HELP, Resumes Keep Coming In. What Should We Do?

I received 347 resumes just this week. On a weekly basis this is about average. Some weeks I get more, some weeks less, but over time 300 or so is not unusual.

Many of these resumes were received for a search directly via email, about 10% via snail mail, another 15% from referrals and another 15% completely unsolicited with candidates just introducing themselves.

Of these, maybe half to two-thirds had cover letters. Of those with cover letters, about 80% were worthless and I didn’t even take the time to read them. Why, because they all were almost exactly the same. As they say in the movies, “Only the names had been changed.” The other 20% I did take the time to at least scan them looking for points that might align with a current search or that at least piqued my interest.  These 20% were different in that they were not long paragraphs that simply regurgitated the resume,  but instead most were either bullet points or the two column type we recommend using and have a free sample available for all to download. (CLICK HERE to download). They were easy to scan to pick up the highlights and decide how to properly handle the resume.

Although I really don’t care one way or the other if a resume has a cover letter or not, but if a candidate is going to include one it should add value by intriguing the reader enough to look at the resume. If not, why include it?

I believe this is why most cover letters are ignored. They all look alike and do nothing to make the reader want to take a look at your resume, so the recruiter, HR, or hiring manager completely skips over them.

Of the 347 resumes, most were a complete waste of time to even review. Sorry, I know candidates don’t want to hear this, but sometimes the truth hurts.  Sending me a resume when I don’t have an active search is not going to help you. As a retained recruiter, I work the searches I have and that is my focus.  If your resume doesn’t match my clients needs then I rarely save it. Not because you aren’t a qualified person, not because you don’t have great experience, but because after 30 years of this I know the profile of candidates that I place.  If you don’t meet that profile, I don’t need your resume regardless of your experiences and abilities.

This is true of most recruiters.

I recently heard from a candidate complaining that he had sent out over 200 resumes and had heard back from only 5. Actually that isn’t bad. Mass mailing resumes is a waste of time and money. It is a complete crap shoot that anything will stick. I advise all candidates to never do this.

The best way to get your cover letter and resume noticed is to be very targeted and focused, especially with recruiters. We want to fill the position as badly as you want the position.  From my perspective, if your background is consistent with my client’s needs and you meet the basic criteria I outlined in the article, How Recruiters Read Resumes In 10 Seconds (CLICK HERE to read), you will get a call from me usually within an hour.

Those 10% that were referred to me I responded to. I always respond when a person is referred to me, even if I can’t help them. I appreciate referrals and want to respect the person that made the referral. In my opinion this is the best way to get a recruiter that you don’t know to engage you.

The unsolicited resumes were put into a file that when time permits I will review. If they meet the profile of the type of candidate that I have a high probability of placing in the future, I will add them to our database.

My partner Barry and I have written extensively on what we believe is the best way to get your resume noticed by recruiters, HR, and hiring managers.  These recommendations come from over 30 years of experience as recruiters, from asking hundreds in HR what they use as screening criteria, and from thousands of hiring managers, CEOs and key executives telling us how they review resumes. Barry and I try to pass this information along to all so it will be helpful and reduce your level of frustration by knowing what to expect when you send out a resume.

One more way we can help you is to speak directly with you utilizing our webinars.  Our time and knowledge is valuable so YES, we do charge a nominal fee for the webinar. To balance that, we also offer a lot more tools and resources for FREE than what we charge for.

We’ve DEEPLY DISCOUNTED THE WEBINAR FOR THOSE JOB SEEKERS WITHIN OUR JOB SEARCH COMMUNITY – loyal followers on Twitter, readers of our blog, and members of our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group.

In a lively one-hour presentation, I’ll show you the inside secrets (from a retained executive recruiter’s perspective) of how to get your resume reviewed every single time and boost your resume acceptance rate (the number of times you get called for an interview from submitting your resume) from a dismal level of less than 10% to well into the 50% PLUS RANGE. If you’re reading this blog, when you sign up for the Webinar use the coupon code of IMPROVEMYRESUME.

If the small, inconsequential, almost non-existent fee for the webinar is too much to bear to boost your resume acceptance rate and cut your job search time dramatically, please feel free to download our many FREE resources for job seekers, including our radio show broadcasts, cover letter sample, and other tools.

I welcome your thought and comments.

Brad Remillard

Major Controversy – Why Bother Sending a Cover Letter?

