Resume Tweaking May Be Better Than An Overhaul

I was meeting with a candidate today, we will call him Andy, who recently landed. He had been on the market for about 5 months. He did all the right things, went to the networking meetings, drank more coffee than he should have, reworked his resume over and over, all for nothing. He would get interviews but never make the cut. He had sent out lots of resumes with moderate success.

About 2 months ago I met with Andy and a group of financial professionals, mainly CFOs,  to do a resume review exercise. You might try this exercise.  Everyone brings their current resume and passes them face down to the person next to them. Then at the same time everyone turns the resume over and for 10 seconds reviews them. After 10 seconds all resumes go  face down again. The next step gets to the real purpose for the exercise. The person that read the resume for 10 seconds gives feedback on exactly what they learned about the person’s background, companies, position, location and any other information they took away in that short period of time. Why you ask? That is about how long most people first look at a resume, so the purpose is to find out if the person reading the resume for 10 seconds captures from the resume what the owner of the resume wanted them to. If not, then they need to change the resume.

After the meeting I started working with Andy as part of our Job Search Coaching program. The first thing I noticed was Andy’s resume had him as a CFO. The reality was that compared to other CFOs in the group Andy could not compete. He was really a controller. Andy was trying to play at a level that he wasn’t competitive.  He lost out every time, either when the resume was submitted, or during the interview.

We made a small tweak to his resume by taking off  all references to CFO and changed them to controller. Everything else remained the same. Within two weeks Andy started getting interviews and within 6 weeks he was working. He credits all of the activity and the job to this one tweak of his resume.

Sometimes one small change can make all the difference. Make sure you are playing in the right league. Andy wasn’t, and his resume clearly communicated that. Like most candidates I coach, candidates think only about themselves and not the competition. Andy had clearly done this. He would have been working months earlier had he thought about this.

To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.

If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Is Your Resume Too Long?

Q. Is it acceptable to have a resume longer than two pages?

With rare exception two pages is still the generally accepted maximum length. I have helped thousands with their resume and I can’t think of a time when we couldn’t fit all of the relevant information on two pages.

Remember, the purpose of a resume is to demonstrate to the reader that your experience and background aligns with the position. It isn’t an autobiography. It doesn’t have to include everything you have done in 25 years. It is a summary, usually in a bullet point format. All a resume really needs is the right information necessary to get an interview. It isn’t designed to get a job.

Generally, your experience from 20 years ago or more is no longer critical. If it is one might wonder if it is the right job in the first place. So I recommend summarizing this by simply indicating the name of the company, your position title and the years you worked there.  Save the space to make sure that you list the important accomplishments that align with the company’s needs and will catch the reader’s eye.

I find that if more candidates would customize their resumes to the needs of the position they would get more interviews. Too often candidates make a one size fits all generic resume. Instead of a long resume covering every aspect of your career consider having a two page resume that is specific to the position. This might require more than one resume, but as long as everything is honest there is nothing wrong with this.

To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.

If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Resumes Miss The Most Important Keywords

Q. Are keywords on a resume as critical as everyone claims? I know the job boards use them, but  I have had a lot of different experiences so I’m not sure what keywords I should be using.

There is no doubt that keywords on a resume play an important role for the job boards and for companies with sophisticated resume tracking systems. Too often candidates focus their keywords exclusively for the electronic system scanning their resume and completely miss the most important scanner – the human scanner.

The vast majority of companies don’t have sophisticated resume scanning software. As resumes come in the door they are reviewed by a person. So from a candidate’s perspective the question should be, “Do I have the keywords that will stand out and catch the eye of the reader?” Often the person scanning or reading your resume has certain words or terms they are looking for on the resume. So your resume has to have these keywords properly positioned so the reader’s eye catches them. It is little help having a bunch of keywords for the computer to catch if they aren’t the correct words the human scanner is seeking.

