Resume Righting
It is important to understand the mindset of the individual who will review your resume. Employers do not read resumes for the sake of those seeking a job, but because they need to hire an individual with certain skills. Obvious point, yet many job seekers mistakenly believe employers carefully read each resume and cover letter. 
In reality, the employer tasked with reviewing resumes is pressed for time and must race through, quickly setting aside those that are lengthy, unconventional, lack dates of employment, not an obvious fit, or simply difficult to comprehend.
1. The ideal resume makes it easy for the employer to evaluate the job seeker’s level of experience and range of skills.
2. Unless you have a very specific objective, leave it off your resume. If your objective doesn’t match the position being filled, the employer may use that fact to disqualify you for an interview.
3. A resume is a marketing piece. Your achievements, awards, and accomplishments will distinguish you from other, similarly qualified candidates, so make certain they are listed on your resume.
Employers are desensitized to vague assertions of achievement, so claims must be specific and quantified. Statements such as “Managed the creation of a successful major gifts program” are so common as to be meaningless, but a more detailed description will get attention: “Solely responsible for establishing and overseeing a new, major gifts program, which subsequently raised nearly $400,000 within two years, exceeding the second year goal by 10%.” (More on this here.)
4. Put your cell phone number (or work number) on your resume. Interviewers will call during the day and you should make it as easy as possible for them to reach you immediately and directly, or risk missing out on an interview opportunity.
5. Put your email address on the resume.
6. Contrary to what is often taught in school, the preferred resume format is historical rather than functional. The decision maker wants to see, in chronological order and in context, the progression of positions and responsibilities you’ve had over the years.
7. You must include the years of employment for each position.
8. Older workers sometimes leave early work experience off their resume in an effort to disguise their age. However, employers do not prefer younger workers to older ones; they prefer workers who are best qualified for the position. Older workers have more experience, maturity, and insight–qualities which are essential for many positions. In fact, age and experience provide older employees with a competitive advantage over younger workers; it is the one qualification that a younger candidate cannot offer. (More on this here.)
9. Proofread your resume and then have someone else proofread it for you. You don’t want typos, mispellings or unclear statements to hurt your chances for an interview.
10. Depending on your years in the workforce, a one or two page resume is sufficient. The longer your resume, the less likely it is to be read. Start your resume by putting down the required information (dates, employer, title) and then add the information you are most interested in having a decision maker read. Everything you add after this point will dilute the resume, so add judiciously.
11. Stylistically, your resume should be simple and straightforward. Attempts to make the resume fancy or eye-catching just detract from your qualifications.
12. If your resume runs more than one page, do not put page numbers within the body of the resume since the actual page breaks will vary depending on the software and display mode on the viewer’s computer. The proper way to insert page numbers is in the header or footer.
13. Resumes today are typically emailed to an employer and emailed from one person to another within a company. Don’t bother faxing or mailing.
14. Cover letters should be kept short and to the point, as they are often not read, especially if lengthy.
What should I say in my resume cover letter?
Many job seekers believe that elaborating on their experience and skills in a cover letter enhances their chances of getting an interview. Although this belief underlies much of the available “advice” on writing cover letters, it is completely mistaken. The simple truth is that hiring managers have limited time and nearly unlimited resumes to screen; they just don’t have time to read cover letters.
(I should point out that “cover letter” in this context means, typically, a cover message, as in an email message that accompanies your attached resume or application, since nearly all resumes are forwarded by email these days.) 
The most efficient way to screen resumes is, well, to screen the resume and not bother with the cover letter. A quick review of a resume is all that’s required to place it in one of three categories: not qualified (the vast majority of all resumes); possibly qualified; and, almost certainly qualified. If the resume screener has enough candidate resumes in the “almost certainly qualified” category, the resumes in the other two categories are set aside (with the cover letter never having seen the light of day).
If the number of potentially qualified candidates must be reduced, the resume screener will take a more detailed look at the resume and possibly read the cover letter. It’s at this point the tactic of packing lots of info into the cover letter may backfire: information in the cover letter might be used to reject the candidate. Remember, the resume has survived the first cut and is now sitting in the “to be interviewed” pile, so the ideal letter for this situation says simply, “Please consider me for the position you recently advertised”, as it avoids providing the screener with any information that may be used to reject the candidate.
Rest assured that if the cover letter is long-winded, contains stupid comments (“out-of-the-box thinker”; “I’m a people person”), contains some otherwise benign detail that is viewed negatively, or any one of a thousand other problems that the job seeker may not anticipate, the resume will move out of the “interview” pile and into the “not now, maybe later” pile.
Since one cannot know with certainty how the person reading the cover letter will react to any particular bit of information, it is best to let your resume carry the full load of securing an interview. Don’t risk providing a reason in your cover letter to undo what your resume may have already accomplished.
