concludes with on-boarding, where the candidate completes their relocation, orientation and initial training.

From the candidate’s perspective, there are a few key questions that need to be answered. Candidate’s want details of the position and want to meet the people they will work with. They also have questions about the compensation package, relocation and the on-boarding process. These are all important questions to ask in the hiring process. The key is knowing when to ask them.

Step 1: Candidate Identification

In this step, the company assesses resumes. Candidate’s have little opportunity to ask questions. The step may include a phone screen, but this is typically a short fact-finding call. Few candidates expect to learn a lot in this call.

Step 2: Assessment

Once the interviews start, candidates often interpret the actions of hiring managers incorrectly. Hiring managers will not make a hiring decision until they have thoroughly assessed a number of candidates. Despite this, many candidates interpret the actions and statements of interviewers to indicate the company is completely sold and ready to make an offer. In reality, the interviewers are usually just being polite and complimentary. It is this misunderstanding that causes candidates to jump to the next step before the company has completed its assessment.

Step 3: The Offer

In the third step, the company will begin serious discussions about pay, benefits, relocation benefits, and other details of the offer. Prior to this, most hiring managers will avoid anything other than a brief overview of these details. Companies do not want start working on an offer package until they know which candidate they want to hire.

Step 4: On-Boarding

The on-boarding process varies greatly from company to company. Some companies have very lengthy training programs, in rare cases, in excess of a year. Others provide a brief orientation and expect the new hire to start working almost immediately.

As a candidate, you need to understand that specifics of the offer should not be discussed until the company is ready to make an offer. Stay away from asking very detailed questions about benefits early in the interview process. I have known candidates to ask about specific deductibles and coverage of health benefits in a first interview. This makes a terrible impression. It clearly shows the candidate is focus on what’s in it for them. Another problem with this is the interviewer probably doesn’t have all the answers. Few interviewers are experts on the company’s benefit plan. They know the benefits they have, but may not know the details of each health coverage variation.

Another topic to avoid is relocation. If you are not a local candidate, it is understood that you will need to relocate. You can ask if they offer paid relocation and may even ask a broad question like, “What does the relo policy cover?” The likely answer will be something like this, “We have a relocation program and will cover some of the costs of your move.” This answer is vague but is probably the best you can expect early in the process. What you should avoid is asking about specifics, for example, “I have pool table, does your relo policy cover moving it?” This may be important to you, but should wait until you are approaching an offer.

Once you reach the offer stage and the company indicates they want to hire you, you can start negotiating your package. Most companies will thoroughly review the benefits and other details with you at this point. Often a benefits expert in HR will conduct this review. This is where you can ask as many detailed questions as you want.

As long as the company is still conducting interviews, stay focused on selling your background, experience and potential. Focus on the elements the company wants – not what you are looking for, and you will make a better impression.

Interview Tip #9

Interview Tip: Don’t try to be someone you aren’t in an interview.

Interview Tip: Don’t try to be someone you aren’t in an interview.

Some job seekers try to exaggerate their background to appear vastly different from reality. This is a mistake. Being genuine and honest is always the best course. First, exaggerating your background may cause a hiring manager to question your claims – there are stories that job seekers tell that just seem too good to be true. Second, if you make yourself out to be something you aren’t, there is a good chance you won’t be happy in the job if you get it. Even worse, your claims may cause you to be rejected for a position that is a good fit.

Resume Tip #9

Resume Tip: Provide specific results and contributions you delivered.

Resume Tip: Provide specific results and contributions you delivered.

Many job seekers list the goals of the projects they have worked on. Goals are good, but actual results delivered are more important. Review your resume and assess each accomplishment to ensure it shows clearly what you did and what the outcome was.

One challenge a lot of job seekers encounter is identifying significant accomplishments from their background. Our book, Resume Writing for Manufacturing Careers includes a detailed section on accomplishments. It shows how to identify and write about your accomplishments so they make a great impression. Although all the examples are tailored to Manufacturing Careers, the ideas and techniques in the book are applicable to almost any situation.

Functional Resume Example

I read a functional resume today that illustrated clearly why most people should avoid this resume structure. Functional resumes organize information according to the skills or experiences of the job seeker, not the individual jobs. This resume type can be effective for some individuals, but most people are better served by a chronological resume.

