Results tagged “hiring decision-makers” from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips Blog

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 lies or misleading statements or misrepresentations. Despite high-profile individuals whose resume lies have been publicly reported, and despite the increasing use of background checks, lying remains rampant on resumes. A recent study conducted by J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc., a provider of risk and regulatory management solutions, revealed resumes lies about past employment (the largest category), education, professional licensure and certifications, and military service.

It’s just too risky to lie because you will probably get caught. Hiring decision-makers are far more attuned to falsehoods than before, and many employers are doing background checks. It doesn’t even take an official background check to uncover lies; ExecuNet’s 15th Annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report pointed to more than a third of executives who have found problems, such as misstated academic qualifications and falsified company or title information, through simple online searches.

Don’t be tempted to lie, stretch the truth, or misrepresent the facts. That weekend certificate program you completed at Harvard isn’t the same as a Harvard MBA.
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.

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 not accompanied by a cover letter or cover letter is not targeted to the open position. Not all employers read cover letters (about two-thirds do), but to some of the decision-makers who do read them, cover letters are very important. Your resume should always be accompanied by a cover letter. And given that one of the main functions of a cover letter is to describe how your qualifications match a specific job vacancy, it is pointless to send a boilerplate cover letter that is not tailored to the targeted position. Benjamin Smith, corporate recruiter at HR services-provider Mercer, especially eschews “cover letters that are clearly form-written and the job title is inserted into the first line.”
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume file name is “Resume.doc” or “Resume.pdf.” Resume-writers know that an astonishing number of job-seekers give their resumes the file name “Resume.doc.” Can you imagine how many of these identically named files a hiring decision-maker receives? They don’t distinguish the candidate, and the recipient must always rename the files to keep them organized. Add your name to the file name and perhaps the month and year you are submitting it: KHansenResumeDec08.doc, for example.

Also be sure that your resume is in a file format that the recipient can open. The only file format that is virtually foolproof is one with a .doc extension (not .docx as produced by Word 2007), but if you have any doubt, do a test run of your attachment by sending it to a friend to ensure the recipient can open it. You can also ask the employer if your file format can be opened on the company’s computers.

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: Too many fonts appear in the resume. Use no more than two fonts in your resume.
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume has poor or inconsistent formatting, unclear layout. “A resume should be clear, concise and provide enough relevant information to encourage the phone call it’s meant to generate,” said Human Resources Professional Veronica Richmond of Oakville, Ontario, Canada. My preference is for easy reading, because I see just too many resumes per position to fight a layout that is not clear. I want to find the relevant information easily.”

An example of poor formatting that Curtis Pollen doesn’t like to see is “everything lined up on the left margin including name, address heading information.” Pollen, who is senior director of talent recruitment for the American Heart Association, Wallingford, CT, rails when the “content layout doesn’t flow smoothly, for example, [the candidate] will list all accomplishments up front then just provide jobs and dates down below. I like to see what accomplishments were achieved in a particular job to ensure there is a match for the position I am recruiting for.”

Pollen also noted that candidates don’t pay enough attention to how the resume looks when loaded to a job board or his organization’s career site, sometimes resulting in “resumes where everything runs together and is hard to read.” Pollen advised job-seekers to check the format to ensure it looks appropriate before submitting it.

Candidates who don’t bother to check the way their resumes print out annoy Jeff Weaver, regional manager for a global information services company, such as when a two-page resume spills over — by just a few lines — onto an unintended third page. Granted, computer incompatibilities often are the culprits for a format that is inconsistent between sender and recipient, but candidates can experiment with sending their resumes to friends’ computers to ensure they print out as intended, and as Weaver advises, tweak the margins or remove unnecessary page breaks to eliminate an unintended straggler page.
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.