There is a raging debate in many LinkedIn Professional and Networking Groups, on our own LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group, hundreds of emails we’ve been sent, numerous blog comments, and an overwhelming number of tweets – all related to our last blog posting – “Pet Peeve – Your Resume and Cover Letter.”

Obviously, a few people have strong opinions on this subject.

Let’s review the debate:

We recommend you customize both your resume and cover letter for the specific job you are applying for.

Arguments for doing a cover letter and/or custom resume:

• Employers and recruiters consider it disrespectful if you do not include a cover letter or resume
• Employers and recruiters are looking for a reason to exclude you from consideration if you do not match up with their criteria. The custom resume or letter specifically addresses the key points in the job posting.
• Employers and recruiters are overwhelmed in this poor job market with hundreds, if not thousands, of job applications per opening. They want to see an “extra effort” by applicants rather than a cookie-cutter shotgun scattered approach to applying for jobs.
• Vast majority of job responses fall into the “Hot Potato” Method of applying for an opening.
• The bland generic information in most resumes DO NOT give a recruiter or hiring manager enough information to decide whether or NOT to extend an interview invitation.

Arguments for NOT doing a cover letter and/or custom resume:

• Low response rate from recruiters and employers – what’s the use. Even if I did one, the investment of time wouldn’t justify an improved outcome.
• It takes too much time, is way too hard, and requires far too much effort.
• Recruiters and Employers don’t read resumes or cover letters deeply enough, so why even bother?
• It’s all a numbers game – the goal is to broadcast as many resumes to jobs I’m remotely qualified for, and maybe something will stick. I’m overwhelmed applying to jobs – no time to customize my response to each job posting.
• Recruiters and Employers don’t provide enough information in their job postings to customize the cover letter and resume. They don’t list the important elements of the job or they have a laundry list of criteria that superman/superwoman couldn’t meet.
• Recruiters and Employers are doing nothing more than box-checking resumes – a custom cover letter and resume will not help in this process of asking for everything under the sun and eliminating candidates if they don’t have one little inconsequential element checked-off.
• Recruiters and Employers are using low level unskilled and untrained clerical staff to review resumes. Not possible for this level of person to accurately judge the resume of a managerial or executive candidate. Custom cover letters and resumes will NOT help (see bullet point about box-checking above).

Have I missed any of the arguments from each side? These would comprise over 90% of the responses to our last blog posting.

So, what to do from this point forward?

In my ever so humble opinion, I am going to stick by the perspective that for management and executive positions, a detailed cover letter should be written specifically addressing the top 3 points identified in the job posting and a custom resume should be submitted. If you don’t have the time to customize your resume, then at least have 3-4 versions of it and submit the one that matches up most closely with comparable accomplishments for the level of the job, the industry segment, or the common core success factor of that position.

We’re open to hearing from you as to your experience in this job market if you’ve really tried the custom approach. If you’ve not tried it yet, please don’t knock it. Test it and play with it. This strategy is but one of the many we recommend in our Career Success Methodology®. We’ve discovered that most job seekers at a managerial and executive level DO NOT conduct an effective job search. Implementing a few best practices in a structured framework can make an enormous difference in reducing the time it takes to find a great opportunity.

As a special offer to our job search community which includes:

Managerial and executive candidates who read our blog

Following us on Twitter

Participating in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group

Following us through our discussions in a variety of LinkedIn Groups

You’ve downloaded our FREE Job Search tools and content

You’ve attended one of our webinars

You’ve bought one of our job search products

You’ve engaged us in one of our Job Search Coaching Services

We are offering a deep appreciation discount on our upcoming Webinar about resumes and cover letters this Friday January 29th, titled:

GET JOB INTERVIEWS WITH

POWERFUL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS

This offer of over 50% off the public quoted fee is a special one-time appreciation offer for our job search community and is available only to a selected group – such as our loyal blog readers.

Click here to join the webinar

Please don’t be mad at us for making this offer.

We also have to make a living. It’s very hard to be successful by constantly giving away free tools, templates, audio programs, examples, illustrations, responding to requests for help, and responding to hundreds of comments on our blog and within LinkedIn. We are both trying to build a successful business around effective job search and hiring top talent.

Sometimes, we’re going to make special offers to our job search community for products, services, subscriptions, and webinars. Don’t hold it against us.

If the content was crap – then you can complain. However, Brad and I believe we provide some of the very best content on the Internet for job search and hiring. As many of you know, we give away an extraordinary amount of information in solid tactical tools to improve your job search – maybe to a fault.