What one thing will most improve my resume
The most common mistake resume writers make is listing the responsibilities of of each position (essentially a “cut-and-paste” of the job description) rather than listing personal achievements and contributions. Your resume will be dramatically improved by describing what you did, not what the job was.
The individual who reads your resume is interested in learning highlights of your successes, not routine activities; the more specific the information, the better. Quantify information wherever possible: “ranked number 2 out of 10 sales reps” instead of “a top-ranked rep”, or “increased donor revenue from $525,000 to $740,000 in two years” instead of “dramatically increased revenue”.
Employers read resumes to determine whether to interview or reject a candidate. To make this decision they need basic information on experience and qualifications. Beyond basics, they need to know how well you performed in the position.
List the successes for which you can take full, or at least primary, credit; don’t list trivial items as that gives the appearance you contributed nothing of substance. Obviously, any performance-based award received from your employer should be noted.
Managers face a greater challenge with resume writing, as accomplishments often involve the efforts of many subordinates and the causal chain may not be obvious. For example, an increase in sales achieved by a division may be directly attributable to the efforts of the division’s sales manager, but the cause and effect relationship must be spelled out on the resume or it may appear that the manager was simply in the right place at the right time. A secondary benefit of elaborating on one’s role in effecting change is that the hiring manager views the process underlying the success, instead of just the before and after.
Should I omit the graduation date on my resume?
According to a resume “expert” at one career website: “If your degree is over 10 years old, it is time to take out the dates. Junior reviewers will toss your resume and make you a victim of age discrimination.”
Intentionally omitting dates is a colossal mistake, for two reasons: when you withhold information, you invite others to infer your reason for doing so; and, obscuring your years of experience will only cause you to be passed over for the most desirable positions.
In the case of this resume expert, the reason for omitting dates is: “junior reviewers will toss your resume and make you a victim of age discrimination”. Why would junior reviewers toss the resume?
Presumably, this expert believes that “junior” (or younger) resume reviewers discriminate against older job candidates, but reviewers who are not “junior” do not. In other words, this expert has learned: junior reviewers make mistakes in judging resumes.
Now if this expert has learned that the judgment of junior resume reviewers is inferior to that of older reviewers, doesn’t it stand to reason that there are many, many hiring managers who appreciate the superior judgment of older workers?
I suspect this resume expert has little or no experience actually screening resumes and hiring people. I say so because, contrary to popular belief, hiring managers do NOT discriminate on the basis of age (or sex, color, race, etc.) as doing so would arbitrarily reduce the number of qualified candidates. It is hard enough to find well-qualified candidates to fill important positions, why make the task even harder by arbitrarily eliminating many of them?
Job seekers often tell me they get more interviews after they remove degree dates and some early jobs from their resume. When I ask if the increased number of interviews resulted in more job offers, the answer is always “no”.
It turns out that employers are actually quite rational. For a job with limited responsibility and requiring only moderate experience, the ideal candidate is one with minimal work experience and willing to work under less than ideal conditions, for low pay, in order to acquire more work experience.
For management positions with significant responsibilities, employers seek candidates with substantial breadth and depth of management and industry experience. For these positions, employers not only prefer older workers, younger workers won’t even be considered.
This is what you accomplish when you omit information in order to obscure your age: 1) more interviews for low-paying positions with negligible responsibility, and 2) fewer interviews for higher-paying positions requiring judgment, experience, industry knowledge, management skill, and wisdom.
How do I get recruiters to look at my resume?
In order to attract the attention of recruiters you must first: contribute as much as possible to the success of your employer, accept responsibility, and put the interests of your employer and customers first.
Recruiters earn their fees finding exceptional individuals, so the first step is excellent on-the-job performance. If you are not an above-average employee, getting your resume in front of recruiters is probably futile. On the other hand, excellent performance by itself may attract the attention of a recruiter. Recruiters frequently ask the question: “who are the top performers in your field?” and those top performers then become recruiting targets.
Is it a good idea to contact recruiters directly? Yes, this is the best way to get your resume seen. Forward your resume to the recruiter as an email attachment. In the email message, briefly state: why you are looking, what career goals you would like to meet in your next position, where you wish to work (are you willing to relocate?), and what general compensation requirements you have. Keep it brief, or it won’t be read. Include a cell number so you can be reached during the day.
The recruiter may or may not respond to your emailed resume. Recruiters are busy trying to fill jobs that are open now and don’t usually have time to respond to each unsolicited resume received. Rest assured, however, the recruiter will enter your resume into his or her database so any search matching your experience will prompt a review of your resume.