The resume was organized with the following sections:

Experience
Accomplishments
Education
Special Training
Technical Skills
Affiliations
Awards & Honors
Professional Work Experience

The resume had a number of problems. By far the biggest was the disconnect between the Experience and Accomplishment sections and the Professional Work Experience section. The Experience section described the candidate’s background in a single paragraph. The Accomplishments section contained a series of paragraphs, each describing a skill.

Both the Experience and Accomplishments sections described a senior executive with advertising and sales experience. The Professional Work Experience section showed a series of jobs, listing the title, company and dates only. The job titles listed in this section were for retail store manager positions. None of the jobs mentioned a VP role in any field, and did not show any advertising or business development roles.

Further clouding the picture was the Education section. The job seeker had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science. None of the jobs, skills, accomplishments or experiences had anything to do with the IT field. I can understand a person getting a bachelor’s degree in one field and then working in another field. I have trouble understanding what would cause a person to get a master’s in a field but never work in a job remotely close to that field.

If you choose a functional structure for your resume, you need to create a clear picture of your career. Chronological resumes are much easier to write. The sequence of jobs and time in each position helps show the capabilities of the job seeker. In a functional resume, experiences and accomplishments are not tied to a specific position. This can cause confusion.

Recruiter Assessment

As a recruiter, I can’t see a situation when I would want to interview this candidate as long as they have this resume. The resume presents three primary areas of expertise: senior management of advertising and business development, retail store management and IT.

The job seeker did not list any positions where he held a senior management role and no positions in advertising or business development. If I had a VP position, I would find someone with experience in the field long before considering this candidate.

If I was filling a retail store manager position, the candidate would get a solid look, but still not fair well. None of the accomplishments on the resume have anything to do with retail. I would question why a good store manager has to list accomplishments from other fields and can’t include one from retail. There are a lot of good retail managers that can show clearly their performance and accomplishments. They will have a big edge over this candidate.

IT jobs are an even a bigger stretch. The field changes quickly and a few years out of the industry can put someone technically behind. With only a couple degrees and no work experience, the person would only be qualified for an entry level role. In those roles, more recent graduates would have an edge.

You may be wondering if this job seeker has a chance to get hired. With this resume, it’s very unlikely. With a targeted resume focused on one field and a better presentation of the job seeker’s skills, experience and accomplishments in that field, he would greatly improve his chances. The key is to create a solid sales pitch for the desired role.

Choosing a Font for Your Resume

Everyone wants their resume to look good. The font your choose can have a big affect on the presentation of your resume. Some fonts look great on a computer screen. Others look better in print. There are also fonts that look unprofessional no matter how they are viewed.

Everyone wants their resume to look good. The font you choose can have a big effect on the presentation of your resume. Some fonts look great on a computer screen. Others look better in print. There are also fonts that look unprofessional no matter how they are viewed.

There are two types of fonts – Serif and Sans Serif. Serif fonts have details at the end of the lines that make up letters. Sans Serif fonts do not have these details. Below are two of the most common fonts:

Serif Sans Serif

The font on the left is Times New Roman and the font on the right is Arial. Serif fonts are common in print and read very well in this format. They are more difficult to read on a computer screen. Sans Serif fonts are much easier to read on a computer screen. When choosing a font, you will need to decide if you want your resume looking best on screen or in print. For most job seekers, a sans serif font will be the best choice since their resume will be looked at much more on screen.

Selecting the type of font is just the starting point. You then need to choose the specific font. There are two primary factors you should consider. First, you want a font that looks good. Second, you want a font that is widely available. There are fonts that are rare and only show up in a few programs. If the reader of your resume does not have the font you choose, the program will try to find a close match. Unfortunately, the close match might not be that close.

One of the fonts that is being used more frequently that is not yet widely available is Calibri. This is the default font in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a really good looking font. The problem is that older systems don’t have it. I was working on a computer that didn’t have Word 2007 today and opened a file that had been created in it. The system chose a font that looked like a cartoon font (I would show you what it looks like, but it isn’t a common font and you might not have it). The resume looked terrible.

Common Fonts

Sticking with one of these fonts will not guarantee that every reader of your resume will see it exactly the way you want, but it will improve the odds. These fonts are available on more than 90% of the computers on the internet. By contrast, Calibri is on less than half the computers (code style provides statistics on the availability of fonts).