We believe the best way to build a loyal following is to give away a lot of our content and as a consequence many job seekers or hiring managers who have found the information useful will move to investing a few dollars in our professional products or services.

Brad and I would like to extend a big thank you of appreciation to all our loyal fans and readers.

Barry Deutsch

PS – The coupon discount you’ll find on the webinar page is only good for the first 50 who register. After that, the price reverts back to our standard pricing for this webinar. Oops – I forgot to mention – the special offer webinar for you includes a number of EXTRA items that doubles the value of the webinar. You couldn’t find this much content about cover letters and resumes in one place if you searched for days.

Pet Peeve – Your Resume and Cover Letter

I’m very frustrated today. I’m ready to explode at the candidates responding to my job postings.

On the outside I’d like to call candidates on the phone and invite them in for an interview – one the inside I’d like to call candidates and scream at them for their stupidity in the way they responded to my job postings.

Here’s a real-life current case study in how NOT to apply for a job. It’s one of my greatest pet peeves as a Retained Executive Recruiter:

Throwing out a resume without a custom cover letter and customizing the resume to fit the job spec described in the job posting.

There – that’s simply it – Finally, I got it off my chest!

I just put 3 new job postings up on LinkedIn. I posted the job on LinkedIn’s Paid Job Board Service and in the FREE Job Boards within various discussion groups (the results were no different for either approach). The jobs I posted were HR Manager, Construction Project Executive, and Senior Sales Executive.

I have received just through LinkedIn (referrals, recommendations, ad responses) over 1000 resumes so far. Approximately 90% did not have a cover letter. Less than 10 customized their resume for the specific job posting. Every one of these jobs is $100K and above. You’d think folks with that expensive parchment called a college diploma would know better.

Some of you may be familiar with a few of my earlier blog postings on this syndrome which I titled “The Hot Potato Method of Responding to a Job Posting”.

I don’t get it.

I’m confused.

I’m almost stunned past the point of words.

More than 75% of the candidates who replied to these jobs have been out of work for over 6 months. Over 50% have been out of work for over 9 months. Why would you RUIN your chances of being interviewed by tossing out your resume as if you don’t give a darn what I do with it?

The responses went something like:

“Here’s my resume”

“Please review my resume”

Some just emailed the resume as an attachment WITHOUT a single comment – as if the resume “spoke for itself”. It’s sad to the point of making me want to cry – or laugh hysterically.

I’d be very interested to hear from your perspective as a candidate why you don’t care enough to write a cover letter describing how your background and accomplishments fit the job spec posted? I’d be interested to hear why you would submit a resume that doesn’t specifically and precisely address the expectations listed in the job posting?

As a recruiter (and I’m sure I’m speaking on behalf of the vast majority of recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers), why should I bother to open your resume or consider you as a viable candidate, when it’s obvious you could care less whether you are granted an interview.

SHOW A LITTLE EFFORT IN YOUR JOB SEARCH.

MAKE ME THINK YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS SPECIFIC JOB.

LET ME KNOW YOU’RE NOT BROADCASTING COOKIE CUTTER RESUMES AND RESPONSES OUT TO EVERY JOB POSTING YOU SEE.

What motivates candidates to respond to job postings with the “Hot Potato Method”? Are they burnt out on their job search? Have they reached a point of apathy and indifference in their job search?

Do they (YOU) care if you get a job next month or in 18 months?

If you would like to STOP THIS JOB RESPONSE Posting NONSENSE right now, I’d like to recommend you join me for our upcoming webinar on

Get Interviews with

Effective Resumes and Cover Letters

We’ve DEEPLY DISCOUNTED THE WEBINAR FOR THOSE JOB SEEKERS WITHIN OUR JOB SEARCH COMMUNITY – loyal followers on Twitter, readers of our blog, members of our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group.

In a lively one-hour presentation, I’ll show you the inside secrets (from a Retained Executive Recruiter perspective) of how to get your resume reviewed every single time and boost your resume acceptance rate (number of times you get called for an interview from submitting your resume) from a dismal level of less than 10% well into the 50% PLUS RANGE.80-90%. If you’re reading this blog, when you sign up for the Webinar use the coupon code of IMPROVEMYRESUME.

If the small, inconsequential, almost non-existent fee for the webinar is too much to bear to boost your resume acceptance rate and cut your job search time dramatically, please feel free to download our many FREE resources for job seekers, including our radio show broadcasts, cover letter sample, and other tools.

