#RecruitingWoes - Resume Dos and Please Don'ts

Welcome back to #RecruitingWoes Blog!

We’re glad you joined us for our second post. Today we continue our look at resumes. Your resume is the first impression a recruiter gets of you. (We will almost always go and Facebook you if something seems off.) Overall, you have ONE sheet of paper to make us want to hire you. That’s a lot of pressure, I know, but stay with us, we’re gonna walk you through a few more tips to ensure that yours is not the resume dumped in the incinerator at the end of the day.

First, let’s take a look at the MOST important thing – YOUR NAME. Your name is the very first way you were identified as an individual and as a person just after being born (or whenever your parents got around to naming you). Your name is THE representation of you. HOWEVER, your name may be sabotaging you. If your parents gave you a name like “Apple” – looking at you Gwyneth, or North (seriously West family? Seriously?!), you may find yourself pondering whether or not to put Apple Paltrow on your resume. Our advice is no. Do you have a middle name? A professional nickname? I know it sounds harsh, but it is difficult to convince a client that “Apple” is a responsible, professional candidate.

Second on our list today is related to the name issue. YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. Your email address says SO much more about you than you think it does. There are two main issues we run across with people’s email addresses:

•          It is unprofessional. JoanieLovesChachi4Eva@gmail is NOT a professional email address. Stick with your name. (please see previous discussion topic as it relates to this as well). Stick with numbers that aren’t 6 and 9 in that order at the end of your name. You can use almost any combination of your name and find a way to create an email address out of it. Please do this. Immediately.
•          Your email server. I know, I know, you’ve had your email foreeeeever and that’s the one you can remember the password to and that’s how everyone knows to contact you. Create a job search email account. Not only will you be able to remedy displaying your love for 80s sitcoms in your email address, you will also not be alluding to your age and lack of tech savvy. Anyone with a Hotmail, AOL, or some other email address that came out when your computer still said “You have mail” as an email came in, needs to get a yahoo or a gmail immediately. An AOL or Hotmail address says “My kids set this up for me in 1996 and I haven’t been able to figure out how to make a new one since”. You don’t want that. No one wants that. Especially if your kids DID set you up with it in 1996. Have them create you a gmail account. Today.

Last in our whirlwind of resume tips is the section of your resume stating - YOUR HOBBIES. In short, delete it. THIS second. But here’s why – NO ONE CARES. Seriously. Unless your hobbies are “getting up extra early to be the first person in the office”, “working overtime while being paid salary because I love my job”, “being a workaholic”, etc. don’t include a hobby section. And if those are your hobbies, STILL don’t list them. No one likes a brownnoser.  Your hobbies have NOTHING to do with your professional life (unless you’re one of the lucky few that has made a hobby into a career). You like to go muddin’ on the weekends?! No one cares as long as you show up on time Monday morning. You like to take long walks on the beach? Great. Do it on your own time. I don’t even want to hear about it.

Thanks for checking us out this week, we’ll be back with more tips and stories with humor and a just touch of hatred.  

Trust Us.  We are the experts.

#RecruitingWoes - Resume Dos and Please Don'ts

Welcome to #RecruitingWoes Blog!

My name is Traci Morrow and I have been a recruiter for over 15 years.  I have worked as an independent recruiter, worked for agencies and worked in a corporate environment.  I’ve been a part of more than one start-up, in fact, was around before Monster.com had billions of dollars to throw away on Super Bowl commercials.  Currently, I am working as the recruiting manager for a company that may or may not want to be mentioned, but if you can’t contain your curiosity, I’m sure you can professionally stalk me and find out everything you need to know. 

My Partner-In-Wine and #RecruitingWoes mastermind is Paige –

Hello all! Welcome to our first blog! Unlike my brazen cohort, I have opted to remain anonymous. Sometimes I lose my filter and I don’t wish to lose my job because of it. I’ve been in recruiting a while, Traci likes to say that she taught me everything I know about the industry, and really, she’s not wrong, I’ve picked a few things since she took me under her wing, but all of my foundation is hers. She and I have been friends a while, we have had a few crazy plans like this blog, but I’m excited to see where this one goes. While you’re professionally stalking her, don’t stalk me. It’s weird. And creepy. And I won’t like it.

We are starting this blog as a forum to give validity to the old saying that "no one hates people more than recruiters". Recruiters see every situation, every type of person, walk of life, etc. We want you to be entertained, many of you will be able to take solace that you are not the only one that has dealt with situations like these. Some of you will be aghast and skeptical that these situations are real. We assure you, it’s real. Really, we wish we could make this stuff up. BUT….This is not just for entertainment, it should also be helpful for job seekers as well.

This week we will focus on Resume Formatting (and probably next week and the week after that!) – WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?!

While all recruiters are different, anyone that has worked for an agency knows the painful process of reformatting all resumes to company standards. Normally, it’s a nip here, tuck there and bobs ya uncle – a resume you can actually send to a client. However, when candidates think they’re clever, it ends up ruining that entire part of your day. When this happens, there are between 5 to 30 minutes of your life that are lost forever – you will NEVER get that time back. All because “candidate awesome” has decided to “stand out”. You’re not “standing out” you’re “gunning to have your resume trashed”. We could go on and on about this, but for starters please see below:

·         Tables – Why, why, no really, WHY??  Do us a favor – go find the person that told you that tables would make your resume “easy to read” and kick them square in the shins. Tables are the WORST. Especially if originally in PDF format.  They make reformatting more difficult than most things because getting rid of them is damn near impossible. Stop doing this. Seriously. It doesn’t make you cool. It makes you a pain and no one likes you.

·         Crayon Fun/Various Fonts: We aren’t in kindergarten.  If you want to highlight something, then for the love of whiskey, just bold it….in black. You are not Elle Woods. “Pink and scented” gave HER resume a little something extra. It gives yours a little something ridiculous. While we’re on the subject. Pick a font, one that we can read, then Just. Keep. Using It. Seriously. Why do you need more than one font? Don’t be stupid. No one likes a stupid person. This isn’t your high school Power Point Presentation. This is your resume. Your. Real. Adult. Resume. Grow up or go back to working where you did in high school. I’m sure they would love to have you and your ridiculous resume back. Roman, Arial, Calibri. Those are your choices. Pick ONE and stick with it. You want to write in san script? Go be a first grade teacher. Kids eat that up. Recruiters? Not so much. 

·         LOOONG Resumes: Traci had to review a 14 page resume recently, so, naturally, she took to FB and posted her aggravation – we have a lot of recruiter friends. Sometimes this is the only way we don’t tear our hair out. Thus, the blog.  A C-Level manager so appropriately responded that “a 14 page resume is the same as a 0 page resume”! He is right. we don’t care about your minute by minute activities – if you are an ABAP Developer, please don’t tell me EVERY report you’ve ever looked at, touched or updated.  To quote something usually attributed to Dragnet “Just the facts, ma’am.” Highlights. Believe it or not, you can put all this together in no more than 3 pages, you really aren’t that important.  Stay brief. Stay focused.  Tell your recruiter you have an expanded version, if they want it, they will request it.

As a bonus tip, if you are still listing “Excellent Communication Skills” on your resume, then you need to cease and desist immediately.  A recruiter will be able to tell in a matter of a few minutes if you communicate excellently. You’re just wasting more of the recruiter’s time, and your ink and paper.

We could go on but for now, we will stop here. We will return next time with the second of three segments on  Resume Do and Don’ts, or as we like to refer to them. “Seriously? Seriously?! You thought that was going to get you a job?”.  

Trust us.  We are the experts