What Recruiters Are Saying About Resumes
By J. Michael Worthington, Jr.
www.ResumeDoctor.com

• Use blunt, paraphrased bullet-points
• Use appropriate amounts of "white space" to help guide your reader
  

# 7 - Long Resumes

A resume should never be more than 2 pages. James Cox, Managing Director at MES Search Company in Smyrna, Georgia told us, "I hate long resumes, meaning any resume over 2 pages long. If a candidate cannot adequately communicate the information in 2 pages or less, there is a problem. Situations that usually contribute to long resumes are; too many jobs; a career that is not focused, an inability to be concise, written communication problems, or something similar. All of which make for an 'UNPLACEABLE' candidate."

No matter how tempting it is to go into detail about the first job you had 25 years ago, don't! Instead, let your resume showcase your most recent accomplishments. Recruiters, (for the most part), are only reviewing the last 5-8 years of your career, 10 tops. A recruiter is not gauging whether you are a viable candidate for that CFO position at a $200M manufacturing firm based on your first accounts payable position out of school 25 years ago.

If you are a recent graduate with limited professional work experience, your resume should be only one page. If you are from academia, but are seeking a position in industry, do not include every publication or journal paper you have ever presented. My record as a recruiter was a 62-page resume/CV, (it got a few laughs here in the office and then went right in the trash). Yes, the general rule in academia is "publish or perish," but recruiters do not care nor understand your paper on "Rab proteins in sphingolipid storage disease cell types." They want to see how your experience can directly fit into the industry and the position they are trying to fill. You can opt to list a few RELEVANT papers at the end of your resume, but it is suggested that you prepare an addendum, which can be presented in the interview stage.

Remember, a resume is a simply just a marketing piece, it must be short, concise and hit the "hot buttons" of the employer.

Recruiter Tip: For employment beyond 10 years ago, create a "Previous Employment" section. You can quickly list your older assignments by simply including title, company and dates. However, if you are applying to a position where a much older assignment is relevant and this experience is not covered by a more recent position, you can opt to elaborate further. You can also opt to include a quick bullet or two about this experience in your general summary so that the reader can see immediately this experience.

# 6 - Functional Resumes

Many recruiters shared with us that a very good way to NOT get your resume read is by sending them what is called a "functional resume" as opposed to a "chronological resume." Denver recruiter Lura Pittman of Fletcher Frost says, "My number one pet peeve is the functional resume. They are worthless and always raise a red flag."

Andrew Roach of Suvaalso Staffing Solutions in Toronto states, "I do not like functional resumes. Why do I have to guess in which roles you acquired these skills? How much actual experience do you have with the listed skills? Is it 3 months or 10 years? I prefer a chronological resume with a list of accomplishments for each position. Show what you did to add value to the company...everyone in the same role should have the same job description. I care what you did that was over and above your required duties."

James Cox adds, "Functional resumes often do not provide the facts -- "when, where, and with what effect." I would estimate that 30-40% of all the resumes that I review, I can not determine what the candidate's responsibilities were, with what company the candidate has worked, over what length of time (meaning month and year), and with what effect (meaning factual, number oriented outcomes that can be easily understood by anyone who knows anything about the candidate's field of work)."

So in a nutshell, stay away from functional resumes at all costs.

Recruiter Tip: At the top of your resume, always include an easy to follow general/functional summary. Use bullet-points that can be easily customized to match what the employer is seeking. Hand your reader what they are looking for on a silver platter. Find out what are the "hot buttons" of the employer and make every one hit a home run. Immediately following your summary, provide your reader with an easy to follow chronological history of where you worked and when. It is here you need to detail your accomplishments.

# 5 - Poor Formatting

"A resume is the first impression an employer (or recruiter) will receive about you and your qualifications. If the presentation is not cleaned up in a professional manner, (formatting), it is immediately thrown in file 13, (the trash can)," Mark King, MRI Atlanta.

