What is Digg?97 Comments
- playerslight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+97It didn't answer the biggest question I have: should the $100 bill be paper-clipped to the first or second page?
- Fejerro, on 10/12/2007, -4/+81I worked an an employment coordinator in a staffing service for over a year. I've seen some TERRIBLE resumes. All of these points are right on, except some employers will be expecting an objective, and might balk if there's not one there. Otherwise, the article makes a great argument for leaving it out.
Some other suggestions I'd offer:
- Don't overdo it! I got a resume from someone with a Master's Degree (why he came to a staffing service that specializes in general labor, I'll never know) that was 5 pages long, in about 8 point font, single spaced! I could not bring myself to read more than his name and education, no matter what he had done wherever he was!
- Only put relevant information! The tag "Avid sports fan" or "I have 2 cats" don't impress me.
- Make sure it's clean, for the love! I brought my own lunch, I don't need yours all over a sheet of paper!
- While we're talking about it being clean, make sure when I ask for it that you don't pull a crumpled up ball of paper from your pocket. Wrinkles will make a huge difference. If you can't take care of your piece of paper, how are you going to take care of my clients?
- Fill the white space with something! A 3-quarter blank page with only your name and the fact that you've been a bagger at Albertson's for the past 4 months will only give me doodle space before I throw it away.
- One of the biggest little things I saw was when the resume was on nice paper. While the rest of the resumes were just in a pile, I would, almost unconciously, take better care of resumes on better quality paper. - DaveMN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40These are all basic rules, but they all seem to get broken constantly. All of these should be obvious to anyone who’s conscious (maybe even the lightly sleeping), but they must not be. On to the rules!
1. Proofread your resume. This is the most basic rule I can imagine, and yet it has been violated so many times that it’s threatening to press charges. I’ve gotten applications for the Administratvie Assistant position from people living in Memhpis. Spellcheck, and fix your grammar. I’m not interested in your “too years of experience”. And proofread your cover letter and/or email, too. Misspelling the name of our company is not helping your cause.
2. Remember to attach your resume. This one really hurts. Don’t send a wonderful email and forget to attach your resume. I know, I know, people make mistakes. People who make mistakes during the application process don’t get hired. Remember, this is your first (and probably only, if you don’t attach your resume) chance to impress a prospective employer.
3. Don’t dump your resume into an email. I don’t know what fool has been giving out resume advice lately (aside from myself), but apparently, lots of people apparently think I’d prefer a resume dumped in an email to a nicely formatted PDF or DOC file. Trust me, I don’t. Unless your prospective employer specifically asks for this, don’t do it. Your resume looks horrible and sloppy when you do this. I did have one industrious applicant who actually submitted her application as an email, but took great care to format it with lots of HTML and tables. Unfortunately, when I printed it, the right side of her resume was cut off. It ended up in the “no interest” pile, along with the rest of the email-as-resume group.
4. Microsoft Works is not your friend. I know, you’ve got Works already and Microsoft Office is expensive. I don’t care. Someone you know has a copy of Microsoft Word. Put your resume together on their computer. Why? Because I use Linux at work and OpenOffice has no idea what to do with a Works file. Even my laptop with Microsoft Office couldn’t open those files without installing a new plugin. Rich Text Format files are likewise not your friend, but a PDF will get you bonus points. (OpenOffice files would have been fine for us, too, but probably not for most employers.)
5. Follow standard resume guidelines. Your resume doesn’t make you look different or clever, and it’s not supposed to. Your resume should make you look professional. That is your primary goal. Your “special” colors are not helping. That cute divider you used is not impressing me. Your resume cannot, and should not attempt to, convey your personality. You can show us your personality when you come in for an interview, after we select you based on your professional resume.
6. Don’t use an embarassing account on a lame email provider. I know hotmail and yahoo are free, but your cutegurl56xx username just isn’t cool. I’m also not interested in trying out the new game advertised on the bottom of your hotmail account. If you must use a free provider, make sure that they aren’t tacking ads on the bottom of your emails. And please, get a better username.
