How NOT to Differentiate Yourself From Everyone Else

As candidates become more and more desperate in their job search they often turn to desperate measures that more often than not hurt the candidate. One example of this is with the resume.

Lately we have been noticing an increase in resumes that contain some sort of gimmick or strange presentation to get noticed. This is not necessary. If your resume is focused, well presented, and easy to read, it will get noticed – at least by us.

If your resume has a lot of highlighting, gimmicks, smells like perfume, or is on bright colored paper, all that is saying to the reader is, “I’m desperate.” Companies today don’t want to hire desperate people. They still want to hire the best and the brightest.

The best ways to get  your resume noticed and read is:

• Have a good cover letter. Download a free sample from our Web site. CLICK HERE.
• Have an easy to read resume. Use bullet points instead of long paragraphs, make sure it is not over crowded, has white space, 12 point fonts, two pages,  and does not have a lot of abbreviations, functional or industry jargon.
• Make sure vital information used for screening stands out such as,company description and industry, title, dates, organization, number of people managed, scope of responsibility, etc.
• Pleasing to the eye.
• Well organized and laid out.
• Highly recommend chronicle not functional.
• It should be as targeted to the position as possible and that bullet points address what the hiring manager is looking for. NOT a generic one size fits all.

There are probably more and feel free to comment and add  your ideas. Just don’t try and stand out by using desperate gimmicks and tricks.

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Please download our free sample cover letter to make sure your background aligns with the job needs and stands out. CLICK HERE to get your copy.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

I’m Perfect For The Position, So Why Did I Get Screened Out?

Great question. Probably an obvious answer.

The easy answer is, you probably aren’t perfect for the job, at least from the recruiter’s or hiring manager’s perspective. Now that doesn’t mean you aren’t perfect. It may mean you didn’t communicate effectively as to demonstrate just how perfect you are. So you get screened out.

It has been my experience in close to 30 years as a recruiter that candidates too often ignore the competition that also claim to be perfect for the job. As a recruiter in today’s economy, we can get 500+ responses to an executive level position, all claiming to be, “perfect.” With this volume of resumes, emails, phone calls and referrals, you have to demonstrate you are more perfect than all of the rest.

The real question is, “Have you demonstrated you are more perfect than all the others?” I realize candidates generally have limited information about the position, so demonstrating this can be difficult. It isn’t possible to give every screening detail. Anyone who has hired people knows this. Most hiring managers experience the same thing. When you are looking to hire some one you too get resume overload. So how do you prioritize all these resumes, calls, emails, and referrals? Most have set up some sort of checklist to reduce the number to a manageable figure. Some things on the checklist include, industry, company size, compatibility with products, systems, organization, title, turnover, etc. This is important information that is missing from many resumes. The result is you may get screen out or put in the infamous “B” pile.

The next step might be to further read the resumes that passed the checklist to reduce the number even further. It is at this stage that you must really demonstrate that you are perfect for the position. From a recruiter’s perspective this is the point where I want to see how your accomplishments align with what the client is looking for in the person they hire to deliver the results. This is the, “So why did I get screened out?” point.

Here are some suggestions that might help you to not get screened out if you really are perfect:

1. Customize your resume as much as possible to directly align with the job. Don’t send the one-size fits all resume.
2. Your bullet points must include quantifiable results, time frame to accomplish, and be believable.
3. If you don’t know the exact expectations, some research on the company might give you some tips. If your research highlights issues, try to extrapolate how your functional area will participate in these issues and then how your accomplishments align.
4. Don’t limit your research to the company’s Web site. Look for press releases, announcements, industry trends, local newspapers, business journals, industry periodicals, and Google the company and its competitors. It will take some work, however, the pay off is not getting screened out.
5. Use a two column cover letter that compares your experience and accomplishments with what their needs are. (You can download a free sample cover letter on our Web site. (CLICK HERE to get yours)
6. Keep your resume to two pages. Don’t have so much detail that the important points get lost.
7. Make sure you have the basic screening information on your resume. Step back and be objective as to exactly how you screen resumes when you were a hiring manager with a stack of 300 resumes on your desk.

There are a lot of reasons you can get screened out, even if you are perfect. I’m convinced doing these few things will at least increase the odds in your favor. I’m sure they will increase the odds if you really are perfect for the position.

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Does Anybody Read or Care About Cover Letters

The debate rages on about using cover letters. Do I need one? What is the best format? What should be in it? Who do I address it to? How long should it be? And on, and on, and on.

I have asked many of my clients and other recruiters about their feelings on cover letters. For the most part with hiring managers and HR it is mixed. Some want them and others don’t care one way or the other. However, with recruiters there seems to be a more uniform consensus that recruiters don’t pay much attention to them. Given this I recommend when sending a resume directly to a company, hiring manager or HR to include a cover letter. When responding to a recruiter it isn’t that important, but if you have one ready go ahead and include it. Only don’t send it as a separate document, include in the same file as the resume.

The biggest problem with cover letters is the attempt to make them an addendum to one’s resume. Meaning that candidates often use the cover letter to add points that aren’t included in their resume, rather than re-writing the resume. This is completely WRONG. If the points are important enough to be in the letter, then they must be included on the resume.

The primary reason for a cover letter should be to present such a compelling case that the person reading it will get excited enough to take the time to actually read your resume. There is nothing more frustrating than to get all excited about a candidate from the cover letter, only to have the rug pulled out from this excitement when the resume doesn’t include any of these points. The reader is left wondering, where did these take place, how long ago, if they really did happen and they are that significant why aren’t they on the resume, guess the candidate didn’t think they were all that significant so as to re-write the resume, etc? As you can see it creates more questions than it answers.

It is critical you take the time and make the effort to re-write your resume with this information included. Don’t just send out the generic resume. If the cover letter gets separated from the resume you want to make sure the resume stands by itself.

You can download an example of a cover the we recommend using. This format has proven very successful. To get your FREE example CLICK HERE.

For more information on cover letters and resumes take a look at our “Complete Job Search Home Study Course.” We will send it to you so you can review it completely for just $14.95. Plus we will even pay the shipping to you and include a copy of our best selling book on your job search. To learn more CLICK HERE.