Quick and Dirty: What Cranky Recruiter looks for on a resume first

I have exactly five minutes to write this.  So please excuse any mistakes, errors or crankiness.  Those who regularly read my blog will understand that last part. 

I am always being asked for advice with resumes.  Happy to help, when time permits.  Right now time is of the essence.  But I thought I'd give you the quick and dirty version of what I, and most hiring managers, look for in a resume.

1.  A resume that is appropriate for the position.  If I've posted a job and I get a resume out of left field that doesn't match the description at all, it tends to get very little interest.  I do understand that I often post positions and note that I also recruit on other jobs in the wine industry.  So, I do want to hear from job seekers out there, and am happy to get your resume--it just may be reviewed later than a resume that is spot on.  Patience, my friends.

2.  Location, location, location.  I look at where someone is living and consider that heavily in their ability to take the job I'm working on.  Yes, people relocate all the time for work.  People also get through the entire interviewing process all the time and decide that, no, they don't really want to leave (insert home town here).  This really doesn't help me, and can hurt my business, so I do weigh a person's current location in my decision to contact them about a position.

3.  Education.  I want people to have a Bachelor's Degree at least for most jobs.  I do understand that going to school and working can be hard, but do it.  Get that degree, even if it takes 10 years or more.  I love seeing it on a resume.  AA degrees and advanced degrees are also great to see.  But yes, if you have been going to an institution of higher learning for the last 15 years and have no work experience I worry about your ability to work in an industry job.  Just saying.

4.  Lengths of employment.  I like people who have been in a job for a few years.  More than two.  If less, I may wonder why, and sometimes know why, but give me a good 4 years at your last employer, and I'm in heaven.

5.  Gaps of employment:  You hear about this problem.  Yes, I wonder why you weren't working for 2 years.  I often will contact you, but you better be able to address it.

Remember,  no one is perfect.  I understand if your resume doesn't meet my top five points exactly.  I'll often give you a chance.  But just thought many people would like to see what my eye scans when I open up a resume.  Hey, five minutes and five talking points--not bad.  Back to work. 

Where's WineTalent

Finally, after three days of meetings, sessions and networking, I'm back in front of my computer, doing work again.  I found a great photographer on the trade show floor yesterday, and got this picture.  Where's WineTalent?  And thank you James for the excellent photography!  I feel almost like a grapevine standing there.  Extra credit for guessing what is about to run me over!

Book Review: Blood, Bones & Butter

 

Ok, I've sung the praises of Anthony Bourdain on this blog before, but I think there is a new chef/owner vying for my attention, Gabrielle Hamilton.  It's OK; Tony gave her big endorsements on the dust cover of her book Blood, Bones & Butter.  Since Tony said it is "simply the best memoir by a chef ever", I guess I'm lucky I haven't read too many of them, because now I don't need to bother with the rest.  That's a time saver.

And time saving is what I need.  It does drain me of my time when I have to sit glued to a book for up to 10 hours in the course of two days.  Thank goodness it was a holiday, and I had all that extra time to not put the thing down.  I was simply reading, and would look up after laughing so much and, "oh my, look at the time!" The kids were trying their hardest to get me to tuck them into bed, and I had to just keep shooing them away so that I could read about Gabrielle's struggle to mix her work and personal lives together seamlessly.  As I sit to write this review my 3-year-old is climbing on my head, asking for her gummy bears that Santa brought.  Come on kids, don't you understand all these other professionals don't have the same demands on them, nor demons they have battled, and certainly have never had any feelings like I do of inadequacy. 

Oh, wait, there does seem to be something similar in my life and in Gabrielle's.  While I didn't have quite the extreme upbringing she had--I wasn't working in a restaurant at the age of 13, didn't move in with my sister in New York's Hell's Kitchen when I was 16, and never had potential charges of Grand Larceny and Possession of Stolen Property during my teen-age years or ever--there were some common elements that I could relate to.  Growing up out in the boondocks as the youngest sibling, there was plenty of idle time I spent out in nature and looking up to my superhero older siblings.  For anyone who has ever raised chickens like Gabrielle's family and mine did, you should get the symbolism of the jacket cover. And I have a great food memory, often remembering the food I ate at places more than who I was with or why I was there.  Chicken and dumplings, ratatouille, rye bread and pate--those things send me right back to the place I ate them--salivating for more.  Also, I think a strong work ethic is crucial--but some people have it and others don't.  Hopefully I do.

With this book Gabrielle Hamilton, AKA Prune, talks about her upbringing, her antics during her teenage years, and her struggles to be a grown-up.  All through it there are great references to the good food and hard work she loves.  And hard work it is.  Her writing about the demands she puts on herself back in her catering cook days to the all-too realistic accounts of running a very successful restaurant in Manhattan while being pregnant and then raising two small children thoroughly illustrates her fortitude.

What really got me was her account of being a speaker at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.  The topic was "Where are the Women?" and Gabrielle was one of 10 women chefs discussing the issue in front of hundreds of female students, as well as several male students.  The students asked questions about how to be successful in the restaurant business, which is a male-dominated one.  "Is it okay to cry?" was one of the first questions asked, and one that Gabrielle used as a great vehicle to discuss her thoughts on working in the restaurant business, how she was successful, and poignantly how she mixes being a woman, a restauranteur, an intellectual, a feminist, a lesbian now married to a man, the mother of two very small children, and a contributor to society.  This is my favorite chapter.  I think Gabrielle did a great job of describing her own perspective as well as giving some great comments about figuring out how to do it all.  Oh, and any working mother reading the book can totally related to the baby sock in the purse and the oatmeal on the sweater. 

So, plan wisely and get yourself some spare time to read this book.  It shouldn't take long.