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 personal information. Mature job-seekers may remember a time when including personal information on a resume was standard practice. This information often included height, weight, birth date, social security number, marital status, children, and health status (as if anyone would admit on a resume to health that was less than excellent). Today’s hiring managers do not want to see this information because it raises discrimination issues. Doreen Perri-Gynn, associate vice president of human resources at Yang Ming (America) Corp., doesn’t want to know “if you have three children and your wife is a happy homemaker or your husband an accountant. This is extraneous information that may prevent a manager from hiring you because he/she wants to keep his benefits budget down.” Since this type of information is still often included on resumes and CVs outside the U.S., Perri-Gynn advises Europeans when applying in the US to “kindly leave off the picture, and family information. We do not require your children’s names, ages, schools, wife’s maiden name and who her parents are. The U.S. bases hiring criteria on skills and accomplishments.”
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.

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.

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.

Job-hopping is far less a concern than it was just a few years ago. Mature job-seekers will remember a time when long-time company loyalty was expected. Those days are gone. Workers at all levels stay at their jobs for much shorter periods than they used to. That’s not to say that job-hopping is no longer questioned. Very short, frequent job stints can certainly raise eyebrows. A chrono-functional resume will deemphasize job-hopping but comes with its own significant drawbacks. Another choice is to omit jobs of short duration. In these days of background checks, however, your omission can be risky. Most hiring decision-makers we’ve surveyed emphasize that nothing should be left off because jobs you’ve omitted will be discovered eventually in the vetting process, and you’ll be eliminated. It’s best to list everything, but make a strong case for your qualifications in your cover letter and top third of your resume so that you get called for an interview. Then be prepared to explain and put a positive spin on problematic or short-duration jobs face to face. 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: The exact same verbiage is used to describe functions in different jobs. You may very well have had the same functions in multiple jobs, but you don’t add to the value of your resume if you express these functions the same way for each job. It’s not even necessary to list them for each job; once you’ve listed that function, the reader knows you have the experience. One job-seeker repeated the bullet point below for every job — changing only the number of staff supervised in each position:

• Managed 32 subordinate staff from different Asian ethnic groups on recruitment, personnel, training issues.

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: Disproportionate space is devoted to older jobs. Decision-makers expect to see the greatest proportion of content dedicated to your most recent and most relevant positions. They find it odd if you’ve devoted much more attention to an older job than one that was more recent. “Unless it was an amazing accomplishment, I’m not concerned that you grew sales by 20 percent back in 1987,” said Brian Howell, CSAM, of The QWorks Group.
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.

Hiring decision-makers are split on the issue of far back in your job history you should go on your resume, which is affected by the growing practice of conducting background checks. While job-seekers are concerned about being exposed to age discrimination, many hiring decision-makers, especially recruiters, are adamant about seeing every job listed from your college graduation to the present. They argue that background checks — or even just seeing you in person at an interview — will reveal your age anyway, so why hide it? Others recommend going back 15-20 years, with the idea that jobs beyond that point are likely not relevant to your next career move. If you have the opportunity to contact the decision-maker before sending your resume, you can always ask his or her preference. Another option is to include your jobs that are more than 15 years old, but list them in bare-bones fashion (title, employer, location) with or without dates of employment. You may want to title this section Previous Professional Experience. Even if you opt to leave off the dates, the recipient will at least know that you have provided full disclosure by listing all jobs. A
similar option is to insert a disclaimer statement to the effect that “additional employment history is available upon request.” See also our article, Resume, Cover Letter, and Interview Strategies for Older Workers.

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: Not enough description of the scope of a given job is provided beyond the job’s title. Some candidates assume their title will tell the full story, but titles often have different meanings from organization to organization. You must convey a sense of what the scope of each position encompassed.
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumes identified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Content focuses on soft skills and neglects hard data. Seeing soft skills listed on a resume is a rock-bottom priority for hiring decision-makers, who prefer to explore soft skills in the interview stage (and by talking to your references) because it is difficult to substantiate them on paper. “If you have to tell me you have these skills, you probably don’t have them,” said Kristina Creed, a senior manager at a for-profit education provider. Limit use of soft skills — such as communication, teamwork, and leadership — to those that are germane to the position you’re targeting. Portrayal of soft skills will be more credible if you substantiate them with solid examples of how you’ve demonstrated them. If hard skills are required, be sure to include them, too, and be very specific about them — types of projects, technical skills, and expertise.

