Applying for Multiple Positions at the Same Company: It Will Hurt You!

I've been a bad blogger the last 2 weeks. Instead of paying attention to my interweb hobby I have been off in the mountains of sunny Colorado and not-so-sunny Alberta Canada on the SKI slopes! If you have never skied, I must say it is quite the wonderful sport, IF you get a lesson first. Yeeesh. Here are two pics where I am not rolling face-first down a mountain.....

Top, with our pals in Steamboat Springs. Bottom, me in Nakiska just outside Calgary, Alberta

Moving on. I'm back in the groove now, which means back to the world of reviewing applications of the many job hunters out and about these days. My favorite thing to see though (insert sarcasm here) are applications where one individual has submitted a resume (the same one) for 6 positions, all of which have skill sets from opposite ends of the spectrum. Yes, I am CERTAIN you are qualified for ALL of them. NO.

Here are the reasons why this is pure agony for us hiring folk, and why you will get 6 subsequent rejection letters in your inbox if you do this. As a reminder, these are just my humble opinions. Maybe there is some psycho recruiter/HR person out there that doesn't see this as a negative, but I am not one of them. Let's go.

1. Companies want to hire experts of their (ONE) field. A good example of this is a position as a trainer. Lots of job seekers think they can be masterful trainers because in each of their 4 last jobs they spent 3 hours letting a new hire or intern shadow them. NO! True trainers are people who develop training material, spend days/weeks with company new hires, re-certify people for any job-related skills they need, and spend a lot of their time in front of a classroom full of people who only care about when the class breaks for lunch. So if your resume is a mixture of retail management, customer service, and banking, don't get hissy when you're not the first call-back for a job as a full-time trainer. Make sense? Just because you have spent a fraction of your time on any certain job duty in your past doesn't mean you're ready to make a full-time career out of it.

2. You look like an arrogant arse. Applying for 4 different positions (even internally with your own company!) makes you look like you think you can do everything and makes you look like you don't have respect for the skills it really takes to do certain jobs. This automatically turns employers off to you, whether you're legitimately qualified or not, because they think your attitude sucks (and it probably does). Don't become the running joke of your future or current employer's HR department - every time they post a position they'll start a pool to see how long it takes before you submit your resume for literally ANY position they post. Stick to what you're qualified for. If you're seriously interested in changing fields completely (think of someone who works in accounting deciding they want to work in sales), know two things: one, you WILL have to start from ground zero in your newly chosen field, and two, your previous experience means ZILCH from now on. A good use of your time would be to take courses in the field you think you want to pursue, or look for a mentor that can help you get your foot in the door. This will help your resume show to employers that you are serious about your career path and that you've done some homework to back it up.

3. You may or may not be a total flake. I see this one a lot where people apply for the same position but in multiple locations. While I appreciate a person's willingness to be mobile, it also sends up a big red risk flag to me. What if we hire you, send you to Minnesota, and you like the job but you totally hate it there?? Huge waste of our time. You're better off picking one or two places you're REALLY interested in living and wait it out for the right jobs to come along there. What you may not see is - when you apply to the same position in different locations, I still see ALL OF THEM. There may be recruiters at said company in all 50 states, but they're all using the same system to track applicants, and guess what, any recruiter can see any application (in most places). Same goes for applying for multiple positions at the same office. What if we go out on a limb, hire you as an event coordinator, and 3 weeks later you decide that's "not for you" and that you want to work in the payroll office.....? KILL ME. Applying for that many positions automatically puts that thought in my recruiter head, and if there's another applicant out there who's not so (apparently) flaky, you're out of the game.

Remember people, this is all about perception, and you DO NOT want to be the one who looks like they don't know what they're doing, thinks they know everything, or hasn't found their niche in the career world. It's OK if those things do apply to you, you just can't let it show in such an obvious way. 

Happy Job Hunting!