It is paramount that your resume is clean, clear and not full of major formatting errors. Paul Philbin of Technisource in Phoenix, Arizona says, "Poor formatting is a huge frustration of mine. Making sure that the resume is in a clearly readable format can make a huge difference. My job is to provide hiring managers with resumes that don't waste their time. If the manager has to scale the resume to get to what he/she is looking for, then that manager will not be interested."

Clean formatting goes much beyond making a resume look pretty. Most candidates are unaware that many formatting features will not view well on a computer screen, and more importantly, will not download properly into many HRIS recruiting systems or job boards. Recruiters are reading your resume on the computer screen. BE WARNED! Just because a resume looks well when presented on the printed page, does not necessary mean it will read well on a computer screen.

Keep in mind there are inherent problems when viewing a resume on the computer screen. The biggest problem being that only 1/3 of the page is displayed at any one given time. It is extra important that a recruiter have the ability to easily hold down the scroll bar and skim down your resume.

Formatting issues to be aware of:

• Red and Green Squiggly Lines - These are distracting and say to the reader, "I don't know how to use Word!"
• Poor Alignment of Bullets and Tab Stops - Bullets should be aligned cleanly on the page and not indented all over the place. Not only does this make for tough reading, it will also cause huge problems when your resume is downloaded onto a job board or HRIS recruiting system. This also goes for copious amounts of tab stops. There is no reason to have more than 3 or 4 tab stops in your resume.
• Headers and Footers - Many candidates use this MS Word feature to present their address and contact info. Well guess what? This is one of the worst things you can do! The chances that your contact info will be converted are slim to none. You could be the perfect candidate for the position, but your saved resume offers no way for you to be contacted!
• Boxes, Graphical Lines and Columns - Once again, none of these fancy formatting features will be saved in any recruiting system and will simply cause major formatting problems later.
• Templates and Tables - No recruiter likes a resume chock full of templates or tables. A candidate's resume could wind up looking like scrambled eggs when posted on the job boards or into a recruiters database system. Recruiters will often cut and paste a candidate's resume to their company letterhead when they submit the candidate to their client. Cutting and pasting a template resume is next to impossible and requires EXTENSIVE re-formatting. Someone please tell Mr. Gates at Microsoft, eliminate the Resume Template feature Word, it only causes huge problems.
• Margins Too Wide - Many candidates push their margins to the far reaches of the earth in order to get that resume down to 2 pages. These candidates are not fooling anyone and are most likely making the resume very difficult to read on a computer screen. Anytime a recruiter must use the horizontal scroll bar to read a resume, you have lost him/her! Furthermore, "word wrap" is very likely to occur when moving to text format, posting to job boards, or to recruiting systems.

In closing, Bob Lee of Management Recruiters in Jacksonville, FL shares, "Without a doubt, the largest problem we have is formatting of resumes. With the new recruiting software on the market, importing resumes is a snap, however, when a resume is over formatted with multiple type fonts, heavy graphic trickery, "ghost" backgrounds, etc., it raises hell with the input process. When we receive a good candidate with a poorly formatted resume, we immediately fire off an email requesting a simple WORD document in (.doc) or (.rtf) format. All others that come in who we are not interested in re-formatting, get canned on the spot. We can't take the time to 'un-format'!"

Recruiter Tip: To see what your WORD document resume will look like as a text file, (as it will most likely appear on the major job boards), take your Word document resume and paste it into NOTEPAD. The major job boards generally do not retain font changes and complex MS WORD formatting functions. You can then make any minor formatting changes as necessary within NOTEPAD. Another idea before uploading your resume to a job board such as NET-TEMPS, is to "save-as file type" MS-DOS Text. This too will give you a general idea as to what your resume will look like when a recruiter views your resume on the job board in his/her search.

# 4 - Incomplete Contact Info

Jennifer Baker of Inter*Link Technology Solutions in Daytona Beach, FL shares, "I think that candidates often don't think about what might happen to their resumes once it hits a recruiter. Many of the resumes I get now are electronic in form, so the resume does not stay attached to the candidate's e-mail for long. Any candidates who are seriously seeking a position should make it as easy as possible for a recruiter to contact them regarding their credentials. That means providing as many ways to contact the candidate as possible."

