Third Time Lucky...

In any line of business, choosing the right professional to partner with is crucial to the success of the project and that's one of the reasons I put so much time and effort into my website!

I was recently working with an executive who had paid good money to have his resume written by a firm headquartered in Toronto.  When that resume didn't live up to expectations, he had it re-written by someone in Alberta.  When that resume didn't cut the mustard, he contacted me.

Part of the problem centred around the initial impact of the document.  The font used was a size 10 and the typeface was exotic!  It was very difficult to read line by line and the overall feel was cluttered, un-coordinated and generally messy.  It looked as though someone had tried to squeeze as much detail into it as possible, without going over the two page limit.  That's because they had.

In short, after listening to his career aspirations, drawing out significant detail during the consultation process, re-framing business success metric and creating a resume design specifically for him, he was thrilled!  My abilit to drill down into the technical detail to uncover the business metrics uncovered a significant error had been made by the last resume writer.  The last writer had framed a sales metric carelessly that could have landed my client in hot water had it been checked.

Here's a quote;

“I am very, very pleased with the documents you sent me.  The resume has..a different look, read &
just over all impression...it looks very executive.  I am most impressed with the top portion of
the resume...career objective & core competencies. You really captured what I have been trying to say all along.

I agree with the way you beefed up the XXXX role...my skills & abilities were really under-represented in the old resume..again you did a great job at representing my skills & results.  Which is right on target!!!  Bravo!!”

The problem that some people seeking professional resume services face is that they're not too sure what they're looking for.  Ideally, you should be working with someone who has extensive experience in actually conducting recruitment and selection campaigns, someone who has consulted with a diverse array of business managers, HR directors and executives from multiple industries.

Unfortunately, some people are lured in to working with "writers" on the strength of a resume writing certificate alone.  If a truck driver takes a 6 week online course to obtain a resume writing certificate, does that then qualify him to understand the intricacies of the recruitment process, the requirements and desires of HR professionals, or indeed, actually what they want to see from a resume or interview?  I very much doubt it.  Such expertise can only be gleamed from hard-won practical experience.

If you're going to partner with someone, then choose a specialist who made a living preparing and interviewing job seekers in order to prepare and present resumes that surpass employer expectations!  You don't get relevant skills like these by driving an 18 wheeler.

My resume candidate spent a lot of money before he found me, and after my expertise was brought to bare on his project, we hit the nail on the head and crafted a winning resume that actually showcased his skills and accomplishment.  The document sold him.  That's the key to career success.

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.

Not All Resumes Are Created Equal!

I was contacted recently by a client looking to update their resume. The client wanted us to add in his most recent position but did not want us to re-write the resume as it had been "professionally done" by another resume writing firm.

After reviewing his documents, I was dumbfounded.

The format of the "professionally written" cover letter was unlike anything I had seen in a decade of reviewing resumes! The letter itself started more than half way down the page, with the entire top half dedicated to the inappropriate structuring of personal contact information and a sequence of bizarre spacing that made me wonder if a high school student had attempted to format it. The content of the letter repeated the detail found in the "Summary" section of the resume - never a good idea for reasons that will be explained in a future blog.

The resume itself looked like any other resume I've seen where job seekers have attempted to 'give it a go' themselves by using online templates and such like and the client had actually paid money for someone to produce this for him!

The content was bland, uninspiring and merely listed basic duties and alluded to "bringing value" and a "terrific ability to connect with people", without ever expanding upon these statements with facts, results, achievements or any other tangible benefit resulting from his corporate contributions or personal attributes.

The professional experience section gave as much weighting to his post-graduate entry level position 12 years prior as it did to his most recent advanced professional experience. They were afforded 4 bullet points each. WHY?

Tenses fluctuated from past to present within the space of a few words, full stops were missing in action, there was even a section on there where they had used a smaller text size to squeeze it all onto 2 pages. It looked terrible and I felt very sorry for him.