Shorten Your Resume - I Promise You Need To

Recently I came across the resume of a gent who is over business development for the  US in one of the biggest oilfield service companies in the world (that's over 50k employees, 20 billion dollar company, you get the idea). Dude had been in progressive roles within the industry for the last THIRTY FIVE YEARS, most of which was in sales, but he got his start out of college as an engineer. He holds active memberships in two industry associations and he's got a degree in Petroleum Engineering. In short, he is/was exactly what I needed for the role I was trying to fill. 

WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL THIS??????

Because I got ALL this info in ONE PAGE. ONE PAGE?!?! No, not front and back. One page!!

 I was astounded. Even with all I (think) I know about hiring, I figured someone with this kind of background would surely need at least two good pages to get enough out there to really spark my interest. 

That got me thinking, are all our resumes too long?? Are we saying too much?? I have decided the answer is YES. We need to be the IKEA of resume-making---build it as simply as possible and flat-pack it with a cool Swedish name. Something like that.

So before you start spring cleaning your house with every organizational tip you see on Pinterest, do a little shop-sweeping on your resume. Even if you're not on the job market right now, it's always a good idea to keep it up to snuff. It'll make it easier to apply for jobs once you do finally get fed up with having to keep inventory on how many paperclips you get from the supply closet........

Office Space

Here are a few easy ways to fit all your awesome-ness on one page. If a senior executive of a $20B company can do it, so can you!

1. Make your header one line. All it needs to have is your name, ONE (primary) phone number, email, and the city/state you live in (no, not your whole address. No one is going to snail mail you anything.) If your name/info take up lots of letters, shrink the font. Like this:

2. Limit your bullet points.  Every time my friends call me for help with their resumes this is the FIRST thing I axe from their novels. They ALWAYS flip out and think that losing the bullet point about how they "use excellent time management to ensure all tasks are completed effectively" is going to cost them the interview. Leaving it in there will most likely make the person reviewing it barf, and so therefore I believe taking it (and the others similar to it) out will better your chances.

I suggest using one (or two if you MUST) sentences, not bullets, to tell WHAT YOU DO, and then up to four bullet points for significant accomplishments on the job. For me that looks something like this:

Y'all I KNOW this is hard. I do. I myself wanted to put like 17 bullet points just under my current job because we all feel like we do SO MUCH, and that three measly little points won't do us justice. Remember though, this resume is just a first date. The person looking at it will skim it in less than 30 seconds and decide whether to push it through or not. Now is not the time to showcase everything. You can do that in the first interview. 

3. Take at least one line out of whatever you have in your past positions. Your past life really does NOT matter that much. I promise, my recruiter eyes spend the majority of the 30 seconds I give you on what you're doing now, and if the rest of the stuff I see (skim) is relevant, that's enough for me. Stick to the same format with one sentence about what you did, and list two, maybe three, accomplishments.

4. Leave the BS out of your "education."  That was a pun, did you get it?? .....OK. A lot of 20-somethings especially have trouble with this. You did a lot of stuff in college (student government, 3 internships, sorority girl, international exchange, orientation leader, peer mentor, and you were Homecoming Queen, with a 3.8 GPA) to help set you apart from the "regular" college kids, and it breaks your heart not to leave all that in your resume....even though you're now 27. Tough. Take it out. The education section should list the degree you got, and where you got it. If you got a minor you can list that too. Do not list the date, courses you took, extracurriculars, or your GPA. None of that stuff matters unless you've graduated from college in the last two years.

Friends, I am sure you are exhausted by now just from reading this. Imagine how you'll feel when you're fighting over what cuts to make from your resu-novel. I think I'll make this a two-part post and share some more on shorter resumes next time. If you're in a funk with yours, reach out! I'm happy to share a set of eyes and always thrilled to share my unwarranted opinions. 

Happy job hunting to you!

