Author: gcapone

Where Are The Jobs

The national unemployment rate has been climbing.  Despite this, some parts of the country have very low unemployment.

In April 2008, there were 16 states with unemployment under 4%:

State

Unemployment Rate

South Dakota

2.6

Wyoming

2.6

Idaho

3.1

Nebraska

3.1

North Dakota

3.1

Utah

3.1

Oklahoma

3.2

Hawaii

3.3

Iowa

3.5

New Mexico

3.5

Virginia

3.5

Delaware

3.7

Maryland

3.7

Montana

3.8

New Hampshire

3.8

Arizona

3.9

U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics

Accomplishment Examples

I pulled four accomplishments from resumes I’ve received recently.

Example 1:  Director of Real Estate Acquisitions

Research and negotiate real estate acquisitions totaling approximately $#M per year.

This accomplishment clear, concise and specific. The role of the job seeker is also clear. What’s missing is something that quantifies whether this is figure is good. Did the job seeker meet expectations? Including the number of deals completed would help. It would also be good

Example 2:  Facilities/Engineering Manager

Champion use of Six Sigma/Lean tools to develop and implement strategic initiatives relative to managing facility construction and maintenance, capacity utilization.

Six Sigma and Lean are two skills that receive a lot of attention and are in demand. Implemented properly, they can have a huge impact on a company. A lot of job seekers try to work them into their resume, whether they are skilled are not.

In this accomplishment, the job seeker is saying they are a champion for using six sigma and lean tools. They do not say anything about whether they were successful in driving change or if the results of the change were significant.

Remember that many hiring mangers are going to be skeptical of anything you claim. Is this job seeker a six sigma expert? The education section of the resume lists training in six sigma, but no details of what the training was, and no listing of certifications. Did the job seeker sit through a 60 minute class on the basics of six sigma or spend weeks in classes? There were no specific projects listed that were completed, so the a hiring manager will probably assume the job seeker does not have much skill is this area.

Example 3:  Director Supply Chain

Exceeded all objectives for the fiscal year, including average AP days and freight as a percent of sales.

This accomplishment is clear and concise. The role is assumed from the title and the benefit to the company is also assumed. It isn’t very specific and it doesn’t say anything about how the job seeker achieved these results. Despite this, it actually a pretty good accomplishment. It shows the job seeker was successful in each area they were accountable for. A little more detail would improve it. The main thing this accomplishment will do is to prompt questions in an interview. In particular, what were the objectives and metrics that the job seeker was measured on and how did they achieve the results.

Example 4:  Division President

Increased company revenues from $#.# million in 200# to $##.# million in 200# by opening new locations, rebuilding sales teams, and improving operations; grew from ## locations to ## locations.

This is a good example of an accomplishment. The accomplishment is clear and concise. The result is specific, along with the time frame to achieve it. The method to achieve the result is also clear. As an added clarification, the job seeker included the number of locations at the start and end. Although I left out the figures, they clearly showed a significant increase in the number of locations and a growth in revenues per location (locations doubled and revenues quadrupled). This is the type of accomplishment that make me want to learn more about how this individual accomplished this.

 

Six Elements of a Strong Accomplishment

On Monday, I said that an accomplishment is an activity that demonstrates your skill, performance, aptitude or potential. The key is showing a hiring manager what you can accomplish for them.

A strong accomplishment has six elements that need to be present:

  • Clear – The reader needs to be able to understand what the accomplishment is

  • Concise – As we everything else in a resume, don’t expect the reader to read lengthy text

  • Specific – The more specific the accomplishment, the better

  • Your Role – What responsibility and authority did you have

  • How – What were the activities you did

  • Benefit – What was the benefit to your employer

The key to presenting an impressive accomplishment is meeting all six of these requirements. To do this, you need to include a little more information than is usually provided.

Most people provide accomplishments that are clear and concise. Although still common, being specific is an area of opportunity for some. Listing what the role of the person and the activities that they performed is usually missing. Finally, the benefit to the employer is often left since it is assumed to be clear. For some accomplishments, this is easy to see – saving a lot of money through process re-engineering implies you could save a lot of money for the company you are applying to. Other accomplishments may be less obvious and need more of an explanation.

Your Role and Activities

I see resumes all the time that make the mistake of not providing enough information with the accomplished. Delivering a dollar amount of cost savings, even if the amount is very large, doesn’t mean much in isolation. What did you do to achieve the results? Did commodity prices drop due to nothing you did and you’re taking credit? Expect the reader of your resume to be a little skeptical of any claims you make. Give enough detail that they want to learn the specifics.