Don’t forget about our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group, one of the most vibrant and rapidly growing groups on LinkedIn. You can learn about best practices in writing resumes and cover letters.

I’m stunned that most candidates will not take advantage of great content, webinars, workshops, tools, audio programs, Youtube videos, blog posting advice, and other tools that range in price from small investments to FREE.

Don’t be the one to conduct a job search that takes 6-9-18 months when you could have done it in half the time by improving your resume and cover letter to raise your resume acceptance rate.

Thanks for letting my rank about one of my greatest pet peeves in job search.

I look forward to seeing you at the webinar on January 29th and transforming your ability to write effective resumes and cover letters to immediately boost your resume acceptance rate.

Barry Deutsch

How to Get the Interview and Not Get “Deleted”

This is about your “digital first impression” and six ways to screw it up. Every recruiter has his pet peeves about resumes and I’m no exception. Like it or not, in this digital, email, on-line world, your first impression as a candidate is often the resume and cover letter you send. (OK, I admit, I don’t read cover letters much. I cut to the resume first. Sometimes I come back and read them, but the resume is what I’m interested in.)

I’m not going to write about all the strategies and methods of creating a resume and cover letter, I’m just going to tell you the things that will irk most recruiters (or at least this one) so you should avoid them. In no particular order:

• Size matters: Look at the whole first page of your resume. Would you want to read it or does it look like the fine print on your credit card statement? Don’t cram so much information into it or make the type font so small that people will strain their eyes to read it. I know, we can enlarge it, but it just shows you aren’t thinking about your reader.

• I won’t believe you can walk on water: A summary of your experience in terms of function, industry and accomplishments is fine, but skip the flowery descriptions. I see “hands-on”, “profit driven”, “strong leader”, “dynamic”, “visionary” in summaries all the time. I don’t read them because I know the candidate wrote them. I’ll decide how “dynamic” someone is when I interview them, not when I read their resume. Save the space for more accomplishments.

• Attendance doesn’t count: Companies don’t pay you just to do things; they pay you to accomplish things. Resumes that are long on responsibilities and short on accomplishments indicate someone who just ‘showed up’ and are not the top quartile talent that companies are looking for.

• Osmosis is not my strong suit: Probably the best way to get your resume tossed is to list the name of a company with no description of what it does. This is especially true of middle market companies. (Even if a company is a household name, include what your division, group, etc does!) The reader has no context from which to assess your accomplishments until they know what the company does and its relative size. I automatically toss these resumes. How can you present an executive to a client if they don’t demonstrate this simple piece of common sense?

• Chronological or functional? No contest here in my book, make it chronological. I want to know what you accomplished and where. If you just list a bunch of accomplishments and a list of jobs, I can’t tell where you did what. You may have the exact accomplishment I’m looking for, but if you’ve worked in different industries or different sized companies, I can’t tell how relevant the experience is.

• Goldilocks syndrome: Resumes can be too short or too long, and there is a “just right” length. In general, I find one page resumes to be too short to be meaningful, and they don’t “peak my interest”. I don’t want to ask you for more information. Give me what I need to assess your background against my requirements. Three page resumes or more are usually too long. There’s either too much detail or you’ve gone back beyond 10-15 years in your career. Put those older jobs under Prior Experience. The last 10 to 15 years of experience is usually the most relevant to what we’re looking for.

OK, I got that off my chest. These tips aren’t going to guarantee you get the job, but they should help keep you from being eliminated before the game starts.

When you land that next job, and start to build your team, check your hiring process first.

For more, join our LinkedIn Job Search Networking Group. CLICK HERE to join.

View our 5 minute video, Vital Information Missing From Many Resumes. CLICK HERE to view.

Download a FREE sample cover letter to go with a great resume. CLICK HERE to download.

For information on how to arrange for Hagerthy & Co’s complimentary Hiring Process Assessment go to www.hagnco.com/page13.html#HiringProcess.  Mike Hagerthy is the founder of Hagerthy & Co, an executive search, training and consulting firm.

Resumes Are About Substance Over Form

Most of my ideas for articles come directly from interaction with clients and candidates. Either they have an issue they are dealing with or they ask for advice on a particular topic. I then take those issues and topics and write an article.

