Clue Wagon » Resumes

3 Things Your Resume Must Include

Kerry Scott — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:55:55 +0000

I almost hate to post resume writing advice. It’s boring, and it usually feels a little obvious, and I get emails that say, “That was really boring and obvious.” On the one hand, I see where those people are coming from…but on the other, I get questions about these things all the time, from people who don’t necessarily live and breathe job hunting like some of us. So make sure your resume has these three things:

Contact information. Make absolutely sure that your email address is on the resume. Yes, you’re probably either sending it via email or listing your email as part of the online application process…but make sure it’s on the resume anyway. If you use a cell phone, you should put that number on as well. In fact, make sure all of the phone numbers you list are labeled (i.e. home, work, cell, etc.). That way people can call you at the right number at the right time of day. This is very basic, but a lot of people forget.
Context. It may be obvious to you what Acme Corporation does, since you’ve worked there for years. It’s not obvious to everyone though. Unless your resume includes nothing but very big names that even cavemen would recognize, consider adding a line under the title but before the bullet points that says what each company does, how big they are, etc. This goes for titles too. If you have a title that is obscure (like “Specialist III”), explain in your first bullet what that means. The people who do the initial resume reviews in most companies are HR people, and they don’t necessarily know your line of work. You’ll need to spell it out for them.
Numbers. If you’re a manager, always say how many people you manage and how big your budget is. If you’re a salesperson, tell me how much you’ve sold. This seems hard for some jobs, but almost every business manages your work somehow…and if yours doesn’t you can measure it yourself. If you’re a receptionist, track how many calls per day you take and how many visitors you greet. If you’re a cashier at Target, track how many customers you help in an hour. In fact, I went through the Culver’s drive-through the other day and noticed a sign on the inside that congratulated the team on breaking their record—50 customers went through that drive-through in one hour. That’s impressive (and that particular Culver’s has the most efficient drive-through I’ve ever seen, which is why I always go to that one). Those teenagers who work there should be putting that on their resume when they graduate and go on to bigger things.

Photo by buyalex

As always, thanks to Anna at ABDPBT, who started the Fighting Listlessness on Mondays trend in blogging. Anna’s blog isn’t about job hunting; it’s about other, way more interesting things. I highly recommend it.

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Want To See Your Resume In A New Light?

Kerry Scott — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:15:13 +0000

This post originally appeared on April 15, 2009.

Here’s some cheap entertainment:

Go to wordle.net.
Copy-and-paste your text resume.
See how it looks. Do you see a lot of action verbs? Do you reuse the same ones over and over? Is it too heavy on the buzzwords and acronyms?

It’s an interesting way to look at your resume and see whether you’re using the sort of language that best communicates your skills and experience. Plus, it’s kinda fun.

I wish I’d saved some of the corporate memos I’ve received over the years. You can tell a lot about a company’s culture by looking at its favorite buzzwords. If “leverage” or “synergy” are the biggest words in their word cloud, RUN.

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6 Things I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You About

Kerry Scott — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:55:06 +0000

I had intended to do a longer post today, but it’s my kid’s 4th birthday. I gave her a set of Little House on the Prairie dolls, and now I am going to spend my morning helping the Pa doll build a log cabin on the prairie of our family room using Lincoln Logs. Try not to be consumed with envy.

So here are some links I’ve been meaning to pass on to you:

