Tips: Give your resume a face lift

Over on LifeClever, Chanpory Rith offers four good ways to give your resume a face lift:

1. Pick a better typeface
2. Remove extra indentations
3. Make it easy to skim
4. Apply typographic detailing

Chanpory is on a Mac, but PC details are available in the comments.

Tips: Make A Great First Impression

Brett and Kate McKay have created a vital service for western civilization: a web site and blog dedicated to the Art of Manliness. (Don't worry, the McKay's suggestions are appropriate for the ladies also.) The McKays cover topics from caring for neckties to Theodore Roosevelt's On Living The Strenuous Life.

Brett posted a great essay about how to make a great first impression in an interview:

Make Yourself Stick With These First Impression Tips
When you’re interviewing for a job, one of the keys to success is your first impression. If you’re about to go in for an interview, maybe its time to re-evaluate the first impression you give off. Do you come off as likable? Do you exude professionalism and charm?

The goal of every first impression is to stick to a person’s brain.

• Dress to impress.
• Look fit.
• Give an impressive handshake.
• Focus on speaking.
• Use the person’s name.
• Let the person know you’re listening.
• Shine the spotlight on the other person.

This is Wisdom. See the whole post for all the details. Then use them.

Also - download their free Ebook: Guide to Being A Gentleman in 2008.

Video Resumes: The Worst Idea Yet To Come

Mark Lucker is a good friend, a fellow alumnus of Denver South High School, and the brave man who served as my wife's date to the senior prom. Mark is also one of the best writers I know. He's one guy who should have his own blog (hint, hint!)

Mark and I think alike on several things, including the utility of video resumes. He covered the bases nicely in an article on the Training Media Review site. Mark had reviewed WorkBlast, and the CEO of WorkBlast parent HireMeNow.com tried to rebut. Mark did a masterful rebuttal. See the exchange here: Are Video Resumes a Good Idea?Mark's main point is great:

Does a video resume really save time? If I’m a hiring manager reviewing a stack of resumes, I can easily whittle a pile of 100 candidates down to a more manageable 10 to 15 candidates in about 10 minutes. If I’m a hiring manager with 100 resumes to go through on a website, I’m looking at 10 minutes simply waiting for the online videos to load, not including actually viewing them.

I'd only add the caveat that video resumes might work for some select circumstances: professions like Performing Arts, News Media (same thing) and Cinematography come to mind. Like we've done with leisure suits and Dorothy Hamel haircuts, the rest of us should forget the video resume.

Edit: Updated the date to 2008.

Tips: Miriam's Top 5 Resume Do's and Don'ts

• Sell
  
• Focus
• Design
• Target
• Be Precise

These are the top five To Do resume tips offered by Miriam Salpeter of Keppie Careers. Miriam's five do and five don't tips are worth reviewing - find them on the Secrets of the Job Hunt blog.

LinkedIn - Best Tips

Scott Allen has a great blog called Linked Intelligence. He specializes in the Smart Ways to Used LinkedIn. I'll admit, I've sampled the LinkedIn Kool-aid, and I've found it to be a useful tool. (See my other LinkedIn posts here, here and here.)

Scott compiled his 2007 top tips into one Linked Intelligence post, and this one post is worth reading:
Best of Linked Intelligence 2007

Check it out, especially his Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn.

The LinkedIn editors got in the act too, promoting an article about Using 8 Tips in Under 8 Minutes.

Tip: How Not to Reply to a "Job Filled" Notice

Right before New Year's, we had a flurry of hiring activity. When our top candidate for our web postion accepted our offer, I sent my standard "Job Filled" notice out to the other candidates on New Years Eve.

I found these two responses in my e-mail box when I got back to the office. They were sent within hours, but that's the only thing that is similar. I've reproduced them here (minus deleting the contact info to protect the innocent.)

Which one of these candidates shows best How Not to Reply to a "Job Filled" Notice?

---

From: nisha
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 6:45 PM

Hi

Thanks For your email but I was not remember when I was apply this job.

But may be long back so don't to sorry for me.

I m already in project full time

Nisha

---

From: John
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 9:30 PM

Dear Mr. Troy,

Thank you for your kind response. Would you put me on your interested list if the hired candidate backs out? I would love to work for your organization as I am seeking a long term company to work and retire from.