Check back Friday for real examples of accomplishments with an assessment of each.

How to Recognize Accomplishment

The first step in recognizing your accomplishments. To do this, you need to know the expectations of your position. Meeting or Exceeding an expectation is an accomplishment, as is providing a contribution outside your area of responsibility.

Meeting Expectations

The first step in remembering your accomplishments is reviewing the expectations of your job. What were you expected to do on a daily basis? Did you meet these expectations on a consistent basis? Consistency is an accomplishment often overlooked. In sports, we see a lot of accomplishments that receive incredible respect that illustrate consistent performance, even if the performance in isolation isn’t impressive. For example, consecutive games started is a stat that is often highlighted. Starting a game isn’t unusual and only becomes impressive when it is done over time on a consistent basis. Have you met an expectation consistently over time?

Exceeding Expectations

Have you exceeded expectations? Review the times when you beat your goals. These could be budget goals, time to completion for projects or simply performing better than you peers on a metric. This is easier in organizations that track metrics closely.

Unusual Responsibilities

What have you done outside your normal responsibilities? It common for companies to develop special committees or project teams to address issues. Any results that come from your activities outside your normal responsibilities should be reviewed.

Check back tomorrow for the Six Elements of a Strong Accomplishment

Your Accomplishments

Have you ever struggled to think of accomplishments to put on a resume or on your annual self-review? It’s a terrible feeling not be able to recall anything that shows you were successful. Most, if not all of us, have run into this.

In our 2008 Resume Benchmarking Survey, we found that a quarter of job seekers do not list any accomplishments on their resume, and only 40% listed three or more accomplishments for each position they held. Of the resumes that have accomplishments, many were poorly written or incomplete. This offers you an opportunity to stand out from your competition by having strong, well written accomplishments on your resume.

The problem isn’t that there are tons of people that have never accomplished anything. It’s that they don’t track their accomplishments, they can’t remember them later and they don’t recognize accomplishments at the time they have them.

What is an Accomplishment

Accomplishments are activities that demonstrate your skill, performance, aptitude or potential. They can be isolated events or a pattern of activity over time. What they don’t need to be is something that is earth shattering.

Check back tomorrow for a look at how to Recognize Your Accomplishments.

A Resume Without Substance

I recently assessed a job seeker that had provided a resume that told very little. Fortunately, we had been referred to this individual and knew they were talented. Otherwise, their resume would probably have been discarded. The reason: there’s nothing in the resume that sells the job seekers.

Here’s the background of the candidate: 10 years experience in a field with very good job stability and a good progression of promotions. Bachelor’s degree and MBA. The candidate is in a competitive field and has a great track record of success.

That’s what we know from the interview and references we did. The resume tells a different story – or rather, it doesn’t tell the story at all.

The resume is one page. The top quarter of the page has the job seekers name, contact information and the objective statement. The objective statement doesn’t give an objective. Here’s how it reads:

Objective: A position that will utilize the accumulated skills and business expertise that has been gained from my experience as a <job title>.

Now, I have to assume the candidate would be interested in the same job they have been doing, at a similar company, in a similar industry. If they want anything different from what they are doing know, there’s nothing to tell me this.

Next is the Work Experience section. The job seeker has less than 10 bullets covering all the jobs they have held. Of these, all but the last is a basic responsibility. In fact, the first bullet under their current job says essentially:

Responsible for day-to-day operations of my department.

Now the actual bullet is more detailed regarding the actual responsibilities, but this is an accurate rewording of the meaning.

Now, how excited would you be to hire someone that describe their work history as “I was responsible for doing my job?” Although including responsibilities is important, there has to be more in a resume.

The job seeker had their only accomplishment as the last bullet of the work experience section, and this bullet was very weak, saying only that they have met their goals in one position. The natural question a hiring manager would ask is:

Have you done anything successfully in the last 10 years.

If you knew the candidate, you would answer with a resounding yes. If you only saw the resume, you would answer absolutely not.

Bottom Line: This job seeker failed to present their pattern of success or their potential for growth. Their resume will slow or stop their job search before they get an chance to interview. The first steps to fixing this are to add specific accomplishments and improve their objective statement (or remove it).