Recruiter Pet Peeves: Why You Need to Know Them



annetaintor.com

Happy Tuesday to you in the Blogosphere! Today I heard, for probably the thousandth time in the last 30 days, from an applicant wanting to "check the status of an application." These are literally THE most annoying 6 words in my recruiter vocabulary. I am now to the point with this person that I wouldn't hire him if he fit the qualifications to a T, simply because he is such a nuisance. That got me thinking about all the other small turn-offs that job seekers probably don't think are anything unusual, but in reality send their resumes to the bottom of the pile in a flash. I will share them with you now, and I will pray for all who see this to never commit any of these deadlies.

1. Don't call us, we'll call you. You've heard this your whole life, and I'm telling you there's a good reason why. There is only one scenario I can think of where it is acceptable to make a follow up call to a recruiter, and that is if the position you are applying for requires some sort of additional documentation. For example, if you're in marketing or graphic design and you want to submit a portfolio along with your application, I think it's perfectly fine to call and ask what method is preferred to submit it (unless the job posting specifies instructions). Other than that, leave it alone. If we need something from you or want to talk to you further about your skills, we've got your number.

2. I will not be your facebook friend. This happens so much more often than you would think! A recruiter interviews a candidate, and 30 minutes later gets a facebook friend request. WHY?? We are not friends! The one caveat to this is Linkedin. If you've completed an interview with a company, I think it's fine to connect with the hiring manager on Linkedin. That's what the site is for.

3. Extreme Earliness. I get that every article you've ever read about job-seeking tells you to be early to the interview, but when I have a 1:00 and the receptionist calls me at 12:35 (as I am scarfing down lunch at my desk) to tell me my candidate is here, it takes everything in me not to run down the stairs and throw the red onions I picked off my salad into the applicant's face! NEVER be more than 10 minutes early. Period. It does nothing for you except give you 25 extra minutes to get yourself even more nervous than you already are.

Pretty simple. I wouldn't say that not doing these things will get you the job, but avoiding a recruiter's pet peeves will at least keep your resume from being trashed due to you being annoying.

Happy job hunting!

New Year, New Career? 5 Ways to Get Your Resume in Shape Too!

SIGH. The end of the year cometh, and I find myself thrilled about what is to come in 2013, but also saddened that this means the END of Christmas treat-eating. Pretty much everyone under the sun is talking about their go-to diet strategy for 2013, but y'all would be surprised how many people have the same habit of getting-in-shape-procrastination when it comes to job hunting.

It sounds something like, "yea I really need to update my resume, but I'll just wait til after the holidays and then start putting it out there."

I don't disagree too much with this type of procrastination because the fact is that there's a lot less hiring going on at the end of the year anyways, and it's disheartening to the job seeker to troll the job boards only to find openings at the local Taco Bell. SO - my advice to you is to take this last little bit of downtime in 2012 to get your resume in shape and be ready to land your dream job all before bikini season!! (I know you are stoked about how much extra gym time this is going to give you after the ball drops. yeesh.)

FITNESS - tshirt from Etsy

Here are 5 easy "exercises" to make your resume sparkle in the new year!

1. CLEAN IT UP. If your resume is in a template you hijacked from MS Word, get rid of it and start over, WITHOUT a template. They are gross and make your resume look just like everyone else's. If the font of your resume is still in Times New Roman, may God have mercy on your soul. Ok that's a little extreme. Try fonts like Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, or Tahoma. These are the easiest to read on a computer screen (which is most likely where yours will be seen).

2. GET THINGS IN ORDER. If you've been out of college for more than 6 months, this is the order the sections of your resume should be in.

CONTACT INFO

SUMMARY STATEMENT

RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

ORGANIZATIONS/MEMBERSHIPS/ASSOCIATIONS

REFERENCES (if required)

3. TRIM THE FAT. Do not list your hobbies or extracurriculars unless they are related to the jobs you intend to apply for. Also, leave the dates off your education. They give us clues as to how old you are and if you think age doesn't secretly matter to a hiring manager, you're wrong. Take off your extracurriculars from college (unless you just graduated). It no longer matters that you were Treasurer of your sorority (this was a hard one for me to swallow!). Only include references if they are required by the job you're applying for. Otherwise, a simple "References available upon request" will do just fine.