Happy New Year!!!

Regards,

John

For some reason, I'd rather consider John if I need another web person.

Note: According to my records, Nisha applied Wednesday, 28 November 2007 at 10:37 PM.

NotJobs: The Best of 2007 (or not)

I can't say that the following posts are the best of my writing on this blog, but they are the posts that seem to attract the most attention. These five postings (in no particular order) have been showing up in many Internet searches, and therefore got most of the traffic in 2007.

How Not to Get a Job at Wieden + Kennedy
http://notjobs.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-not-to-get-job-at-wieden-kennedy.html

How Not to Get a Job: Fake Your Credentials
http://notjobs.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-not-to-get-job-fake-your.html

Myths - Headhunters get jobs for candidates
http://notjobs.blogspot.com/2007/08/myths-headhunters-get-jobs-for.html

Tips: Longhorn cover letters-bad, better, best
http://notjobs.blogspot.com/2007/10/tips-longhorn-cover-letters-bad-better.html

Man fired for posting 'Dilbert' comparing boss to drunken lemur
http://notjobs.blogspot.com/2007/12/man-fired-for-posting-dilbert-comparing.html

On to a great 2008!

Tip: Handling Oddball Interview Questions

On the Yahoo HotJobs career advice page, Robert McCauley presents some ideas about how to handle those... er... interesting interview questions.

Oddball Interview Questions
How to Handle Random or Bizarre Queries
Robert McCauley, Robert Half International

"If you could be any animal, what would it be?" Hiring managers are increasingly posing such off-the-wall queries during job interviews in an effort to gauge a prospective employee's fit with the company's corporate culture.

I've worked with hiring managers who relied on questions like these. One would ask every candidate, "How would you figure out the weight of an airplane without using a scale." Matt was looking for some mathematical way the weight could be calculated. My favorite answer came from a marketing type: "I'm sure a big company like that would have a web page. I'd just go to their web page and look up the weight."

Tips: 3 interview questions you must answer

Shawn Graham is the author of a new job search book titled, "COURTING YOUR CAREER, Match Yourself with the Perfect Job". I haven't read it, but I've followed Shawn's blog, which he connected to the book.
Shawn has some recent advice about interviewing that make me want to read his book. Here is Shawn's wisdom - questions that must be answered in an interview:

3 interview questions you must answer

1. Why you’re interested in their company

2. Why you’re interested in the position

3. Why the company should hire you

Generic answers won’t cut it if you’re going to stand out from other equally-qualified candidates. In many ways, companies are just like people. They want to feel special, like they’re “the one” for you. They want to know that you’re genuinely interested in joining their team.

If you're the interviewer, you must know the answers to these questions. If you're the candidate, make sure you've planned to answer these. Make sure you visit his site for all the points about these three questions.

Tip: What's the Position Worth?

Johanna Rothman makes a great point on the Hiring Technical People blog:

Companies don’t pay people because they are warm-hearted. They pay employees to provide value. The more value, the more pay. (We hope. Sometimes, that’s the more expected value, the more pay.) If you’re a candidate, define your value. If you’re a hiring manager define the value you want to receive. Now you’ll have a much better understanding of what you should pay. And, you’ll know what the decision is worth.

She's on to something, but I would phrase it slightly differently:

Companies don't pay people because they are warm-hearted. They pay employees to solve a business problem.

Knowledge is the key here.

Tips: 50 Free Job Posting Sites

Over on the Bootstrapper site, Christina Laun has posted a list titled Better than Monster: 50 Free Places You Can Post A Job Online and Get Top Talent. Her list includes some well-know alternative sites like Craigslist, and some other niche job locations.

Recruiters should check the list to see if you can use some of these to expand your posting circle.

Candidates should check the list for new postings not on the majors.

Unknown factor: Does the Indeed search engine go out to these sites?

Tips: Ten Tips for a (Slightly) Less Awful [Programming] Resume

Objective: Obtain a position at IBM
-- some idiot applying to Amazon.com

On Stevey's Blog Rants (Random Whining and Stuff), author Steve Yegge ponders the question: "Why are the resumes of programmers so uniformly awful? And how do we fix them? The resumes, that is."