In your specific case, since you have had a lot of different experiences this becomes even more important, as the wrong set of keywords could rule you out. So it is important for you that when you send in a resume, especially to a small to mid-size company, to think about the keywords and terms the human will want to see as they read your resume and make sure those words are positioned to catch their eye.

To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.

If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Q. How important are keywords on the resume?

Q. How important are keywords on the resume?

Most companies don’t have sophisticated resume software to search resumes. Large companies may have this, but most Orange County companies are small and therefore don’t have the software. The issue is with job boards. For companies that search online resume databases, having the right keywords is important. If you are going to post your resume, you should make sure you know the best keywords that will bring up your resume. Often it is title, industry, some functional keywords such as sales, marketing, employee benefits, accounting and so on. I would also include some of the commonly used terms in the function, B2B sales, RFP/RFQ, focus groups, SEC reporting, SAP software, international marketing, social media expert, etc.

One way I have found to identify your best keywords is to ask others what keywords they would use if they were looking for a person in your field. Collect these and embed the ones most often mentioned in your resume.

You can download a free 8-Point Job Search Plan Self-Assessment that will help you evaluate exactly what you need to do to improve your search. CLICK HERE to download.

Is your LinkedIn Profile going to get you noticed? Our FREE LinkedIn Profile Matrix will help you develop an outstanding profile. CLICK HERE to download yours.

Join our LinkedIn Job Search Networking group. Over 4,200 people have joined. CLICK HERE to join.

We realize that not everyone will agree with these answers and that is healthy. So if you don’t agree, or wish to comment, we encourage you to do so. Just click the link below.

Brad Remillard

How to show 40 years experience on a two page resume

These questions are from readers of my weekly column in the Orange County Register. It appears every Tuesday in the business section and on-line at www.ocregister.com

Q. What is the best way to show 40 years of experience on a résumé and still keep the length to two pages?

A. I recommend showing in chronological order your last 10 to 15 years of experience. For experience before that, simply list your companies, job titles and dates. For most candidates, their most recent experience is what recruiters and hiring managers are interested in.

Let’s face it: Your experience 40 years ago should not be all that relevant. I hope in that 40-year time frame you have grown. You should question whether this is the right position for you if the company’s decision is based on what you did 40 years ago, when compared with the last 15 years.

There are exceptions to this. If you believe some experience 40 years ago is important to the new role, I recommend expanding that relevant experience in your résumé.

Q.  Most of my career is in financial services. I want to get out of that industry and into health care. What is the best way to make this transition?

A. Making an industry change in this economy is difficult, unless you have one of those jobs in which the skills required are not industry-specific, meaning your skills and training are easily transferable to another industry. The issue you have to overcome is your competition for an opening will probably include people in the health care industry. Most companies will look at those with industry experience first.

The best way to make an industry change is through networking. You need to build relationships with people in the industry. To do this, consider attending professional associations, joining networking groups in health care, attending trade shows or conferences and connecting with health care people in your local area via LinkedIn. As they get to know you, they will be able to determine how your strengths outside the health care industry can apply to the problems they need solved in their company. Recruiters and submitting résumés via ads are long shots.

There are some barriers you should think about overcoming when changing industries, assuming your skills are not easily transferable. The first one is compensation. Chances are you are more valuable in the financial services industry than health care. Therefore, the position will probably be at a lower level and so will the compensation. Secondly, some additional training and education may be required.

I welcome your thoughts and comments. If this was helpful please forward to your network and connections on LinkedIn or facebook.

Brad Remillard

Why The Last Seven Resumes I Reviewed Failed

Sometimes I just don’t understand what candidates do or don’t do. This is frustrating because so many times I’ve heard from candidates, “I already know that.”  The problem is that candidates think they know it, but in reality either don’t know it or just don’t do it.