7. Don’t have a resume objective. This goes contrary to a great deal of resume advice out there, but it needs to be said. Raise your hand if you know what the “objective” on a resume is for. If your hand is up, put it down. You’re lying. About eighty percent of the resumes we received for this latest position listed an objective. Out of those, zero percent had an objective that said anything good. Every single one was either generic (”To obtain a job in which my skills will be useful”), irrelevant (”To join a fast-growing company”), or flat out wrong (”To obtain a graphic design position”). At best, an objective wastes space on your resume. At worst, it shows you as boring, lazy, or misinformed. I’d rather read that you were in 4-H than read your objective.
8. Don’t put friends as references. This one was kind of fun. We actually had some applicants naming each other as references. Did they think we just wouldn’t notice? You should never list as a reference a person who would list you as a reference. You should list bosses, professors, etc. If you can’t fill your references without listing friends, you need to figure out why that is, and make some changes.
9. Include a cover letter. There’s some disagreement about this one, but I think a cover letter is a definite plus. I’d prefer a nicely formatted document as the cover letter, but I will settle for a well-written email. What I will not settle for is a one-line email with no cover letter attached. “Please see attached resume.” Okay, please see trash folder. I want something other than just the resume. The letter (or email) is somewhere that you can actually speak to me. If you can’t manage that, I’m not interested.
These nine rules are all fairly simple and straightforward. Following them will go a long way toward impressing a prospective employer. Remember, your resume is your first impression. It should sparkle, or at the very least, glimmer a little bit. - trghpy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+39Remember to use DRM'd PDFs when applying for jobs with the RIAA.
That is after you have them sign a non disclosure agreement. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36I was always told to keep my resume on 1 page.
- op12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27Tip #10: This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota
- lokiworks, on 10/12/2007, -8/+33Two of your points are contradictory. You suggest always to put 'something' in the white space, but complain earlier about individuals putting irrelevant information. Can't have it both ways, if somebody really doesn't have a lot of info to put in their resume, like somebody whose job xp is only 4 months at Albertson's
- markp93, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24GoogleCache:
http://72.14.203.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fformerslacker.com%2Fblog%2F2007%2F02%2F08%2F9-resume-tips-that-should-be-screechingly-obvious-but-apparently-arent%2F&btnG=Search - jasnmb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19hence the "That Should Be Screechingly Obvious (But Apparently Aren’t)" part in the title
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20I like how their "we're dugg" page asks you to please contact the sites webmaster. Yeah, because when your web server gets hosed, the first thing you want is for the digg effect to hit your mail server too.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16#4 - go get CutePDFWriter (free) and print anything to PDF.
#9 - not always true. So many companies just harvest resumes and dump them into the giant parser. If it's a small company, or one that you're really interested in, sure. I've had good luck with the shotgun approach: put the effort into sending the resume out to a zillion places instead of tailoring a cover letter for each one.
Just my two cents. I might be wrong, but I also have a job. - jasnmb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Instead of an Objective I go for a Summary section to just briefly summarize (quickly sell) yourself in a sentence or two before getting to the details.
- humanseemer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Yeah, i'm sure your former clients would love having their personal financial information disclosed to random people. That's a great idea.
- danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13As far as paper goes there is nice good quality paper and then there is fancy paper. You don't need colored/scented paper, but nice white cotton based paper is worth the extra money. It shouldn't look drastically different then the rest but it should feel better, at least in my opinion.
- uglylaughingman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Hmmm- I may be the only one who feels this way, but here goes:
I have worked as a (fairly expensive) consultant for the last 15 years. I've never had trouble finding work, and while a couple of these tips are useful, by and large, I'd say the rest of them merely make me think this guy is someone for whom I would not work. Seriously- when you see an employer get this anal about petty things, you can usually count on that company having a greater than normal tolerance for "technically accurate fools".
(This is defined as the kind of person who can't actually get something done, but who can document the hell out of the process, and waste many many hours of work, and vast resources, doing it.)
I could easily be wrong, but having worked for a variety of companies of all different types over the years, I've gotten pretty good at spotting the warning signs, and if any of this attitude came across in a job posting or interview, it would immediately trigger my clusterf**k alarm, as well as a polite "I don't think I would be a good fit" and my prompt exit.
Am I the only one who thinks working with actual human beings is superior to working with the "leave your life at home" crowd?
And when did we get to the point that employees forget that you are also interviewing the employer for their suitability?
