What Makes a Good Resume?

Resume? AGGGHHH!

These are confusing and sometimes seemingly overwhelming times. Many of us, our friends and our loved ones have lost their jobs and livelihoods over the past weeks and months. Many who have never had to actively look for a job are unemployed for the first time in their lives. An unexpected job search can be overwhelming and scary, but it doesn’t have to be. This is an opportunity to re-assess your priorities and look back at those career aspirations that may have gotten side-tracked by life. In order to get started on this new journey, you need to make yourself available to employers and that starts with a resume. It is not as daunting as you think. Breathe and stay calm. We are here to help.

What does a good resume really look like?

There is so much confusing information out there about what a resume should look like. Do not be overwhelmed. Simple is better. You are not going to land your dream job by having the perfect resume. The job of the resume (see what I did there?) is to simply and accurately state what you have been doing and what you think you are good at. Keep is simple and straight format. Here are answers to some of the most common resume questions.

What is the best format to use?

Simple is best when formatting your resume. Unless you are in the field of marketing or graphic design, your resume length should be kept to a minimum. Fancy graphics, tables, graphs and columns only make it look like you are trying to hide a lack of hard skills. Use Italics and bold font consistently to highlight job titles and company names. Simple bullets are the best to list your skills. Tailor your resume for each job you are applying for by moving bullet points around in order of priority to match the job description. Under each position make a list of the MAIN responsibilities you undertook in each of those roles.  It is not a good practice to exaggerate your skills but, do your best to highlight the one you think are important to each potential employer. You don’t want to mislead anyone about skills that you have. It is a waste of your time and theirs.

How should I order my resume?              

The order of your resume DOES matter. Contact information should be at the top of your resume and in bold, followed by an Education section that lists degrees at the Associates, Bachelors, Masters and PHD level. The Objective section can be below education.  Following your Objective, the Experience section should contain the names of the companies you worked for and your job titles at those organizations. These positions should be listed in chronological order with your current or most recent position first. If you had multiple positions at the same company, group them together under that company name rather than have it look like several jobs. If your company changed names or was bought by another organization, note that with parentheses (MPS Group acquired by Adecco, Inc). You should highlight your job stability as much as possible. Recruiters and hiring managers often mistakenly assume you have had multiple jobs at multiple companies when you don’t group them together under one corporate name and date range.

Each Job Title should be followed by four to six bullet points explaining your core functions in that position. The focus should be on your most recent positions. Standard practice is to list all of the positions you have held in at least the last 10 years or the last three positions if that positions span more than those 10 years. Don’t worry if your resume extends past that “ideal” one page. Make your resume easier to read and see your skills by giving plenty of spacing between points. Don’t worry about it being too long. One page resumes went the way of the fax machine. Your resume may not be printed until the actual interview stage and Recruiters and HR Managers no longer have to worry about stacks of paper crowding their desks. Resume of two to three pages are acceptable for anyone that has held more than one position in their career.

What should I include in the Objective Section?

Way too many resumes have flowery (or fluffy) objectives that speak about long term goals and higher-level aspirations. Instead make your objective simple and to the point. Make it clear to recruiters and hiring managers what kind of job you are looking for and at what type of company. This section should be brief and be one to three sentences at maximum.

What about my certifications?

Certifications with acronyms such as CPA, PHR, CIA, CPA CISA, MBA or PHD should appear after your name at the top of your resume. Certifications that are lengthier, such as Six Sigma, Scrum Master, AgileSafe etc., can be notated in a separate section at the end of the resume. Make sure to add these, as many searches by Recruiters begin with keywords searches for certifications that are applicable or required by the positions they are looking to fill.

Interviews and Being Prepared to be the Decision Maker

Interviews – Be Prepared to be the Decision Maker

Prepare yourself for interviews in a manner that ensures you are the decision maker at the end of the process. If you have prepared correctly, at the end of an interview process one of two things should happen.

1.      You are made an offer for employment and you make the decision to accept their offer or you able to communicate back to the company why this position was not a good fit from your point of view.

or

2.      Your skills sets were not a fit and you completely understand why. It really stinks when you get a no and you don’t know why.

It is often said that looking for a job is a full-time job itself. A tremendous amount of time can be spent scouring job boards and company websites. In tough times like these, you can send out dozens of resumes and get few if any responses. That can be extremely frustrating. When we do get selected for an interview with a potential employer that feeling changes and it can suddenly be very exciting and invigorating. We finally have some progress! Unfortunately, at the end of the interview process, if we don’t receive an offer, we can be left feeling deflated and confused. Why didn’t I get that job? What could I have done better?

To avoid being on this emotional roller coaster and having to ask these types of questions, prepare yourself to provide solid, meaningful information to employers and be ready to gather meaningful, useful information for yourself.  Prepare to tell employers about your experience, skills and desires. Help them learn about you. They will be able to get a clear picture of you and you can get feedback immediately and directly from them. It equally important to prepare your own set of interview questions to determine if this is an employer that you want to go to work for. Take the time to research the company and your interviewers and come up with good questions for them and about them.

