PDX Critique

It’s time to tackle resumes. Stacey’s Resume tips and tricks really gives a great quick low-down on how to improve a resume and Andy Lester’s comment hit on a couple of my particular pet peeves.

So if you have to have the resume in before the end of the day and you just need some quick advice check out Stacey’s Resume tips and tricks. If you are like me and have a lunch hour to kill and forgot to bring the novel you’ve been reading and are vaguely disappointed by the shift in Spring weather back to cool from awesome… pull up your leftover Thai food and read on.

Resumes

Visualize a resume. It’s printed in an amazing array of colors, colors that span RGB and CMYK, in fact oil painting artistic level colors. At the top is a name. Below it is an email. There is no phone number, no address. It’s such personal information to hand out freely to someone you’re asking to trust you with a paycheck. Surely phone number and address are for the third date or after a commitment has been made!

Below the name and email is some space and then the word “OBJECTIVE” as it is very important to state why the resume has arrived. Hiring managers generally need to be told that theirs is the job that has been objectified and dreamed of for years. The job that fulfills a lifetime of requirements. The desired job, whether or not the qualifications below match. Often this is the only line that gets changed as resumes cycle in and out of the inbox.

Following the objective is the name of a educational facility of some sort, then a list of jobs once held, no dates given, positions described like ergonomic stretches done on a required basis. Businesses named but without sense of context, no sense of what “Clarity” did as a corporation or even where they are located.

There’s a space in the list and then a second unlabeled list of unidentifiable associations, uncatagorized ideas, unexplained notions. Volunteer work? Memberships? Conferences? Side projects done for your cousin’s boyfriend’s bestfriend at a discount?

At the very bottom of the text, smeared well into the second or perhaps third page, is a chunky paragraph of coma separated values. In no particular order are listed languages, traits, software, skills, and sometimes values.

References upon request.

What?

Well, that’s a resume. Or what some resumes look like. There are others. Yet the criticisms held for this resume will apply to many of them.

Color

Stacey brought up test printing to see how your resume looks in black and white. Also test print in color if you have colors on your resume. Printers are not filled with infinite colors, most have four (CMYK) that they mix to try to match the colors you’ve specified. Even if you specified an “easy” color like red if you saved the color in a different color scheme (RGB) then there’s a translation that has to take place on the printer’s side and it can skew what was a plain red into something much more magenta.

For the most part I avoid color. I know myself. At home I choose colors that only match in unique world view. At work I specialize in structure, data, relationships. My resume needs to reflect that. Someone applying to create window dioramas for a specialty store would want to show a resume that reflects a good sense of visual balance, creativity, and either quirkiness or the ability to evoke emotions. I have some of those traits but they are not what I get paid to do. My resume visually represents the traits I do get paid for, even if the words are blurred.

Personal Information

Read an article or two on what potential employers are not allowed to ask you. The list includes most things in that non-discrimination agreement (NDA) most places have. In fact check out the company’s NDA. Any information in an NDA should not be in your resume. Or information that hints at that information. They have agreed not to discriminate against you based on that list and would really rather not know from the get-go any of that stuff.

Don’t give your birthday. Don’t use an SO as a reference. Don’t talk about your spouse, children or chronic mange. Don’t put what church you go to unless you do specific volunteer work for the church that is relevant and then highlight the work and downplay the religion. That is only in the case of an organization that includes religion on their NDA. Some don’t. Do read the NDA.

Address and phone number are a must. If you’re job hunting you need a phone. The hiring manager might feel impulsive and call you, be so impressed with your willingness that you get a same day interview, and then decide that all those other people who are hard to get a hold of are not worth it.

Address is important for larger companies who send rejection notices and also as a symbol of trust. “This is where I live, let me into your community.” If you’re uncomfortable with people knowing your street address get a P.O. Box. The subliminal message is still delivered – “I exist physically.”

Objectional

I hate objectives. Your resume could fit on one page if you weren’t told at some point that saying “Objective: to work as a part of a cohesive team getting things done in the role of ___” was necessary. It’s wasted space! Say it in your cover letter. Say it in person. The resume should be an easily digestible glance at your work history, qualifications and skills. Don’t muddy the waters.

