In an economy as lousy as California's - particularly in the still depressed high tech sector - it should be good news that my company is hiring. We've hired about four new people in the last 2 months and everyone's back on a full-time schedule so we're pretty happy. Hiring is generally a sign that things are picking up and it's certainly beginning to look that way around here (knock wood).
So while it's definitely good news in that sense, hiring can also mean replacing a good employee and unfortunately that's what I've been doing this week. My white box tester resigned and now I have to replace him. This isn't such good news since getting a new person up to speed is always at least a little disruptive and increases management overhead. But I'm getting ahead of myself because the real bad news was that I had to begin a search for a new employee in the first place and the actual act of finding someone to hire is a royal pain in the neck.
Writing a job description is generally the first step in the search for a new employee, unless you're lucky enough to have the job description from the departing employee's hire, which in this case I didn't. The only real trick is making sure the thing is complete. It needs to list everything the candidate needs to be able to do on day one, and needs to outline the kind of person who can take on the responsibilities you'll need him to be able to take on in the future. Usually you don't even know what all those responsibilities are and since my company is in a state of flux at the moment it's even more difficult to outline them. The generalized "Other duties as may be assigned" isn't exactly precise but at least it's honest.
Once I've written and posted the job description on various online job boards I can start searching for potential candidates, but generally enough resumes start pouring in that before very long I have several hundred emails to wade through.
Did you hear that? Several hundred. I don't suffer fools gladly and when I have several hundred of just about anything to get through I don't like to waste time. I'll bet most hiring managers feel the same way. So for you folks who are sending resumes to anyone anywhere for any kind of job whatsoever, here are some guidelines that I seriously suggest you follow. You'll save someone a headache and you won't wind up looking like a jerk, so listen up because I'm only going to go through this once.
First off, read the job posting thoroughly. Then, and only then, if you have the experience and skills outlined, submit your resume. I know recruiters always advise you to send your resume to everyone for everything no matter how tenuous the connection between your skills and the job description, but let me tell you first hand that they're full of it. It doesn't endear me to you at all to receive a resume filled with your college projects when I advertised for a mid to senior level engineer with a minimum of four years of hands-on experience. You go straight into the Not Interested pile and I remember names. You're wasting everybody's time and it's not appreciated.
I realize that this can be a tricky call at times because some lists of skill requirements are really long and precise, especially for technical positions. If you have 8 or 9 of the 10 bits of experience listed I'd say go ahead and send the resume if the rest of the posting looks like a fit for you. The job description outlines the perfect candidate and maybe perfection is out there but there's also reality. Most hiring managers I know list everything they'd want God to be able to do if He showed up for an interview but they can be flexible on some things for real people. Notice I said we can be flexible on some things. If there are 10 languages listed as requirements and you have 1 or 2, you're not qualified - we can't be flexible enough to overlook that. You need to be realistic too.
Along with reading the job description and requirements completely, would you mind reading the directions too? It'll just take a minute. Then... could you follow them? I know it's a lot to ask, but if the job posting says to send a cover letter, you should really consider sending one, ok? Don't have one? Write one. And make it good (see below). If the posting asks you to send your resume in text format, sending it in Microsoft Works is going to get your resume dumped in the trash because I can't open it. Your ability to follow directions at the simplest level is being displayed here. If you can't bother to do it to get an interview why would I think you'd do it when I give you an assignment?
As I mentioned before, your cover letter should be good. "Here is my resume. Please get back to me if it is of some interest to you" does not cut it. "See attached resume" is not a cover letter. You need to put some thought into it and tell me why I should move on to reading your resume instead of skipping right to the next email in my queue. Include your skill set and a brief explanation of your job experience - tell me why I should hire you. On the other hand, the letter should not be longer than your actual resume, my friends. It needs to be a summary of your skills - a summary, not an exhaustive recounting of every project on which you've ever worked. Find a balance and be professional. "Hi. How are you?" is a friendly opening but not right for a cover letter, job seekers.
If English is not your first language and you're not fluent, I don't recommend writing your cover letter on the fly. I've seen countless emails with flawless resumes but a cover letter I could barely decipher. Within the resume, of course, there is the standard "Excellent written and verbal communication skills" line. The cover letter has thrown that claim into just a little bit of doubt, you see.
Now here's a tip I cannot emphasize enough - edit your damn resume. I don't need to know every single thing you've done every single day for the last six years. Be selective and concise. Two pages is really the max here, kids. If you've been working in the industry for more than 15 years, you might be able to get away with three pages but be careful with that. Nobody really needs to explain in detail technical stuff they did ten years ago because all the technology that was being used then? Is completely obsolete now. Show me that you were working, what you were responsible for producing during that time, but I don't need all the details. And use a readable font size, please! 8-point font will make me very cranky because I've already been starting at text for the last 6 hours and my eyes are just dying to give up the ghost. If your resume pushes these old eyes over the brink, I will hold you personally responsible and that doesn't bode well for your interview potential.
I swear to God this week alone I got resumes of five and seven pages and, the blue ribbon prize winner, a ten page monstrosity that looked relatively interesting for the first two pages but which I couldn't follow to the end because it was so mired in specifics. Consider a different resume style if you're finding you can't consolidate - a functional resume instead of a chronological one may work better for you.
I realize it's not a standard requirement for resumes, but for God's sake in a technical resume include a technical summary. I have 75 resumes to review this afternoon alone; I don't need to hunt through yours to find out what languages you know. Summarize, summarize, summarize.
This should go without saying, but it apparently doesn't, so I'll say it: Check your work. Misspellings and poor grammar reflect horribly on you. You're trying to make a first impression and you're trying to get the hiring manager's attention. If my attention to you is based on the fact that you misspelled "contractor" throughout the resume, that's bad. As in not good. As in I'm not going to call you. Invest in a spell checker and then have someone else carefully proofread your resume. A real person will find grammatical errors that your computer can't, and will tell you if your descriptions make sense.
Another thing to double check if you're sending your resume by email is that you indeed attached the resume to the email. It cracks me up when I'm looking for a quality assurance engineer and one of the requirements is "Attention to detail" and an email shows up with a cover letter but no resume. It's a really easy mistake to make, and I generally overlook it when the real resume comes in, but as I said before, you're trying to make a first impression and if your attention to detail doesn't extend to your first contact with me it does make me question how attentive you really are.
Last but not least, don't pad. Most decent hiring managers can see right through it and even if they don't, what are you hoping for? A job you're not qualified to do? How long do you think you can keep up the charade? Don't embarrass yourself.
Every single one of these tips is obvious but almost every resume I receive misses at least one of them. I've been guilty of some of them myself in the past. We're all just people here, but when you're trying to land a job it's in your interest to put your best foot forward. Take a deep breath, pay attention to what you're doing and don't make assumptions, because you know what happens when you do that, don't you? You make an ass out of you...
And you waste my time.
- KNP August 24, 2003
