Cranky Recruiter: Show Your Strengths

Uh-oh, here's Cranky Recruiter digging in after a long holiday weekend.  May spell trouble for some job hunters out there.

Ok, so I've wrapped up working on some marketing roles recently and am struck by the fact that so many marketing resumes are so blah.  Often I see sales resumes that are pretty blah and I think that they probably know how to sell things but rely on a good marketer to come up with the collateral.  But a marketer with a boring resume.  It seems to scream poor marketing skills.

Everyone says you should do what you love.  If I was to become a marketer, I think I would love to market things.  If I was in the hunt for a job, I think my number one goal would be to market myself.  First I'd throw away those old versions of my resume, sit down at my creativity inducing desk/table/park bench and brainstorm what I should be branding myself as.  Do I want to be a packaging guru?  Then I had better have a resume that packs a visual punch.  Do I want to be the strategic marketer who can develop an entire program for my future company?  Well I had better have a logically laid out resume that reflects the tactical nature of my expertise.  Am I a technical expert?  My resume had better scream tech wizardry while explaining some highly involved expertise in plain old English. 

This may all seem simple, but this Cranky Recruiter has to slog through boring black and white, Times New Roman resumes all day long.  Occasionally I get a glimpse of color--but all too often it is just the hyperlink blue on an email address.

What wakes me up and makes me notice a resume?  Give me logos.  Did you work at Clorox Company--ooh, put the logo on it for easy recognition.  Were you the lead manager on the revamp of The Gap's marketing campaign--show me some of that classic "Gap" style and make it easy for me to figure out what you did.  Be a little creative--especially if you are in a more creative realm of marketing.  Isn't that the real goal of a marketer--making someone quickly understand why they should want and need the product they are marketing? 

So am I just going after marketers today?  No.  I think this is relevant to every job seeker.  Every resume needs to be factual, but it is also a marketing piece for you.  Do you want to be like every other job seeker out there and hope that your resume, which is one of 100's a hiring manager receives, gets a second look?  I hope not.  So put some time into it and make it reflect you. 

Lastly, get consumer input.  Pass it by someone before you send out your awe-inspiring resume.  Often a friend can spot typos that you've missed over and over.  And yes, you may get some other advice about changes you should make.  Maybe get a few people's advice on the resume and go for the consensus version.   I do often say that you need to take all resume advice with a grain of salt.  People are quick to give advice, but you need to write a resume you are comfortable with.  So, dear reader, take this advice for what it is worth.  Back to the inbox.

Cranky Recruiter: Resume.doc

Been reviewing a lot of resumes today. Late in the day....and the cranky recruiter rears her ugly advice again. When writing your resume, save it as you. What I mean is, put your name on the file when you save it. I often get several candidates whom I am talking to, and when I go to pull up their resume from my files, I can't find it based on the title. 50% of the resumes I review are titled resume.doc. Ah, fun. I save them in my database by name, but I'm thinking about your well being here. If you send your resume to a hiring manager, do they take the time to put your resume in their database--or do they have a whole file full of resume.doc files?

I'm keeping it short and sweet. Save your resume as First Name Last Name. AmyGardner.doc is much easier to find than Resume2recruiter.doc, etc.

Have a great weekend. I should be less cranky come Monday.

Resumes and Wine Labels

I've been helping a few of my readers with their resumes recently, and have been pondering the relationship between wine labels and resumes. To the average recruiter, these would be two completely different things, but when someone is often working with job seekers who also have a small wine label on the side, it makes a bit more sense.

I am an average consumer with a taste for wine. I, like the vast majority of wine drinkers, peruse the wine aisles and pick up interesting bottles here and there. What draws me to the wine? Yes, some of my wines choices are to show loyalty to clients and placements. It is fun to drink a bottle of wine when you know the history behind the team there, and I feel a connection to the product. But there are plenty of times I just pick up a wine that looks interesting. Marketing groups spend hours trying to figure out what a shopper will find intriguing--and often I am their guinea pig. Cute labels, something a little different, and occasionally a really "rich" looking bottle will be my choice.

Knowing the time and money that people put into wine labels, I am always surprised when they don't put the same attention into their resume. Many of the same ideas apply between the two mediums. Here are a few examples:

• Required Information: A wine label is required to have certain things on it by law. So should a resume. Examples of required information are; name, phone number, contact information, experience and education. Without these basics, you aren't telling the reader much about you.
• Theme: While I don't want cute little Australian critters on your resume, I do like to have a well presented resume. The theme so to speak can be bold headings with bulleted sections. Another example of a theme would be to consistently run your wine and food knowledge throughout the resume. Think about your experience and interests and weave it into the text of your resume.
• Consistency: This is such a simple item, but one that over half of the resumes I read lack. Whether it is verb tense, sentence structure or typeface, having a consistent look and style to your resume presents you in a positive light. All too often I will get a decent looking resume with one portion "tacked on" at the top or bottom. This tells me that the author had an old resume that they put new information on. It isn't hard to make everything look and read the same. Review your resume, including your text, and edit, edit, edit. Another function I do all the time in MS Word is to hit Ctrl-A, and then put the entire document in the same typeface and font size. This little quick trick saves figuring out formating changes in the body of the resume.
  
• Appearance: Look at your resume and see what it says about you. If a wine label had a pretty flower on the label, you might think the wine was floral and light. If you put your resume in the comic sans typeface, I might think you are silly and overused. Just kidding! But really, how your resume looks reflects on you. Put your resume in an easy-to-read typeface such as Arial or Calibri. Also, show some mercy on the reader and put it in a font of 11 points or higher. I'm getting older and my eyes are weary--help me out. Bolding important sections is also a good idea, letting the reader know what you think is important about yourself.
• Length: Maybe it is lucky that wine labels are only so big. Unfortunately, resumes can be as long as you want them to be. I recommend keeping them to 1-2 pages in length. If you have a longer resume, take a look at some of the information you have on there and see if you could reformat it to fit better on fewer pages.

Thinking about the design and overall look of your resume will help make you look professional on paper. Just like that bottle of wine I picked up, now it's time to see what the true character of the resume's subject by talking to you in person.