Mistakes

Laughable Advice

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Let me start off by saying that having been in recruiting for more than 40 years, most job hunters still do the same things in their job search that did not work for them when they graduated from college. Writing one resume and sending it out over and over again is like the holy grail for most job hunters. To me, it is like the story of the broken watch–it is right twice a day but does not work the rest of the time.

Knowing this, I have developed some compassion for job hunters who still send out “their resume” to every job. Often when I receive a resume that does not seem to fit a job, I send off a response to them:

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how competitive the market can be. When firms are looking at people and their experience, resumes need to spell out the ‘fit’ for the role and frankly, yours doesn’t do a good enough job in doing so.”

“This isn’t to say that you don’t have the experience; it is saying that your resume needs to be improved to make it obvious that you fit what the institution is looking for. Once you send me a revised resume that demonstrates the fit, I would be happy to speak with you and represent you for this role.”

I think this is a polite way of explaining that they have sent a resume that is nothing more to me than spam (a waste of time) and asking them to do their homework and re-send a resume that tells me how they fit the requirements of the job.

Imagine my surprise, to receive a response like this

” Firms that look for an exact skill fit are exactly the kinds of places that need a leader like myself to bring in the changes they need to gear up for the 21st century.

“I request you to forward my detailed resume to the top executives in the Firm who are tasked with turning the Firm’s processes, organizations around and with reducing expenditure on software maintenance and upkeep of legacy system.

“My resume is perfectly suited and consistent with my stated objective and it matches some of the expected responsibilities associated with this job. I have been in similar situations enough number of times to be fairly sure of when a position fits and requires my skills and unique expertise and this is one of them.

A firm like this is a bunch of idiots (and you, too, by the way) that knows nothing about how the world works in this century. I, on the other hand, do even though I don’t know who it is or almost anything about them. My resume is perfect just the way it is. Send it.

Ridiculous.

Outplacement firms and newspapers teach tactics like this. When you de-construct them, the response is insulting and laughable. After, you know very little of what is being sought, nothing about the employer or its corporate culture but you are DEFINITELY the right person even though you are told you aren’t.

Sure.

© 2010, 2013 all rights reserved.

No B. S. Resume Advice: Kill Blocky Resumes!

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter encourages you to think of the reader when you write your resume.

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a recruiter for more than 40 years.

Follow him at the Big Game Hunter, Inc. on LinkedIn for more articles, videos and podcasts than what are offered here and jobs he is recruiting for.

Visit my website, http://www.TheBigGameHunter.us to sign up for a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine, pay what you want for my books and guides to job hunting and wants hundreds of other videos about job hunting and hiring.

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Manners

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As a recruiter, I have been puzzled by a phenomenon that has become more profound as the recession goes on. It is something that my colleagues in corporate have told me frustrates them, too. I didn’t understand why it occurred until recently when at a networking group someone explained to me the rationale.

The phenomena—sending resumes that don’t fit a job description.

Each time I post a job description on the web or email it to a referral source, I am always surprised by the number of responses I receive that in no way fit the job. A Partner job in San Francisco for someone from consulting that clearly explains what the client wants yields scads of resumes of programmers in Ohio who work in manufacturing. A project management ad calling for both RUP AND UML always get responses of people with one or the other. A developer ad listing 6 essential requirements and 4 plusses yields resumes with two of the six required skills and an irate call from the submitter saying that I’m wrong and that he fits the job. Another person sends 5 resumes for different jobs that require very different expertise from management to staff level roles in applications and infrastructure.

Why does this happen? There are two reasons that I’ve heard and they’re both pretty similar.

1. Desperate times result in desperate actions. What the heck! Let me send it. I read the ad. I know what it says but they can’t possibly want all that.

2. The outplacement firm told me to send it if I meet 70% of the job description.

They’re both pretty similar. The second one basically puts the blame on advice from someone else for why the resume is sent.Yet, 99.9 times out of 100, sending that resume doesn’t result in an interview, does it? As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even result in a phone call. What it results in is a deleted resume, momentary annoyance on the part of the recipient who, whether a corporate or agency recruiter who you need to ally yourself with, rather than antagonize, and wasted time.

For an agent, the issue of time being wasted impacts their ability to help you and the other 2000 people in their personal data base find work by keeping them from networking to other job openings. For a corporate recruiter, the list of issues is far longer.

But, you say, the outplacement firm my company sent me to when I was laid off said to do it!

What does it matter to them? Do they have to receive and receive the emails or do they have the luxury of creating the mess and expecting someone else to deal with it? And then they say, “Those useless so and so’s never do their job right!” On behalf of all recruiterdom, I’m going to make a request. Please stop sending resumes to jobs where you don’t fit the description.It’s OK to send a resume and say that you’re sending it on an exploratory basis. It’s OK to tell the unemployment office that you’ve submitted it to 20 jobs even if you’ve sent 20 exploratory resumes.

It is not OK to pester people with five calls a day asking if they’ve read your resume. It is not OK to be disappointed if you send in a resume where you are a poor fit. You should be rejected.
It is a better investment of your time to network by phone with a million people but stop calling or emailing with messages that say that you more than adequately meet the job description when you don’t (That was an email today—a Partner position for someone from a consulting firm in Dallas who was in the manufacturing practice, resulted in such a statement from someone from industry and finance. [Yes, he lived in Dallas]).

© 2004 all rights reserved.
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Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Resume Pet Peeves

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I did an interview with JobRadio.FM on the subject of my pet peeves with resumes.

I started off telling them, “Do you know the old saying, ‘A broken watch is right twice a day?’ Well, too many people flip the same resume over and over again to every job ad they see as though all the jobs are the same . . . which they obviously aren’t.”