4. BE BULLETPROOF. Limit your bullet points to 3 per position, except your current one. In that case, it's only okay to have more than 3 if you have that many actual, legitimate accomplishments you think you need to share. If bullet point #4 is something like, "arrive at work promptly every day and manage coffee maker output," I invite you to visit Wikipedia and search for the definition of "accomplishment." If bullet point #4 sounds more like, "contributed to reduction of annual employee turnover from 22% to 12% by implementing a New Hire Mentoring Program," you may continue.

5. BE FIRST-DATE FABULOUS. I always always ALWAYS tell people to look at job hunting like dating, and I am sure a million other recruiters say the same thing. If you've completed the workouts above, LOOK at it one last time and ask yourself, "if this resume was me, would it get asked on a second date?"

Two things here: one, don't treat your resume like an online dating profile full of lies. Just don't. You will be found out, and then dumped (by your boyfriend, and your prospective employer).

Two, just like a good Southern girl, don't give it up on the first date, and don't let your resume give it all up either. Your resume should only include enough information to get you to the next step. You'll have plenty of time in the interview to make sure the hiring manager knows about your mission trip to Africa and your mad Photoshop skills. But if you scare him/her away with a three-page resume detailing your life timeline, they'll have nothing left to talk to you about in the interview. And they'll probably be so bored from scanning your resu-novel that they won't call you for one anyways.

As always, these are just the opinions of a lowly recruiter, BUT I do hope they ease your pains of getting in shape for 2013, especially if your resolution is to find your dream job this year! Happy job hunting!

The Fastest Way to Get Your Resume Deleted

I always tell people that the first thing they need to change about their resumes is to take out their Objective statement. These were popular in the pre-online-application dark days when people were out physically dropping off resumes in front offices, whether there were positions open or not. In that case it made sense to have something at the top of your resume that let the hiring manager know what positions you were interested in, should they come available....that way he/she didn't throw your resume into a random pile, such as this:

God bless the internet. Now when I get resumes, they are filed away neatly in an online storage world called an applicant tracking system, and I don't have to wonder what positions you're interested in, because you told me in your online profile.

I do think it's better nowadays to replace the objective statement with a Summary statement, put in the same place on the resume. While I'm okay with this, I'm NOT okay with the crap-words most job seekers are using to fill up their summaries.

Here are my top 10 (or 12) words to take off your resume (immediately):

highly motivated

driven

focused

self-starter

accomplished

extensive

energetic

results-oriented

people person

diverse

strategic

high-level

Just so you know, I got these DIRECTLY from resumes I've been looking at for the last month or so (although they're the same words I've been seeing for years). And it took me about 30 seconds to think them up - that's how top-of-mind they are to me. The thing is, these are all good words, but when they're on 8 out of every 10 professional resumes a recruiter sees, they don't really mean anything anymore. In fact, if I'm being honest, when I see these words on a resume, my gut reaction is to assume the person googled "example resumes" and just copied and pasted some standard stament. Therefore, I'll assume that if you can't even think up your own words to write a resume, how are you going to contribute anything original to this job? DELETED. It's always better to use non-pompous words that fit your personality and your background. If you're a professional, and you're applying for a job that is professional, the things up there in those buzzwords are EXPECTED of you. There's no need for you to re-iterate them.

Examples of summary statements that will not make me hate you:

"New nursing grad eager to begin full-time career in healthcare."

"Marketing professional with 4 years PR, copywriting and graphic design experience."

"10-year tax accountant relocating to the Dallas area in October."

Easy. Short, to the point, tells me who you are and what you want. Now you have my attention.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on what's happening in the job market right now! Leave a comment and let the fun begin!