What to Take to An Interview

When you go for an interview, there are a few things you need to take, and a few others you should.

The Must Haves:

  • Directions to the location – Print out directions the night before an interview and make sure you take them. There’s nothing worse than realizing that you’re running late and your printer just ran out of ink.
  • Copies of your resume – Most of the interviewers you meet with will already have a copy of your resume. On the slight possibility that an interviewer does not have your resume on hand, you will appear very prepared by having one to provide. A more likely situation is when the interviewer has a copy but it is a low quality copy of the original. It’s common for resumes to get copied and recopied each time it’s passed on to another manager to review. If you see the copy of your resume is poor quality at the start of an interview, you may want to provide a clean copy.
  • A list of references – At some point in the hiring process, you will need to provide references. You should prepare this list at the start of your search and have it available. Usually, you will not be asked for references during an interview, but it can make a positive impression if you are prepared should the question come up.
  • A notepad – You will want to write down the name and title of everyone you meet with. Getting a business card is a good idea, since it will have the correct spelling and full contact information. If you can’t the notepad will be invaluable. There may also be details about the opportunity that you want to write down.
  • A pen – A notepad without a pen isn’t very useful.
  • A portfolio – A folder or portfolio is good to have in order to carry the copies of your resume, your references, the notepad and your pen. You can get a portfolio inexpensively at an office supply store, but may want to spend a little more on a high quality leather portfolio.
  • Your notes – It’s a good idea to review your interview prep notes, your resume and information you have gathered on the company just before you go in for the interview.
  • Documents the company requested – Some companies will ask you to bring a completed employment application or other documents.  If they ask for it, they’re going to expect you to have it.

The Should Haves:

  • A watch – You don’t want to run late. Try to be early. Make sure you know you are on time.
  • Your cell phone – If you get lost or end up running late, you will want to be able to contact the hiring manager.
  • Breath mints, a handkerchief and a comb – You don’t want your appearance to throw off your game. Having your hair a little messed up may not hurt the impression you make, but if it throws off your confidence, you’re toast.

Resume Content – What is Required

Although formatting is important, a resume’s content is critical. There is a number of key pieces of information every resume needs to contain. No matter how pretty, without these, a resume isn’t complete.

Contact Information: Your resume needs to make it easy to find you. It should have your name, address and phone number, at an absolute minimum. I would also strongly suggest you have an email address. Finally, providing multiple phone numbers, home, work and cell, is usually preferred.

Education: Any degrees you hold should be listed, with the degree, major, school, city and state. If you do not have a bachelor’s degree, listing your high school graduation/GED is a good idea.

Work Experience: You need to provide all of your current positions. How far back you go isn’t always clear cut. New college grads should list all their job since they have little employment history. Experienced professionals should list all the jobs from college on, although positions held more than 20 years ago can be omitted.

For the positions listed, you need to provide your employer, job title, location, starting date, ending date, key responsibilities and your accomplishments. Hiring managers want to see both months and years for the dates. Many people with gaps in their employment only list the years for each position. I do not recommend this. Most hiring managers will assume the worst if you don’t provide the detail. If you do have a gap that you are worried about, the are ways to explain this in either your cover letter or resume.

If you provide the information listed above, your resume will cover the basics. There is a lot of additional information you may consider. Look at the job description you are pursuing. The requirements for the position will tell you what information the hiring manager will want to see. If there is a requirement not covered above, such as a technical skill or foreign language, add a section to resume to provide this information.

Mangled Resumes

Many of the resumes I receive on a daily basis are a disaster – so bad that they are painful to read. Unfortunately, many come from job seekers that put a lot of work into making their resume look good.

How can this be? Simple, they format the resume in word processing program with advanced formatting features and upload it into a text editor. The text editor replaces all of the formatting.

Here’s an actual example (with dates, names, locations, titles and other identifying information changed):

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Mo. Year-Present: Company1 Inc, City, ST Job Title
� Co-Owner in local retail establishment
� Coordinated financial details with building manager for the
location.
� Ordered and purchased supplies for startup and continuation of
business.
� Hired and supervised crew of 4 employees.
� Reconcile bank statements and make decisions on future purchases of
inventory.
Mo. Year � Mo. Year: Company2 Inc, City, ST Job Title
� Played an integral role in the 100% inventory of over $## mil of
property at Company Name.
� Maintained automated and manual accounting records on over $## mil
of property.
� Assisted in the transfer of original inventory from the original
record keeping system to the new record keeping system.
� Processed requests, documents and transfers at direct support level
through warehousing.
� Performed inventory and financial management procedures, including
ordering, receiving and storing supplies.
� Maintained the stock locator system and administered document
control procedures.
� Performed or supervised inventory management, storage and
preservation.
� Responsible for initial inventory and cataloging of two computer
rooms with over $# mil of equipment, and $## million of special
equipment.