If you absolutely have to use a font that no one else on the planet has, there are options. You can embed the font in the file. Word allows you to do this in the Tools menu under options. Embedding the font will allow a reader of your document to install the font on your system. Not all fonts can be embedded though. Some have licensing limitations that prevent this.

You may be bored with Arial or Verdana, but they look reasonably good. Another font may look better, but may also get replaced with something much worse.

KPI’s and Your Resume

KPI’s are Key Performance Indicators. They are the metrics that drive the overall performance of an organization. KPI’s are critical to a company’s success and are an important element in your resume. If you don’t discuss KPI’s on your resume, you should.

A KPI is a measure of an activity that provides an indication of success or failure. Every industry has different metrics that drive performance. You should know the KPI’s that are important in your organization, and how you affect these KPI’s. If you don’t know your KPI’s, you’re going to have a tougher time in your search.

The reason KPI’s are so important is two-fold. First, many hiring managers want to know that a candidate is concerned about how their performance drives the overall success of a company. Discussing your KPI’s can help show that you understand what you need to do to succeed. Second, hiring managers like to see candidates that take responsibility for their performance and are committed to meeting expectations. To meet expectations, you need to know what they are and your performance relative to those expectations. Knowing our KPI’s is a good way to show this to a hiring manager.

KPI’s also help you show how you will drive performance of a team you manage. It is very difficult to drive performance without setting clear expectations and measuring the results. KPI’s are an important element of this.

Examples of KPI’s

Each industry has different challenges and different KPI’s. Below are examples from a manufacturing.

Scrap dollars per labor hour
Parts produced per labor hour
Rework hours per labor hour
Production hours to setup hours
Maintenance hours per shift
Equipment downtime
Order backlog
Percentage of orders shipped on-time
Line fill of orders shipped

This is just a sampling of a few KPI’s. A company may have dozens of metrics that are significant.

Writing About KPI’s

On your resume, you should write about specific KPI’s that are significant to the business. Start by discussing your actions and then provide the change in the KPI. For example, a production manager may have reduced setup times by standardizing tooling:

Reduced Setup Times: Standardized tooling in punch presses by utilizing a consistent mounting configuration. This change reduced setup times from an average to two hours to under 30 minutes. Setup hours per labor hour were reduced by 60% in the punch press workcenter.

This bullet provides a clear action completed by the job seeker. The results of the action are also clear. The job seeker reinforces the results by showing the effect on a KPI. This example provides one additional element that benefits the presentation. It is written with the title “Reduced Setup Times.” This title makes it very easy to scan the resume and see what is important, while reinforcing the results achieved by the job seeker.

If your resume does not detail any KPI’s, review your performance, identify the KPI’s that are important and show how you affected those KPI’s.

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Resume Writing for Manufacturing Careers - Front Cover

Interview Answers: Why Shouldn’t I Hire You

Each interviewer will have different criteria and methods they feel will best assess a candidate. One style is to confront a candidate very aggressively to see how they candidate will respond. Often, the questions will focus on failures. One of the most difficult to answer is “Why Shouldn’t I Hire You?”

This question will stop a lot of job seekers in their tracks. Most people won't expect it. It is a rare question, but does get asked from time to time. It also requires giving a reason why you should be rejected. This is not a topic many people want to cover in an interview. Hiring managers ask this question for three reasons. First, they may want to make the job seeker uncomfortable to see how they react. Second, they may be assessing the candidate's ability to self assess and admit limitations. Third, they may be fishing for a weakness that they haven't spotted.

If you are asked this question, you need to give a good answer. You can't deflect the answer with something like, “You shouldn't hire me if you don't think I'm the best for the job.” An answer like this will not impress a hiring manager. It does avoid discussing your weaknesses, but it is a very weak answer.

A much better approach is to outline your strengths and weaknesses, and relate these to the job. Show why you are a good choice, and provide aspects of the job that are potential weaknesses for you. If the job is a good fit for your background, your strengths will related to the key priorities of the job and your weaknesses will related to minor responsibilities. If done right, outlining your strengths and weaknesses can help sell you to the hiring manager.

Example

Consider an experienced plant manager interviewing for a plant manager position:

“My background is in leading and managing production teams. I started out as a supervisor and worked my way up. Throughout my career, I have done an excellent job of motivating teams, holding employees accountable for their performance and controlling costs. I've picked up a lot of technical knowledge along the way, but I am not expert on the equipment. I have succeeded by using the technical expertise within my team. If your organization needs a hands on plant manager that can troubleshoot processes, I'm probably not the best candidate for the job. I will perform much better in a role where technical expertise exists in the organization and needs skilled leadership to maximize its effectiveness.”

