Results tagged “employers” from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips Blog

This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:

Brian writes:

I came across Quintessential Careers last night as I was trying to unearth the answer to a question which was plaguing me all night.

I’d be most grateful if you could tell me whether or not one should include a resume with a broadcast letter.

I’ve heard conflicting opinions on the subject. What’s your advice?

The Career Doctor responds:

The answer is: it depends.

Although not talked about as much compared to networking and online job-hunting, a broadcast cover letter is part of a direct marketing campaign by the job-seeker —in which you identify a list of prospective employers, research the names of the hiring managers at each employer, and send an unsolicited letter to tap into what has been called “the hidden job market.”

The strength of this strategy is that you can sometimes catch a hiring manager just as an opening is occurring, giving you sort of a first-strike advantage over other job-seekers before the position is even advertised — internally or externally. Because turnover happens frequently, a broadcast letter is still a good job-seeker strategy.

But I never liked using the term broadcast letter because it carries the implication that the job-seeker can write one cover letter and broadcast it to a large number of employers — and that strategy will just not work.

If you want to effectively use a direct-marketing approach, you will need to target (customize) each letter for each prospective employer. While parts of the letters can be the same, you will need to adjust other parts to showcase your knowledge of the company.

Should you include a resume with your cover letter? My view is yes — always. But again, as with the cover letter, you will need to customize each resume to each employer. You’ll want to use some of the keywords that each employer uses in describing themselves in describing yourself.

Other experts, such as Jeffrey Fox, author of Don’t Send a Resume, say that job-seekers should send resume after first winning over the hiring manager with a dazzling cover letter. In fact, Fox says a job-seeker should not send a resume to the employer until after the job interview — so that the resume can be as narrowly targeted to the position and employer as possible.

Read more about cover letters — and resumes — in these sections of Quintessential Careers.

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Among the resume “rules” you may have heard is the one in which resumes should be limited to one page. While it’s true that most entry-level job-seekers should try to limit their resumes to a single page, this length is rarely appropriate for those at senior and executive levels. Top-level job-seekers will find it virtually impossible to capture the breadth of their experience and accomplishments in a single page, and some employers expect longer resumes from those candidates, sometimes up to five pages. In a 2007 survey by Accountemps, a specialized staffing service, only 7 percent of senior executives from human resources, finance and marketing departments favored one-page resumes for executives, while 61 percent favored two pages. Respondents were receptive to three-page resumes for executive roles, with nearly a third (31 percent) citing this as the ideal length.

One-page resumes can be useful for candidates in certain situations, such as networking, in which the job-seeker wants to give potential network contacts a thumbnail glance at his or her career.

A summary of guidelines on resume length:

• One page is usually preferred for college students and new grads, but those with rich campus backgrounds and work/internship experience may need two pages.
• Two-page resumes are suitable for many job-seekers.
• Three or more pages may be required at the senior level.
• Job-seekers should never sacrifice readability (tiny type, narrow margins) just to squeeze a resume into a certain number of pages.
• When a resume spills onto an additional page, it should fill up at least half of that page. If not, try to condense.

See our article, The Scoop on Resume Length: How Many Pages Should Your Resume Be? for a variety of opinions and guidelines on resume length.

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If you are an entrepreneur transitioning back to the workplace, make the most of your resume by emphasizing the entrepreneurial transferable skills that apply to the type of job you’re targeting. Many employers, for example, seek candidates who can handle startup and turnaround situations. They’re also looking for professionals with experience in asset and liability management, budget development, building strategic alliances, business plan development, capital equipment budgets, competitive analysis, costing and budgeting, financial strategies, market strategy, profit and loss management/direction, new business development, operations management, research and development, return on investment, and strategic planning direction. Focus also on your entrepreneurial successes and accomplishments; avoid conveying any impression that you are leaving the entrepreneurial life because you didn’t succeed at it. Read more in our Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ.

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While you can discuss relocation in your cover letter, it never hurts to also mention it in your resume. Express in your objective statement or profile your intention to relocate. Since some employers respond much more favorably to local candidates, consider using an address in your new city (PO box, a friend’s address, mail-forwarding service) on your resume. Read more in our Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ.

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Hobbies and Interests on a resume are usually considered superfluous and trivial. Some job-seekers consider these items conversation-starters, while some employers feel the information humanizes the candidate and presents a fuller picture. Many recruiters and employers feel hobby and interest information can expose the candidate to discrimination. A workaholic hiring manager “could perceive the candidate as frivolous with too many outside interests,” observes Alison, a corporate recruiter for a specialized information provider. As with most information on your resume, the option to list hobby and interest information is a personal choice, but it’s usually more risky to list it than to leave it off. Ask yourself: Does this information add value to my resume? Space constraints may also guide your decision. Read more in our Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ.

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Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume fails to list educational credentials. Candidates are sometimes advised to leave off an Education section if they have absolutely nothing to list there, but that situation is extremely rare at the highest corporate levels. Virtually everyone has at least some training under his or her belt. But some candidates might not realize that an Education section is expected, or they leave it off because they feel theirs is deficient. Education needs to be listed because employers want to see it.
See all 30 peeves: executive resume peeves 1-10 in Part 1, executive resume peeves 11-20 in Part 2 and executive resume peeves 21-30 in Part 3.

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A chrono-functional resume is one way to deemphasize employment gaps, but these formats are unpopular with employers and especially recruiters. Another approach, if you can legitimately do so, is to frame periods of unemployment as stints of self-employment, consulting, or project work. Some job-seekers quit their jobs to pursue advanced education or training; you can account for a period of unemployment by listing yourself as a Graduate Student during that period.

One recruiter we tallked to called gaps “a huge red flag,” so they should be explained in your resume if you can gracefully do so. Other options include explaining them in your cover letter or being prepared to do so in an interview (however, gaps may preclude you from getting the interview). See our article, How to Handle a Gap in Your Job History.

