Re: [SLUG] Getting You Resume Read

From: Frank Roberts - SOTL (sotl155360@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 00:34:56 EDT


People: One of the problems in passing on simple advice or asking simple
questions is that people do not read.

Please read the last sentence of the original posting. It says most clearly
below and quoted here:

> >NOTE: This does not define how to write a resume - mechanics
> >or how to state one's qualifications.

Now this point would be trivial except I have noticed the same effect by a
number of different people concerning questions on this list.

People: Please in the future read what the posting say and not read into them
what is not there.

Concerning acquisition of a job

After having read a few thousand resume, placed a couple hundred people in
various mid level to present level positions I have came to the realization
that for 90+% of people there is only one of two ways (one chronically and
one functional) that will get you a job 90+% of the time.

But that is jumping ahead of the story because a resume is probable only 10 %
of the battle of getting a job. So if yo are interested you we will go
through the basis one time. After that this subject is finished for me.

The sequence of event in acquiring a job is as follows.
Basic Procedure

1. Ascertain who you are.
What are your background, experience, and credentials.
Background = Where you went to school, Your degrees et.
Experience = Which companies you worked for.
Credentials = What professional license you have.

There is a ranking for each of these Top Ten School, Top Ten Company, must
have license.
All depending on your respective discipline.

2. What do you want to be, do, and where do you want to do it at.
List these on paper.

3. Resolve the conflicts between 1 and 2.
If you want to be a xxx and live in yyy and all xxx live in zzz you have a
problem unless you are truly world class. World class means your name
recognized on all 5 continents as a world leader. If this is not the case
something has got to give.

Point here is this is probable the most important thing about finding a job.
Knowing who your, what you want, and what is possible.

4. Find companies in the location, discipline, environment that meets your
principal requirement be that location, field, work conditions etc.

5. Contact the people in that firm that you would report to or your pears to
find out:
a) What the company is like.
b). How does the company treat its employees.
c) What their needs are.

DO NOT EVER CONTACT HR FOR ANYTHING, AT ANY TIME, FOR ANY REASON unless they
have already made your an offer and you have excepted it.
If you do you loose.

6. Write a resume that meets their requirements exactly as far as your
experience goes. DO NOT LIE AND EXAGGERATE YOUR EXPERIENCE.

If the hiring manager says he wants 1, 2, 3, 4, and you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 DO
NOT STATE YOU HAVE 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 unless you DO NOT want the job. You are the
over qualified and that is not what they want.

Note: One of the common tricks of the H. R. depart is to list far too many
requirements for a position and then eliminate all those that do not meet the
real requirements which they (the H R department) about. All those that list
all the H R requirement are the systematically eliminated along with those
that exaggerated in the wrong direction as being over qualified.

7. Send your resume to the correct hiring manager. This will almost always be
a V. P. Managers in general can not hire anyone regardless of what they tell
you. They simply do not have that authority in most companies. Managers
almost invariable have to go to the VP for approval.

Never send your resume to a manage oner 2 levels above the position you are
applying for.

8. I am not going to cover interview techniques. Lits just suffice it to say
that when a person goes for an interview that a company already knows that
that person can do the job except in very specialized technical applications.
What the hiring manager is looking for is will that person do the job. Is
that person a self starter, motivated, enthusiastic, corporative, and
assertive.

End of Basic Procedure

Personal Procedure

1. Keep very accurate notes of who is who, when you contacted them, and what
they want, and when.

2. Keep in touch with your company competition especially people who would be
hiring people with your background.

3. Get name recognition. Publish papers, give seminars, attend meetings brown
noise et and put this on your resume. Do this while you are employed if you
want to stay employed.

Resumes - Historical

1) NAME (16 or 18 point type bold)
2) ADDRESS (10 point type)
3) TELEPHONE and E_MAIL

You would surprised at the number of people that leave 2 and 3 off their
resume. I have even seen idiots that put their name on a separate cover page
which was immediately striped away on the first faxing. Great resume but
who's is it?