Cheezhead recently posted about the latest accessory for the unemployed: bracelets and t-shirts that proclaim your need for a job. While I’m down with the idea that you really have to leave no stone unturned in looking for leads, I am not sure I’d have the nerve to actually wear these. Unemployment is hard enough on your self-esteem.
Jennifer McClure from Cincy Recruiter’s World just spotlighted a post by Boolean Black Belt on how to find a job using LinkedIn. You need to read this right now. Seriously, don’t come back here until you’ve read the whole thing.
The Simple Dollar had a post a while back on whether you can really earn money using Amazon’s MTurk. If you’re looking for some extra cash, this might be worth checking out.
The Wall Street Journal recently had an article pointing out that even in this job market, employers are far more interested in hiring people who still have jobs than those who don’t. This is why you have to build your network long before you lose your job. It’s one of those things you tend to want to put off as long as possible. Please don’t be that stupid.
Alison Green from Ask a Manager writes a weekly column for U.S. News on career issues. They’re all good, but this one on the #1 question your resume should answer was one of her best. If you do this, you’ll have a great resume.
One thing about unemployed people is that they like to start blogs. I’ve had a few questions lately about how to do that, which amuses me, because clearly this is not my area of expertise. If it was, this blog would look a lot fancier, and there would be no mention of things like Little House on the Prairie dolls. If you’re looking to start a blog, you should check out Anna’s new series at ABDPBT Tech. It’s a step-by-step guide from the truly-beginner level on up. I’ve learned all kinds of stuff (I haven’t applied it all, because, alas, I’m a little lazy. But it’s all on the to-do list, and when it starts snowing here, I’m going to get busy.).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how to make a Tonka truck look like a covered wagon.

Photo by hern42

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Modesty Sucks.

Kerry Scott — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:00:19 +0000

This post originally appeared on January 15, 2009.

It really does.

Lately, I’ve heard from a number of friends who have either lost their jobs or will soon. A few of them have asked me to review their resumes before they start sending them out.

Now, I live in the Midwest, where people tend to be self-deprecating. Wisconsin is, generally speaking, not a state filled with flashy people. These folks are raised to avoid tooting their own horn at all costs. The ones who fail to hide their light under a bushel move to places like New York, or LA, or someplace else where the culture is more accepting of self-promotion.

As a result, I have seven resumes I’m reviewing here, and five of them contain descriptions of people I barely recognize. Most of these are friends I worked with at one point or another, and I thought highly of their work. That’s how we became friends.

But when I read things like, “Responsible for the ____ department,” or “I work with managers to fill jobs,” well, no. That’s not going to work. Nobody wants to read your job description. They want to read what you achieved, what you overcame, what sort of difference you made to the client or the company. Language from your job description has no place on your resume, because you’re not supposed to describe your job. You’re supposed to describe yourself, in terms of what you achieved. That’s an entirely different thing.

I sent an email back to one friend, and asked him to tell me what he was most proud in each of the positions he’d held. He wrote back with some GREAT material. It was the kind of stuff that would absolutely make you want to hire him. Modest people, though, tend not to think in terms of what they’re proud of when they write resumes. Pride makes them uncomfortable. They tend to write about what they were responsible for, which is meaningless.

Modesty is a great trait in a friend and in a colleague. No one likes working with a egomaniac. But when you write your resume, you’re writing to someone who doesn’t know you, and may never know you if you don’t make them understand why they need to meet you. This is no time for modesty.

Think in terms of the three or four things that you achieved that made you most proud, in each job. Those are the things that belong on your resume.

Photo by Billy Rowlinson

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10 Things That Don’t Belong on Your Resume

Kerry Scott — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:26:07 +0000

This post originally appeared on January 12, 2009.