It is imperative that your complete contact info be easy to read and at the top of the page. This includes, your full name, phone numbers, (home, cell and a daytime number), home and email addresses. Noah Rahm of ResumeDoctor.com explains, "At least 1 out of 7 resumes that are submitted to us for assistance do not have an email address on them. In this day and age, it is like not including a phone number. I recently had a candidate not include any contact info on his resume. When asked about such, his response was that it was on his cover letter. Who is to say that the cover letter will make it from Contact A to Contact B and all the way to the hiring manager?"

Speaking of email addresses, your address should be professional. Recruiters shared with us that they do receive the occasional resume with an email address such as hot-sexy-kitten@yahoo, son-of-satan@hotmail, beer-guzzler@hotmail, etc. Remember, a resume will be the first impression an employer or recruiter will have of you, so make it a good one!
As discussed in last week's article, do not use the headers and footers feature in Word to include your contact info. This requires recruiters and hiring managers to manually put this information into their database. As also discussed, many job seekers use the standard Word template format.

Not only do most candidates often pick a very small font size for their contact info, which requires the reader to set his/her screen display to the 150% setting, but also your contact info will most likely be lost when it is entered into a HR recruiting system. Furthermore, do not shade your contact info in gray, use fancy hard to read fonts or graphical lines around such. If your resume is more than one page, it is often a good idea to include your name, phone number and email address on page 2.

In closing, whenever your contact info changes, make sure any and all recruiters you are working with or have in the past, are updated. If anything, it offers a great excuse to touch base again. You never know what new requisition just came across their desk. Being on the top of their mind can never hurt.

Recruiter Tip: With the many ISP's changing hands everyday or going out of business, create a permanent email address. There are plenty of free services out there such as Yahoo or Hotmail. Many candidates opt to use a work email address. It is often not a good idea to do so, for two major reasons. One, what if you leave that position? How will a recruiter be able to email you a new posting? Two, many employers monitor their employee's email boxes. This could compromise your current position.

# 3 - Dates Not Included or Inaccurate Dates

Recruiter Trey Cameron of Cameron Crag Group states, "Recruiters must have employment dates. When I see a resume that doesn't even have dates within it, I just move on to the next one. For those that have jumped around a lot, it doesn't work. And for those who just think they don't need them, you are mistaken!"

Many recruiters shared with us that a resume that does not include dates sends up "red flags" about a candidate's background and are immediately tossed out. The immediate assumption is that the candidate is trying to hide something.

Furthermore, be honest about your dates of employment. As previously discussed, lying on resumes is another area that recruiters and hiring managers alike despise! Inaccurate dates of employment were cited as one of the most common lies or misleading info stated in resumes. In today's employment atmosphere, it is becoming more and more commonplace for companies to do extensive background and reference checks prior to hiring. Also, companies are demanding that their vendor recruiters do more extensive background checks. The chances of being caught are forever increasing.

Recruiter Tip: When providing dates, work history should be in reverse chronological order, (most recent employment first). The general consensus among recruiters is to place the employer info, title and location to the left hand side of the screen. Your employment dates should be aligned to the right so that your reader can easily "skim" down the page. Make it easy on your reader! And if you have a proven track record of staying with a job for a while, absolutely make sure that your employment dates JUMP out at your reader. This is a real selling point about you as a candidate. Make sure you use it to your advantage.

# 2 - Too Duty Oriented

"I like to see accomplishments, what did you do for the company," says Texas Recruiter Jan Nielsen of Career Consulting Group.

The second most common complaint among recruiters was reading a resume that is "too duty oriented." Resumes need to describe more than just job duties. A good resume must also detail your accomplishments. Mention the business benefits and results attributable to your direct effort, involvement or leadership. Steve Kendall of Management Recruiters of Atlanta explains, "Duties and responsibilities are generic to the position, and the same words could have been used by the person's predecessor or successor. Accomplishments are personal and show what difference you made while holding that position. This is what excites a prospective employer."

