Career Cube Blog

This past week I coached three clients on how to improve their resume. The biggest problems I commonly see are that either people put too much on their resume and make it virtually impossible for a hiring manager to cull out their relevant experiences, or their resumes are so thin it makes them look like they can barely walk and chew gum. This week let’s focus on the text-heavy resumes.

When I talk to the people who have too much on their resume, their explanation is that they’re using the “less is more” mentality. I was reviewing a resume of a woman who had over 15 years’ experience at various positions within her college’s communications department. She probably had 20 to 25 bullet points on there. Very overwhelming to read. As I read them one by one, I noticed that she would have a great one-liner about organizing her community’s first 9/11 memorial event followed by a bullet point about the fact that she can write a press release. I really had to convince her that an employer who saw that she organized that event-as well as several press conferences-would assume that she was capable of writing a press release (typically an entry-level job duty). Keeping the press release notation on there was not only reducing the amount of available page space she had to talk about her accomplishments, but it was making her look betwixt-and-between. It didn’t give me the impression that she was a high-powered communications professional who was poised for the next stage in her career.

Read more

Popularity: 15% [?]

The only thing that might be more difficult to deal with than an interviewer who asks tough, probing questions is an interviewer who hasn’t a clue how to interview. You can leave feeling as if you ignited no interest, bombed the interview, and surely won’t be asked back. Where was the scintillating conversation? The professional give and take about the industry and your skills?

But if you’ve just met the person, how are you to know if they’re a lousy interviewer – or you’re a lousy interview? If you prepared for the interview, then you’ve an indication where the problem lies, because your preparation enables you to jump in and take control of those awkward moments.

I speak often about the importance of an interview being a two-way street. This not only means that you need to be interviewing the company as they are you, but that the company needs to sell themselves to you, as you are selling yourself to them. If the interviewer doesn’t have those sales skills, you need to elicit the information.

Interviewers who ramble on and on ad nauseum about the company need to be re-directed before you begin snoring. Interviewers who don’t have the ability to speak about the company or the position should be prompted with your questions. Interviewers who are unprepared, or perhaps even forgot about their appointment with you, must be briefed –by you — on your background, because they probably don’t remember your resume.

Lots of holes and awkward pauses in the conversation? If the interviewer doesn’t have the sense (or ability) to ask you what your skills are or why you’d be a great choice for the company, speak up and tell him. Toot your own horn. “I’d like to tell you about the time I put a winning proposal together under a stiff deadline, since the job we’re speaking of is also very deadline oriented.” That doesn’t mean talk non-stop, but it does mean don’t sit there and be uncomfortably silent for long periods of time.

Read more

Popularity: 3% [?]