Resume Tips

Students: Why You Should Use Google Docs for Your Resume

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Students, graduates, here’s a great reason to use Google Docs to submit 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 www.TheBigGameHunter.us. There’s a lot more advice there.

Email me if your firm is trying to hire someone.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Pay what you want for my books about job search

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

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

Do you need more in-depth coaching? Join my Coaching program.

Want to ask me a question via email, chat or phone ? Reach me via PrestoExperts or Clarity.fm

 

Job Search Radio – The Missing Ingredients in Most Resumes

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On a typical Monday morning, Jeff Altman the Big Game Hunter will be asked to review more than 300 resumes to find two that might actually fit what his clients are looking for.

What’s wrong with your resume?

With a combined 70+ years of executive search experience, Jeff and Executive Coach Hal Klegman discuss the critical mistake in most resumes and how to easily correct those mistakes with only 4 words.

Listen to the Show

Do you have questions for me? You can call, email or IM your questions through PrestoExperts.

Is your job search going nowhere? Are you unsure about what to do to get it going? You may be doing critical things wrong or a lot of small things wrong that are costing you opportunities. Schedule a job search makeover with me. It’s an intense detailed coaching session where we go through EVERYTHING. Let me help you.

You can listen to, watch or read more of Jeff’s job search, hiring and recruiting content at TheBigGameHunter.us

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn

The Future of Resumes and Job Boards

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The resume is a tool that no one likes–job hunters hate writing them. People who screen them like me dislike them because they say a lot of nothing.

Some have suggested the future of resumes may reside in video. My firm is evaluating a new service that, in addition to doing traditional applicant tracking and functioning as a data base, would allow us to provide targeted videos to clients of questions they deem appropriate for them to assess. It is an interesting idea but I think it will have some problems.

Some suggest LinkedIn can become a new version of a resume (BTW, if we are not connected on LinkedIn, send a connection request to me; BTW, I do not accept them from third party recruiters). LinkedIn already offers resumes in the form of your profile that firms and recruiters can download.

For me, when I think of the future of resumes, I think of how an employer will be able to incorporate what is called “Big Data” to know a lot about you and be able to reach out to you.

So imagine that there are servers that are constantly searching the web for information about people and what they do, have done, written, etc that are able to identify linkages between people and constantly updating this uncategorized data.

Imagine that they are looking for data on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and obscure services, too. They know what you’ve posted about ideas related to work and the Presidential election. They see your jokes and who your friends are, as well as which Zynga games you play online.

Yes, I think big data is coming to job search, sooner rather than later.

Thus, before you post that next photo or hyper-critical remark. THINK whether you wanted your employer or your NEXT employer to read it or not.

© Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter 2012

Stupid Resume Mistakes– Objectives

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Here, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses another stupid resume mistake that too many job hunters commit.


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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.

Pay what you want for his books and guides to job hunting.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice at TheBigGameHunter.us.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

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

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

Listen to Job Search Radio, No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio and No B. S. Hiring Advice Radio in iTunes and other podcast directories and apps.

Do you need more in-depth coaching? Join my Coaching program.

Want to ask me a question via email, chat or phone ? Reach me via PrestoExperts or Clarity.fm

Resumes That Work: 3 Steps to More Interviews

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All of us involved with helping you get a new job, whether as third party recruiters or as representatives of a company evaluating you for employment of all receiving hundreds of emailed resumes a day. Having done professional search work for more than thirty years, I have seen both resumes change and how they are delivered change. The change in delivery means that how you think of your resume being seen needs to change too.

1. Few people are really looking at resumes in the traditional sense of pieces of paper. They are looking at screen shots of approximately 1/4 -1/3 of a page per shot and attempting to make decisions based upon a few quick Page-Downs (or PgDn on your keyboard). For this reason you need to think of your resume in a different way than you may have before. Critically examine your resume each time you scroll down. Where does your eye fall? Does it convey meaningful information about your experience for that particular position?

2. Generic resumes are less effective than targeted ones. Only use a generic resume if you are sending out a mass email or mass mail. Where you have a job description to work from, revise your resume to include information about your experience relevant to the particular job. Don’t assume that someone will read your resume in detail, think about nuances and call you to inquire whether you have the relevant experience. Few people have the time to email or call you to find out whether their interpretation of your experience is correct. Make it simple and put it in your resume!

3. For years, if people were going to attempt to forward a resume to an employer directly, I would encourage them to write a three paragraph cover letter. The first paragraph would explain why they were writing (I’m forwarding my resume in response to your ad in . . . for a Java Developer); the second would include several relevant points about their experience that pertain to the job (I believe my 5 years of experience with Java including 2 years of J2EE experience, coupled with my experience with your industry would allow me to be a productive performer within your organization). The third paragraph would extend a hope that they contact you for an interview or might indicate that you’ll be calling with an eye to meeting with them (I look forward to hearing from you about joining your firm . . . I’ll be calling you in the few days about our meeting to discuss my experience and the opportunity you have).

Today, I receive attachments of cover-letters. I never open them and few people I know open them because we don’t have time. Instead of attaching a cover letter, use the message to which you are attaching your resume as a place to write a commercial that pertains to the position.

We encourage people to copy and paste position descriptions into the message area of the email and go point by point and describe their relevant experience so that it is obvious. Sure takes the guesswork out of whether some is qualified, doesn’t it? 🙂

And that is really what you need to do–take the guesswork out of communicating whether you are qualified for a position. It’s one thing to not get an interview because you’re not qualified or because you are asking for too much money; it’s another to fail to get an interview because your resume doesn’t communicate that you have the experience that’s being sought.

Use these tips and watch your interviews grow.

© 2004, 2011 all rights reserved.

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.