Not all jobseekers qualify as serious

Chances are you have never met a jobseeker who told you he wasn’t serious. No one thinks of himself as not being serious when it comes to serious job hunting. As a group, jobseekers do not identify them­selves as commodities, products or merchandise, but as unique individuals.

Randomly prepare 500 or more résumés and it is hard to resist the temptation not to categorize. By the time you work for 800 jobseekers, you have encountered everything from technically challenged luddites to overachievers. As new jobseekers enter the market, repetitive patterns emerge.

From an employer’s perspective, jobseekers tend to get classified quickly into distinct scenarios: There are those who tell employers what they want to hear. (These are often get classified as C-players.) There is nothing wrong with being a C-player, but do not be disappoint to learn you’ll have stiff competition.

Another group of jobseekers rely solely on what they know and precede accord­ingly. (These qualify as B-players.) In large measure, B-players tend to be highly skilled or technically oriented. The rely heavily on their knowledge base to carry the day.

In the smallest group are those who dynamically demonstrate their potential. (This group of jobseekers gets categorized as A-players.) Naturally, they have their act together, they interview exceedingly well, and they are much sought after. Oddly, these candidates face little or no competition in the job market.

For various reasons—and there are many—everyone else gets lumped into the non-serious category. This should not imply that those jobseekers themselves aren’t serious, it’s just that from the employer's perspective, they don’t get classified as such.

When dealing with volumes of jobseekers, behavioral patterns begin to jump out at you. Whatever might escape one’s attention on a small scale quickly emerges as the volume of candidates escalates. Thus, there exists an overwhelm desire to expeditiously rate and classify candidates.

The glaring difference between being interviewed by someone preparing your résumé and a hiring decision maker amounts to their mission. The résumé writer attempts to qualify the client jobseeker, while employers make an all-out effort to disqualifying candidates through elimination.

Most jobseekers – an estimated 60% -- make the elimination process horrendously easy. Such jobseekers will apply for positions for which they are clearly unqualified or unsuited. Others resort to copying résumé material from books and others. These individuals get quickly classified as non-serious jobseekers.

As I have often indicated, each résumé sends a message, whether intentional or other­wise. For example, a jobseeker who submits a lengthy résumé may be perceived as someone who is inconsiderate or perhaps full of himself. Those who submit hard-to-read material are often perceived as disconnected, lacking withitness or perhaps careless.

Certainly, those who fail to qualify due to lack of relevant experience, skillsets and/or education are viewed by employers as time-wasters. One of the surest ways to be eliminated is attempting to market out­dated experience. Those individuals get instantly classified as past-their-prime jobseekers.

Employers who receive a short stack of résumés—let’s say around 20—it’s like shuffling a deck of cards looking for face-cards and aces. The stack can be visually scanned to eliminate the low-value cards in a few minutes.

Obviously, when employers need to shuffle many decks of cards (résumés), then using a card shuffler makes sense. In this case, the card shuffler amounts to using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which can scan, sort and evaluate a pile of material in nanoseconds. Those attempting to outwit ATS apps will encounter an ever-dwindling audience. In short, the AI software is becoming highly sophisticated.

The ultimate question is: How does a job candidate avoid projecting the image of someone who is not serious? The quick response is to avoid the classic mistakes. That, however, amounts to avoiding an exhaustive list of not-so-subtle no-nos.

Should you find a résumé writer good at what he or she does, pay the freight. Nine out of ten times, the writer will save you from self-inflicted folly. At minimum, you will avoid coming across as a jobseeker who isn’t serious. 

Does your résumé jump the shark?

Several résumés arrived via email last week; two of them caused me to think of William Jennings Bryan. Not prone to giving old William much thought, but the bombastic tenor of those two presentations may have triggered a subliminal relapse.

Old William’s claim to fame was that he ran three-times for the presidency and was a self-professed biblical scholar who represented the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial. William did not cotton much to science or evolution. (Hmm? Who said history doesn’t repeat itself.) William was also a renowned orator, given his proclivity for making long-winded, boastful speeches.

Most résumés fall somewhere between mind-numbingly blasé, or proceed in the puffery direction. If old William were alive today, his résumé would gravitate toward closed-minded extremism. Résumés outside these two extremes appear sorely needed these days.

To escape being labeled bland, many jobseekers opt to jump the shark. By that, I mean they infuse charged rhetoric into their material that would cause all but an egomaniac or politician to blush. (That may blur the lines of separation.)

To novice résumé readers, the following might sound appealing. For those required to suffer through mounds of bombastic rhetoric however, the task can be daunting. The opening para­graphs are often designed to appeal to anything and everything imaginable.