Here was a very nice guy trying to make his way and advance his career and who had invested in a service he thought would serve him well in front of hiring managers. Instead he was given a resume document that looks like he had thrown it together himself and a cover letter a high school student would receive a 'D' for (or a clip round the ear if it was 1960).

As much as I wanted to help him, I couldn't consent to working on the project as I could not associate my business with that resume unless I was tasked with completely re-working it. This was something which the client was unwilling to do as he had already paid for it to be "professionally done". I understood his predicament.

Choose your resume writing partner carefully. If a resume writer does not have an extensive prior professional background in recruiting, then they cannot possibly know how a diverse range of employers across a variety of industries hire, who they hire and why they hire them.

My background affords me the luxury of knowing what works and what most certainly does not work when it comes to grabbing the attention of a hiring manager.

Watch out for a future blog entry detailing 'what you should look for in a resume writer' and how 'telling isn't selling'!

300:1

It wasn't so long ago that the buoyant job market and apparent shortage of qualified candidates spun a tale that brought the phrases "Gen X" and "Gen Y" into the mainstream lexicon.

Employee wages and benefits were on the rise as forward thinking companies embraced the realities of the market and took concrete steps to offer innovative incentives or sweeteners to make sure they snared the best candidates for themselves. Many business and HR publications ran headlines that screamed about "skill shortages" and space fillers such as "top tips for employee retention" flooded the media. Then came the financial collapse..

Now, it's a different story. These days I'm hearing the same thing time and again - "competition is fierce"! Case in point, I was talking with a resume client last week about this issue. She works for one of the larger finance firms in town and her company had been actively recruiting for a low level 'teller' position. More than 300 applications rolled through the door and the posting still had a week to run!

How do you stand out among the crowd? If you're application was one of 300+ - what would separate you from your peers? What would catch the eye of a hiring manager as they spend their 30 seconds skimming your profile and resume?

Having your resume professionally crafted will certainly give you an edge on your competition! The aim is to get you an interview, make the final cut, then let your masterful interview technique and solid interview preparation dazzle the awaiting panel of judges. If your resume isn't as competent as it should be then you will certainly be marginalized by applicants who may be no more qualified than you but who have invested in creating a professional portfolio that is presented in an easy to read, eye catching format.

As I say in my marketing material - "Partnering with us could be the best career decision you ever make!". I wasn't exaggerating!

www.DON'TDOTHIS.com

With the advent of the internet and myriad of related technologies, it is easier than ever to connect with people online and promote your particular skills, experience and personal attributes in the hope of expanding your network or pitching for an open position.

However, things can go awry.

Consider this. A recent graduate engaged us to work solely on his cover letter as he was quite pleased with his resume and "online presence". He was convinced that his inability to construct a professional cover letter was hindering his ability to connect with an employer, specifically, some of Vancouver's larger corporations.

On reviewing his resume, I couldn't help but notice the web address that adorned each page, enticing the reader to view www.HISNAME.com.

Naturally, I followed the link into his "online presence" and was greeted by a picture of what appeared to be a magician with magic dust circling his head and skulls and crossbones in each corner of the screen. The site had several public access areas but the content did not get any better. In among this strange blend of artistry, detailed personal preferences and inappropriate symbology lay his online resume profile!

The candidate had been sending out his resume for lower level roles in large corporations and was not receiving any encouragement whatsoever from the employers he was contacting. I wonder why!

Sometimes I think it goes without saying that this approach should not be aspired to, but perhaps i'm being presumptuous. There are many people out there keen to leverage any perceived advantage in order to steal a march on the competition. Ironically, in such cases, you're guaranteed to have your resume make acquaintance with the corporate shredder in short order.

I don't recommend www.YOURNAME.com type profiles. There's no need for them. Further, there is always the tendency to "expand" upon irrelevancies, upload a mugshot, customize the template to include favourite colours and designs or include information that is entirely inappropriate for review by a CORPORATE hiring manager.

As an experienced Recruiter, I often came across online resume links. It gave me another opportunity to vet the applicant and assess his/her suitability for the role. Read that line again. It's all you need to know!