Résumé H.Q.
Merry J. Whitney & Associates |
A typical employment search requires a resume, cover letter and (often) additional support material (Reference Sheet, Salary History, follow-up letter).
Failure to include a cover letter with a resume (unless it's handed directly to the interviewer) suggests the sender lacks business savvy or is inattentive to detail.
address, telephone number and/or e-mail address, plus title and/or company for the professional references. This should not be sent with the resume, but provided during or at the close of a personal interview.
rough measurement of the candidate's likely promotability. Unless specifically required, do not provide one. When a Salary History is requested along with a resume, you can assume resume entries will be compared with salary entries, to determine whether background and experience has been fudged on the resume.
expectation," it's best to provide a range rather than a hard and fast amount ("Salary expectation is between $xx,xxx and $zz, zzz"). This should be added to the cover letter, not to the resume itself.
something favorable about the interview or company, and state a desire to be considered a serious candidate for the position. |
interchangeably outside of the United States. A curriculum vitae ("course of life") combines the candidate's personal background, credentials and professional qualifications. A comprehensive document, it is better suited for academia and scientific areas involving itemization of published papers and research projects, or for artists, photographers and writers with diverse portfolios. A resume ("summing up") is a summary statement of the candidate's employment experience and qualifications. An important feature is brevity (ideally no more than two pages compared to a CV's six or more) that does not sacrifice essential information.
circumstances, such as various types of consultancy work, speaking engagements and artistic exhibits. It is written in prose, and emphasizes relevant credentials and expertise. An effective hard copy presentation is a one and one-half or two page bio-sketch, using the inside left and right-hand pages of a four-page brochure. The brochure cover provides the subject's name and contact information and, if desired, a photo reproduction or other illustration.
used in a very aggressive employment search to convey a candidate's ... well, aggressiveness. This type of search is pretty much limited to sales, sales management or recruitment positions where initiative and assertiveness are highly-valued traits. |
Your Résumé: What Should It Do … or not do?
opportunity to secure the job. That is not to disparage the importance of a strong résumé, of course, but it's a distinction with an essential difference: When a résumé is drafted with the wrong target in mind, it will seldom hit the right one.
applicants competing for the same, all-important interview. The best candidate is often eliminated, and a less capable one interviewed and hired, simply because a résumé was not properly focused. An employer may receive dozens, even hundreds of applications for one position. His first order of business, therefore, is to whittle that huge, unwieldy pile of paper into a small, manageable stack within a short time frame. This process usually allows cursory glances, no more than five or ten seconds each, before tossing most of the material into a circular file. Something must convey, within that scant few-second glance, "This is a viable candidate" to keep one resume of dozens in the small 'maybe' stack and out of the ignoble file. The Prospective Employer's Yellow Brick Road When your resume reaches a potential employer, whether by e-mail, fax or postal delivery, it is often received and sorted by a collective such as an HR department or mail room. This can be considered a "first gauntlet," because it may be a mail room clerk or low-level employee who will have to determine which department head or hiring authority your application should be directed to. If you've neglected a cover letter or Objective... well, the Yellow Brick Road just might be a dead end street.. . Assuming your résumé survives the first gauntlet and reaches the appropriate interviewer or hiring authority, it must also get past the second gauntlet, that afore-mentioned whittling process. Something has to tell a reviewer, within a brief five or ten- second visual scan, that of the hundred or more résumés flooding his desk, he'll want to read the content of this one. An effective "something" is a Summary of Qualifications.
