Tag: Resume Writing

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).

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.

Your Resume’s Purpose

I see resumes every day that fail to accomplish their most basic purpose – introduce and convey a clear picture of the job seeker.

How do they miss this? Typically, there are two primary mistakes. Job seekers leave out critical information and they fail to provide a clear structure that will make finding information easy.

A resume is an introduction. It is the first impression that an employer gets. A typical hiring manager might receive several hundred resumes each week. With so many resumes to review, most only get a 15 to 30 second look.

For many candidates, this can be frustrating to hear. You have just spent weeks deliberating over every word in your resume. You revised the content and developed witty or creative descriptions for what you have done. Then the resume hits the desk of an employer and gets little more than a quick glance.

Resumes don’t get hired. The introduction your resume provides is not designed to get you a job. Interviews, assessment tests, reference checks and other screening mechanisms do that. What the resume can do – what it’s supposed to do – is get you a shot at talking to someone. Do you make it easy for the reader to see why they should keep reading, and then set up a call?

A good resume will present the key pieces of information that an employer needs. Poor formatting can keep you out of the running for jobs that are a match. If it’s not clear in the first 15 seconds that you meet some of the basic requirements, you risk being passed by. The key to getting past this initial screen is making it easy for the reader to assess your background. By organizing your resume so that it is easy to digest, it will get a more thorough look.