Soft skills are also helpful if you are in a profession in which hard skills predominate, and soft skills are unexpected but desirable. “If you’re a software engineering manager who has a real talent with people and is technically excellent — highlight it,” suggested Veronica Richmond a human resources in professional Oakville, Ontario, Canada. “You’re a rarity, so have great stories ready to back it up.”
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.

You may wish to present a Qualifications Summary or Profile section on your resume. In addition to Profile and Qualifications Summary, these resume-topping sections go by numerous names: Career Summary, Summary, Executive Summary, Professional Profile, Qualifications, Strengths, Skills, Key Skills, Skills Summary, Summary of Qualifications, Background Summary, Professional Summary, Highlights of Qualifications. All of these headings are acceptable, but our favorite is Professional Profile.

Twenty-five years ago, a Profile or Summary section was somewhat unusual on a resume. Career experts trace the use of summaries or profiles to include information about candidates’ qualities beyond their credentials to the publication of the late Yana Parker’s The Damn Good Resume Guide in 1983. For the last 20-plus years, resume writers have routinely included these sections; however, the age of electronic submissions has now caused the pendulum to swing the other way.

On one hand, electronic submission means that hiring decision-makers are inundated and overwhelmed with resumes and have less time than ever before to peruse each document. That means that many of them do not read Profile or Summary sections.

On the other hand, the age of electronic submissions has increased the importance of keywords so that candidates can be found in database searches. Even some of the hiring decision-makers who don’t read Profiles and Summaries advise including them as a way to ensure sufficient keywords in the resume.

A vocal contingent of decision-makers, especially among recruiters, strongly advocate for a Summary section — but one that is quite succinct — a short paragraph or single bullet point. They want to see in a nutshell who you are and what you can contribute.

For a detailed discussion of these sections, including guidelines for crafting them and samples, see Chapter 3 of our e-book, The Quintessential Guide to Words to Get Hired By: Your Professional Profile: Bullet Points that Describe Your Strengths in a Nutshell.

And use our Resume Professional Profile/Qualifications Summary Worksheet to help you develop bullet points for this very important resume section.

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 language is replete with “fluff,” flowery words, and “resume speak” instead of specifics. Your resume “needs to have good factual information and be clear as to what it is that you actually do; it doesn’t need to be fluffy and overwrought,” said survey respondent Thomas Burrell. Meg Steele, director of recruitment and employment mobility at Swedish Medical Center in the Seattle area, decried the lack of specifics in resume language: “The most irritating characteristic on senior-level resumes is an overuse of flowery language without substantiation,” she said. “I want to see actual accomplishments, not summary statements that imply an understanding of functional areas that reported up to the individual. A good leader knows enough about what his or her people are doing to speak intelligently about the problem that was being solved by this or that initiative. So, if [candidates] say ‘oversaw development of strategic solutions,’ they should have some more specific examples of said ‘strategic solutions’ and what the impact was to the business [and] the employees.” Agreed survey respondent Alison: “Weed out the garbage and tell me what you made, saved, achieved and make it quantifiable.

Characterized as “resume speak” by survey respondents were words like “visionary,” “thought leader,” “evangelist,” “innovative,” “motivating,” “engaging.”
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.

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 not tailored to the targeted vacancy. Shawn Slevin, HR and human capital solutions provider for Chair Swim Strong Foundation in the New York City area, called resumes that are the same for every position “cookie cutter.” Instead, your resume should closely match the requirements of the job you are targeting. While hiring decision-makers don’t pay much attention to Objective Statements, the headline technique can be effective in telling the recipient immediately what job or type of job you’re targeting. When targeting a job advertised by a corporate recruiter in a specific company, demonstrate in your resume that you’ve researched that organization and can tie your accomplishments to the employer’s needs.