You can see how the bullets that were in this resume were changed to �. Although this example doesn’t show other problems, single quotes, double quotes and dashes may be replaced by other characters, often a question mark. This makes it very difficult to read.

This is how many of the resumes posted on the job boards look. This is also how many company systems handle a resume submitted online.

What You Can Do

If you are going to submit a resume into a text editor, Do Not Copy the text straight from MS Word or another word processing program. Save the file as a plain text file first, then copy it. You will see how the

Provide formatting queues in plain text. You can’t vary font size or use bolding to call attention to what is important, but you can provide some guides to the reader.

Separate key information with a blank line. This will make it much easier to see where sections start and stop. The use of All Caps is a good way to identify section headings, but be careful. Over use of this will make it much tough to read.

Use a simple character for bullets. A dash or asterisk is a good choice. This identifies for the reader where a new bullet starts and stops well, while not looking terrible.

Here’s a revised presentation of the same resume. It still isn’t pretty, but it is readable.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Job Title
Company1 Inc
Mo. Year to Present
City, ST

– Co-Owner in local retail establishment
– Coordinated financial details with building manager for the
location.
– Ordered and purchased supplies for startup and continuation of
business.
– Hired and supervised crew of 4 employees.
– Reconcile bank statements and make decisions on future purchases of
inventory.

Job Title
Company2 Inc
Mo. Year to Mo. Year
City, ST

– Played an integral role in the 100% inventory of over $## mil of
property at Company Name.
– Maintained automated and manual accounting records on over $## mil
of property.
– Assisted in the transfer of original inventory from the original
record keeping system to the new record keeping system.
– Processed requests, documents and transfers at direct support level
through warehousing.
– Performed inventory and financial management procedures, including
ordering, receiving and storing supplies.
– Maintained the stock locator system and administered document
control procedures.
– Performed or supervised inventory management, storage and
preservation.
– Responsible for initial inventory and cataloging of two computer
rooms with over $# mil of equipment, and $## million of special
equipment.

Hiring managers and recruiters are used to seeing resumes that are mangled. By putting a little thought into how your resume is going to look in a plain text editor, you can vastly improve the readability.

Tell Me About Yourself

Almost every interview starts with a question similar to “Tell Me About Yourself.” Although this is asked as an ice breaker, it is often the most difficult question of the interview. Failing to answer this successfully can doom an interview.

Fortunately, this can be an easy question to answer and a question you can be certain you are prepared to answer. The key to this question is being brief and articulate. You control the information that you provide and you control how long you talk. You want to show that you can talk about your background and summarize it clearly. This provides the interviewer an insight into why you are qualified for the position. It also demonstrates your communications skills.

To be successful here, avoid following your resume exactly. Although walking through your background in chronological order can provide a good structure for this, you don’t want to just repeat your resume. Listing dates is usually a mistake here since they should be clearly displayed on your resume.

WWWWWH – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How are questions you need to answer when telling a story or writing a news article. When you are considered for a job, these are the same questions that need to be answered. Your resume answers the Who, What, Where and When, but rarely touches on Why and How your career progression developed. The Tell Me About Yourself question gives you the opportunity to fill in this detail.

The Gaps – Addressing the transitions and gaps in your resume is a good way to make an impression. Why did you take each position? What did you learn in each role? How do the positions you have had link together?

Providing these details allows you to turn your individual career steps into a cohesive story. Showing how you have developed professionally is the key.

Accomplishments – When discussing an experience, focus on your accomplishments, not your responsibilities. This is a good time to highlight the sizzle – why you will make a difference for the employer.

Wrapping up your answer so tie in directly to why you are interested in the position. Discuss how your progression has let to this point and this opportunity is right step for you and for the company.

Your answer should be between 2 and 5 minutes. I find that candidates that do not prepare for this question often say little of value, leading to overly short answers. Individuals that prepare find that keeping the answer under 5 minutes is tough. They script so much into this question, that it runs too long. Remember, you have an entire interview to illustrate your background.