Objective Statement—I hate to include this, because it’s been a source of amusement to me for so many years. When I read an objective like, “To find a company where I can feel warm and fuzzy every day in every way, using my fabulous people skills to spread sunshine and happiness to others so that the feel like they’ve had a hug every time I touch their lives,” well, I chuckle. Objective statements (short, concise ones anyway) were a good idea back in the days when recruiters received paper resumes, and needed a quick way to sort them into the right stacks. Nowadays, we have computers for that. Your resume is almost certainly being auto-sorted by either an email filter or an applicant tracking system, so there is no need for an objective statement, and since so many of them sound, well, stupid, it’s best to leave them off.
References Available Upon Request—Well, duh. Of course they are. That’s true for most candidates, so there’s no need to state it. You’re just taking up space that could be better used to describe your accomplishments (and looking a little too old-school in the process).
Health, Height, Weight, Marital Status, and your Picture—I’m told that including this information used to be the norm back in the day. If you include it, you look like you are still living in, like, 1970. That’s bad. Not only do employers not need this information, but many are freaked out if you include it, because they’re afraid that if they don’t hire you, you’ll sue them based on the information you provided. I know some recruiters who will actually return the resume to the candidate and ask them to resubmit without this information. I think that’s a bit much…but on the flip side, a candidate who still puts stuff like this on his resume is clearly a bit out of touch, and “out of touch” is rarely on the list of Most Desired Traits for any position. Leave this stuff off, please.
Links to your MySpace Page or other home page—Unless you are applying for a blogging job and are linking to blogs you write, or are applying for a web design job and are linking to work samples, this is just not appropriate. For one thing, those “see my web page for more info” messages are of limited use to corporate recruiters, since the information on your website can’t easily be incorporated into the applicant tracking system. That’s why we ask for resumes, not links. For another, I don’t need to see pictures of you with your friends at a party playing with a blow-up doll (true story). Unless the employer asks for links, or there’s an excellent business reason for providing them, don’t.
Interests—I don’t need to know that you like walks with your poodle, roller skating, and stamp collecting. I need to know whether you can do the job or not. Don’t fill space on your resume that could be better used telling me how successful you will be in the job, based on how successful you’ve been in past jobs. Including a list of your hobbies or interests is old-school, and like the height and weight stuff, it makes you look out-of-touch. It’s true that companies will consider who you are as a person in determining your fit for their culture, but that’s best done in the interview, not on the resume (and it still won’t factor in your love of roller skating).
Deception—Please, please don’t make stuff up. In the age of the internet, people are very, very networked, and it is easy to find people who worked at your company and know that you didn’t really invent Post-It notes while you worked there. There’s a myth that companies don’t check these things, but quite a few of them do, and you won’t know until you make a fool of yourself and lose out whether this company does or not. It’s just not worth it.
Typos—DON’T RELY ON SPELLCHECK. Excuse the shouting, but you would be astonished at how many typos slip through and make you look stupid. Proofread, then proofread again, then wait a few days and proofread again, and then give it to a few other people and have them proofread. In this market, when you are competing with hundreds of other qualified applicants, you cannot have typos. Period.
Made up words, or words you had to use a thesaurus to find—Bigger words do not make you sound smarter. In fact, your resume is more likely to be read if it is short and punchy. Don’t say “utilized” when you mean “used.”
Exclamation points—I once had this candidate! She loved exclamation points! She was reasonably qualified! But every single sentence had an exclamation point! It was really freaky! I interviewed her anyway! I turned out that her personality was super peppy! Like, so peppy we wondered if she’d pass the drug test! Resumes are a form of business writing, and business writing almost never requires exclamation points.
Text-message-speak—Again, resumes are a form of business writing. That means words need to be spelled out, not abbreviated. Proper spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are key. Otherwise, you don’t look hip-you look illiterate. That’s not good. Remember that when you type your name and address in when you first register for job hunting sites like Monster, it’s going to appear on the recruiter’s screen as you type it. If you type in, “pat jones, 123 main st, milwaukee, wi,” it’s going to look sloppy. Put in the extra effort to press down the SHIFT key once in a while, y’know?

Photo by Hetemeel.com

Thanks to Anna at ABDPBT, who started the Fighting Listlessness on Mondays trend in blogging. Anna’s blog isn’t about jobhunting, but it’s about other, way more interesting things. I highly recommend it.

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How to Handle a Gap in Your Resume

Kerry Scott — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:32:20 +0000

A reader writes:

I spent the last nine months caring for my mother, who was dying of cancer, and then took a little break (two months) to pull myself together. How should I address this gap on my resume? I am worried that people will think I was just lazy, especially since I took two months off after she died.

First, I’m really sorry about your mom. Any reasonable person would understand why you needed a break after that. I don’t think you have an issue there (and if you do, you’ve just discovered someone you definitely don’t want to be your boss).

I wouldn’t address this on the resume at all. I’d end the resume with your last job, and include something in the cover letter like this:

I spent the last nine months caring for my mother, who was suffering from terminal cancer. She passed away in March and I am now ready to return to work.