Hmph. JMO. - Homunculiheaded, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10VTmruhlin,
The truth of that can change depending on a lot of factors. I mean look at the use of CVs in acadmia, I know many professionals that use 2 pages as their standard (even for a resume). Additionally if you have a fair amount of experience, and several publications, committee work, and many additional professional activities 1 page isn't going to be enough.
I think a better guideline is don't make a 1 page resume 2 pages. It may sound stupid but you should know whether or your background is enough to warrant the use of 2 pages, if you have nothing more than skills, education, employement experience, then stick to one page. - loup, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11>If your only job really has been that 4 month stint as a bagger, then you're just screwed and will have to conflate.
Ah, the ever present folly of the way companies hire people. You can't get the job unless you have the experience, but you can't get the experience because no one will give you the job.
Even with my current job my lack of experience nearly kept me from getting the job. With the experience and training I had I actually made it to the short list, but was their 3rd choice. They were informally warned against hiring their first choice, their second choice didn't want to drive that far to get to work, and then there was me. They had scheduled a week for my training, the guy training me in decided that after the first day he didn't really need to be around cause I knew what I was doing for the most part, and when I didn't know how to do something I was able to figure it out on my own pretty quickly. My lack of experience almost kept me from getting this job even though I'm a perfect fit for it. - cr4ft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Objective: Listen...I won't ***** you, I just want the ***** job
- Hickeroar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8*Don't host your resume on a server that has a limited CPU quota. :-P
- dpark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'm working with my host to get the site back up. Hopefully we can resolve this. I didn't even realize I'd gotten dugg until my site went down.
- cr4ft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8He's made some really good points but to me he comes off a little bit abrasive, like he's been promoted from assistant-manager to manager at Taco Bell
- snurfle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Be sure to bring a copy of your resume to the interview, so you can check it to see what you said on it! ;)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Sadly, I've fallen pray to the "don't forget to attach it to the email" one. Yeah, that made me look like a dumbass.
On the subject of objectives... If you're going to tailor your objective to a specific job, make sure you de-specify it for the next job. I gave a resume to IBM once saying I wanted to work for Microsoft. Oops. - weevilgenius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7A good rule of thumb I heard from a career specialist is one page per decade of experience. Which is basically what Homunculiheaded said.
- Fejerro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@DrArnie
Point well taken. I suppose my perspective of resumes only applied to my position in the low-end job industry. When someone took the time and money to put their resume on decent paper, it was saying something. For higher-class types of employment, you're probably spot on, especially since you're drawing from your own experience. At any rate, I think it's well worth it because different, higher-quality paper will instantly stand out from regular paper resumes. I mean, I got my job with one.
@lokiworks
Also true, but perhaps you thought I was exaggerating on the Albertson's resume. I wasn't. Not in the least. - SplitZX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Speaking as a manager, all these "tips" seem quite subjective to the business you are in.
I prefer emailed resumes, paper is useless to me.
Cover letters are a waste of everyone's time. My time is important.
Send it to me in Word, PDF, Works, TXT or a JPG I don't care. If you can send me a format I can't open, it might actually give you a better chance at a job.
Don't give me a portfolio with your resume. It makes you look arrogant. Bring your portfolio to the interview after I deem your resume to be interesting enough that I can be bothered to look at your portfolio.
I will have to agree with proofreading, short resumes and the stupid email accounts. I would say those are the more important and business wide tips. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6#1 tip: Start your own business, and screw the whole resume/hat-in-hand-begging *****.
- wjglenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I put mine up on my website for download as DOC, PDF, or plain text. Then I just send a link in the e-mail.
- BlazeMiskulin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is a fairly nice list of resume tips--if you want to work as a drone in a major corporation.
The "tip" that really annoys me is #5 "Follow Standard Resume Guidelines.... Your resume cannot, and should not attempt, to convey your personality."
First of all, there are no "standard resume guidelines". Every "expert" out there will tell you something different. Resumes are, quite frankly, 100% subjective in their "requirements". What one employer considers a great feature, another will consider annoying drivel. You gear your resume towards the industry and--if possible--the specific employer. If the position you're applying for requires creativity or artistic talent, show it off in your resume. If it requires strict adherence to formal guidelines, show that in your resume.