Instead of doing that, minimally create a single paragraph (and preferably more (to be inserted into your base resume that makes the fit obvious to a reader.

After all, everyone is swamped and no one has time to call on a resume that doesn’t clearly make the case that you are qualified for a job.

Instead of leaving things to chance, it is better to insert information into your resume that makes the case and then highlighting it in your cover email (a cover email is the body of the email that your resume is attached to; do not use a separate file attached to the email; it will never be opened.

Others spoke of:

1. Lack of detailed information about your job title and what your firm does.
2. The use of table formatting in resume (it makes it extremely difficult to re-format)
3, The use of PDF resumes (same issue plus some applicant tracking systems do not import PDF resumes well)
4. People who don’t spell check and grammar check their resumes (MY COMMENT: Some trade terms will pass through a spell checker for example, for years the word ‘novel’ would go through spell check even though the person meant to type ‘Novell”)
5. Resume objectives that conflict with the role being filled or the work the potential employer does.

© 2009 all rights reserved.

6 Dumb Things People Do When Submitting Their Resume

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There are a thousand and one dumb things people do to sabotage themselves and their job search. Here a few of the most egregious mistakes people make.

1. Stupid file names for their resume .  I received a resume this week from a technology executive who should have known better. He has a good background but named his resume file some like, “His Name cut and paste August 2009.”

Why would you ever include the expression, “cut and paste” as part of the file name for any document, even if it is true?  It just tells the reader that you threw something together quickly. Is that the message you want to convey to an employer or recruiter you want to be impressed by you?

2. Including a cover letter as a separate attachment. No one opens a cover letter file because it is a waste of time. Why? Because most people don’t know how to write a good cover letter so why bother?

It is far better to write what you might consider a cover letter in the message are of your email, instead of doing that. Don’t do the kind of addressing and salutation you might if you were writing a formal business letter. Use the space to make the case for how your experience fits what they are looking for.

3. Embedding your name, address and contact information as an embedded header at the top of your resume. This one is a subtle one and would require you to understand how corporations and recruiters work.

When organizations and recruiters import data about you into their systems, they don’t manually type your information into their systems, they use parsing software to read it and populate fields. With many types of this software, embedded headers will interfere with the software doing that and your information having to be manually imported.

Who has time for that? The result is you will miss out on opportunities.

4. Mass emailing your resume in the “TO:” field of your email. Why would you want to tell people that you’ve emailed your resume to 165 employers and recruiting firms?

5. Not spell checking your resume. I understand that certain words will go through a spelling checker even though they might be misused.

For example, for years, the words, “NOVEL” would pass through a spell checker even though the intended word was, “Novell.”in particular, visually check any professional term carefully to insure that your resume does not have misusages or misspellings.

6. Submitting the Same Resume Over and Over Again to Every Job as though your one resume will make the case for every job you apply for.   Everyone knows the expression, “The broken watch is right twice a day yet people violate that simple true statement by emailing the same resume over and over again to every job they apply for as though every job is identical.

Tailored resumes help people receive good results. Flipping the same resume over and over again like burgers at a fast food restaurant will give you poor results.

Isn’t showing care when you submit your resume worthwhile?

 

 

 

© 2008 all rights reserved.

No B. S. Hiring Advice: Hiring Lessons from the NFL

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On this show, Jeff looks at the off-season in the NFL for input for hiring managers and hr professionals

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a recruiter for more than 40 years.

Follow him at The Big Game Hunter, Inc. on LinkedIn for more articles, videos and podcasts than what are offered here and jobs he is recruiting for.

Visit www.TheBigGameHunter.us. There’s a lot more advice there.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Pay what you want for my books about job search

Trying to hire someone? Email me at JeffAltman@TheBigGameHunter.us

Who Are The Most Annoying Job Hunters?

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 I have spent years compiling data about my reactions and responses to resumes and job applicants.

Most people do their best but are generally ineffectual. Their resumes don’t do a good job of selling themselves but their behavior does not fall into the realm of annoying.

People reflecting “the hot skill du jour” can be problematic. Their desire to be catered to is high but usually just reflects not knowing me, not learning to trust me yet . . .that seems to change pretty quickly.

No, the category of people who seem most annoying are the people who should know better are hiring managers.

Hiring managers should know better than to send resumes that don’t make a case for their qualifications for a job but still send it anyway. Thinking that I should read between the lines and know that they really did this 10 years ago.

Or when I send a few questions to them, reply with, “call me” instead of answering my question. After all, they are too busy watching tv to respond to my four questions.

Or my favorite, “I have that information on my website. Why don’t you read it there.”

I can only respond with, “As someone who has hired people, I’m sure you expected people to clearly lay out their qualifications in their resume before inviting them to meet with or speak with you. My client conducts themselves in the same way as you do.”

“As things stand now, your resume does not make the case for your qualifications for the position. Please revise it and re-send it to me.”

And then the entitled attitude really starts!

I’ll spare you the details and simply say that your resume needs to make the fit obvious between your experience and your qualifications for the position as defined by the employer.

Without the case being made, your resume will be ignored . . . and rightly so. After all, it is no better than spam.

As a manager who does this, whether you like hearing this or not, you are being lazy or asking to be treated as special for no other reason than the fact that at your current employer, you hired people.

It is like trying to cut to the front of the line without earning the privilege.

Is that how you want to be seen?

Is that how you expect your next employer to conduct themselves– accommodating every person who thinks that they are special?

Now, to me, this is different than having an employee refer you and cutting the line that way. In that case, there is an earned privilege (someone knows you and can vouch for you).

So, for those of you who want to be seen as “special,” you are . . . but not in the way you want to be seen

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2012, 2015