It is possible to ignore all "rules" for effective résumé-writing and still land great interview opportunities and the perfect job. Possible, but not probable. If, for example, an employment agreement is reached over a handshake at the country club, you could possibly just scrawl your name and contact information on a cocktail napkin without jeopardizing your career aspirations (of course, that might not be a wise option unless your father-in-law is the company CEO).
employees and many departments. Large companies often have many different openings at any given time. If a résumé has no Objective, a mail room or HR clerk will not likely waste time trying to figure out whether it's from a candidate for an assistant spot in the R& D Department, or a clerk-typist post in the Advertising Department steno pool, or a mechanic's opening in the Production Plant warehouse. Not when the mailbox is stuffed with properly prepared applications.
businesses. That clear statistical advantage to following the rules is "playing the numbers." What should be in … or left out? INCLUDE all experience, qualifications and credentials relevant to the targeted position. If there are transferable skills, even from some completely unrelated arena, extrapolate that experience and exposure to requirements of the position. Include special training, certifications, work-related seminars and workshops, continuing education as well as higher education, degrees, and job-specific course work. Include honors, awards, military service, membership or participation in professional and trade associations. Involvement in community or charitable organizations is a plus, especially if you have held offices in these groups. Include language skills and level of fluency and/or literacy; any management or supervisory experience and number of subordinates; also, purchasing and ordering, inventory control, cost-control and/or cash-control responsibilities. EXCLUDE personal information: Marital status, number of children, pets, hobbies, religious or social affiliations, favorite vacation spots, anything that is immaterial to the company, the position, or your professional credibility. ACCOUNT for all time spans, including those spent in unrelated work areas, but don’t waste space on irrelevant job descriptions. For example, if applying for a sales management post but your recent work history has been as Youth Counselor for the YMCA, emphasize leadership and promotional or persuasive aspects of that position, rather than humanitarian good works. ASK yourself what the prospective employer wants and needs. Put yourself in his shoes, then present your background, experience and abilities to fit and fulfill those specifications. |
- OOPS! Caution...
- Avoid accidental "blast" submissions of a resume to
multiple employers with one click of a "Send"
button.
- Each submission should be personalized enough to
indicate it is directed to a particular employer or
position, and not simply part of a mass distribution.
When using a facilitator or intermediary service
(such as Monster), familiarize yourself with the
process used to make certain material you want to
send to Company A is not simultaneously sent to
Companies B through Z.
- The Cover Letter
- The essential point of any cover letter is to explain what
document or item it covers: “Dear Mr. Big: As we discussed
Tuesday, I am enclosing six #5 widgets and five #6 widgets...”
- A cover letter is standard business protocol, and it is a courtesy
so that no one will have to run around Mr. Big’s company
asking, “Did anyone order widgets?”
- If the enclosure is a resume, the cover letter offers an extra
opportunity to promote the candidate; but the protocol and
purpose of the letter is still simply to “cover” the document.
- A cover letter is brief, one page of three or four paragraphs. The
first paragraph explains what is “covered” (my resume is
enclosed), and why (position applied for, response to an ad or
referral, etc.).
The second paragraph extols the candidate's credentials and
qualifications for the job. The third "fits" the candidate to the
company’s needs, and the fourth expresses appreciation for the
recipient's attention and asks for an interview.
- It's in the mail ... When sending a resume by
regular mail or delivery, use a 9" x 12" envelope to
avoid folding the documents. The neat, pristine
appearance of one resume and cover letter amidst a
mass of curled-up papers, gives that one
application an esthetic advantage.
The first entry on a résumé, after the name and contact information, is Objective. This is usually two or three lines, with something like, “A challenging Bookkeeping position offering career-growth potential, where I can … .” The essential and relevant word, “Bookkeeping,” advises an HR staffer how to process the application, or where to direct the material. A common résumé error is to omit the Objective or dilute it to meaninglessness. This stems from a belief that an Objective will limit job-search options, and that skipping it will enable the candidate to apply for a variety of positions. It’s not a good idea, and is more likely to take the candidate out of the game than to broaden his prospects. A better solution when qualified for two — or five or ten — different positions, is to use an alternate Objective and Summary over the same résumé body. This assumes the candidate will apply for only one position with any single employer. Summary of Qualifications: Just as the first entry on a résumé should be the Objective, the second should be a Summary, and for a similar reason. While it’s a matter of preference what this section is titled — “Strengths,” “Summary,” “Qualifications,” “Highlights,” or any descriptive word or phrase — the Summary is often as essential as the Objective in keeping the résumé itself from being tossed aside before anyone reads the content. A Summary should stand out, so it cannot be a block of solid text. A bulleted list can be effective. For example:
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