Secondly, the idea that a resume shouldn't show your personality. Why not? I'm not a job position, I'm a person. If you can't handle the fact that I list my non-employment skills under the heading "Other Stuff", then, quite frankly, I don't want to work for you. I'm not a drone. I'm not a cog in your machine. I'm going to bring something unique and creative to your company. I'm going to show that in my resume. You don't like that? Don't hire me. As someone who's been on the hiring side of the equation before, I know that I specifically look for signs of personality in the resumes. I'm not hiring a skill-set, I'm hiring a person. And I want to know if that person is a good fit for my company. Someone who hands me a boring resume is *not* someone who's a good fit for my company.
Other than things like "check spelling" and "write coherently", I advise people to write a resume that reflects who they are. If the company doesn't want you as a person, you don't want to work there. - Mudcrutch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Not sure if you are being sarcastic..
But an accountant manages the finances for a company.. that company is DOING something isn't it? Making profits, doing projects, etc? Well they are a part of the team -- so they can reflect the results in their portfolio.
For example: "I managed the finances for Chicago Skyscraper XYZ which was a $80 million project spanning 2 years."
Show that stuff in your portfolio!
Hope that clears up my example. - phlavor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Never ever ever use a Resume Template.
The people looking at your resume, look at them all day long, have seen every template that exists, and are dead sick of seeing them. - loup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3>Should references be attached to the bottom of a resume' on a separate page, or should the employer ask for them separately?
Add a line at the end of the resume that references are available upon request and make sure you have the contact information and any letters of reference with you when you go in for the interview. Also make sure you have all of the contact information for any previous employers with you when you go. Make sure these aren't your only copies, and it would be best to bring at least one copy of your resume with you to the interview, even if the person interviewing you already has a copy (two copies is even better.) - Mudcrutch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3(more tips from me - from a graphic design perspective:)
Get a good PDF portfolio together and get don't stop sending it out. To be honest your resume means jack -- if you do great work then you will get hired (or at least considered), regardless of your resume/education. All any good potential design agency cares about is seeing your work and how good your design is.
Also -- pick what you want to do and focus on that in your portfolio. If you want to be a "graphic designer" then get together your best print and package design in your portfolio. If you want to do interactive then focus on that.
When you do get called in for an interview make sure your printed portfolio has just as good but different design work.
Bored with your current work? Solution: create stuff that YOU like on your own time. If you aren't doing stuff you love in your spare time how is that energy going to translate into your "real" work? Also never "talk bad" about current or past jobs. That looks very bad.
Finally - when responding to postings, follow their instructions to a T. I ask people for their PDF portfolios and their salary requirements. 90% of people don't do those 2 simple things -- so their emails go straight to the trash. How can somebody work in a sometimes stressful creative environment on their own if they can't follow 2 simple steps? - fedak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+43) You should have a text and a formatted version of your resume. The text version gets submitted to hr and cut into pieces to put in online databases. (The first thing most HR departments are going to do is OCR your document, so its better to just have the thing in clean text in the first place).
Bring printed copies of the the formatted version to your actual interview or if someone specifically asks you for a formatted copy.
If I'm looking through a series of emails from potential applicants, I'm much more likely to look at it if I don't have to drill down into an attachment.
7) Having a specific objective is important, especially when the resume will be posed on a job site or given to a recruiter. (I'd much rather read the 1-2 sentence from the objective than to try and reverse engineer this from the cover letter). The objective should clearly state what level of position you are looking for and any other specifics. Leave out the meaningless cliches. - eugeneandbobo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5more than 1 way to skin a cat, and more than 1 way to see a website
not to mention, their listed about 7 comments up - fadeaway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good point.
The reason I personally never send anything but a plain text resume is simply due to the fact that overzealous system admins just love disallowing incoming attachments on the company server. I can't count how many times I've had applications bounced back to me due to this. What really irks me is the number that have likely met their silent demise when hitting a spam filter.. - loup, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3While I would love for this to be true, it just isn't. There are plenty of people out there that will pass over a resume without even reading it just because it's not formatted to look good, especially if they're going through tons of resumes every day.
- Popdmb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jasmb
Ok another question I have. Do you think having the summary is even necessary? I'm hunting right now, and I'm torn on this issue. But I want to have the greatest chance of landing one.
