I was speaking with a prospective client recently who asked about our "guarantee". Our policy, per our website, is that we will work with any client for a period of two weeks post consultation in order to ensure that they are satisfied with their documents. The fact that I've never actually had to do that is testament to the quality of product we produce.
Apparently, there is a company out there offering a cast iron guarantee that they will get you the job you're after! I find such a statement absolutely incredible! It wouldn't take too long a thought process to appreciate the fact that it is not credibly possible to guarantee your resume will get you the job you want, unless the resume writer was also the hiring manager!!
A hiring manager will select a candidate based on specific criteria. If you're not even close, you won't get the job, no matter how good your resume looks!
I'd recommend being careful when dealing with any company making seemingly outlandish guarantees - at the very least - ask them specifically, how they plan to "guarantee" that another human being, in a different industry, working to set criteria, reviewing multiple resumes is guaranteed to give YOU the job!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Screen Out
Having screened over 24,000 resumes in over a decade of recruiting and executive recruiting, I've mastered the art of (very) quickly determining the viability of any given job application. When I was assessing an application against a specific job specification, I was looking for reasons NOT to bring you in for an interview.
I'm still surprised by the number of clients who hadn't actually looked at the screening process through this lens. After reviewing countless applications, with each resume blurring into the next, hiring managers become adept at finding reasons NOT to interview you.
This becomes the starting bloc for all of my resume clients. Why wouldn't I want to interview you for this role? At what point would I lose interest in your document and what you had to say about yourself? How easy would it be for me to consign your resume to the shredder?
Once we uncover the likely objections to your application, we can start to construct an outline of our strategy to take your project forward. If we deal with this early, and build our project to address these issues head on, we start to tread the path toward securing you the all-important interview.
The reason so many job applicants fall at the first hurdle, is because they've all made it far too easy for the hiring manager to hit the delete button.
End-to-End
I received a delightful email from a former client informing me that he had secured his dream job! His new employer is located 10 minutes from his home, are a major player in his field of specialty, and the role offers a significant increase in scope, responsibility and of course money!
The client first approached me with a job specification and requirements portfolio issued to him by an international executive recruitment firm. The data set outlining the position requirements and ideal candidate specification was thorough, complex and demanded a candidate of the very highest caliber. The brief went on to detail part of the recruiting strategy which sought to attract local, national and international candidates for the position.
I accepted the request to work with my client on the project and immediately began the consultation process which was structured around the requirements of the role. My client's resume was in need of a complete re-design and re-structure due to the fact that it didn't reflect at least 40% of his actual professional skills and experience, which upon discovery, became crucial to the overall success of his application.
Phase one focused entirely on the resume and cover letter creation, which won him an interview with the executive recruiter leading the international search. As soon as he was notified that his application had won him an interview with the President of the hiring firm, we proceeded to phase 2 - the interview coaching session. This proved to be invaluable, as although my client was a highly capable, intelligent and forthright individual, he had not been in an interview situation for almost a decade, and it showed! After the mock interview we conduct as part of our 2 hour coaching session, we discussed method, structure, interviewer strategy, and what they're looking for as well as the errors made during our mock interview.
I was delighted to hear that he had dazzled the President and associates, as well as receiving his gratitude for the part Vancouver Resume Writing & Interview Coaching had played in his preparation and execution of the process.
He was a great guy to work with and I wish him well in his new role!
The client first approached me with a job specification and requirements portfolio issued to him by an international executive recruitment firm. The data set outlining the position requirements and ideal candidate specification was thorough, complex and demanded a candidate of the very highest caliber. The brief went on to detail part of the recruiting strategy which sought to attract local, national and international candidates for the position.
I accepted the request to work with my client on the project and immediately began the consultation process which was structured around the requirements of the role. My client's resume was in need of a complete re-design and re-structure due to the fact that it didn't reflect at least 40% of his actual professional skills and experience, which upon discovery, became crucial to the overall success of his application.
Phase one focused entirely on the resume and cover letter creation, which won him an interview with the executive recruiter leading the international search. As soon as he was notified that his application had won him an interview with the President of the hiring firm, we proceeded to phase 2 - the interview coaching session. This proved to be invaluable, as although my client was a highly capable, intelligent and forthright individual, he had not been in an interview situation for almost a decade, and it showed! After the mock interview we conduct as part of our 2 hour coaching session, we discussed method, structure, interviewer strategy, and what they're looking for as well as the errors made during our mock interview.