Let’s take the example of resumes. Not necessarily my favorite topic, but one that is important. I often review resumes for candidates and I do this strictly from a recruiter’s perspective. Most of the resumes I review are for senior-level executives, many with graduate degrees. I am so often amazed that these senior-level executives expect to be hired, especially in this economy, when they can’t even put together a resume without errors.  Why in the world would a CEO or president expect them to put together a board presentation? The CEO or president would be completely embarrassed.

The following are some common mistakes that I see on a fairly regular basis. I know you don’t need to read these, because these would never happen to you, so consider reading them for all of the other people that need help.

1) Spelling errors. I’m not referring to the obvious ones that a spell checker picks up. I mean the ones a spell checker doesn’t pick up and require proofreading by someone else. Words such as grow not grown, its or it’s, to or too, you’re instead of  your, using the instead of that, using and instead of or, and finally, a lot is two words.

2) Grammar, punctuation or formatting errors. Common problems are overuse of commas, no periods at the end of sentences, capitalizing some words and not others, capitalizing too many words, inconsistent format, phrases that just end, mixing plural verbs with a singular subject, and punctuation marks should go inside quotes and outside parentheses.

3) Incorrect use of words. Neither and nor, either and or, accept and except, lose and loose, a and an, are some mistakes I commonly find.

As a recruiter, I would be embarrassed to present these resumes to a client. What does this say about the executive if they can’t put together a resume without common errors? Don’t they have these proofed? What kind of presentation would they make, what would their reports look like, and how many errors would be in a white paper? One has to ask themselves these questions when reviewing a resume with these types of errors.

I am by no means an English major, and I sure have made many mistakes writing articles. I know this because people seem to get pleasure out of pointing out my mistakes. I have learned a lot from these comments. However, a blog article is not a resume. There is a big difference in the two. If I were submitting this article to Fortune or the WSJ, I would pay to have it professionally edited.  Like it or not, a resume has to be perfect. That is the standard. I didn’t set the standard, I just live by it and you should too.

Please help yourself. Take the time to have others proof your resume. Invest in a professional to edit it. Don’t DOUBLE check your resume, TRIPLE check it, and then check it one more time just to be sure.

Remember the golden rule, when in doubt check it out. Here is an excellent site to use to check http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp

Since all of the people reading this article never make these mistakes, one has to wonder (not wander) why I wrote the article.

One final point, these same principles apply to cover and thank you letters.

I hope this helps all of those other people that make these mistakes.

I welcome your thoughts and comments, even those that will surely point out errors in this article.

If this was helpful to you, please help others by posting it to your LinkedIn groups, Facebook page or Twitter.

To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.

If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free Job Search Self- Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.

Brad Remillard

Job Search Success: Can Targeting Make a Difference?

Don’t even think about trying this technique unless you’re prepared for an employer to offer you a job.

I was speaking with a client a few days ago and he told me a story about a candidate he had just hired for a sales position. She had lost her job at a company who was not a direct competitor, but was providing services at a different distribution level in a tangential industry. (I amaze myself sometimes with my ambiguity).

She had sent her resume to the CEO requesting an interview. He blew her off – wrong skill set – wrong industry – wrong level in the distribution/supply chain. And to top it off – he didn’t have a current opening.

She was persistent. She began an aggressive campaign of sending him letters detailing why he needed to hire her in his sales department.

She had conducted extensive research on the company, talked with their suppliers, talked with their customers, and found people within the company (using LinkedIn of course).

She described in “precise” detail the problems she perceived, the steps that needed to be taken, and where she could help to resolve those problems.

Over the course of a few interviews, she became more and more specific about how she could make a difference – through fact-finding in the interviewing, she collected great information.

The company was still undecided (hard to believe). Finally, she sealed the deal by preparing a plan of action of what she would do in her first 90 days. She convinced the company to allow her to present her plan at a meeting. Upon hearing exactly how she would translate her prior experience into actionable steps in this new company, they hired her.

That’s how targeted job search works.