As you may be aware, recruiters tend to focus on one or more specialized business sectors. There are sectors in which many recruiters are active, and others in which you will not find even one recruiter. It is a complete waste of time to contact recruiters who do not work in your industry.
There are two ways to learn about recruiters working in your field: 1) a recruiter seeking candidates in your industry contacts you; 2) search the web for recruiter lists, websites and job postings using keywords to narrow the results to your area of interest (for example, Google: recruiting jobs “free market” organization).
If called by a recruiter, ask about the areas in which they work and get a phone number and email address for future use. When the future arrives, it will be too late to get contact information from the recruiter who called two years ago.
When searching for recruiters in your field, don’t stop when you’ve found one or two. Some industries have hundreds of recruiters and each one works with just a small number of firms. Build a list of potential recruiters, then narrow the list by evaluating each one. Keep those who have been in the business the longest, whose positions and client companies are the most desirable, and whose specialty is the closest to your field. Drop those whose positions are consistently lower paying or much higher paying than your current level, whose clients are not well-regarded in the industry, or who seem overly aggressive about getting information without providing any in return.
There are other strategies to attract recruiters who work in your field. Make use of networking sites such as LinkedIn, where you can provide information about experience, qualifications and interests, that a recruiter will need. Recruiters often use LinkedIn to find candidates, and to learn more about candidates. (See “What is the most common mistake job seekers make“.)
Place your resume online at Monster and CareerBuilder; don’t wait until you need a new job, as months may pass before a recruiter with the right job finds your resume.
Finally, keep in mind that recruiters you’ve contacted will call more often if you are helpful to them. When starting a search, my first calls go to contacts whose past candidate recommendations have been valuable. Not only do these contacts get first crack at any opening, more frequent conversations enable me to become better acquainted with them and their career goals.
Should an older worker list early positions on a resume?
List all of your previous positions. As an older employee, extensive experience is your greatest asset, and it is an area in which you have an indisputable competitive advantage over younger workers.
Many job seekers drop from their resume positions held early in their career. When I ask candidates about jobs they’ve left off the resume, I often find gems that add to the candidate’s qualifications.
Sometimes a position the candidate considered irrelevant may be quite relevant, but for reasons not anticipated by the candidate.
For example, a history of several short-tenure jobs will be viewed negatively by prospective employers. Including early work experience showing long tenure with one or more employers will help counteract the impression of job instability. While the candidate may view the early experience as irrelevant to the type of work they now do, an employer may view it as quite relevant to judging the prospective employee’s overall fitness.
Another example: a senior-level management position is being filled. One applicant omitted his first job in an unrelated field (banking) from his resume. The position is currently held by a highly-regarded individual who, as it turns out, began his career working for a bank–experience which he views as having bolstered his budget management skills. Had the applicant included the banking experience, he likely would be viewed more favorably owing to the similarity with the work history of the current manager.
When listing early career positions, it is not necessary to include the same level of detail as more recent positions. Dates of employment, position held and employer’s name should be adequate. Including outstanding achievements or accomplishments is always a good idea.
How do I find a management job after being self-employed for 20 years?
Many believe it is difficult to find a job after a long period of self-employment. Yet, I have reviewed thousands of resumes which often show that individuals find desirable work after a long period of self-employment. Therefore, I have concluded that it’s probably no more difficult for the self-employed to find career opportunities than those who have not been self-employed.
That’s not to say there are no challenges, but 20 years of self-employment confers significant and unique advantages on a job seeker.
First of all, most job seekers today have resumes characterized by job instability: too many jobs that lasted for two years or less, and too few jobs that last for more than four years. Aside from not meeting the position requirements, job instability is the chief reason candidates are rejected, and the more senior the position to be filled, the more heavily it weighs. So twenty years in any job–self-employed or otherwise–is a strong asset.
Next up for consideration is the match between work experience and the particular position you may be seeking. Every employer has certain qualifications in mind when filling a position and these may be categorized as: 1. industry experience, 2. work experience, and 3. responsibility experience.
Industry experience refers to the knowledge and familiarity with normal expectations one acquires from working in a particular field or industry. I still recall much of what I learned in the first few years I spent in the printing business, but I would be quite lost in a modern graphic arts facility due to technological advance.
Work experience is “on-the-job-training” from which we learn to perform a range of tasks and projects appropriate to a specific job and industry. Up to a point, greater work experience increases efficiency and decreases “spoilage” or bad outcomes.
Responsibility experience refers primarily to experience in management, including the management of staff, budgets, facilities, resources and, in some cases, profit and loss. When filling management positions, employers typically consider both the scope and extent of experience in each of these categories.
Do you see where this is leading? You must inventory your work experience in each of these three areas; list everything, not just the big stuff. For example, experience using Quickbooks accounting software is a marketable skill and should be on your list. Order the list based on the amount and recentness of your experience, since the passage of time depreciates its value, particularly in the case of industry experience.
