Does your resume have red flags? If you are not getting any interviews or being grilled at length by a headhunter, it could be that the way you have expressed your experience on your resume rings alarm bells for the recruiter.
It’s straight from the horse’s mouth. The article quotes insights from Adaps Organisational Psychologist, Joshua Wood, who conducted research involving 50 recruiters at 35 organisations looking at how experienced and inexperienced consultants approach resume assessment.
He suggests that recruiters consider the following as warning signs on a resume:
– You do not have the months listed on your resume. 2005 / 2006 can mean two years or six months
– Your resume shows lots of movement between jobs. If your resume lists a succession of short term permanent roles you may have an underlying problem of not knowing what you want, being difficult to manage, getting bored easily or being ineffective in your roles
– Your resume lists contracts but shows a lack of repeat work with the one organization or agency, or you are not being extended or requested back. This, again, may indicate an underlying problem
– Your resume shows no evidence of career progression
– Your resume contains poor spelling and grammar
When I was a recruiter if I saw evidence of the above on your resume, I may still have telephoned you. But I would be verifying information I found on your resume and seeing if what you said sounded plausible from what I knew about the industry or company. I would also question you carefully in interview and perhaps asking those questions in a reference check.
If you have any of these issues, it doesn’t mean that you are a poor employee. Indeed you may have a good explanation. For example, you may have chosen contract or temporary work, or that’s the type of employment arrangement typical of your industry. I’m thinking IT here.
Before you send out your resume, try to think objectively about what it may say about you.
That’s it! You’re cut off. You’ve used up your word limit!
Often in online applications many government departments now limit the number of words or spaces you can use in your selection criteria. I think it is to save their spending on headache tablets. When I have sat on government panels and saw a “War and Peace” type selection criteria, I used to mark that person down on communication skills. Yes that’s a bit harsh. But if you think about it, a good communicator engages their audience. They understand the point of a question, and they think of the most powerful way to answer that question. They may only make the point once.
So how do you answer government selection criteria with word limits? This is often harder than answering a selection criteria with no limits, as every word counts. Here are some insider tips on how.
Make sure you understand the role
That means when you answer the selection criteria, you are giving examples at the right level and not wasting your space with irrelevant examples.
Make sure you understand the what the selection criteria is asking
Call the convener, if you are in any way confused. Often selection criteria are vague, have double ups, or are repeated.
Bullet point your achievements and examples to demonstrate your experience
Here are some examples of what I mean:
My ability to communicate effectively with a diverse range of stakeholders can be demonstrated by the following examples:
– For the past six years I have convened contract review meetings with my contracted suppliers. Through clear communication and regular meetings, I have ensured that we consistently maintained costs within budgets
– As a result of my professionalism and strong communication skills, for the past three years executive management have selected me to represent our team at community forums
– I have built positive relationships with our internal stakeholders. In my recent performance reviews my Leader has ranked me as “performing at a high level”
Don’t fluff about with too many words
Have a look at this post on action words for resumes. Try to choose just one of these to describe what you do. If you really struggle with this, write out what you want to say without focusing on the word limit, take a break then go back and delete words.
Don’t be afraid to get professional help when you need it
There is a real art to writing selection criteria, so do not tear your hair out if you are finding it tough. Read here for things you need to know before you apply for a government job.
You may only need to get professional help once to see how it’s done.
I’d say so, if you look at the numbers. Most people will tell you that 80% of jobs are not advertised. That’s the hidden job market. I’ve never found the source of this research, although talking with clients, friends and colleagues, most will say that they heard about their job some other way, even if it was advertised. So the number rings true.
However, I came across this statistic the other day, which floored me. ABS research says that in November 2008, 5% of employed people found a role through a recruitment agency/ labor hire firm. Check it for yourself here.
That’s just 5%! And that 5% includes labour hire, which are the agencies that send people out to industrial type jobs for a day, week or month etc. The proportion of other professionals finding roles through recruitment agencies is actually lower, at 4%.
So why is it so low?
Here are a few reasons that spring immediately to mind, although I am sure there are more:
– Technology has enabled many large employers to use their own online screening tools and to employ a recruitment agency as a back up, or for more specialist positions
– Even with preferred supplier type agreements, it is expensive for an employer to use an agency. Agency placement fees can range from 10% to 25% plus of the candidate’s salary
– For many reasons, and this is a whole other blog post, the recruitment process an employer follows using a recruitment agency, is quite prescriptive. If an employer tells a recruiter they want someone with 3.5 years experience speaking Mandarin, who is a marine biologist and who has climbed Mount Everest, then that’s what a recruitment consultant will advertise. It may not necessarily be the person their employer client needs.
– It’s often difficult to get to see a consultant, even if you have the perfect experience. See this earlier post on the silent treatment
– Sadly, and again for many reasons, the recruitment industry has a poor reputation. Some employers are reluctant to use agencies
What does this mean for you?
Don’t take your failure to find a job through a recruitment consultant personally. The numbers alone are against you. There are exceptions to this rule but what this statistic really says to me, is that if I was looking for a job, I’d be devoting about 5% of my time to looking for a job through an agency.