As a start, here is some homework to get you ready to talk about yourself. These steps are taken from the behavioral interviewing method but, will prepare you to quickly and confidently talk about your experience regardless of the interview format. Behavioral interviewing is based on the assumption that past performance is the best predictor of future performance. The value for you is that it is much more powerful to talk about what you have done versus what you can or should do. Providing concrete examples is always much more powerful than using hypothetical situations. Taking these steps will set you apart from the competition.

Homework #1 Getting Prepared to Talk About Yourself

Write (handwritten or electronic) the 5 accomplishments in your career you are most proud of. These should be times you avoided disaster, completed a huge project, met a tough deadline or saved/made money or time for your organization. These are your notes so use whatever medium makes the most sense for you to record your thoughts. Written, digital and audio have all shown to be effective, but record your notes and be organized with your thoughts now so they will be organized when communicating them in an interview.

Organize your thoughts using the acronym STAR

1. Situation

Write down a couple of bullet points describing the organization and team you were with and what was going on in the environment at the time of this accomplishment.

2. Task

The Task can also be addressed with just a few bullet points describing the problem, opportunity, project or deadline you were faced with.

3. Action

This is where you will spend most of your time thinking. This section might include 8-10 bullet points or more. Be as specific as possible about each individual action YOU took to finish the project, meet the deadline, take advantage of opportunity or avoid disaster for your team and organization. It is acceptable to talk about what you did in the context of working within a team but, be very specific about what YOU did to contribute to that team’s success. This is the time to brag about I. What did you do that you are really proud of? Take your time with this section and remember, that that these are your notes for your eyes only. Write down some notes and put them away for a bit if you have time. Your brain will continue to try to remember the details of each accomplishment and you can come back to your notes and fill in the details.  This is an exercise for you to remember the details that you may have lost over time so that you can speak about them easily and confidently in an interview situation. You are not going to use these notes to prepare scripted answers, but if you put effort into this portion of preparation, you will be able to quickly and confidently come up with examples of when you have DONE. You will be able to relate those examples to any question that they ask you.

4. Result

In the last section of each accomplishment tie it all together with a few bullet points describing the result in as concrete business terms as possible. You should talk about what could have happened if you had not found or fixed the problem expertly or the number of days of work you saved on the project or implementation. Perhaps you can document the money made or saved by taking advantage of an opportunity or streamlining a process or procedure. You want to demonstrate that you understand how the results of your work affect the success of the business.

You probably will not have an interview where you are asked the perfect question and you are prepared to recite back one of these 5 accomplishments. The purpose of this exercise is to help you remember the details of the things you are proud of in your career. Writing these accomplishments down will help you remember the specific skills you used, and tools you employed, to solve that problem, meet that deadline or take advantage of the opportunity. You will be able to give examples of how you used those skills and tools in the past and how you can use them again to the benefit of your new employer.

Getting Ready to Learn About Them

Your questions should fit into three buckets:

1.      Questions about the company, job, nature of the work, culture, etc.

These questions should be based on your knowledge of the job description, company research and any news articles about the company you have been able to find. What were you not able to find that you want to know? What peaked your curiosity and passion that you want to know more about? Interviews are not the time to ask about compensation, benefits, opportunities for promotion, flexible work arrangements and time away from work. At this point, in the process, you want the interviewers to feel like this is the only job in the world for you and that you are not just looking to get a foot in the door to move onto another role. Interviewers should believe that you are most interested in the job, company and work and not salary or benefits. You can get all of the answers to those other questions when you have received an offer and you are the decision maker.

2.      Questions about your potential manager and other interviewers.

The number one factor you should be using to assess a new position is the quality of your new leader. Your manager is going to have direct effect on your career by influencing how much you learn, grow and get exposure to new challenges. Come up with some good questions for them about them. Find their profile on Linked In if possible and study their background.

Why did they work for the companies they did?

Why did they choose to come to this company?

Why do they choose to stay?

What are their biggest challenges in the next 6 months? The next two years?

How do you hope that I can assist you with those?

Ask these same questions of other managers or future co-workers that you are given the opportunity to meet. The information you gather will be invaluable in helping you understand the culture of the company, the team and the personalities of the people you will be working with. Good decisions are driven by good information and this is great information to help you decide whether this is the right company and job for you.

3.      Questions to determine if the employer thinks you are a good fit and if not, why?

Wouldn’t it be nice to walk away from an interview with a good understanding of where we stand as a candidate in the mind of the employer? These questions are direct and are usually reserved until the end of the interview when both parties have had a chance to ask and answer all questions. If you are interested in the job at the end of an interview, ask for feedback but demonstrate your interest first. You want to ask these questions at the time of the interview because it gives you a chance to correct any misconceptions they had about your experience and gives you a second chance to address any question they had that you might have misunderstood. It is almost impossible to change those perceptions later.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today. I am very excited about this position because… (list the things you learned about that excited you).

I want this job and am ready to move forward. What is the next step? Will we be moving forward to that step?

Is there anything you see in my background or learned from our discussion today that you think would keep me from being successful in this role?

Is there any additional information that I can provide that would help you make your decision?

