Ohhh last night I got angry.
I saw an article on a major media site written by the head of a major recruiting firm.
How’s that for a little bit ambiguous?
I’m not here to get in a fight about it…
I just want to make a MAJOR point. Bad advice happens… even from the big guns.
The article was about great resume examples.
It listed a few different ones for different levels of professionals.
I clicked because I was genuinely interested. I have a LOT of clients that use this recruiting firm.
I was aghast. Literally jaw dropped on the floor.
What the heck were these examples?
Were they really serious?
I mean not in a million years would I have expected to see examples so basic, and some really bad advice.
Now I get it, all career pros have their own take on certain things.. but some concepts are pretty widely accepted and preached. These were not those points. I’m not talking format here- I’m talking bad advice on content.
What the ACTUAL F*CK is going on?
I know what they expect in candidates – I write for enough of them – I know who they choose to present to companies and boards. The tips that were being touted were not up to that par… let alone good for any level.
My first thought was to contact them and challenge this article. I mean this is BAD advice. Period.
But what is that going to do? Really? Perhaps this was an outsourced article without a lot of real knowledge on the subject and just attributed to that head of the company? But Oh Em Gee– doesn’t someone check that first?
I don’t know what the situation was to make this get published… but WOWZA this is some bad advice.
I’d rather focus my time on making sure job seekers like you KNOW how to really and truly stand out.
The BIGGEST piece of advice I can possibly give, aside from just making sure your resume is ATS compliant, is to not only LIST accomplishments and data points, but …
Think of things like this:
HOW?? Did you work alone or part of a team to collaborate… what did this do for the organization/plan objectives? What achievements were made- what strategies did you employ?
Fact is recruiters and hiring managers want to know about: HOW? How did it help? What did it result in? Details – it’s all in the details. …
The article said, just list numbers. — Just listing numbers doesn’t cut it… The article suggested that the job seeker should just put a number down and no real details, because they will just ask about it in an interview.
How about standing out from the start so you can dive into crucial job-matching details in the interview? I mean, an interview is a time for you to sell yourself. Just think how much further you will be if you already pre-sold your background from the resume.
INSTEAD OF JUST SAYING:
Led projects in South America that resulted in $14M in cost savings.
DO THIS INSTEAD:
Directed strategies that saved $14M in capital expenditure in South American facilities by implementing a streamlined workflow process, and providing indepth training to 35 team members to satisfy compliance and expectations across all Service level Agreements.
Not only did you provide the great data point, but by doing it this way, you can easily explain HOW you achieved this.
It helps Hiring Managers see how you will tackle situations in their company too. And as a major perk, you can utilize the various phrases and keywords in job descriptions to match up with what companies want in your punchy bullet point. Awesome right?
Now some might say, Ohhh that is very long. Nobody wants to read that long of a sentence.
You could be right… some won’t. But 15 years of expertise in this with my clients presenting thought-out indepth resumes… there’s some serious success happening.
They key here is to take the most significant points that not only WOW, but also tie in with what companies are looking for. You do this in a powerhouse resume, and they will take one look at it and ask you to an interview ASAP.
In the interview, you can go into more details with regards to their questions on those key bullet points. Keep in mind, you still want to emulate their focus and goals for their company in how you explain what you did. Let them see that you have already achieved things that they want in a candidate.
Make your resume a no-brainer… and you will be asked to THAT MANY MORE interviews!
