Thursday, October 2, 2008

Are you there recruiter, its me, Perfect Applicant?

Recently I was speaking to a job seeker who had solid experience in both sales and marketing. I was urging her to tailor her resume for specific job openings, and expanding her descriptions related to the job description. By focusing a resume to the job, it allows you to present yourself well to the reader.

When you are applying to a position directly with a company, often all the resumes are sent to a general delivery email address. A Human Resources recruiter then slogs through the inbox to find out who has responded to the ad. As when I post a job, lots of relevant resumes come in, but also a lot of unqualified but interested job applicants apply. The company recruiter is tasked with finding those applicants that come closest to the job description, and making those resumes available either to an HR manager, or to a hiring manager. Within big companies, the recruiters are going through tons of resumes for all sorts of open positions, from winemakers to CFOs, viticulturists to sales managers. It only makes sense that the concise, clear resumes make it out of the inbox, and onto someone's desk.

While tailoring your resume is important, keeping it readable to the recruiter is crucial. Explaining your work experience clearly and thoroughly is important. Also, keep a handle on your use of buzzwords. While everyone in your industry may be able to quickly ascertain your knowledge when looking through a list of acronyms, to a company recruiter it may be all gibberish. A happy medium is to explain your background in plain words, and list technologies, systems, etc at the bottom of each entry. This allows your resume to be understood by anyone who is looking at it, which is exactly who you want looking at it. Now you just want it to get out of the inbox and into the hands of the decision maker. Good Luck.

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