If you do your homework on yourself, your interviewers and the job you will be the driver’s seat when it comes time to accept an offer. At the very least, you will understand why you didn’t get an offer and can better prepare yourself the next time. Be prepared to be the decision maker.

​​​​​​​Three Tips for Keeping Your Best Candidates Engaged During the Hiring Process

Do you find yourself losing great candidates during the hiring process? It might be them, but let's be honest. It might be you too. Here are my top three tips for keeping the best candidates in your court during the hiring process.

Tip #1: Keep in Mind that Hiring is Selling

I see a lot of hiring managers who do an incredibly bad job of sharing the benefits of coming to work at their company. The best candidates are probably working for your competition and are pretty happy there. What is so good about your company or open job that they should leave where they are and come to work for you? How can you entice the best candidates to have a conversation with you?

We believe this shift in mindset from hiring to selling should start from the very first interaction with prospective candidates. Postings should first speak to why someone should want this job. Is there an opportunity to learn a unique skill or is this position a stepping stone to larger roles? Does your company have a cool, laid back culture? Do you allow trusted employees to work remotely? These are the things that have been proven to be attractive to passive candidates.

It’s important that the hiring manager allocates up to half the interview time to give the candidate relevant information about themselves, the team, the company and benefits of working for the organization.  It is also important to talk with them about mentorship, growth and community engagement opportunities.

The bottom line goal is to make sure that this candidate will want to come to work for you and not your competition.

Tip #2: Host Your Candidates Properly

It requires very little effort to give candidates “Concierge Service” when you invite them into your office. Make sure that reception/security expects them. Have a friendly person on your team greet them promptly, show them where the restrooms are and make coffee, tea and water available for them. These simple manners are often overlooked and are important in making the candidates feel valued. It is crucial to make sure that you create a positive candidate experience. Potential employees should feel that they are welcome at your office. Nobody wants to feel like they are there only so you can evaluate them.

Have candidates meet with all decision makers in one or at the most two trips to your office.  Since the best candidates usually have another full-time job, it is important to value their time and not have them come in on multiple occasions to do face-to-face interviews. Make sure that the candidate has a chance to meet other people in the department who show genuine enthusiasm for the team. If these candidates are going to leave a place where they have been valued and have friends, its important for them to feel connected.

Tip #3: Shorten the Hiring Process

You can compare, contrast and select the top talent in the market in as little as 10 days if you are willing to prioritize the search.  The traditional corporate hiring process is long and cumbersome. It involves a phone screen, multiple interviews and might take over a month to coordinate interviews for all of the candidates.  As a result, candidates drop out of the process in the middle or start working for the competition before you've even had a chance to send them an offer.

If you really care about keeping the candidates engaged, make sure that the whole hiring process is not more than ten days long. The key idea is to meet all viable candidates quickly and on the same day if possible. This gives you an opportunity to accurately compare them before using the valuable time of your peers and team. By having only your top one or two candidates come in and meet all other decision makers on the same visit, you again save your team valuable time and reduce the risk of losing your top candidate to another company.

Working with an executive search firm such as Candor Search makes it even easier. We work with you through the whole process: not just finding the right candidates, but also making sure that everything is streamlined and ends with a quality candidate accepting your offer in as short as two weeks.

Prepare to tell the story of what you have done

As a candidate, it is very powerful to be able to speak specifically about what you have done while other candidates are speaking in broad terms about what they would do, could do or should do. 

Unfortunately, too many very smart, highly qualified individuals miss out on their dream opportunity because when in an interview situation they could not remember the details of that intricate project they led 4 or 5 years ago. It is simple work to get you ready to quickly and confidently speak about what you have done.

Start by writing (handwritten or electronic) the 5 accomplishments in your career you are most proud of. These should be times you avoided disaster, completed a huge project, met a really tough deadline or saved/made money or time for your organization.

Organize your thoughts using the acronym STAR:

1. Situation

A couple of bullet points describing the organization and team you were with and what was going on in the environment.

2. Task

A few bullet points describing the problem, opportunity, project or deadline you were faced with.

3. Action

This is where you will spend most of your time thinking. This might be 8-10 bullet points or more. Be as specific as possible about each individual action YOU took to finish the project, meet the deadline, take advantage of opportunity or avoid disaster for your team and organization. It is ok to talk about what you did in the context of working within a team, but be very specific about what YOU did to contribute to that team’s success. What did you do that you are really proud of? Take your time with this section and remember that this is essentially a memory exercise so jot notes down and walk away from it. It will come back to you.

4. Result

In the last section of each accomplishment you tie it all together with a few bullet points describing the result in as concrete business terms as possible. You should talk about what could have happened if you had not found or fixed the problem expertly, the number of days saved on the project or implementation, the money made or saved by taking advantage of an opportunity or streamlining a process or procedure. You want to demonstrate that you understand how the results of your work affect the success of the business.

Preparing in this manner will help you confidently and quickly provide examples of what you have done in response to questions about your experience. You will be able to select from the many details you have remembered to provide tangible connections for the interviewers between what you have done and what they need you to do.