This answer focuses on the candidate's strengths and gives a reason why the candidate should be hired. It also provides a reason not to hire the candidate. Most plant management jobs will seek a strong leader and not a pure technical expert. This makes the answer safe in most situations. There are exceptions. Some plants are technically very weak. They need a top leader that can provide engineering, process and equipment expertise. If this is the case, the answer will hurt the candidate's chances. This may not be a bad thing, though. If the candidate really isn't a technical expert, a role requiring this background will not be a fit.

Preparing an Answer

Should you prepared an answer for this question? The question is rare, and may not come up in any of your interviews. Despite this, I recommend preparing an answer. The reason is simple. If you can articulate very clearly why you are both a strong and weak fit for a position, you can sell your potential in almost any interview answer.

Spelling Errors on a Resume

Writing an effective resume requires a greater attention to detail than almost any other writing you will do. Most hiring managers assume the resume you submit is an example of the highest quality work you can produce. A mistake that would be overlooked in a typical daily email becomes a major detractor on your resume. This makes proofreading your resume a critical step.

Eliminating spelling and grammar mistakes sounds easy, but can be very difficult. Most people find proofreading their own work extremely challenging. They know what they meant to write. A missing word, use of the wrong word or a misspelling can be overlooked with even repeated proofreads.

Spell Check

There are steps you can take to avoid making mistakes. The first is using spell check. When I get a resume and open it in Word, any misspelled word is underlined in red. The mistakes are essentially highlighted and jump off the screen. Errors like this will make the worst impression. It is so easy to identify and fix an error that is underlined in red on your screen that few hiring managers will be forgiving.

You may not have Microsoft Word. If you don’t, other word processors have spell check. OpenOffice is a free office suite anyone can download. It is very similar to Microsoft Office and can save files in a Word format. If you don’t have a good work processor get OpenOffice or Microsoft Word.

If you are submitting your resume online, you may have to copy it into a form. Few forms come with spell check. There is a solution. Install the google toolbar and add the spell check button. This will spell check any form fields in your browser.

Limitations of Spell Check

Even if you use spell check, it is still easy to make a mistake. There are four common mistakes:

Typos Resulting in the Wrong Word: If you type the wrong key and spell a different word correctly, spell check will not catch the mistake. For example, typing “k” instead of “d” in “word” will result in “work.”
All Caps: Some programs do not spell check words in all caps, since a word in all caps is often an acronym. On a resume, many job seekers use all caps to emphasize important elements.
Common Mistakes: There are some words that are commonly misused. For example, “affect” and “effect” are very similar, but have different usage.
Omitted Words: When typing quickly, you may skip a word. For example, pronouns, articles and prepositions are short and can be missed when editing a sentence. When proofreading, it is easy to not look at these words and assume they are there. For a reader unfamiliar with the text, omitting one of these words is a mistake that is easy to see.

Solutions

Read Out Loud: A good way to proofread your resume is to print it and read it out load. Go slow and read each word individually. This is tough. You have to concentrate on each word.
Read Backwards: To make it easier to concentrate on each word, read your resume from the bottom up. Read the last sent first. Then move up to the second to last sentence. Keep reading each sentence individually, from the end to the beginning. Reading each sentence by itself, you are more likely to concentrate on each word and not get into a flow that will cause you to overlook mistakes.
Change Your Surroundings: If you always work on your resume in one location, go somewhere else to proofread. The change of scenery can make it easier to focus on text as it is written on the page.
Get a Proofreader: Get someone to proofread your resume. Ideally, you will know a good writer that is an expert with resumes review your resume. If you don’t know some like this, you can hire someone to do a resume review.

To ensure your resume is error free takes work and multiple reviews. Some job seekers don’t have the patience for this or don’t realize the importance.

Interview Tip #8

Interview Tip: Schedule a mock interview to learn how interviewers assess your performance.

Interview Tip: Schedule a mock interview to learn how interviewers assess your performance.

Few job seekers can accurately assess their own interview performance. In an interview, it doesn’t matter what you find impressive or persuasive. The hiring manager’s opinion is the one that counts. Every serious job seeker should complete mock interviews. Many job seekers make the same mistakes in every interview and never improve.