I was delighted to hear that he had dazzled the President and associates, as well as receiving his gratitude for the part Vancouver Resume Writing & Interview Coaching had played in his preparation and execution of the process.
He was a great guy to work with and I wish him well in his new role!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Quips'n'Quirks
Quick tip - do NOT make quirky quips in your cover letter! I was contacted recently by a rather senior executive who had not been receiving any attention from her job applications. Upon reviewing her cover letter, I uncovered the possible reason for her buzz-free blackberry. Her cover letter was replete with quirks'n'quips - here's a modified example to give you an idea;
"I am a senior executive (with a sense of humour;) and 30 years experience (yikes!) of operating at the highest level. I would very much appreciate an opportunity (begging bowl extended) to meet with you to discuss my suitability! Despite my age (i feel 25!), I am a technocrat and regularly tweet on the twitter.." and so it went on - all 2 pages of it. Although this letter is guaranteed to get passed around the department, this bears no relevance to the likelihood of being hired!
On the face of it there will be some who will think that this is refreshing - injecting a bit of personality into proceedings (the twitter bit was my favourite) and if i weren't a hiring manager I may see their point. However, attempting to layer a cover letter with "personality" is like tap dancing on a landmine. More often than not it will blow up in your face. Remember - her blackberry wasn't singing. Her strategy wasn't working.
It may seem obvious but, when you don't know the intended audience keep the "personality" for the interview. The cover letter should focus on forming a narrative around your skills, abilities and achievements.
"I am a senior executive (with a sense of humour;) and 30 years experience (yikes!) of operating at the highest level. I would very much appreciate an opportunity (begging bowl extended) to meet with you to discuss my suitability! Despite my age (i feel 25!), I am a technocrat and regularly tweet on the twitter.." and so it went on - all 2 pages of it. Although this letter is guaranteed to get passed around the department, this bears no relevance to the likelihood of being hired!
On the face of it there will be some who will think that this is refreshing - injecting a bit of personality into proceedings (the twitter bit was my favourite) and if i weren't a hiring manager I may see their point. However, attempting to layer a cover letter with "personality" is like tap dancing on a landmine. More often than not it will blow up in your face. Remember - her blackberry wasn't singing. Her strategy wasn't working.
It may seem obvious but, when you don't know the intended audience keep the "personality" for the interview. The cover letter should focus on forming a narrative around your skills, abilities and achievements.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
What Not To Say...
The "What not to say..." blogs will be dedicated to the random selection of answers to my interview coaching session questions. Can you follow that?!
Question - What steps do you take to reduce personal stress during the working day?
What Not To Say - "I tend to Squeeze my squishy ball"
Luckily for that respondent he went on to receive a good 2 hours of interview counseling!
Question - What steps do you take to reduce personal stress during the working day?
What Not To Say - "I tend to Squeeze my squishy ball"
Luckily for that respondent he went on to receive a good 2 hours of interview counseling!
The Questionnaire Laid Bare
As part of the information discovery process, I usually ask clients to bring along to our meeting any additional information they feel is useful, relevant or in some other way important. Last month, one of my clients produced an old "questionnaire" they had been asked to fill our by a resume writing firm about 8 years ago.
The first thing that struck me about the document was how impersonal it all was. Stock questions, soliciting the inevitable stock answers, strengths, weaknesses, lists - endless lists of attributes to circle. What i was looking at, was a template to build a template.
The end result, the resume, was as bland and uninspiring as you'd expect from such a process. I was amazed by the blatant listing of attributes throughout the cover letter and resume without any supporting narrative to put the clients skills in context.
Here's a section from the cover letter;
"I am a great communicator, can multi-task, give and take orders, have listening skills, organizational skills, planning skills, speak french and have good computer skills".
The above extract is absolutely meaningless without context. It looks like every other D.I.Y. cover letter project out there and was clearly lifted verbatim from the questionnaire and deposited unceremoniously into the cover letter.
Is that what you really want from a process and service charged with the responsibility of demonstrating your unique qualities to a prospective hiring manager? Templates are for the masses - let everyone else use them.