This list will serve as your guide for three purposes. First, you can use it to brainstorm the types of employers and positions to which your experience and skills may be applicable. Second, it is a checklist of essential assets that should be mentioned on your resume. Third, it will aid in marketing your experience to potential employers.
The first and third points require further explanation. The applicability of your experience to certain fields or types of work will be immediately obvious, but with some reflection and creative insight, you may recognize that your experience is quite applicable to other fields as well. The logic supporting the applicability of your experience in a seemingly unrelated field must be thought through and internalized so you can easily demonstrate the connection to a potential employer.
Now you should see that several key factors (job stability; industry, work and responsibility experience; and applicability of experience and skills to the open position) constitute the basis for hiring decisions. These factors have little or nothing to do with whether one is currently self-employed.
If you understand the depth and breadth of your experience, and can quantify and communicate an accurate description to a prospective employer, you are ready to go job hunting. If you pursue jobs that fit your experience, you will actually have a competitive advantage in the job market.
What do you look for when reviewing resumes?
Screening resumes, when done effectively, relies upon a list of specific qualifications required to perform the job being filled. As a recruiter I have often found that the qualifications provided by the employer are too vague, irrelevant or simply too numerous. It’s best to boil down the qualifications to the two or three that are truly essential for performing the job and then reject all candidates lacking them.
By looking at the last two or three jobs on a resume, I can quickly judge if a candidate meets the two most important requirements: 1. evidence of job stability; 2. appropriate work experience at the proper level of responsibility. Job stability, in my opinion, is a crucial consideration; the candidate’s resume should be dominated by positions with at least three, and preferably five or more, years of tenure. I reject candidates with a habit of job-hopping.
Appropriate work experience is a critical decision factor; if I need candidates for a nonprofit fundraising position, then nonprofit fundraising experience must be on the resume. Next, I evaluate the level of responsibility and the amount (or, years) of experience. When filling a management position, in addition to appropriate work experience, the resume must show an adequate period of comprehensive, managerial experience.
Don’t reject candidates for reasons not relevant to the job; for example, don’t reject a candidate for spelling or grammar errors. I’ve found blunders in the resumes of successful journalists and authors, so unless I’m hiring someone to write resumes, I don’t use resume mistakes as reason to reject candidates.
The same goes for interviews, only more so; I don’t particularly care how well a candidate interviews, I’m only interested in how well qualified the candidate is.
Does it make sense to reject a candidate having appropriate experience but lacking a college degree? While I’d prefer the candidate have a degree, if the candidate’s experience demonstrates he or she is qualified, potentially even the best qualified, I’m not going to reject based on a preference for a college degree.
If the requirements for the position are not entirely clear, or qualified candidates are likely to be difficult to find, then during my initial review, I may sort resumes into three categories: “unqualified,” “possibly qualified,” and “qualified.” If I have enough “qualified” resumes, I won’t revisit the “possibly qualified” batch. If not, a more extensive reading of the resumes in the “possibly” batch is warranted, combined with online research on those candidates.
Aside from job-hopping as a reason to reject, any misrepresentation, intentional obfuscation, or lie will cause me to reject a resume without hesitation. If a candidate has no reservations about fibbing on the resume, they will fib on the job.
Blunders, gaffes and boners, oh my!
Resume and cover letter mistakes can be comic or tragic:
comic if we learn from them, tragic if we don’t.
I won’t reject a candidate due to mistakes on their resume or cover letter, but most hiring managers are not as forgiving. Some examples from which to learn:
“Early Retirement, The website for people who used to work for a living”
Sounds good, except the author of this site applied for a full-time job.
“Thank you for inviting me to dialogue with you about any/all appropriate positions; I believe my experiences and skill sets closely match the position announcement.”
Always have a trusted friend read your proposed cover letter in order to avoid a first line fiasco.
“The under mentioned are the highlights of the experience that I can offer.”
Grammatically correct? I have no idea, but it reads like hell, and that’s why you should have someone else proofread your cover letter.
“I have been proactive in anticipating performance barriers and countering those barriers by initiating a plan and communicating an approach for overcoming those barriers by working with managers to develop a collaborative strategy specific to overcoming obstacles.”
Making a simple concept appear complex is not a good resume strategy; the individual reading the resume might not understand what you are talking about.
“As a former professional basketball player, which has helped me with teamwork and exceptional people skills and networking successful achievements encompassing all aspects of the sales cycle including cold calling, networking, lead development, prospecting, qualifying, presenting, negotiating and closing and direct account management.”
Avoid making your entire pitch in a single sentence.
“Teaching English a a second language”
Letting a typo slip through is bad, but this is a bad a it gets.