Structure

To make a resume digestible at a glance (how I love mixing up my stomach and my eyes) it’s important to have a recognizable structure with clear labeling.

I just took a peek at the word count on this baby and realized I’m getting wordy. It’s time to sum up and finish lunch.

Label the sections of your resume. Generally the sections are things like “Education”, “Work Experience”, “Volunteer Work”, “Skills”, “Languages”, perhaps “Publications”. Format all these sections consistently. If the name of the company you worked for is in bold italic then the name of the organization you volunteered with should be bold italic, even though they’re in different sections. Keep your fonts consistent. Give the following information: Job Title, Company, City/State, Month/Year Start Date, Month/Year End Date. Write a short paragraph describing the awesome accomplishments you made working for “Clarity, a company specializing in contact lenses.” Try to keep it on one page so there isn’t the paper fumble to look up that cool volunteer gig at the bottom. Be realistic. Have you had a two page resume career?

The order of the sections depends on your strengths and what you feel is best highlighted as you apply to a job. Be willing to paste the Education section above Work Experience when applying to a university. They want to know right away where you land in the academic hierarchy. Small software start up? Put Education at the bottom. Maybe put Skills at the top followed by Work Experience then Volunteer Work to show you’re used to not getting paid. Play around with the order. Cut the sections into blocks and shift them about.

And always have people double check it. Preferably the ones who always spot their/there/they’re. The ones who will notice a tiny speck in the corner and ask if that was done on purpose or is your printer spitting? Picky people. Oh! People like PDXCritiquers this coming Monday!

References available upon request

Oh, please! Like they don’t know that.

Job interviews are a necessary evil. Prep for them by reviewing answers to these three frequently asked interview questions. After that, Google “top interview questions” and prep some more. Most interview questions have a subtext. It helps to know the subtext so you can fully answer the question.

1. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
Subtext: How ambitious are you? This question is pretty straightforward, how you should answer it depends on what the job is, what the growth potential of the company is, and most of all: what is true for you.
Appropriate answers
“In a job similar to yours, where I’m supervising a team of bright, talented workers.”
“In a job that provides opportunities for me to realize the fullest potential of my creative skills and talents.”

2. Tell me about a challenge you resolved successfully.
Subtext: Aside from the fact that this isn’t actually a question, what your interviewer wants to know is how you solved a problem.
Appropriate answers
You need to rehearse this one. The most appropriate answer is one in which you state a challenge and your solution. The trick is to keep the problem statement neutral and spin the solution positively.

Bad Example
“The idiot Business Analyst couldn’t draft a requirements document to save his life. In massive frustration, I took to having my video camera with me at meetings so I could record his stupidity and try to make some sense of it.”

Good Example
“I needed to make sure I had complete requirements from all stakeholders prior to design development. I instituted a launch meeting for each new feature developed and recorded it on video.”

This particular question has a lot of cousins, like “Tell me about your most disappointing experience, Tell me how you overcame adversity in your life.” They’re called “stress questions” because they’re designed to trip you up. The guiding principle in answering them is: stay unemotional and look for the positive spin you can provide.

3. What are your weaknesses?
Subtext: What are you willing to say negative about yourself?
Appropriate answer: Pick a negative that the employer will see as a positive.
Examples: “I’m a workaholic. I’ve had to hire a dog-walker to care for my pet during the day.” Will the hiring manger see through that? Sure. It’s a stupid question, and it’s pretty easy to come up with an answer that will let the interview move on.

At some point in the interview, likely towards the end, you’ll get this question:
Do you have any questions for us?
Subtext: Do you give a hoot about us? Or are you just applying for every job that comes your way.
Wrong answers: “No”, or “What is your vacation policy?”
The best answer: Whatever questions arose as you researched the company. (You did research the company, right?)
Old favorites: What opportunities for growth are there in this position? Where do you think this company will be in five years? (Yeah, you can flip that one right back on them.) I take a notebook with me to job interviews and jot down questions that occur to me while we’re talking and hold them to the end so I know I’ll have SOME question to add.