Steve knows of what he speaks. Steve is the guy who ported Rails to JavaScript for Google. The hushed silence we non-programmers hear is due to the awe that our encoding brethren have for an accomplishment like this.

The guy is good. But he's not perfect.

Or that really dumb guy who accidentally listed "work at IBM" as the objective on his Amazon resume. Ha, ha! What a dork!

Oh wait — that was me. D'oh. I sometimes refer to it as my "million dollar typo". It's kind of a painful story, especially for my eardrums, since whenever I tell it people predictably point at me and scream with hysterical girly laughter. Dammit.

(Mentioning the wrong company is one of the most common errors I see in resumes - I got one just yesterday. I think Steve would call that a #3.)

Steve has condensed his wisdom and experience into 10 tips that any programmer, firmware engineer, software engineer or web developer can take to heart:

Ten Tips for a (Slightly) Less Awful Resume

Tip #1: Nobody cares about you
Tip #2: Use Plain Text
Tip #3: Check, please
Tip #4: Avoid Weasel Words.
Tip #5: Avoid Wank Words
Tip #6: Don't be a Certified Loser
Tip #7: Don't say "expert" unless you really mean it
Tip #8: Don't tip your hand
Tip #9: Don't bore us to death
Tip #10: Don't be a lying scumbag

Go check out the entire article. His advice is good for non-programmers too.

DYHAQFM?

Tips: Longhorn cover letters-bad, better, best

Everything IS bigger in Texas. For example, The College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin has a career center of its own. They offer an interesting take on crafting cover letters, including a progressively improved sample. Check it out:

From Bad to Better to Best: The Evolution of A Cover Letter

Tip: 10 Things about IT Resumes

Over on the TechRepublic blog, Jody Gilbert has a worthy article about the

10 Things You Should Know
About Creating a Resume
for a High-Level IT Position

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=196

Myths - Headhunters get jobs for candidates

Every few weeks I get a letter like this from a close or distant acquaintance:

I am not getting much traction in my job search. I'm wondering if it might be in my best interest to hook up with a good recruiter in the metro area who could help move things along. I'd be interested in your thoughts and if you have any recommendations.

The first time this happened to me, I was an IT Services headhunter, and the plea came from an attractive female thermal engineer. My "Rescue the damsel in distress" gene kicked in, and I burned some irretrievable hours trying to help. All I learned is that thermal engineering is a narrow discipline. Nobody would pay me for one.

Almost a year ago, Carl Chapman dealt with this topic in an excellent post that every job seeker should read: Recruiting Myths - Recruiters get jobs for candidates.

Today we deal with a long enduring misconception on the part of the job seeker, that recruiters are in business to get candidates jobs. THIS IS WRONG!

Carl's article refers to 3rd party recruiters, a.k.a. headhunters, just like I was. Every candidate should read the whole article. The money 'graph is this one:

What does this mean for the job seeker? Well, it means that you are no longer the client… you are now the product. The recruiter isn’t being paid by you, he is being paid by the company. The recruiter doesn't earn money for finding you a job, he earns money for filling an open position with his client company. (boldface in original)

The other money quote isn't in there, because Carl is too polite. It was Robert A. Heinlein who put this message in an acronym in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress": TANSTAAFL (Milton Friedman said it too): There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.

With that in mind, I'll answer my friend's question:

1. Yes. It is in your interest to hook up with a 3rd party recruiter a.k.a. headhunter. For best results, work with one who knows your industry and specialty.
   
2. You must realize that the headhunter won't be working for you. S/he is working for the client. Set your expectations accordingly. Carl suggests remembering that "recruiters are working against your best interest, at times, because they are creating competition for you."
3. Sorry to say, I don't know a headhunter that specializes in your field and industry. I'm sure they are out there, but I've not had a chance to use them. You might find one through your personal network.
   
4. As Carl says, "This is a time when your mutual interests are perfectly aligned, so make sure to take advantage of that fact." But don't be the farm on the first call you make.

My snippets can't do justice to Carl's work. Check out the whole article.

Tips: Resume Pet Peeves!

Cara at the Husky Career Blog (from the Career Center at the University of Washington) has a nice essay on how to avoid putting her pet peeves on your resume. Her pet peeves are some of my pet peeves, so I suggest checking it out. She's aiming at the new college grad demographic, but the rest of us can pay attention too.