4. A 5 to 10 line mini resume. Generally you write this last.

5. 3 or 6 bullits (two columns) of 1 or 2 words describing your high points.

These are of course exactly the high points that the company is looking for.
If you resume does not meet the prospective company requirements for that job
DON'T SEND it. They may have a great job tomorrow in the qqq department but
if you have defined yourself as a ppp you are only going to make a lier out
of you self if you send a second resume declaring you are a ppp after you
said you was a qqq EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE BOTH.

NEXT LINE READS: Professional Experience (14 point type bold)

6. Name of the Last company you worked for (on the left) (on the right) dates
    Name of company (12 point bold)
    Next line below company = Location of your employment.
   Next line 1 or 2 sentences telling what the part of the company you worked
for does. Example: Malefactor and installation of yyy type circuit boards.

7 Your personal Accomplishments with bold points in front.
Accomplishments always began wit action words.
Example

* Developed computer program utilizing C++ that speeded up manufacturing
process by 10% eliminating production bottleneck that saved 5% in production
costs.

8. Repeat of 6 and 7 for each company.

9. Education (12 or 14 point type)

10. Professional societies.

NEVER PLACE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION LIKE WEIGHT, HIGHT et. on a resume.

Difference in a chronically resume and a functional resume.

Chronical resumes have the accomplishments listed under the company in inverse
historical order.

Functional resume list all accomplishments after "Professional Experience" and
before a historical listing of the companies.

How long should a resume be?
One page if you are 1 to 2 years out of the university.
Two pages if you have 5 to 50 years experience.

Note: Project type people, Medical doctors, and certain others attach addendum
to the two page resume. This give the prospective hiring two pages of quick
review then pages of the assorted qualifications. My personal one is 3 pages
an exception that is very hard to easily explain but suffice it to say one
page of the three is technical construction project experience.

I hope this helps some of the highly confused people that I have listened to
about this the past few weeks.

Oh my personal qualifications for posting this procedure. One of my glories
jobs when I am not inn the field solving technical management problems has
been 10 years worth of executive recruiter.

As as a futher triviality I was laid off in an industry that is in a very
tight labor market effective last Friday. Tuesday messing around and I mean
that seriously I made 3 phone calls concerning future employment and sent out
one resume. Today - Thursday I was offered a job at a 38% salary increase.
True, heavy specialized construction, job today none tomorrow but it does
demonstrate that the above does work.

And one final item before we depart. What of all those resumes that do not
meet the above specifications.

Well one can tell a number of items about a person by looking at that persons
resume. Now recall a resume is a sales and marketing tool in which the
individual is attempting to impress a prospective employer.
1. Communication preferency. Spelling, grammar, word usage
2. Grasp of what a business is. Can that person translate his actions in to a
meaningful expression of what the business world is all about.
3. Does that person know what he wants.
4. What is that person all about.

I literally wrote a book (OK it was a 3 inch thick training manual) on these
procedures. Point is this digest falls short in more that one aspect but thin
again this is only a short e-mail.

Hope this helps some of you people.

Thanks
Frank

On Thursday 18 July 2002 12:24, Carson Wilcox wrote:
> I'd be a little carefull of following that to closely. It states
> that a resume should be one page. There is no way an experienced
> developer can have a one page resume and cover enough to get
> through the door in most cases. I know that I barely skim a single
> page resume before tossing it on the heap.
>
> Carson
>
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Frank Roberts - SOTL <sotl155360@earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: slug@nks.net
> Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:58:32 -0400
>
> >One of the best reviews of how to get your resume read is put out
>
> by Kopelin
>
> >Search. Look under "Five ways."
> >
> >http://www.kopplinsearch.com/
> >
> >NOTE: This does not define how to write a resume - mechanics
> >or how to state one's qualifications.
> >
> >Frank



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