What’s the alternative? The alternative is the shotgun scatter method to job search used by many job seekers. Under the shotgun scatter model, you send out hundreds of standard cover letters and resumes to every company that remotely includes a keyword of interest in their ads. 99.99% of these end up in the trash can. You just wasted 20 hours of your week responding to job ads for which you had no chance of ever making it to the stage of an interview.

Wouldn’t your time be spent more productively targeting jobs, opportunities, and companies – rather than wasting time on the shotgun scatter model of job search?

Discover if you’re job search is effective by downloading our FREE Job Search Plan Self-Assessment. Discover if you’ve got all the elements in place to target the perfect job.

Barry

How To Get Recruiters To Reply To Your Resume

I know this is one of the major complaints by candidates. I hear it all the time, “I send them my resume and they don’t reply. Most won’t even return my phone call.”  As difficult as it is to say, for the most part these candidates are correct. That doesn’t mean it is right, it just means you are correct.

Similar to most at the manager level and above, when you are working, you are generally overwhelmed with things to do. So you have to prioritize. Some things are high priority and some things go on the low priority list. The low priority items may never get done, or may get done in the next few months. Generally, this depends on what other higher priority items trickle in.

Recruiters are really no different. We have to prioritize our day. Some things are high priority and other things are low priority. If  you want to engage recruiters, your job when working with or contacting them should be to move up the priority list. Knowing how I, and many other recruiters prioritize, might help you do this.

Here is how I set priorities regarding the basic duties as a retained recruiter.  Contingent recruiters might vary slightly, but when I was a contingent recruiter it wasn’t a whole lot different.

High priority:

1. Clients always come first. So some might ask, “Who is your client?” The company paying my fee is the client, not the candidate. Therefore, the company has first priority on my time. That means I will return their phone calls before a candidate’s, I will meet with them prior to a candidate, reply to their emails first,  and screen resumes they send me first.
2. Candidates on an active search. These are candidates that I’m actively working with on an existing retained search. They could be at any stage within that search which includes, recruiting ones I have identified, interviewing them, returning their calls or emails, reviewing their resume, meeting them, scheduling interviews, following up after an interview, compensation discussions, reference checking, or basically anything I need to do to move the candidate and the search to the next phase.
3. Marketing. The next priority for me is marketing. This is meeting with clients and potential clients, attending networking meetings, and making sure I’m out in the market so that when a search comes up I’m the one that gets the call. When that call comes, refer to number 1 above.

Important but not a high priority. These I try to get to by the end of each day. Sometimes they spill over to the next day, but I usually try to complete these within 24 hours.

1. Returning emails not related to a search from people I know or have worked with in the past. These are generally people updating me on their search, prior clients with a question, a request unrelated to an active search, general emails, and clearing SPAM. Sometimes I don’t get to these until the afternoon. I scan down the “sent from” and subject lines, and when I see someone I know I will read the email and then reply appropriately.
2. Reply to emails and return calls that are a referral. If someone is referring a person to me, I will always reply. I respect the fact that they have taken the time to do this. I feel I owe the reply out of respect to the referring source.
3. Return voice mail calls. Basically the same as above. I listen to them and clients get an immediate call. Anything to do with an active search gets a call. Others I evaluate and make a decision on what to do with them. Refer to low priority below for many, not all, of these calls.

Low Priority:

1. Return emails from those I don’t know. This is one of those low priorities that tick many candidates off. The good news is that you have a much higher chance of getting a return email than a phone call. I often try to catch up on these on the weekend or at night. Because of the large volume of these, I’m often two weeks behind.
   1. If you are just sending me an unsolicited resume, I may or may not reply to you. Generally not. I may take a look at the resume to see if it fits an active search. Probably less than 50% of the time I reply. This is why I preach, tweet, and blog,  DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON A RESUME SERVICE THAT WILL SEND YOUR RESUME TO 1,200 RECRUITERS. Save your money as most recruiters don’t even look at them. I doubt more than 5% of retained recruiters do.
   2. If the email is just to introduce yourself to me with no referral,  I will probably just delete it. What else can I say? Like me or hate me, that is what will happen. (If it makes you feel better, then “yes” I spend hours late at night reading the hundreds of unsolicited resumes I receive on a weekly basis).