You really don’t need to say any more. In fact, I’m not sure you need to say this at this stage; there are tons of people walking around with big gaps on their resumes right now, because the market is bad and the next job is no longer right around the corner. You may be asked about it in the interview, though, so if you feel like this might be a tough thing to discuss in person, you can get it out of the way in your cover letter.

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Want to See Your Resume in a New Light?

Kerry Scott — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:01:08 +0000

Here’s some cheap entertainment:

Go to wordle.net.
Copy-and-paste your text resume.
See how it looks. Do you see a lot of action verbs? Do you reuse the same ones over and over? Is it too heavy on the buzzwords and acronyms?

It’s an interesting way to look at your resume and see whether you’re using the sort of language that best communicates your skills and experience. Plus, it’s kinda fun.

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Can Creative People Get Funky With Resumes?

Kerry Scott — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:53:46 +0000

Photo by pasotraspaso

A reader writes:

I’m in a creative field (graphic design). I keep reading articles from HR people like you that I should not do anything innovative with my resume, because HR people and their computer systems don’t like it. I’m not trying to get an HR job though, and I feel that my resume should be an opportunity to show off my creativity. Why does HR have to be the barrier to me showing my skills?

You’re right—HR people shouldn’t be the barrier. If I’m helping a manager hire for a creative role, I expect to see all kinds of funky. If I’m hiring for a flashy role, I expect to see people doing flashy things. The job search advice you read out there (and in here) is for most people, most of the time. If it doesn’t apply to you, you should disregard it.

Good HR people know when to butt out of the hiring process. I screen much more broadly for fields where I’m unqualified to judge the work. As you can see by the design of my blog, I am not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination. When I’m helping to hire for a role like that, I make sure the hiring manager is far more involved in the screening, because he is going to have a way better eye for that kind of talent than I. My role, in a situation like that, is to attract people who might want to work here, keep the process moving, etc. Good recruiting is often about getting over yourself and letting the people who know what they’re talking about do their thing.

Shauna Moerke at HRMinion had a post about this very thing yesterday. She also had a link to this resume, for a guy who wants a job designing characters for video games. It’s fantastic.

It’s good to get advice on job hunting (especially from me), but like they say in Motown, your mileage may vary. You always have to apply your own wisdom and experience to what you’re reading.

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Saturday Extra: The Video Resume

Kerry Scott — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:49:25 +0000

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m supposed to be at Trader Joe’s buying cheese curds for my 1-year-old (my children are half-cheesehead, and their obsession with cheese curds knows no bounds). Instead I’m on the computer, posting something John from Unemploymentality sent me, because it’s THAT funny:

Michael Spafferty’s Video Resume

It was on my list do to a post about how you should resist the urge to jump on this video resume trend. Now I don’t have to, because really, this captures it perfectly.

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Get That Resume Done Before the Super Bowl

Kerry Scott — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:00:33 +0000

If you’ve been putting off posting your resume on Monster or CareerBuilder, this is the week to get it done.

Both sites will be running ads during the Super Bowl on February 1. CareerBuilder has been a regular in the Super Bowl ad race for years, and their salespeople aggressively pursue companies for contracts in the couple of weeks before and after the big game. They see a traffic spike as a result of the ads, and they sell employers on the idea of using them when their traffic is highest. They run some great specials during this period, and as a result, there will likely be more employers than usual who are using the site in the next few weeks. That means that it’s a great time to post your resume, because more people will see it.

Monster hasn’t run an ad during the Super Bowl since 2004, but this year they’re jumping in as well. If you’re posting on CareerBuilder to ride the wave, you should post on Monster too. If people are willing to buy $3 million ads, you may as well ride their coattails and profit from the extra traffic.

Everyone else will be out there too, so be sure to refresh your resume daily for the next few weeks (more on that here). For basic tips on how to post a resume online, check this out.

In the past, CareerBuilder ads have been humorous takes on why people should quit their jobs. It will be interesting to see whether they take that same approach in this tough economy, when so many people are unemployed rather than employed-but-looking. About 2.6 million people have lost their job since the last Super Bowl, and there’s just no way to make that funny.

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