Recently a candidate mentioned that she was on her third or fourth revision of her resume. She said, “Every time I meet with someone they have a different recommendation.” She would then change her resume. After reviewing all three side-by-side, the content wasn’t dramatically different but the format was. It seems that most of the comments were on format. The people talking to her all gave her advice on the format they preferred. Few discussed the content, beyond wordsmithing it or moving a bullet point from A to B.

They were all concerned about the wrong thing. A resume is not FORM OVER SUBSTANCE. It is  SUBSTANCE OVER FORM. Granted, there are some basics to a resume form that need to be adhered to. I have written other articles on this, and our job search workbook (This Is NOT The Position I Accepted) goes into great detail, including 5 examples of problem resumes, illustrating why they are poor and probably ended up in the trash.

I believe there is only one unacceptable resume and that is the functional resume. I advise all candidates to never use one. For me, and many other recruiters, it screams out “I’m hiding something.” Other than that, stick to the basics in the book or what I have discussed and you will be fine.

As a recruiter, I am looking at the content not the form. I’m interested in my client and finding that exceptional person for the position. For me, that gets to the content or substance of the resume.

I’m looking for:

1) Are the basic box checking kind of things my client insists on present? For example, location, function, industry, size of company, scope or responsibility, education, span of control etc.  (For more read, How Recruiters Read Resumes In Less Than 10 Seconds).

2) Is the  vital information included on the resume enough for me to make a decision? (CLICK HERE to watch a 4 minute video on Vital Information Missing From Most Resumes).

3) How does the person’s background align with my company’s needs?

4) Does this person’s bullet points or accomplishments dovetail, or at least focus around, what my client is seeking?

5) Does the candidate’s track record of accomplishments show growth and increase with their increase in responsibility?

These are all substantive issues. As long as I can easily read the resume and quickly capture these points I don’t care about the format.

I wish more candidates would spend less time on format and more time on accomplishments and provide the vital information recruiters, HR, and hiring managers need to make a decision about their qualifications for a position.

If this article was helpful to you, please pass it along so others can benefit as you did. Consider adding the link on Facebook or your LinkedIn status,  write a tweet on Twitter, email it to friends or to your network. Helping others is the key to networking.

Our LinkedIn Job Search Networking group is FREE to join and has over 3,500 members. There is a wealth of excellent information there to help you in your job search. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts and comment on this article.

Brad Remillard

How Recruiters Read Resumes In 10 Seconds or Less

The 10 or 20 seconds it takes to read a resume seems to always generate a lot of controversy. Candidates comment on how disrespectful it is, how one can’t possibly read a resume in that time and some get angry at recruiters when we talk about this. I hope this article will help everyone understand how we do this. I realize that some still may not like it and will still be angry, but at least you can understand how it works.

First, let me say I’ve been a recruiter for 30 years.  I’m sure I have reviewed over 500,000 resumes. I can’t prove this but I’m reasonably confident that this is the case, as this is only an average of about 46 a day. I know many days I have reviewed hundreds of resumes and most in less than 20 seconds. I would say the average is probably around 5 to 7 seconds.

So for the record when you hear or read about, “reading a resume in 20 seconds,” that isn’t completely true. It is more than likely, “reviewed the resume in 20 seconds.”

Here is my process for getting through 100’s of resumes in a short period of time. Others may have different ways and I welcome your comments.

I set up a hierarchy of certain “must haves” or you’re out, so at first I’m really just box checking. Generally, 80% of the time these are my knock out blows. There are exceptions to each of these, but I’m dealing with the 80/20 rule. These are not cumulative times.  This is box checking, if I see any one of these as I scan your resume you will be excluded.

1. Location. If the client is in Los Angeles, CA and you aren’t – goodbye. Few if any clients want to relocate anyone in this economy, and I believe most shouldn’t have to. Especially in a huge metropolitan area like Los Angeles. If they do have to consider relocation the position has to require some very unique experience that few jobs do. I can do this in about 1 second.

2. Industry. If my client is in banking and your background is primarily manufacturing – goodbye.  These two often are so different that the client isn’t open to considering such different industries. This works both ways, if you have a manufacturing background I’m not going to consider someone with banking. 2-3  seconds to determine this.

3. Function. If I’m doing a sales search and your background isn’t sales – goodbye. Generally companies are paying recruiters to find them a perfect fit. We never do find a perfect fit, but we have to be very close. They don’t need a recruiter to find them someone in a completely different function. 2 seconds to figure this one out.