Lowest priority. So low that I have to be bored and/or very lonely to take action. I’m desperate to just talk to someone and my wife and kids are all busy. I have probably already called every person in my contact list, any tech support that I can possibly think of, and if it’s the only way to get out of having to watch Driving Miss Daisy or The English Patient, I will claim I have to return these phone calls.

1. These are the  voice mails that simply say, “Hi Brad, this is (fill in the blank) please call me at (fill in the number. I probably don’t even recognize the area code).” or “Hi Brad, this is (fill in the blank) I just want to introduce myself to you. Please call me at (fill in the blank).”  I will apologize now to all of those I have offended. Sorry, if I didn’t return your call.  It is just that I don’t have the time, and I rarely can help you.  I know each call is going to take 5–10 minutes, and in the end, I can’t do anything for you. I used to make a list of these calls. When time permitted, I would work my way down the list but over time the list just got too big. For every 3 calls I returned, I added 5 or 6. I stopped adding to the list when it exceeded 100 calls to return. Sorry, but this many calls to return just isn’t possible. Heck, it is hard enough to reply to that many emails.

It isn’t personal, and please don’t take it personally, when recruiters don’t get back to you. Most recruiters are not trying to be rude, but as I said in the first paragraph, we only have so many hours, just like everyone else, and we have to manage our time too.

My guess is that most managers, when working, don’t have time to return calls from all of the sales people that call. My guess is that you also don’t return unsolicited calls you receive at home.

My hope with this article is two-fold:

1. The most important of all is to save you money by discouraging you from using a resume blasting service. They are easy to find and often may even call you. When they do call you, do me and yourself a favor, DON’T RETURN THEIR PHONE CALL.
2. Give you a path to getting to recruiters. Knowing the path of least resistance should help you. If you can’t get in the highest priority group, you may be able to move into the important but not high priority group. All this takes is some time and getting a referral. Most candidates are capable of getting a referral given all the networking tools available.

You can download for free many tools and resources from our Web site. For example, you can download a sample thank you letter. CLICK HERE to download.

If your search is stalled, you can download an 8-Point Job Search Assessment Scorecard. Use this to identify the areas in your job search that may be causing you to be stalled. CLICK HERE to download.

Finally, if you are a member of LinkedIn, you should join our Job Search Networking Group. Over 4,400 people have. It provides an extensive amount of resources and articles for you to take advantage of. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Brad

Increasing Your Resume Response Rate – Audio Recording

Most resumes and cover letters end up in the trash can. The vast majority of resumes and cover letters submitted for a job posting DO NOT give a hiring manager or recruiter the incentive to pick up the phone and conduct an interview. Most Resumes and Cover Letters fail to match-up with the listing of expectations, skills, duties, responsibilities, results, and outcomes mentioned in the advertisement or job description.  Learn the behind-the-scene’s secrets on how to increase your response rate with recruiters and employers from Barry Deutsch and Brad Remillard, who’ve viewed millions of resumes over the last 30 years in their executive search business.

To download or listen to this recording CLICK HERE, then scroll down to the recording.

How Recruiters Read Resumes In 10 Seconds – Audio Recording

Recruiters screen your resume in less than 10 seconds for a few very simple reasons. Do you know the top 5 reasons why a recruiter will toss your resume into the circular file after a quick glance? Are you making simple mistakes and errors that consistently get your resume thrown into the trash? Learn how to overcome those resume mistakes that are preventing you from being interviewed.  In this radio program, Brad and Barry dissect, discuss, and recommend improvements to overcome the most common resume mistakes and errors that permit recruiters to read your resume in less than 10 seconds

You can read a complete and very detailed article on this topic. CLICK HERE

To download or listen to this recording CLICK HERE, then scroll down to the recording.