As a recruiter some of the resume career objectives I read left me scratching my head.
The reason I’ve scratched my head, is that from reading the resume and the career objective, I have had no idea what that candidate has wanted to do.
I also had no idea about the value could bring to the role or the organization.
That means I need to start to think and translate this person’s experience to see whether it matches the role at hand.
While my role as a recruiter is to do that, the person who’s most likely to get a look in, is the person who can quickly explain the value they can add, starting with a clearly expressed career objective on their resume.
Why should you read this blog post.
In this blog post I”ll cover 5 things.
1. Why you should create a resume career objective
2. Bad examples of a resume career objective and why the example is bad
3. Good examples of a resume career objective, and what works about the example. These are career objectives that have helped my clients win interviews
4. Rules to help you create a powerful resume career objective
5. How you can use our myPitch app to create a forward looking career objective for your resume and for interviews.
1. Why you should create a resume career objective.
Skip this bit if you just want to find out how to write one.
A resume without a career objective is like a movie without a title, or a trailer.
I’m not really going to understand why I should watch the movie, if I can’t at least get an idea about what I am about to see, and in fact I probably won’t watch it.
A resume career objective invites the reader in. It makes a big difference to the way the recruiter reads your resume.
An career objective does not need to be an essay, you do need to let the rest of the resume do it’s work, but a succinct and well written objective means when the recruiter reads the resume, they read it with what you want in mind.
Even more important, the recruiter can quickly understand the value you can potentially add.
When I was a recruiter, I would see so many resumes. Â I really needed candidates to be bold and spell out what they wanted. So a clearly written career objective on a resume shows not only that you have given this application some detailed thought (always good), but that you have the confidence to announce your ambitions and what you can deliver to an employer.
2. Examples of bad resume career objectives.
Here’s an example of a badly written career objective.
“To obtain a role in business, which will enable me to utilise my strong skills and expansive knowledge to make a contribution.”
This just sounds like wishy washy theory.
The career objective does not state specifically which strong skills and expansive knowledge the applicant would like to use. These are wasted words on a resume, where you do need to be careful about every word you choose.
Here’s another example of a bad resume career objective.
“An outstanding Manager with extensive global experience expertise. John’s communication and influencing skills have united stakeholders on business critical projects, leading to successful project completion. His strong management capability and project management skills have also been pivotal in successfully managing a company and transforming teams with over 50 staff to deliver engagement rates of 80% plus. John has managed diverse team members in different locations. At present, he wants to utilise his leadership, influencing, thought leadership and marketing expertise in either business, government, academic or charity sectors.”
At first glance this may sound reasonable, but apart from the repeated words and waffle, the issue with this career objective is that it’s waaaaay too general.
You are more likely to get an interview if you understand the role you are applying for, and explain the value you can add to that particular role.
So saying “business, government, academic or charity sectors” is not convincing.
Also in this career objective, there’s information that would be better placed in other areas of the resume, such as achievements (“80% + engagement rates”) and expertise (stakeholder engagement).
3. Examples of good resume career objectives.
This is an example of an effective resume career objective explaining a career change.
“Having recently achieved Distinctions in HR studies, along with winning award nominations through demonstrating dedication to consistently providing exemplary levels of customer service interpreting complex and detailed travel policies in fast-paced corporate support and sales environments; ideally positioned to add value as a Coordinator effectively managing internal policy inquiries in an internal corporate HR service centre.”
This career objective helped this person secure an interview for a number of reasons.
This person had thought specifically about what they could bring from their past into their new career choice in HR. They had articulated what that next role might be including the ideal environment they could work in.
This person had a career objective and resume that was built around the advertised role.
Here’s another example that worked for a global CFO.
“Global CFO with 15 + years’ success delivering growth in diverse operations across international markets for new projects and Greenfield sites; a record of challenging the status-quo, recognizing and executing innovative solutions; strategic and hands-on financial management skills; ideally positioned to build markets and deliver growth for organisations at the start of a global expansion or transformation.”
This resume career objective succeeded because this person demonstrated a high degree of self awareness, specifically around which part of the business cycle they could add the most value in.
Each and every word in the career objective were important skills to highlight for someone who was able to drive global expansion.
Another reason that it is better to be more specific than general is that when you have a track record at a senior level and are looking for a role, a recruiter sees it as a given that you can deliver. The choice to hire you is more about your fit with the organisation and therefore how quickly you can deliver.
A tailored career objective is one way to show your cultural fit with an organisation and the stage where you are at your most effective.
Here’s an example of a graduate’s career objective.
“With an honours degree in Accounting, skills gained in previous career investigating immigration applications requiring attention to detail and an ability to understand complex law and individuals’ circumstances; plus a work ethic demonstrated by extensive extra-curricular activities; career ambitions are to investigate problems and highlight issues with risk, commencing as an Audit Graduate with a professional services firm.”
4. Rules around resume career objectives.
Rule 1. Keep it short, you want people to read it.
Rule 2. Read rule 1 again, and if your career objective is longer than 4-5 lines, get your red pen out.
