Career Survival Guide: Part 4 – The “R” Word (Résumé) Insights
Always have a current résumé. Always. Even if you have no plans to seek a new employment, or new position within your organization. The reality is that there are moving parts in life out of our control. We cannot control world economy. We cannot control our company taking a new direction and leaving us behind. Sadly, we cannot control office politics. (If anyone figures this piece out, please send me a note, as I find organization politics mystifying!) We cannot control downsizing, and we cannot control out sourcing. So again, ALWAYS have a current résumé. But if you don’t have a résumé, or need to update yours, or want to assess its quality, and usefulness, continue reading.
By way of explanation, a résumé is (ideally) a one to two-page document that highlights your education, skills, and job history. There are two basic types of résumé forms: 1) Functional and 2) Chronological 3) Combined. Functional pulls out skills, and experience regardless of where these skills were learned, or practiced (paid employment, volunteer). The Functional résumé captures experience, and skills based on logical groupings based on skill/experience. Chronological lists jobs in historical order. The convention is to list the current or last position first, at the top. Combined résumé is a mix of both Chronological, and Functional. The Combined résumé highlights skills, experience, but still lists jobs at a high level to make it easy to trace work history. Whatever the format, ideally your résumé s/b one to two pages. For a more detail on the three formats see…
http://www.simplyhired.com/blog/jobsearch/resumes/3-main-types-resumes/
There are many ways to write a bad résumé, and a few ways to write a good, or great one. To assess the quantity of your resume below are a list of don’ts that are universal:
UNIVERSAL RESUME GUIDELINES:
So above are the hard and fast rules on résumés. What follows are suggestionsbased on my education (MBA), profession (Career Coach), and personal experience (4 career changes since 1980’s).
RESUME SUGGESTIONS:
Don’t do a Functional résumé. I hate them. Beyond this I have not met a recruiter, or HR person that likes Functional format.
Don’t list hobbies. (This may come up in the interview – so be prepared to discuss hobbies, and recreation – but keep off the résumé.
Don’t list your pets (sad but true)
Don’t list your church or religious affiliation.
If you have worked with technology/software, even as a user, (Excel, Visio, SharePoint, etc.) list these out, but put into a “Skills” or “Competencies” section.
Avoid getting into little-known acronyms, or little known systems in the body of the job history/job details section. Listing “help built gyzmo-morphying synchronizing sub system” may have meaning to you – but it will make your résumé harder to scan by recruiters.
My preference in format is Combined résumé, but weighted heavily on the Chronological. You need to make your job history obvious to the reader, not obscure it.
Do use skill buzz words (Scrum, LEAN, Product Owner, Six Sigma, etc.) all but very small companies have software to scan résumés. You want your résumé to press the right buttons. If your résumé makes the cut, the recruiter has about 18 seconds to scan your résumé manually and make a decision to contact you for interview or pass you over.
Do list your education. (Unless there is over-riding reasons not to – a Career Coach, or Career Counselor can help here.) Call out your education in a separate section. If your education is very strong (MBA, Master of Software Development) list it at the top. You want to list your strong suit first!
Do use bullet points to highlight strong aspects of your job experience. Accomplishments, Successes, Delivery of Critical projects are all great candidates for bullet points. People with little time, like hiring managers, will skip much of the résumé, but will most likely skim the bullet points.
One last heads up on Résumés. Don’t be surprised if you arrive for a 2nd or 3rd interview and the hiring manager has not read your résumé. It is better to expect that the managers have NT read your résumé, and be prepared to close that gap. For that reason, you should arrive at job interviews with several copies of your current résumé. If your interviewer says “tell me a little about yourself” …this is gold. It allows you to highlight your accomplishments, wins, education, and successes. The purpose of a Résumé is to get you an interview. Put your best foot forward, be sure you have accurate contact information, and make your job history, and education easy to understand, and you have a good start of a great résumé – one critical key to get job interviews.