4. Level. If I’m doing a VP level search and your title is “manager” and you have never been a VP – goodbye. There are exceptions to this, but again it is the 80/20 rule. Again, clients pay me to find them the perfect fit. It is generally way too big of a jump from manager level to VP level, all other things being equal. It works the other way too. If  I’m looking for a manager and you are a VP – goodbye. I know you are qualified to do a manager level role, but it is clear you have grown past. Most clients and recruiters aren’t willing to take the chance that when a VP level position comes along that you won’t be gone. Less than 5 seconds to figure out.

5. Recent Experience. There is some overlap on this one. If I’m searching for someone with international sales experience in the aerospace industry and the last time you held an international sales position in this industry was 20 years ago and since then you have been in retail – goodbye.  I can find people with more relevant experience and that is what my client expects me to do. 5 seconds to do this.

6. Education Like it or not, I will only work with people that have a college education and most of the time a master’s degree. This is mainly because, as I indicated before, I need to find the very best for my clients. I realize an education doesn’t mean by itself that the candidate is the best, but it is one qualifier of many. Also all of my clients require at least a BA.

7. Turnover. If you have had 6 jobs in the last 4 years, or have a track record of high turnover – goodbye. I realize there are good reasons for turnover and that falls into the 20% of the 80/20 rule. I can’t define high turnover, but I know it when I see it. 3 – 5 seconds.

8. Functional resume. I don’t read them. It is obvious when one has a functional resume they are trying to hide something and I’m rarely going to take the time to attempt to figure it out. 1 second.

9. Obvious things such as, spelling errors, poor format, errors in grammar, too long, verbose and rambling. If after reading it I still can’t figure out what you do, goodbye. 5 – 10 seconds

After all this, 80 – 100% have been eliminated. If there are any left, then I will take the time to actually read  them in detail.

Join our LinkedIn Job Search Networking Group for a lot more discussions, information and articles on your job search. CLICK HERE to join.

Download a sample cover letter proven to work with recruiters and get your resume noticed. CLICK HERE to download yours. Over 2,000 people have done this.

If this was helpful to you, please pass it along to help others in  your network. Consider adding it to your status on LinkedIn, posting on Twitter, or emailing the link to your network. Please help others if this helped you.

I welcome your thought and comments.

Brad Remillard

LinkedIn – Your Online Resume is Worthless

Not having an effective LinkedIn Profile for your job search is the same as having an ineffective resume that gets tossed into the trash can all the time. STOP letting your online resume (LinkedIn Profile) be thrown in the trash!

LinkedIn provides an extraordinary online tool – your profile – a virtual resume and portfolio for you to do personal branding, self-promotion, and lay out a portfolio of your abilities, skills, and accomplishments.

The entry level account is FREE. This is the proverbial “no-brainer”. So, why are most profiles WORTHLESS? Why don’t professional job search candidates at managerial and executive levels consider this an important part of their job search?

TEST OF LINKEDIN PROFILES FOR JOB SEARCH

I’m in the middle of conducting a retained executive search for a Sales Executive. Like most recruiters, I’m using the search function in LinkedIn to find executives in specific industries and geographic areas. Everyone knows that LinkedIn is a significant tool for sourcing in the hands of recruiters, human resource professionals and hiring managers. I’m only searching for candidates that have flagged their account that they are open to career opportunities. I’ve now reviewed over 400 profiles.

Less than 20% have anything beyond a “skeleton” set of information.

Less than 2% have a decent profile fully completed with extensive descriptions of their accomplishments, an outstanding summary, lots of recommendations, and have their contact information (such as phone number and email address) available.

Less than 1% have taken the time to really leverage all the tools LinkedIn provides on your profile – slide presentations, attaching documents, reading lists, linking your blog and twitter accounts, and on the list goes. It’s absolutely amazing the value LinkedIn provides to job seekers.

As a recruiter reviewing profiles, it takes me about 5 seconds to look at a profile and make a first impression of whether I want to continue looking at it. If the profile is not complete, I will not bother to spend any more time with that potential candidate. You’ve just missed an opportunity which could have been the ideal job to move your career forward after you’ve been out of work for 9 months.

CONFUSION – WORTHLESS LINKEDIN PROFILES

I DON’T GET IT!

WHY DO THE VAST MAJORITY OF JOB SEEKERS HAVE A WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?

IS IT NOT TIME TO FIX THIS OBVIOUS OVERSIGHT?

