Students & Summer Jobs - Professional Resumes

If you’re currently studying toward a diploma or degree, do yourself a favour – make sure you accrue as much practical work experience as you can prior to graduating!   

However, attaining these summer jobs may not be as easy as it used to be.  A recent Vancouver Sun article shed light on what a B.C. economist claimed would be a tough summer for students looking for work.  Citing an underperforming economy and higher youth unemployment levels than four years ago, Bryan Hu of Central One Credit Union told the Vancouver Sun that “There's uncertainty on the part of businesses. As a result, they're not hiring and for businesses that are hiring, they may be looking for more seasoned veterans in the workforce that have the experience necessary for the positions.”

It may not just be in Canada where students looking to add invaluable work experience to their resume could struggle.  In the UK where the coffee house is one of the traditional strongholds of the summer student, a major national coffee house chain advertised for 8 roles and received 1700 applications.  This is clearly worrying for those seeking to bolster their resumes and bank balance prior to returning to their studies. So what can be done?  Create a professional resume, put on your best suit, and walk into each and every retail store in your area and personally deliver your documents.  Give employers the opportunity to see you, talk to you, and understand what you can do for them.  Failing that, set-up your own on-line business selling trinkets or gadgets.  Show some initiative…it can all go on your resume!

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New Graduates & Work Experience

As a certified professional resume writer, former executive recruiter, and recruitment consultancy owner, I understand the value that work experience on a resume can confer upon graduates seeking entry-level roles within their chosen profession upon graduation. 

In spite of a recent CBC documentary highlighting the plight of many graduates, unemployed or underemployed with mountains of debt, I still receive requests for resume assistance from undergrads with zero work experience.  Usually, the reason given for the lack of work experience on their resume is that they wanted to focus on their studies, or that they received advice from an elder that working in the usual coffee houses or restaurants is beneath them and wouldn’t look good on a resume.

Nothing could be further from the truth. To be clear, having no work entries on your resume at the time of graduation will put you at a severe disadvantage when competing with thousands of other applicants for your entry level role.  An employer respects the drive and determination shown by graduates who can demonstrate an ability to balance their academic studies with regular part-time employment.  It looks good on your resume.

A recent client who worked at a well-known coffee house gained experience of working in a customer-facing role in a highly-dynamic working environment.  He had responsibility for delivering outstanding customer service, supervising junior staff members, enforcing corporate policies and procedures, adhering to safe workplace practices, opening and closing the store, processing orders, handling cash, and producing daily operational reports for management. He even won an award for outstanding customer service.  Not working during your studies is not an option.  If I were reviewing resumes with a view to recruiting graduates, I’d exclusively seek out candidates with work experience on their resume. 

Easy Come, Easy Go.....

In August 2011, the Fraser Institute cited Alberta as having the best-performing job market among all jurisdictions thanks to the highest total employment growth and the second-lowest duration of unemployment.  Fast forward to the 2^nd Nov 2011 and the Calgary Herald was reporting that Calgary’s labour market was headed for a serious downturn.

Regardless of the manner in which labour market conditions are reported and the tales they convey, the need to have a professionally written resume at your disposal never changes.  The ability to impress a hiring team with a high-impact, well-written resume document and cover letter that actually sells you into your target role is of the utmost importance.

Life Begins At.......

With the anticipated retirement of a significant tranche of the workforce and a lack of suitably skilled or experienced professionals to fill the void, there is a growing realization among many HR professionals that sending older employees out to pasture despite the expertise cited in their resumes isn’t such a good idea after all!

Not so long ago Statistics Canada stated that the number of persons aged 65 years and over doubled between 1981 and 2009 and is expected to double again by 2036.  They also stated that there will be more seniors than children (under 15 years) in Canada for the first time ever, at some point between 2015 and 2021.  Given the anticipated shortfall of skilled labour, it would seem that there is a clear need to develop strategies aimed at retaining employees approaching retirement age.

So what do you do if you are an older employee who has been released by your employer?  In my experience, the older generation have tended to stick with the same company for many years, sometimes decades.  In situations like this, there often has never been a need to have a resume.  Taking a step back from a 20-30 year long career to contemplate what you have to offer a new employer can be a daunting task.  Of course, the fact that you have worked for one employer for so long, in itself, solicits questions at interview as to how you will adapt to working with new processes, policies, procedures, products and people. 

How do you structure such as resume?  Clearly, you do not want spend 3 pages explaining your day-to-day work activity as it was 20 years ago. You will have to edit your career down to two, high-impact pages of successes.  Not an easy task for most people.  Nonetheless, if you intend for your resume to be read, that is what you must accomplish.