Always have a current résumé. Always. Even if you have no plans to seek a new employment, or new position within your organization. The reality is that there are moving parts in life out of our control. We cannot control world economy. We cannot control our company taking a new direction and leaving us behind. Sadly, we cannot control office politics. (If anyone figures this piece out, please send me a note, as I find organization politics mystifying!) We cannot control downsizing, and we cannot control out sourcing. So again, ALWAYS have a current résumé. But if you don’t have a résumé, or need to update yours, or want to assess its quality, and usefulness, continue reading.
By way of explanation, a résumé is (ideally) a one to two-page document that highlights your education, skills, and job history. There are two basic types of résumé forms: 1) Functional and 2) Chronological 3) Combined. Functional pulls out skills, and experience regardless of where these skills were learned, or practiced (paid employment, volunteer). The Functional résumé captures experience, and skills based on logical groupings based on skill/experience. Chronological lists jobs in historical order. The convention is to list the current or last position first, at the top. Combined résumé is a mix of both Chronological, and Functional. The Combined résumé highlights skills, experience, but still lists jobs at a high level to make it easy to trace work history. Whatever the format, ideally your résumé s/b one to two pages. For a more detail on the three formats see…
http://www.simplyhired.com/blog/jobsearch/resumes/3-main-types-resumes/
There are many ways to write a bad résumé, and a few ways to write a good, or great one. To assess the quantity of your resume below are a list of don’ts that are universal:
UNIVERSAL RESUME GUIDELINES:
- List your Name, and contact information at the top. (Traditional format is to list your home address as well.)
- Length should be one to two pages.
- Don’t embed a picture or “selfie”
- Put your best foot forward, but DON’T LIE
- Include dates of employment (month/year is best)
- For electronic form use a file format that can be easily opened/scanned by common software (JohnSmith.doc, or JohnSmith.docx)
So above are the hard and fast rules on résumés. What follows are suggestionsbased on my education (MBA), profession (Career Coach), and personal experience (4 career changes since 1980’s).
RESUME SUGGESTIONS:
Don’t do a Functional résumé. I hate them. Beyond this I have not met a recruiter, or HR person that likes Functional format.
Don’t list hobbies. (This may come up in the interview – so be prepared to discuss hobbies, and recreation – but keep off the résumé.
Don’t list your pets (sad but true)
Don’t list your church or religious affiliation.
If you have worked with technology/software, even as a user, (Excel, Visio, SharePoint, etc.) list these out, but put into a “Skills” or “Competencies” section.
Avoid getting into little-known acronyms, or little known systems in the body of the job history/job details section. Listing “help built gyzmo-morphying synchronizing sub system” may have meaning to you – but it will make your résumé harder to scan by recruiters.
My preference in format is Combined résumé, but weighted heavily on the Chronological. You need to make your job history obvious to the reader, not obscure it.
Do use skill buzz words (Scrum, LEAN, Product Owner, Six Sigma, etc.) all but very small companies have software to scan résumés. You want your résumé to press the right buttons. If your résumé makes the cut, the recruiter has about 18 seconds to scan your résumé manually and make a decision to contact you for interview or pass you over.
Do list your education. (Unless there is over-riding reasons not to – a Career Coach, or Career Counselor can help here.) Call out your education in a separate section. If your education is very strong (MBA, Master of Software Development) list it at the top. You want to list your strong suit first!
Do use bullet points to highlight strong aspects of your job experience. Accomplishments, Successes, Delivery of Critical projects are all great candidates for bullet points. People with little time, like hiring managers, will skip much of the résumé, but will most likely skim the bullet points.
One last heads up on Résumés. Don’t be surprised if you arrive for a 2nd or 3rd interview and the hiring manager has not read your résumé. It is better to expect that the managers have NT read your résumé, and be prepared to close that gap. For that reason, you should arrive at job interviews with several copies of your current résumé. If your interviewer says “tell me a little about yourself” …this is gold. It allows you to highlight your accomplishments, wins, education, and successes. The purpose of a Résumé is to get you an interview. Put your best foot forward, be sure you have accurate contact information, and make your job history, and education easy to understand, and you have a good start of a great résumé – one critical key to get job interviews.
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