Un-gay your résumé
For somebody outside Human Resources who does regular staff hires, I absolutely hate resumes. I’d honestly rather peruse an electronic document than to flip through pages upon pages of candidate-submitted CV’s.
As I see it, the trend in Human Resource Management is shifting from giving major consideration to the CV as far as making hires is concerned to something that evenly distributes scrutiny between sources such as blogs (Which, I think, is an effective gauge of a person’s passion and how it could translate into potential real world actions), career-centric social networks like LinkedIn and even what potential employers see when they first search for your name in Google.
This is a natural progression I cannot wait for to happen. However, until such a time when the present breed of Human Resources Managers bequeath their responsibilities to pony tail-sporting, Web 2.0 adroit young professionals, the resume will remain to be a nuisance we have no choice but to deal with.
The main problem faced by people who make hires is that sometimes, the sheer number of candidates applying for a particular position inhibits them from going over individual resumes thoroughly. Resumes are usually given a quick skim and if a detail catches a potential employer’s eye, then maybe he’d read it more thoroughly.
It is tough for a resume to catch the attention of a potential employer and while it’s tempting to pull stunts like using colored paper, vanity photos and crazy fonts on your resume; these along with having a weird ass email address like lhoverbhoyet_totallyrad2@homail.com all scream unprofessional and turns most potential employers off.
I actually remember my team in my previous job with my good friend Peter not hiring an otherwise qualified candidate just because the idiot decided to print his resume on photo paper, used a layout that made us all want to puke and as if those weren’t enough, attached pictures of himself without a shirt on his CV. I probably would’ve understood if the guy was applying for a same sex relationship and wanted a chubby up his ass, but he wasn’t. He was applying for a mid-level marketing position.
Chaponry Rith over at LifeClever wrote a brilliant piece on how one could give his resume a face lift. It’s amazing how huge improvements can be made on your resume by simply selecting a better typeface, removing extra indentations, creating a distinct typographical hierarchy, typographical detailing and spacing. A template of the final resume can be downloaded here.
Fluff
What you wrote:
Summary of Qualifications: Marketing Strategist with broad experience in multi-channel market planning and deployment. Seasoned account manager with over four years experience in managing multiple accounts from different industry verticals (Focus on Telecoms and Internet). A “people person” with extensive experience in Customer Relations Management. Proven Business Development specialist having facilitated numerous key high-value deals with high-profile companies bringing in significant revenue for companies he has worked for. An impassioned learner currently engaged in Affiliate Marketing.
What the potential employer actually reads:
Hi future employer, this is your queue to repeatedly bang your head on your desk, sit down on the floor and rock back and forth while hugging your knees. After all, who wouldn’t? Considering this is just one of the possibly millions of variation of this hackneyed, useless fluff, you might as well injure yourself to a point where you fall into a trauma-induced coma.
Information Overload
What you wrote:
Assistant Manager (Inbound Sales: Vonage Digital Voice phone subscriptions)
Generated sales reports and monitors team productivity, close ratio and call processing time. Analyzes statistical data sent by Call Center Managers (CCM’s), Workforce Analysts, Quality Assurance Monitors and sorted it out to create individual agent performance reports. Duties also included discharging corrective actions and warnings to agents whose performance are struggling.
Took escalated calls.
Supervised floor operations.
What the potential employer actually reads:
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
Don’t go on and ramble about the details of every job you’ve ever had. It’s too much information. What you want to do is put more “oomph” in your resume and clearly, boring your future employers not the way to go. Tailor-fit your resume to the job you are applying for. If you’re applying for an Internet Marketing Job, it’s best if you leave out the details of that gig you did over at the local McDonalds.
Outdated Information
Do you think I fucking care if you won your University’s intercollegiate spelling bee 20 fucking years ago? Or the fact that you were president of your High School chess club? Exactly.
Holy Shit! You wrote something I can forward to the wife and I don’t have to duck to avoid any flying plates!
Im kind of happy sad that mike came up with a nonretarded article
Great read though!
“…when they first search for your name in Google.”
Fuck. Anyway, thanks for the tip. I’ll remove the picture of me smoking in the crapper on my resume ASAP.
Well said Mike
for a person whose name yields the most unemployable results in google =)
But I AM employed. The question is–for how long?
You actually wrote a USEFUL article! What are you taking?
Dear Mike,
Please tell me this is just one of those 1-in-a-million un-retarded post of yours.
His Awesomeness
I am taking Puppies and lots of sunshine! Free hugs anyone?
>>> for how long?
Hmmm..
Thanks for writing this article and putting in the useful links. I’m writing resumes for intellectually-challenged people in the US and this really helps.