HOW MANY JOB OPPORTUNITIES HAVE SLIPPED BY YOU BECAUSE RECRUITERS LIKE ME HAVE SKIPPED OVER YOUR WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?

IMPROVE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE NOW

Brad and I have spoken extensively about the need to fully flush out your LinkedIn Profile as one of the tactics in an effective job search. We’ve talked about it in our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show. You can download the specific episodes about LinkedIn from our broadcast archive.

We even put together a FREE one-page LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment Scorecard to determine if your LinkedIn Profile is effective in being found by recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers. You can download the Scorecard right now and frighten yourself on your inadequate profile. You might want to also bang your head on the wall a few times over the potential job opportunities for which you’ve been ignored.

Take action right now and fix this simple element of your job search. STOP being ignored. Create a profile that allows you to instantly capture the attention of recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers that are looking for someone JUST LIKE YOU.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group and learn how to improve the effectiveness of your job search through leveraging the tools LinkedIn provides to create a powerful job search profile.

Vital Information Is Missing From So Many Resumes

I receive hundreds of resumes daily from candidates in relationship to the searches we have underway. So many of these candidates actually believe they are qualified for the position. Many may in fact be qualified, however, many of these candidates will never get a call from me because basic vital information is missing from their resume.

I’m not talking about the content of their specific jobs, the accomplishments, or the activities they performed, I’m talking about the basic information the recruiter needs to decide if this candidate meets the minimum requirements for the position.

For example, I recently tested this theory. I sent out an email to my database regarding a search I was conducting. The total email was maybe 6 sentences. I kept it short so that the things I was looking for would stand out in the email. In the email I mentioned 6 times the words “outsourcing manufacturing,” 7 times I mentioned, “contract manufacturing,”  and 4 times I said, “must have industrial manufacturing.” Given all that in just 6 sentences, what do you think I’m looking for on your resume?

Not in your cover letter, not in a follow up email, not on the phone interview, but on your resume, so I will pick up the phone and call you.

For those with an immediate grasp of the obvious you answered, contract manufacturing, outsourcing, and industrial manufacturing experience. Right answer.

How many of the 188 responses I received do you think took the time to include this vital information on their resume? Note that the vast majority, either in their cover letter or reply via email to me, mentioned how perfect they were for this position. If you answered 2 you scored 100% again. Go to the head of the class.

This is so important that I put together a short 5 minute video for you to watch that gives you the details on what basic vital information you need to include on your resume. CLICK HERE to watch this video.

I hope this short video will  help you as you put your resume together. Making sure this information is on your resume will help ensure recruiters and hiring managers don’t put your resume in the trash because it is missing important information.

For more information on resumes, interviewing, and job search help join our LindedIn Job Search Networking Group. Over 3,500 people participate with great articles and discussions. CLICK HERE to join.

To help with your resume, download a free sample cover letter specifically designed to align your resume with the company needs. CLICK HERE to download.

If this was helpful to you, please forward it to your network, mention it on LinkedIn or Facebook so that others can also benefit. Everybody needs to help out in these tough times. Please help others.

I welcome your thoughts, questions and comments.

Brad

Cover Letter + Great Resume = Interview

This is the winning formula for getting interviews. There are exceptions for personal referrals and networking contacts, but often even with these they will first ask for a resume.

It has been my experience recently that many candidates “know” this formula intellectually but few convert from the knowing to “doing.” And that after all is the key.

I’m currently conducting a search and as one might expect the number of resumes received is almost overwhelming. I spend my weekends and nights just trying to empty my inbox.  Not an easy task. About 65% of the resumes I receive have cover letters. Most to some varying degree give me the standard, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Once in a while one will stand out so I take the time to read it. I particularly like the two column format as it quickly aligns their experiences with what I’m seeking for my client. (If you want to get an example, a free sample is available, just CLICK HERE).

These types of cover letters can get me very excited to actually read (not scan) your resume. The problem is too often the rug is pulled right out from under my high level of excitement.  Simply put the resume sucks. There are many reasons for this, but regardless, this person had me and other recruiters,  hiring managers and HR professionals right where they want them. They overcame one of the biggest issues with resumes, getting the resume read not just a 10 second scan. Only to disappoint the reader. What a tragedy.

In this example the formula was: great cover letter + average or below average resume = trashed resume.

Anyone who has been following Barry and I know we have written extensively that in this economy it is greatness that counts. Good only works in good times. Greatness works all the time, but is positively, absolutely, a  must in bad times.

