How I Read a Résumé

Because I've had the misfortune great priviledge of sorting through and disqualifying at least 100 résumés over the past few weeks while looking for a new assistant, I'd like to share with you all a compilation of a few of my pet peeves. Feel free to copy and paste this in entirety to email to your job-seeking friends and/or foes. While this may piss a lot of you off, I have to be perfectly upfront by saying that a résumé is nothing but a document that has information that gives hiring authorities reasons to NOT pursue you for a position. I'll explain why.

1) Putting your photo on your résumé:
Do you know how much frickin' information a person can get out of a photograph? As it is in most situations I can determine your sex (or at least your gender) just from how you spell your name. (If a person named "Bobbie" is looking for a construction job, I'd be hard-pressed to find a single male hiring authority that would take her, and it is a her, seriously for a job requiring heavy lifting).

That out of the way, I don't care how fucking cute you think you are. Chances are that if you're applying for a clerical job your direct supervisor is probably female. Sorry, that's just the way it is. You being cute and blonde is not going to sway me one way or the other. In fact, I'd be insulted at your blatant idiocy.

Lastly, under no circumstances should you INCLUDE A PICTURE OF YOUR ENTIRE NUCLEAR FAMILY with your CV. So, you're married and have a buncha kids? Um, are you going to be at work on time with all them kids to dress and feed?

Those (marital status, # of children, etc.) are questions that interviewers are NOT ALLOWED TO ASK YOU. Why would you put that information out there?

2) Vague objective lines:

I loooooooove it when people include a well-written objective line that actually makes me feel like they know what the hell they applied for. Objective lines that read "To obtain employment" or "To support my family by finding full-time employment" are absolute turn-offs.

You MUST change your objective for each different type of position you apply for and it has to be SPECIFIC. For example, If you're looking for a position in HR and are trying to get in on the ground floor, it makes more sense to say "To progress to a Human Resources Generalist role by contributing my skills and education as a Human Resources Administrator" than "Human Resources." Pretend that we're dumb and have no idea why you sent your information to us.

While that's on my mind, if you ever apply for a position through a website such as Careerbuilder, you MUST make sure that the person on the receiving end can tell that you really knew what you were applying for especially if your skillset isn't a perfect match for what is required.

3) Cover letters can benefit you!:
And I'm not just talking about the generic version that you copy and paste EVERYDAMNWHERE.

A cover letter should tell me why you would be good for an advertised position. It should contain information that I can't surmise from your résumé. For example, if you've been a teacher for 12 years and decide that you want to have a sudden career change, you need to explain why - especially if you're applying for a less-skilled position. You don't have to put people all into your business and say "I want to stay home with my cats and kids," but you can say that "At this time I am seeking a position with more flexible hours that will allow me to work some from home."

Again, make us feel like you know what you're applying for. It pisses me off when I call someone to phone screen them for a position and they don't even know what the specs of the job are, or else think they can get around them. If the pay is $30,000, don't send me a cover letter saying that at your last position you earned $55,000. Next!

4) Don't oversell yourself:
Here's the deal - if I need a new assistant, my boss will begrudgingly let me go out and get one. If he's going to dip into the company coffers to pay for someone to help me get my productivity up, I'd better get them for as cheaply as possible. I, therefore, look for people at the very bottom at what the pay range for the position is. I don't want my assistant to get paid anything near what I get paid. That's putting it simply.

So, if it comes down to two résumés where one is a person with less than one year of exerience in an office and the more experienced person who I assume wants to be paid more, I'd hire the cheaper one and spend some time training them.

No, I don't know what the second person's salary expectations are or what their current personal situaiton is. I just know that it would be less financial strain for the company to get the person with the longer learning curve.

How do you prevent yourself from sounding overqualified for a position? Well, for starters you can take out any information about your previous positions that do not specically mirror responsibilities you will have in your new job. So, if you were an office manager in your last job, to get a job as a payroll administrator you'd need to clarify everything you did as an office manager that related to payroll and downplay everything else. The fact that you wore a bunch of different hats isn't going to help you when you're trying to go into a specialized role.

Figure out what the responsibilities of the job you're applying for are and use your résumé to explain how you've already been successful doing it.

Posted by Tiffany at March 13, 2006 05:57 PM | TrackBack