The first thing that struck me about the document was how impersonal it all was. Stock questions, soliciting the inevitable stock answers, strengths, weaknesses, lists - endless lists of attributes to circle. What i was looking at, was a template to build a template.
The end result, the resume, was as bland and uninspiring as you'd expect from such a process. I was amazed by the blatant listing of attributes throughout the cover letter and resume without any supporting narrative to put the clients skills in context.
Here's a section from the cover letter;
"I am a great communicator, can multi-task, give and take orders, have listening skills, organizational skills, planning skills, speak french and have good computer skills".
The above extract is absolutely meaningless without context. It looks like every other D.I.Y. cover letter project out there and was clearly lifted verbatim from the questionnaire and deposited unceremoniously into the cover letter.
Is that what you really want from a process and service charged with the responsibility of demonstrating your unique qualities to a prospective hiring manager? Templates are for the masses - let everyone else use them.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
It's Good To Talk...
I've just come off the phone to a client who was weighing up his options about whether to work with me or one of our competitors.
His deliberation was in part, based around the process each firm employed en-route to gathering the information needed to complete the project. So we had a nice little chat!
Our competitor likes to employ the 'questionnaire' method. The questionnaire, I was told, would require the client to spend between one and two hours in front of his computer answering questions about his work history. After this was completed, it would be sent to the company and the document would be pieced together around the information supplied.
Our approach is entirely different. Having worked in the recruiting and staffing industry as an executive recruiter over the last 10 year gave me the opportunity (on a daily basis) to extract detailed career information from top executives in order to determine whether or not they had the skills my corporate client needed to fill a particular role.
It is the ability to extract pertinent career information by talking with clients, combined with an expertise in understanding the best way to present this information to a hiring manager, that made me such a successful recruiter. It is this same combination of skills and experience that sets us apart from our resume writing competition. Many "resume writers" have little idea of how to ask for information or converse with someone one-on-one about the detail of their work history. This is because so many of them are writing resumes 'on the side' and have virtually no relevant professional experience or they lack the confidence or skill-set to be able to do so in a one-on-one situation.
We don't ask you to fill out questionnaires because we have the ability to get the information we need by talking with you! Discussing your career history, hopes and goals with an experienced professional skilled in this process can uncover key details that will form the basis of our project outline and branding strategy.
Our process makes for an enlivened and dynamic discussion where ideas flow freely, interesting facts or accomplishments are remembered and work history 'problem areas' can be openly discussed and strategized. Such synergy cannot be realised if you're staring at a computer screen typing out standard answers to a series of mundane flat, fixed questions.
As Bob Hoskins used to say in the BT Telecom adverts aired in the U.K. - "it's good to talk". My new client agreed!
His deliberation was in part, based around the process each firm employed en-route to gathering the information needed to complete the project. So we had a nice little chat!
Our competitor likes to employ the 'questionnaire' method. The questionnaire, I was told, would require the client to spend between one and two hours in front of his computer answering questions about his work history. After this was completed, it would be sent to the company and the document would be pieced together around the information supplied.
Our approach is entirely different. Having worked in the recruiting and staffing industry as an executive recruiter over the last 10 year gave me the opportunity (on a daily basis) to extract detailed career information from top executives in order to determine whether or not they had the skills my corporate client needed to fill a particular role.
It is the ability to extract pertinent career information by talking with clients, combined with an expertise in understanding the best way to present this information to a hiring manager, that made me such a successful recruiter. It is this same combination of skills and experience that sets us apart from our resume writing competition. Many "resume writers" have little idea of how to ask for information or converse with someone one-on-one about the detail of their work history. This is because so many of them are writing resumes 'on the side' and have virtually no relevant professional experience or they lack the confidence or skill-set to be able to do so in a one-on-one situation.
We don't ask you to fill out questionnaires because we have the ability to get the information we need by talking with you! Discussing your career history, hopes and goals with an experienced professional skilled in this process can uncover key details that will form the basis of our project outline and branding strategy.
Our process makes for an enlivened and dynamic discussion where ideas flow freely, interesting facts or accomplishments are remembered and work history 'problem areas' can be openly discussed and strategized. Such synergy cannot be realised if you're staring at a computer screen typing out standard answers to a series of mundane flat, fixed questions.
As Bob Hoskins used to say in the BT Telecom adverts aired in the U.K. - "it's good to talk". My new client agreed!
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