A great cover letter with an average or below average resume, is like a bad book with a great dust cover. It is still a bad book.  How many times have you sat in a movie theater watching an upcoming movie trailer, then gone to the movie and it was really bad? Remember the excitement about waiting for the movie to come out, the excitement as you sat waiting for the movie to start, and then the disappointment when the movie was so bad you walked out.  A great movie trailer doesn’t make a bad movie better.

A great resume starts with understanding how a resume is scanned. Start with the basics:

1. Your contact information including a phone number. Sounds pretty basic to me. For some reason many candidates are starting to have only an email address on the resume.
2. Basic information about the companies you worked for (unless they are household names), such as sales, number of employees, and what the company does or the industry.
3. Basic information regarding the scope of your positions. Number of people supervised, basic duties and responsibilities, if multi-location, international, functional area managed, etc.
4. Education. When appropriate additional certifications or courses that enhance your marketability.
5. Company ownership. Is it a public company, owner operated, private equity owned or something else?
6. Some bullet points that directly align as closely as possible to the two column cover letter you included.
7. Bullet points that include results in dollars or percentages as to the impact on the department or company.

These are basics. There are more that will get your resume from good to great. At least review your resume to verify you have met the minimum.

Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group. Over 3200 members. CLICK HERE to join.

Download a free sample cover letter – that is the first step. You still need a great resume. CLICK HERE to get the FREE cover letter.

Are You Responding To Job Descriptions Masquerading as Job Advertisements?

Over 90% of companies post their entire job description or some modified version of it as a job advertisement.

Why?

• Is it because they don’t want to take the time to write a real advertisement?
• Is it because they’re taking the easy way out – posting something that was downloaded off the internet in 1999?
• Is it because they think the job description is the job?

As you probably know, Brad and I teach workshop for Hiring Managers and Executives on improving their hiring effectiveness. Over 35,000 Managers and Executives worldwide have seen this program, titled “You’re NOT the Person I Hired”. One of the key recommendations in this program is STOP posting job descriptions masquerading as job ads.

Job Descriptions DO NOT define the work to be done. Job Descriptions are worthless as a predictive tool to measure or evaluate success. Finally, Job Descriptions focus on the wrong criteria for hiring. Using Job Descriptions both for defining work and advertising for potential employees leads to multiple mistakes and errors we’ve identified in our research of the Top Ten Mistakes in Hiring.

If you’re responding to job descriptions and wondering why you don’t get call backs inviting you to interview – wonder NO MORE!

You’re not getting call backs because you’re not being evaluated on your ability to help the company – instead you’re being evaluated on whether there are words and phrases on your resume allowing a recruiter, human resource admin, or hiring manager to “box-check” whether you should be called.

BREAK this dysfunctional cycle right now and raise the number of invitations you receive to interview for an open position.

Here are some ideas to break this cycle:

1. Find the Hiring Manager on LinkedIn and contact them directly to ask your questions about what someone in this role would need to do to be successful.
2. Offer 4-5 major accomplishments for the functional job in your cover letter – such as finance, marketing, operations, sales. Every job has these 4-5 core elements.
3. Ask questions in your cover letters and correspondence: If you’re applying for a controller role, you might ask “Are you satisfied with the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of your monthly closing process?
4. Publish a blog article on your key accomplishment in the functional area for which you are applying. Send the hiring manager the link to the article.
5. Keep firing off emails seeking additional information. If they haven’t called you yet – do you really care if they think you’re a pest? Worst case is they’ve already decided not to call you and whatever you do will not change their impression. Best case is that one of your letters, emails, LinkedIn notes, or Tweets changes their impression of you.
6. Create a marketing campaign that has a goal to be granted a phone interview. Put on a full court press. What are the top ten things you could be doing to grab the attention of the hiring manager?

STOP being passive in responding to job descriptions masquerading as job advertisements. Break this tribal cycle that has gone on for generation after generation. The vast majority of candidates answer ads and pray the phone will ring. STOP waiting – force the phone to ring through the campaign or blitz attack you put on the hiring manager to convince them to speak with you about the job.

Check out our resources of how to get an interview, including our Resume Kit, our FREE Audio Programs from our Internet Radio Show, and our paradigm-shifting book, This is NOT the Position I Accepted.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group and join the conversation on how to get an interview, especially when you’ve responded to a job description masquerading as a job advertisement.