Resume Reminders

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Resume Reminders

This weekend I've been helping my husband sort through a few hundred resumes he received in response to a Craigs List a few months ago. He's been too swamped to take a look at them, but he desperately needs the help, so I figured I could help him.

Some things to note when sending a resume, especially by email or in response to an ad:

1) Say everything you want to say. We're not emailing you back to get the copy of the resume you didn't attach the first time. With over 100 resumes, you can sure be a qualified candidate will be found.
2) Be sure the resume IS attached. See #1, above.
3) Use proper spelling and grammar in EVERYTHING. Don't use text short cuts in your email; this is the FIRST THING they see about you. Make sure your letter and resume have been proofed by someone with good language skills. It shows that you care about quality. Employers want to hire people that care about quality.
4) Do write cover letters, especially if your qualifications don't match up word for word with the list in the ad. It really helps to know that you have already signed up for a course on the software asked about, or that you feel strongly talent X is a good compensation for missing requirement Y.
5) Address every requirement in the ad somewhere.
6) If you don't leave near the job location, explain somewhere why you are applying so far away.
7) It's OK to apply just because you like the company, even if you don't have the skills for this job opening, provided what you do is in the same department or using closely related skills. My husband is keeping the stack for future hires of different qualifications for his department, but he doesn't have time to think and sort and forward to other departments.
8 ) DO use your NAME as the file name. It saves me a LOT of time sorting, since I can just save it straight to a folder without putting a name on it. I can tell the people who've been around the block and paid attention, because they very nicely do this. Maybe this time around its lost brownie points since I'm not the final decision, but you never know who is doing the sorting, and you always want every brownie point you can get.
9) If the last job you list on your resume ended a year or two or ago, we'd kind of like to know what you've been doing and how you are keeping your skills up. Something else that hopefully finds its way into a cover letter, as long as you can find any way to put a positive spin on it.
10) Don't be disheartened if you hear nothing back at all. Sometimes the company is just too swamped. My husband's company is in a huge growth phase and his department is having a lot of trouble keeping up. But none of those resumes have been lost, and rather than place another ad when the next position needs filling, he'll start with the stacks he has already sorted.
11) Maybe it's just me, but I prefer NOT to open a Word doc and have it default to "comment review." Make sure you are sending files that will open in "final" ONLY, or - better yet, in my opinion at least - print it to PDF and you will be sure it is viewed EXACTLY as you wrote and polished it (just because I have Word doesn't mean I have your fonts ... many resumes end up lined up oddly as a result).

That's the social justice aspect. A few hundred resumes ? ! ? ?

Yeah, we can learn to play the game, active verbs and all that. At the same time, we as citizens in a free society need to be about the business of creating more good jobs.

Thank you DW, it's always helpful to see the perspective of the other person.