Also, do not just rely on long lists of buzzwords to describe work or accomplishments. Not only are you risking "burying" the important details from your reader, but also doing so often makes a resume appear too generic. Bob Lee of Management Recruiters in Jacksonville, FL adds, "Job duties and long lists of buzzwords are meaningless. For example, we know that a sales manager is responsible for sales. Instead, how much he increased sales is what we really want to know to pass on to our clients! Furthermore, identify your area of expertise, product or service. We must know how you are connected with the industry our client represents. Those resumes that say 'I am a manager' and can manage anything, anybody, anywhere are fruitless."

Jennifer Baker of Inter*Link Technology Solutions in Daytona Beach shares, "The old belief that you should leave a recruiter guessing a bit as to your experience to keep them interested in you is a major myth that too many candidates have fallen for. When looking at resumes, it is easier for a recruiter to determine that a candidate is a good fit if he/she indicates what they have done in their career. Sell yourself!"

Recruiter Tip: Melissa Hope Chaplin of H.E.A.T. Resources shares this tip: "Do not separate your skills and accomplishments from each position. Your resume should be easy to read. Someone should be able to look at it and know what you did at each job, and how long you were there." Make sure to provide specific examples of how the company benefited from your performance. Accomplishments should be quantified in dollars or percentages, for example, (Increased productivity of department). From what to what...1%, 10%, 90%? When developing your achievements, ask yourself the following questions:

• How did you perform the job better than others would have?
• What were the problems or challenges that you or the organization faced?
• What did you do to overcome the problems?
• What were the results of your efforts?
• How did the company benefit from your performance?
• Did you receive any awards, special recognition or promotions as a result of your performance?

# 1 - Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar

Hands down, without a doubt, the NUMBER ONE complaint is Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar.

Lucille Abate, Recruitment Director at Abane & Associates in Newmarket, Ontario states, "Spelling Errors drive us insane. In the world of technology and 'Spell Check', you would be amazed at how many resumes come through with errors! Candidates need to remember that their resume represents them! If there are careless errors, it directly reflects on the candidate. Our policy is, if they haven't taken the time to proof read their resume and correct spelling errors, delete!"

Brian Correia of Management Search, Inc. in Providence, RI shares, "It is surprising to me how many resumes I receive for $50K + positions that have misspellings, incorrectly used words (their vs. there) and poor grammar. If an individual sends me a document meant to represent his/her acumen and skill, and does not take the time to insure that it is correct, then I am left to interpret this to mean poor attention to detail and lack of sincere interest. Unfortunately for them, I will never refer them to a client, if that is their best effort. Proof reading seems to be a lost art in the technology age."

The general consensus among recruiters is that your resume will more often than not be your one opportunity to make a first impression. You need to make it a positive one! Simply put by Glen Thompson of Archer Resource Solutions in Mississauga, Ontario, "If your resume has a mistake, that is reason enough not to get the job. This is a document that you have hopefully worked on for a long time and had several people go over. If this document has mistakes what does that say about the rest of the work that you do?"

Boston recruiter David Carpe of Clew adds, "By far, the biggest complaint I have is related specifically to grammar. Resumes are supposed to not only reflect the experiences of professionals, but additionally they serve as examples of communication style. Run on sentences, poor spelling, mixed verb tenses, all of these things and more are a serious reflection on the individual!"

In closing, if you want your resume to work for you, the whole list of 20 can be easily summarized into 3 major areas:

1. A resume is a marketing piece. A resume full of spelling errors, hard to read paragraphs or fonts, poor contact info or formatting etc., does not make for an effective marketing piece about your skills. You must sell yourself.
   
   
2. It is paramount that your resume be presented in a way that is easy to read in today's Internet age. This means having an easy to open Word attachment and a resume that is easy to read on a computer screen. In addition your resume must post well to the job boards and into HRIS system, etc in order to be considered a viable candidate. As a candidate you MUST have this understanding.
   
   
3. A job seeker must customize his/her resume for each and every job he/she is seeking. This means do not bury important details. Provide your reader with an effective summary tailored to each position, etc. What might be a hot button to one employer concerning your background may not be the most important skill to another.

Best of Luck in your Job Search,

J. Michael Worthington, Jr.
mike@resumedoctor.com