Good luck, and happy hunting! What is your least or most favorite interview question? Post it in a comment!

I find the most beneficial part of running a user group happens long after the meeting has ended. It’s the time spent when I sit down at my computer to implement feedback I received or heard about someone else’s project that I knew was applicable to one of my own. There is one project in my life and most everyone else’s that is ongoing. My resume.

Over the years I have gained a great deal of feedback and tips on improving my resume. I wanted to share some of those here.

• Edit your resume for every job you apply for. Tailor it to the needs and keywords of the job posting.
• Create multiple formats. Word, PDF, Text only, are a few good ones to start with. Always submit in the format requested by the job posting. If none requested, I opt for PDF.
• Print it out. Look it over, make sure it prints correctly and quickly. Be sure to also print a copy in black and white, even though it may look snazzy in color and on a computer screen. If you land an interview, I assure you, it will get printed out and most often in black and white.
• Keep it down to one page. This is a general rule, some people have enough applicable experience to make 2 pages, but usually one page will work just fine.
• Don’t put your picture on your resume or any other personal information, such as race, gender, etc.
• Don’t put down previous salaries.

I am sure there are a million more, please comment and share your own tips.

Dear Sir or Madam, I am one of 165,000 people laid off in the U.S. last month. I saw you posted a job of some sort that will help me pay for a small portion of my mortgage while I work nights at the Quik-E-Mart. Attached is my resume, you’ll notice immediately that I not only have not updated it in three years but I decided to do free verse in the stylings of ee cummings. I look forward to arriving late to the interview so I can embaress us both to the best of my effort.  Don’t call me and I won’t call you.

~ Unemployed America

PS if you do respond my email is hot4te4cher3x@msn.com

Or not.

  When it came time for me to graduate from college I knew that getting a job wasn’t just about what I learned for my degree or what I did for work study.  I knew that getting a job meant making a good impression on paper followed by a good impression in person. I took all the career center’s classes and workshops on resumes and cover letters. I read books. I studied. I practiced. Over time I came to interview people myself and I read more books and studied more.  I’m not an expert but I have opinions (could be the slogan of PDX Critique!)  So let’s start with cover letters.

Critiquing Cover Letters

I don’t have to see your cover letter.  Given the discomfort most people have with writing you either have one very large paragraph that is a rough duplicate of your resume in story format or one very small one saying “interested in the job, resume attached.”

Instead of critiquing your cover letter let’s pretend that this is the cover letter of a friend of yours that they’ve asked you to look over before they send it off.

First paragraph

“Who is this company you’re applying to?  Why do you want to work there? What makes them so cool?”

The first paragraph is to show the person you’re writing that you understand their company, that you appreciate their values, that they are super awesome cool.

This prepares them to like you. Do your research.

Second Paragraph

“What makes you right for this company? This job?” Add together the important details of your resume. Spell it out. Say the keywords: “while I’ve only dabbled in asp I am proficient in jsp and php, both languages similar in function to asp.”

They know that you like them. Now show them everything there is about you to like. This should be the bulkiest paragraph and if the job is big enough could be two small paragraphs, one highlighting one facet of skills and the other highlighting a different facet. (Technical know-how & customer service for example.)

Third Paragraph

“So how do your skills and their values mix?

This is the concluding paragraph. It says “you and me babe!” It has your optimism, your confidence, your hope and your belief. “With my relational database skills I think could maintain a flexible yet strong data model for you.”

Call me, search me

Always conclude with contact info and a note that you look forward to hearing from them in the next week or so. If you haven’t heard from them in a week or so that leaves an opening for you to show that you can follow through by calling and saying “I sent my resume in on the ____th and wanted to make sure it got to you.”

While you’re waiting for the phone call, or better before you send that cover letter be sure to search yourself. What can you find under your first and last name? First, last and university? Kegger pics? Call the frat and see if they can’t take them down for a few months unless you’re looking for work in a brewery. What about email? Huh, funny you forgot that spaceyCat978 on livejournal and myspace was hooked into the same email you use for contacting future employers…

to be continued…