Resume RX - Is your resume ending up in the slush pile?  7Quick fix Solutions

 

By Michele Tassinari, CAC, CSP

Advice from a seasoned recruiter…. If you’ve been sending out your resume for several weeks and haven’t gotten any interviews or at least a telephone call, you probably need to take a look at what you’ve been sending out and how you’ve been responding to advertisements. Here’s what you need to do and why.

 

1. Make it easy to tell what you’re applying to

 

If the person receiving your resume can’t tell, they may never open it or if they do if its not easy to tell what you’re applying to they may not spend the time figuring it out.  They simply don’t have the time.

 

One sure way to make sure that you delay getting your resume looked at or never looked at  is to not have a cover note or at least a subject line response that tells the person opening your email or web response what you’re responding to.

 

Recruiters get hundreds of resume submissions a month that say:  “I’m responding to your ad” (dah!) and  I’m qualified for the position and would like to discuss this opportunity (what position? Why are you qualified? – tell the recruiter)

 

3. Proofread Nothing gets a resume tossed to the side faster than a misspelled word. It screams “I’m so sloppy I don’t check my work not even when I’m trying to impress you.”   Enough said!

 

4. Be reachable Don’t put a phone number that isn’t working (like a cell phone that can’t receive phone calls) or an email you don’t check. Don’t put a phone number that your kids, grandma who can’t speak English or roommates with blaring music will answer rudely or otherwise irritate the hiring manager or recruiter. Oh and don’t leave a message on your voicemail that is funny and hip or requires the caller to wait two minutes listening to your music before they leave a message – most won’t they’ll just hang up.

 

5. Put a date on it  Some career advisers suggest putting year to year and vague descriptions on a resume but 2001-2002 could mean 1 day of work December 31 2001-January 1 2002. Its vague. Put the month started and ended along with the year it creates a more complete picture

 

6. Be Clear and quick about it

Eliminate works like “worked on, responsible for” (they take up excess space obviously you did it, you’re putting it on your resume) Start out each bullet with a verb (collected, routed, managed, coordinated, collected, sorted are all good descriptive verbs)  This makes the statement stronger and bullet point your items keep it short and simple:

 

Example:

 

Instead of:  Responsible for collecting timecards and obtaining approvals and forwarding to payroll

Try   Collected time cards obtained management approval and routed to payroll

 

 

7.Ditch the cool fonts: Stick to Arial, Times New Roman and Courier. These fonts transfer. If you use some cool font like Tempus Sans it might look like a bunch of symbols or garbled when it gets converted through email or the reviewer’s converter. Don’t risk it. They might not have time to request you to resend it.

 

Try these 7 tips you'll see results.