Resume and Career Opportunity Killers
âI am looking to grow up my carrier in IT business development and would like to work in abroad.â
Are you sold? Ready to Hire? No, why not?
Silent Career Opportunity Killers
Not all profile / resume mistakes are as bad as this one but there are subtle opportunity killers that I see on a regular basis when sourcing candidates for my recruitment clients. Little mistakes that either make me cringe and stare in wonderment or get the candidate disqualified for opportunities within 20 seconds.Thatâs right 20 seconds! Consider me extremely patient compared to the industry standard of 10 seconds or less per resume evaluation.
With the sheer volume of resume submissions Employers need to decide quickly whether to proceed with a candidate or disqualify them. The quickest way to sort is to look for negatives instead of positives – so it’s critically important for candidates to minimize negatives whenever possible. Don’t supply a cover letter when requested, bye-bye, have a gross amount of grammar errors, enjoy your trip, see you next Fall.
Would You Hire You?
Seriously. Before you say yes, put yourself in the Hiring Managerâs seat and take a look at your resume and compare it to the open position and run through this quick checklist.
- Do you qualify? I donât mean the soft skills of the position â being a team player, youâre a warm body eager to find work, etc. I mean do you have the hardcore experience that the Employer is looking for â like technical skills in critical programs needed for the position or extensive connections and an in-depth knowledge of the industry that the client is in?
- Do you have a successful track record in a similar position? If Iâm looking to buy a birthday cake I donât pay/hire someone who just bought a Betty Crocker set, I go to a professional Baker. If you can Bake, thereâs dough to be handled!
- Have you showcased QUICKLY what youâve accomplished in a previous relevant position? So many candidates list everything under the sun in their resumes but donât display what they accomplished in their positions. Show Me The Money!
- Have you been very specific in how you can help a Hiring Manager solve a problem? You want to get hired, be a problem solver – not a candidate that makes Employers guess whether or not you can help and how you can help.
Avoid the 10 second Elimination Faults
- Lying on Your Resume. Checking up on a candidate is so easy in todayâs hyper-connected marketplace so if you worked for a company for 3 months but left, got fired, downsized, whatever, put it on your resume. If one lie is found on your resume then nothing can be trusted. If you finished in February 2014 donât have âPresentâ on your LinkedIn profile.
- Not providing a quick summary of what each Employer specialized in. Most companies are SMBâs (especially in the Performance Marketing space) and potential Employers are likely not to know all of their direct competitors or might have false impressions of what each specialized in.
- Not customizing your resume PER application. To think that each Employer in an industry is exactly the same is a dangerous misstep. Burger King and McDonalds both serve Burgers and Fries but have very little in common business execution wise and brand wise.
- Grammar errors.
- Spelling mistakes.
- Inconsistencies in the formatting. Make sure that you are very consistent with your fonts, your bullet points, your spacing, etc.
What are you going to say in 10 seconds or less?
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