Working with a professional to develop a coherent personal brand, high-impact resume strategy, and perfecting your interview skills can go a long way to helping you understand what you can offer, what you want, and the best way to go about getting it.

MAC It Yourself?

Over the course of the last 7 business days I received 4 client resumes that looked virtually identical.  It turns out that each client had used the very same template from their respective Apple iMac computers.  One can only imagine how widespread computer resume template usage actually is!

As per my article on the Canadian job market becoming more competitive than it has ever been in recent times, how wise is it use one of the world's most common resume templates in your bid to distinguish yourself from your peers?

If a job vacancy is keenly contested and all of the candidates have a similar skillset, what will make YOU stand out from the crowd?  Resume content?  Of course!  Content is King.  However, resume design is particularly important in communicating that all important first impression.  If the hiring manager opens up your document to find an exact copy of the preceding resume template, what message does that convey?

Every client I work with has made the decision to seek out professional assistance in compiling a resume and cover letter because they don't want to be seen as the same as everyone else.  They want to stand out!  They want to get past that initial screening and move forward to the interview stage. 

Having a professionally written resume gives you a powerful tool to help distinguish you from your peers.  Computer templates?  They are for the masses......let everyone else use them!

Stand Out Or Stand Down – It’s More Competitive Than Ever

Canada’s unemployment rate (CANLXEMR) rose for a third month in December 2011 as a gain in jobs trailed growth of the labor force, with the labour market likely to stay stalled in 2012 according to a survey of economists conducted by Bloomberg news.

As always in a tight market where employers have their choice of candidates, you need to stand out. You really do.  Getting in front of a hiring manager is key and unless you are an exceptional networker or unusually well connected, your chance of getting in front of the right person will probably depend on your resume.

So what makes a resume stand out?  First of all, make sure it doesn’t look like every other template resume downloaded from the internet.   Sifting through reams of documents that all look alike becomes tedious for a hiring manager.  Your resume should present itself in a stand-out, professional, corporate manner.  Do not go down the dead-end road of garish designs or quirky quips.  That will make you stand out but for all the wrong reasons.

Secondly, make sure your resume and cover letter communicate the pertinent information in a clear and accessible format.  Recruiters don’t want to read through every single line item on your document…they want you to make their life easy.  So tailor your resume and cover letter to suit the role you’re going after and make sure you SELL not just TELL.

Thirdly, no spelling errors please.  If I’m sifting through 75 resumes I need an immediate filter and spelling errors guarantee an encounter with the corporate shredder.

Lastly….no photos unless you’re in a profession that requires a photo as part of your application.

It’s becoming even harder to stand out, as such job seekers have no option but to raise their game.  Make sure you raise your game if you want to distinguish yourself from your peers.  Now is the time to do it!

Tales From The TALEO Crypt – How To Be Screened In

One of the most frustrating things for job seekers can be not knowing why they were screened out of a recruitment process.  Having your resume screened out repeatedly and not knowing why breeds anxiety and loss of confidence.

Over the last couple of months I seem to have encountered a surge in job seekers with tales of woe about their resume being screened out and never finding out why even though they considered themselves to be qualified for the role.

Usually, the job seekers are unaware that larger corporations often use sophisticated software programs to do the initial screening for the hiring team.  The software program, such as TALEO, will strip the incoming detail out of the application and enter it straight into the corporate database.  From there, the hiring team can perform various keyword searches to further whittle down the list of suitable candidates.

In order to be screened in, you must make it clear in your application that you have all of the skills, experience and qualifications they are looking for.  Your resume should mirror the language of the advertisement as much as legitimately possible.

 If the company are seeking the completion  of a certain certificate that you don’t have but intend to challenge, state in your resume or cover letter that you “intend to undertake training to obtain XYZ certification”.  If the certification is being used as a search filter, at least you’ll make the cut and have a human read your resume.  Remember, if you tell an employer that you intend to undertake a further education task – make sure you are serious about doing it.

A recent client told me a story about one of her recent job applications.  She had applied for a government job and deemed herself to be well qualified.  She was rejected.  Fortunately she had a contact in HR and asked her friend to find out why.  It turns out that she was rejected by the software program used to screen the applications because she did not repeat the requirements sought back to the computer using the same language in which the questions were asked.

Although it can seem as though your resume and job application can disappear into some twilight zone or crypt never to be seen again, there is probably a good reason.  Yes, you may simply not have the skills for the role, but in my experience, many clients simply don’t know how to navigate the online job application process well enough.

Hopefully you’ll find something in this article that can help you combat the dreaded software job applicant selection software!  Good luck!