Tips: Applying for a Job, 21st Century Style

Chris Russell at Secrets of the Job Hunt has an interesting posting on Applying for a job, 21st century style.

But before you do something too wacky, remember what Chris says, "No matter how an employer wants you to apply, you'll need to follow the directions to the tee."

Tip: First Steps in your Colorado Job Search

This week, two people whom I have hired at previous employers have pinged me with a request for help in starting their job search. Both got caught in a layoff, and I don't have a current requisition that matches their skills. Here's the advice I've shared with them.

---

Sorry to hear about your change. I'm happy to do what I can to help. Here are a few suggested steps to accelerating your job search (you may have done some of these already). This isn't meant to be an exclusive list, but a few ideas of things to do to get started:

1. Update your resume.
   
   
2. Start networking - let everyone know you're looking. My last three jobs have come through networking. It does work.
   
   
3. Create, amplify or build up your LinkedIn network <www.linkedin.com>.


• Put your resume into your profile. List all the companies you've worked for (this makes is easier to find collegues). Make sure you have some keywords in your summary.
  
• Use the Find Colleagues tool to locate people you know, and send out a customized invitation to them.
• Change your profile address from http://www.linkedin.com/pub/odd numeric string to something more reachable like http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname. The first name/lastname style is standard.
  
• Make sure your profile says you're interested in new jobs.
  
• Get recommendations! We recruiters look for those.
  
• Make sure your e-mail address from your current company's is in your preferences. Once you leave, you can't add it.


4. Sign up for a job aggregator like Indeed <www.indeed.com>. An aggregator is a search engine for jobs. You can set up and save key word searches, and every night Indeed will e-mail you a list of openings that match. Indeed spiders HotJobs, Monster, CareerBuilder, Jobing and a bunch of other job boards. There are a bunch of other aggregators out there, but not all are good. I recommend avoiding Jobster (long story).
   
   
5. Get on the jobs mailing list for the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group <www.rmiug.org>.
   
   
6. Check out your local user's groups. Most disciplines have them - groups like CTRN, BAHRA, RMIUG, APICS, SWE, ASTD and BWA, among others.
   
   
7. Take advantage of all the outplacement help that your employer is giving you. The average participation in these programs is usually around 50%.
   
   
8. Stay current - read a few blogs to keep up. Industry blogs are good, as is that NotJobs blog. That guy's Tips section is pretty good, if I do say so myself.
   
   
9. Work. Be prepared to devote some serious time to your job search.

Tip: Maximize How You Use LinkedIn

Mike O'Neil gave a great talk on LinkedIn at the North CTRN meeting on Wednesday. O'Neil owns Integrated Alliances, a networking company, so providing LinkedIn training fits into his mission. He shared a few good points as a teaser. Mike said he'd try to schedule a class on the north side, and invite CTRN.

Some of the points he made were things I have already done, like changing my public profile URL from a string of digits to my name. He made a pitch for using "words that sell" in our profiles. (He used his as an example, see it at http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeoneil). He also mentioned that LI has a lifetime maximum of 3000 invitations. I learned some useful tricks about their search engine, which will help with finding people. He also gave examples of the importance of upgrading the text when submitting invitations. We also discussed the ethics and etiquette of linking.

It was a great teaser. Check out Mike's Training Page for details on his next class.

UPDATE 26 June: See Guy Kawasaki's "Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn" suggestions. Actually, as he usually does, Guy gives you more. He has eleven ways.

Tip: How to Leave a Voice Mail Message

Yesterday involved a game of what recruiters dread most: voice mail tag. Here are my begging and pleading requests for all who must leave a voice mail message:

1. Speak slowly and clearly
   
2. Mention your full name (please, don't say, "This is Jennifer". I have resumes from dozens of Jennifers!)
   
3. Mention the title of the position you are calling about.
   
4. Speak clearly
5. Don't assume that I'll be able to get your number from caller ID
   
6. Repeat your phone number
7. Speak slowly
8. Indicate a good time to reach you
9. A short message is a good message
   
10. Speak clearly and slowly

Thank you. Thank you. Please, thank you!