As recruiter Lisa De Benedittis, president of Elite Staffing Services in the San Diego area, noted: “Resumes are auditions without the benefit of you being around. I will decide if you are a match for my job/client within 20 seconds. Your resume will speak volumes about your communication skills. Do you use words to demonstrate your value or is it boilerplate? Did you put thought and effort into this audition?”
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumesidentified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume is too general. To keep from limiting themselves, candidates sometimes create a very broad resume that lacks specific information. A peeve for one survey respondent is “failure to include enough information for a recruiter to determine fit. Executives more so than less-senior level candidates should be aware of the importance of effective communication, and yet they seem less motivated to tailor their resume to the specific job in which they are seeking.”
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumesidentified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume is so full of quantitative data that it’s hard to read. Your resume must tell stories of your successes and results. Numbers are great, but well-chosen words and well-crafted phrases will also get your message across. Excessive use of numbers can hurt your resume’s readability, so don’t go overboard.
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.

Hiring decision-makers surveyed for the book, Top Notch Executive Resumesidentified this as one of their Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves: Resume content lacks results. Hiring decision-makers want to see the results you attained for past employers, what you accomplished, the value you added, and how you made a difference in your past jobs. They want to gain a sense of the complexity and significance of what you’ve done. Some recruiters recommend a bulleted list of key projects indicating accomplishments and results.

As many achievements as possible should be measurable, especially quantifiable. One recruiter advises metrics or results for at least 40 percent of your bullet points for each job. “Anytime you can quantify your accomplishments, you give them more credibility,” said another. Among measurable items employers want to see are sales volume (and ranking in comparison with peer and compared to previous periods, percent of quota), number (and titles) of direct reports, number of people you’ve hired, size of teams you’ve led, your position within the team, amount of money you’ve saved, success in completing projects, initiatives that result in revenue-generation, process-improvement, and cost-containment.
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.

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.

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.

“Don’t make the mistake on your resume or in your cover letter of claiming soft-skills competency without substantiation,” cautions Peggy Klaus in her article for Quint Careers, Are You Up To Snuff When It Comes To Soft Skills? “Providing solid examples that demonstrate your soft skills in a resume or cover letter is far more effective than making empty promises, such as: I possess solid leadership, people, and communication skills. Show me! This is especially important, given that many hiring managers — as associate publisher of Quintessential Careers Katharine Hansen points out in Top 30 Executive Resume Pet Peeves of Hiring Decision-Makers — don’t like to see a laundry list of soft skills on a resume,” Klaus writes.

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 has spelling errors, typos and grammatical flaws.

Hiring decision-makers cited this peeve more than any other. It may surprise some that misspellings and typos pervade even executive-level resumes, but they do. A job-seeker-submitted sample considered for the executive resume book, for example, contained the common error of spelling “manager” as “manger.” You’ll note that this misspelling won’t be picked up by spell-check functions because “manger” is a correctly spelled word. So is “posses,” the plural of posse, which I often see on resumes when the job-seeker intends “possess.”

“I once received a resume where the applicant misspelled the name of the University from which he received his MBA,” said Jeff Weaver, regional manager for a global information services company.

“Poor spelling and grammar … is particularly worrying,” said Pete Follows, senior consultant, for SaccoMann, Leeds, UK. “If a candidate is not giving due care and attention to a document to improve their own personal circumstances, what care would they take with documents with less personal significance?”

A few tips on avoiding typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors:

• Use spell-check functions but remember that they aren’t enough.
• Proofread. Then put the resume down overnight and proof it again in the morning with fresh eyes.
• Try proofing from the bottom up. Reading your resume in a different order will enable you to catch errors that you may have glossed over before because your brain was accustomed to reading your verbiage in the expected order.
• Ask a friend or family member to proof, preferably one who is a meticulous speller and grammarian.
• Be careful about company and software names, which are frequently misspelled and can damage your credibility.
• Consider hiring a professional resume writer.

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.