Rule 3. Think about what how you’ve done in the past will allow you to add value in the future.
Rule 5. Your objective is much more about other people than you.
Rule 6. Make sure your career objective matches the role you are applying for. This means you need to be serious about each and every application you send.
Rule 7. Don’t copy other people’s objectives off the internet, you won’t sound like you – and that’s a charisma killer.
5. Still stuck? Try our new app myPitch for some career objective examples.
When we talk about a career objective, essentially the recruiter is asking you the question “tell me about yourself.”
We’ve created a tool that will help you sell yourself within 30 seconds.
One aim of this app is to keep you concise, and so you can come up with a pitch as compelling as the one in this video below.
So if you have an iPhone click this link to download myPitch if you have an Android click this link to download myPitch and take a look at the videos we’ve filmed for each stage in your career.
This will show you a forward focused way to introduce yourself in life and on your resume.
Try it out and feel free to come back and tell me what you think.
For many reasons it is sometimes difficult to ask for professional help. I have found that many people prefer to attempt to write their resumes themselves, rather than employ a professional resume writer. Sometimes this is fine. For example, if you are in a field where your skill is in demand, you may barely ever be asked for a resume. You may be hired on your reputation alone.
However, here are seven signs you may need a professional resume writer’s help with your resume:
You would like to change your career and you are having trouble expressing your new direction and what you can bring to your new role. (Have a look here about why a career objective is important.)
You have a gap in your resume; say for time out for children, a career break etc.
You are in a hurry and need you need a professional resume written really quickly
You’ve always been headhunted and have no idea where to start writing your resume
You really don’t like talking about your strengths, let alone writing them on a resume.
You think there is something wrong with your resume, yet you can’t put your finger on it
Professional resume writers – what to look for
OK, so there are a lot of writers out there it can be really confusing. However here are some signs you are in the hands of a professional resume writer.
Professional resume writers will ask you questions about you, not launch into what they can do for you. You want your writer to sit down, or talk with you. While they may use a form, they use it as a starting point for a discussion about what you’ve been doing in the job market, why you think you need professional help, what you want the resume to achieve for you, and how you plan to use the resume. If you plan on finding a job through your networks, then sometimes your resume is a work in progress as you talk to people. A professional resume writer will tell you, how much you should do, and how much your resume can do.
You want your professional resume writer to be interesting in finding out what makes you tick; someone who doesn’t just accept what you say at face value. That way they can uncover your hidden strengths. What you think are strengths, may not necessarily be the ones you should present. (I’ve seen many senior leaders write “good team player” on their resumes. While this may be true, the language does not reflect their seniority, or match what’s required for a role.)
Professional resume writers have professional experience. It doesn’t need to be experience in your area, however they need to have a curiosity and be able to ask the right questions, and to challenge you on the information you provide.
You want your resume writer to work with you. That’s not just in the questions they ask you, but the guidance they give you along the way. A professional resume writer will give you questions to ask the head-hunter or recruiter, if you haven’t asked them already.
Finally, and this is important – you don’t want any professional resume writer to say they will 100% guarantee results. Nobody can guarantee that your resume will win you an interview. What they should be able to say is, that it won’t be your resume that stands in the way of your success.
OK, I lean towards a no on the resume photo argument.
My hesitation is that it is still not that common to see photos on resumes in Australia.
So if you have a photo on your resume, you do run the risk of running into someone like me. I have to confess that when I was a recruiter I used to see a photo on a resume and say “hmmmm I wonder why they’ve put that on their resume” or “that’s really not a flattering colour.”
Reasons not to put your photo on your resume.
More seriously though, for many years, we’ve all asked employers to judge us on our skills and achievements. That’s why we have EEO legislation in place.
When you put your photo on your resume you are inviting a recruiter with their own set of prejudices, to consider how you look along with what you may have achieved.
Reasons to put your photo on your resume.
The “yes” argument for a photo on your resume is that it humanises you and makes you stand out.
However if you think it will show how you fit an organization, you are also asking a lot of a photo. Nobody looks like their photo. Your fit for an organisation is best judged in interview, where people relate to the energy you give off, the way you interact with people, the interest you show and even the eye contact you make.
If you choose to put your photo on your resume, what sort of photo should you choose?
If you do decide to put a photo on, make it a good one.
Make it discreet and fit the theme of the resume.
I once had someone apply for a consulting position who sent a photo of himself fishing. He had a great set of skills (fishing clearly one of them), but I had to question his judgment about the photo and I was reluctant to take it any further.
In Australia in particular, we do have the “tall poppy” syndrome. We like people to be confident in their talents, but not to brag about them. Somehow a photo on a resume says something different. Perhaps it says more of the “look at me look at me” than many of us feel comfortable with.
But that could just be me. And I do find it ironic that I am writing this while my photo is on my website.
If you’re looking for a way to spruce up your resume based on your skills and experience, click here to try our new iPhone app, myPitch. This will help you craft a powerful opening career objective for your resume and LinkedIn profile.
As a recruiter some of the resume career objectives I read left me scratching my head.
Should you really put your photo on your resume?