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When crafting your resume, what if you have no college degree, no four-year college degree, or did not attend college? If you have at least some college, list it. List an associate’s degree or incomplete studies toward a bachelor’s degree. For the incomplete degree, list the college, major, location, span of dates you attended, and, ideally, number of credit-hours completed. Your listing of an associate’s degree, incomplete bachelor’s degree, or no college at all should be beefed up with any training, professional-development, and certificate programs. In the unlikely event that you have absolutely none of these, leave off the Education section. Some employers (and most recruiters) will screen you out, but if you have succeeded in the past without educational credentials, your professional accomplishments will likely be enough to propel you to an interview. Read more in our Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.

Inundated by resumes from job-seekers, employers have increasingly relied on digitizing resumes, placing those resumes in keyword-searchable databases, and using software to search those databases for specific keywords that relate to job vacancies. Most Fortune 1000 companies, in fact, and many smaller companies now use these technologies. In addition, many employers search the databases of third-party job-posting and resume-posting boards on the Internet. Based on figures from the early 2000s, it is safe to estimate that well over 80 percent of resumes are searched for job-specific keywords.

The bottom line is that if you apply for a job with a company that searches databases for keywords, and your resume doesn’t have the keywords the company seeks for the person who fills that job, you are pretty much dead in the water.

To some extent, job-seekers have no way of knowing what the words are that employers are looking for when they search resume databases. But job-seekers have information and a number of tools at their disposal that can help them make educated guesses as to which keywords the employer is looking for. See a detailed discussion of resume keywords and how to identify them in our article, Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume’s Effectiveness and use our Keywords Worksheet to help identify keywords for use in your resume.

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Although studies have shown that employers rarely try reaching job-seekers using any number but land-line home phone numbers, include on your resume and cover letter your cell-phone number and any other option for reaching you, such as fax number and office phone number (if you can discreetly receive employer calls at your office). Also include your mailing address and, of course, your e-mail address(es). Make sure your email address is professional, not one such as SexyBabe2301@aol.com. If you have a personal web site or web portfolio, include the URL for it. If you are in serious job-hunting mode and employers who call your phone are likely to get voicemail, make sure your voicemail greeting is professional. Read more in our Frequently Asked Questions About Resumes: The Complete Resume FAQ.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume contains a weak objective statement. Most people in hiring positions do not read Objective statements. “Omit objective statements [because] the applicant, as a matter of principle, has no objective; the company has the objective,” advised John Kennedy, senior IT recruiter at Belcan. “Whatever you write, your objective is to get a job,” said Alison, a corporate recruiter for a specialized information provider.

“I can never figure out why people think employers are breathlessly waiting to provide them with opportunities. I am especially puzzled when it is in an executive resume,” noted Joy Montgomery, owner of Structural Integrity in California, citing a typically poor objective statement:

Objective: A challenging position where I am able to use my considerable something or other skills in a fulfilling opportunity …

Similarly, Weaver offered this self-serving and slightly exaggerated objective statement as a typically weak example:

Objective: Seeking to obtain a position within a growing company where my existing skills will benefit my employer, and be part of an environment where I will be challenged so that I may gain even more experience.

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It seems cliched or redundant to mention researching the company before forwarding your documents, but it’s amazing on how many job-seekers fail to do just that. It’s pivotal that you take a “quality, not quantity” approach to your job search, declares Teena Rose in her article for Quint Careers, Optimizing Your Cold-Contact Cover Letter.

Focusing your efforts on targeting, researching, and applying to a small and specific, targeted list of employers will generate a higher return from your efforts. By researching potential employers, you’re reflecting to the company that you’re serious about joining its team — so much so, that you’re willing to dedicate your personal time to learning about the company.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves:

Resume is too long. While there is no consensus among employers and recruiters about resume length, most feel one page is too short. Maureen Crawford Hentz, manager of talent acquisition, development and compliance at Osram Sylvania, Boston MA, particularly disdains “abbreviated or ‘teaser’ resumes” that urge the recruiter, “for more information, call me.” Many recruiters believe that two pages is about the right length; for some, three pages is the outside limit that they will read. “If the resume is longer than two pages, it needs to be well worth it,” noted Hentz’s colleague at Osram Sylvania, Harlynn Goolsby. Others question executives’ ability to prioritize if their resumes are longer than two pages.

Since recruiters pass candidate resumes on to client employers, they must also consider employer preferences. “Most of my clients profess that they are too busy to read anything lengthier — thus, I deliver what they require,” said Chris Dutton, director at Intelligent Recruitment Services and Owner, Intelligent IT Recruitment, Manchester, UK. Recruiter opinions about resume length have been colored in recent years by the growing practice of reading resumes on a computer screen rather than printing them. Resumes that might seem too long in print are acceptable on screen.

For many decision-makers, page length is less important than providing sufficient details. “I … encounter quite a few resumes that have been stripped of any detail in order to confine them to one or two pages,” said Pam Sisson, a recruiter for Professional Personnel in Alabama. “My immediate response is to ask for a more detailed resume. A resume that’s three or four pages but actually shows the qualifications and experience necessary for a position is much preferred, in my opinion, to one that has cut out all the substance to meet some passe idea of a one-page resume.” John Kennedy, senior IT recruiter at Belcan, agreed: “Resume length is of very little importance so long as the information is accurate, verifiable, and pertinent to the position. If a candidate has 20 years of experience directly relating to the position being applied for and that experience is verifiable, it should be listed even if the resume goes four-plus pages.”

See all 30 peeves: executive resume peeves 1-10 in Part 1, executive resume peeves 11-20 in Part 2 and executive resume peeves 21-30 in Part 3.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.