Actually...what does everyone else think as well. Digg users have been a better resource for me in the past than articles that suffer from the digg effect. - Jack9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Experience from 8 jobs in California making 50-100k a year.
MS Word is what every recruiting agency expects and 99% of all employers expect. Even after getting handed the plaintext resume they initially asked for through email or webform, 100% of all employers ask for it in word format. Welcome to California.
Objectives are good when your skillset is varied. In fact, it's a must. If you've ever held a job, the practical experiences you want to have in your next job should be listed. Putting idiotic Objectives is just plain darwinism. You should probably remove your arrest record as well. Objectives are a bad idea but many people just don't understand what to say.
I use friends for references all the time. In fact, many of my coworkers past and present are my good friends. It's called reality. Be sure to prep your references before submitting resumes with their names.
This blog webisode was not helpful at all. Try to remember, this is just a random guy on the web. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeah the username is self-explanatory, if you have a user name, sexyblondie or such, then thats who you are inside.
but the email box itself. I found that having hotmail, yahoo, aol, or google email, i perfectly fine. lots of execs have those accounts. Why? Cause when you are on the road, and you dont always have your laptop, you have access to your email. If you dont like that email is coming from joe@hotmail.com, then I dont know what your issues are. Certainly worth exploiting. - HPSauce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They're tips from a computer scientist working towards a PhD. Another words, your stereotypical nerd. I would imagine he hasn't a clue what HR wants from us, though this article in particular is common sense enough.
To be fair, I'm annoyed that so many random no-ones who are doing some monotonous job hae set up a "Productivity" blog with the aim to spread the word on how to become 17% more useful in 4 minutes less. Let's face it - YOU GUYS ARE BORING. - pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2About #8...
A lot of companies prohibit supervisors from giving a professional or personal reference. My last three companies had such a policy. Besides, people come and go, your reference may not always be there. - Sedaak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Why are we reading tips from some random schmuck?
- wjglenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd amend that by saying never use a stock resume template. There's nothing wrong with starting from a nice template to get some ideas, but you should take the time to make it your own.
- lensman00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Where are the "Top Tips for Writing Job Postings"? I'm in the tech industry, have been a hiring manager and I've read hundred of resumes. As a prospective employee I've also read hundreds of job postings. My impression is that the overall quality of the job postings is far, far worse.
Here's a start: Top Tips for Writing Job Postings
1. Run your spell check. A little grammar is nice, too. It seems to be a forgotten axiom that quality candidates are using this process to screen you out, too.
2. No more than one consecutive exclamation point, please.
3. Put some thought into who you want to hire and describe that person. Too many job postings are just boilerplate that talks about how wonderful the company is -- "we hire only the best!" Sure... you and every other outfit in town.
4. Laundry lists of technical requirements and/or certifications are rarely appropriate, yet oft-used. This phenomenon is known as "alphabet soup".
5. Don't take the job description for project manager, research analyst, network engineer, etc and place "Hiring Interns!" at the top. If your CFO wants to save a few bucks, please have the HR head encourage him/her to find another way. - rcorrino, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Paper?....
I was job hunting not 6 months ago and 100% of my prospective employers required me to submit a resume via a web based form, e-mail or fax. The company that finally hired me only asked for a paper copy of my resume AFTER I was hired (for their records). At his point I had been in two interviews with them (always having my resume, printed in 20lb white copier stock, with me). Since I assumed they did not want a paper copy of my resume in this third meeting, I did not bring one so I asked if I could use one of their computers, popped in my trusty flash drive and printed them a resume on their nice vellum-like letterhead. - eskay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As well, it can be difficult to format a text file so that it does look good--not everyone can do that, and so if they submit their resume as text it ends up looking like crap. Hence his dislike of text only resumes.
- TechLaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Works one is easy to overlook, you can save something in Word format from it, and you should remember to. But that one is not as blatantly obvious as "Proof Read."
- sarusa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would like to say that this has probably been the most civilized discussion I've ever seen in the digg comments, even though I'm probably putting a knife in its heart by actually saying that.
- wugg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@DrArnie
-For me, nice paper is an automatic warning sign that I better pay close attention to the content, because someone is trying to make an impression with the presentation.
The fact that you look closer at the resumé on high quality paper is a good thing for most applicants. Personally I would love it if the hiring manager always paid close attention to my qualifications -
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