Highly motivated leader with more than (fill-in the blank) years of strong experience and a passionate desire to achieve phenomenal results seeks a creatively chal­lenging opportunity to demonstrate a track record of accom­plishments, management responsibilities and (fill-in the blank) expertise. Extensive experience in strategic and organi­zational planning, superior written and oral communication skills, and extremely dedicated and driven to delivering the highest quality of (fill-in the blank).

Wow! No flies on this jobseeker. Not a signal-overused buzzword was overlooked! If you were to receive several hundred résumés with similar hyperbolic jargon,[1] how bowled over would you be then? At what point would your brain cells numb and your eye­balls roll before you mumbled, “What a bunch of unfiltered malarkey.”

Many jobseekers thirst to “stand out” from the crowd. They are oblivious to the reality their competition entertains identical aspirations. The cogent strategy is to avoid the extremes and strive to come across as authentic, genuine and real—sans the b.s.

The bygone era of William Jennings Bryan may have past, but not his flair for unabashed efforts to self-promotion. Nothing speaks louder about a jobseeker than his or her résumé. More often than not, the hyped message sent is not the same as the one employers received. When this occurs, your résumé has probably jumped the shark.

Copyrighted © 2015 by Robert James

---

[1]  Buzzwords should not be confused with keywords. Keywords tend to be associated with specific occupations, and vary according to the position being sought. Hence, keywords for one type of employment may not relevant to another occupation.

Keeping your résumé real

The hardest portion for those struggling with their outdated résumés is delivering a concise message. Every résumé sends a message, whether intended or not. As I write this, I am looking at an upcoming project that arrived via email. The unfocused résumé appeared to be little more than a self-styled obituary. Prior to sending the two-page obit, the client groused to me over the phone about the lack of responses, and then briefly made reference to the jobseeker’s age.

It took all of five seconds to spot several deficiencies. Collectively, they revealed why the jobseeker was encountering difficulty. The blasé format dated back to the early 1980s, and followed a job-application layout. Nothing stood out or grabbed the reader—other than the individual’s name and the small type. So, what message was this jobseeker communicating?

If called upon to screen hundreds of outdated résumés, how much time would you devote to scrutinizing unfocused material? Would you even exert the effort to analyze the material to figure out want a jobseeker wanted to do? If you were busy, would you roll your eyes, toss the obits aside and move on?

The résumé in question lacked sophistication. It was neither dynamic nor interactive. It communicated the message that this was a vintage jobseeker. My mission would be to bring it to life and strive to keep it real and relevant. While such a task sounds easy, it requires some measure of skill and client support.

The one element that never ceases to amaze is the amount of umbrage jobseekers have toward change. Seriously. Employers are desperate for qualified employees, but you have to sell them on hiring you. Regardless of your career interest, all hiring decisions come down to one of three realistic elements:

Can you a) make them money, b) save them money or c) solve their problems?

If you can demonstrate one of those potential priorities, someone wants to hire you. All your résumé has to do is convey that message. If it does not, you are wasting their time and yours. (That’s today’s résumé reality.)

The days of grabbing warm young bodies off the street have past. Yes, age can be a factor. Age is not the sole criteria for which applicants get themselves eliminated. Living and think­ing in the past, however, can accomplishes that. Those who live in the past are enviably doomed to reside there.

For older jobseekers who find themselves living in the past, moving forward amounts to a scary journey. The options amount to learning what works in the job market, or finding someone who does. Both options require exercising due diligence, lest you fall victim to self-ignorance or unscrupulous operators.

The lines of separation between employment success and failure are remarkably thin. How one thinks and sees oneself often reflects itself in the individual’s résumé. Making repeated references to outdated information and technology sends a clear obituary message to potential employers. Keep your résumé fresh, relevant and real is where the rubber meets the road.

Copyrighted © 2015 by Robert James.

Hyped Résumés

There exists a propensity for jobseekers to exaggerate. Why not? –Everyone wants to project the best image possible. To accomplish that, jobseekers often gravitate toward hyperbolic phraseology in their résumés. The rationale being, everyone else is doing it, so I need to follow suit. This me-too approach does not bode well with many employers.

 Three years ago, I initiated a company practice of avoiding inflated rhetoric. As you might expect, the backlash came swift and loud. Many clients revolted, claiming that I had failed to tout how fabulous, wonderful and otherwise marvelous they were.

In short, to hell with the facts. Make me appear other than what I am! They rarely stated it in those terms, but that became the underpinning message. Each wants to appear (in digital print) more stupendous than their fantastic competition.

Once you strip away the hyperbole, the fillers, the qualifiers and extraneous modifiers, what remains are the substantive facts. Many jobseekers cannot abide with that reality. Their mantra often comes down to inflate it; twist it; massage it.

Many jobseekers lose sight of reality, where efficient employers view their time as a precious commodity in short supply. For employers—or those who must endure inflated me-too rhetoric—the substantive facts are their core concern.

Employers need to determine fit, qualifications and liking quickly. The first two are usually determined by the résumé. The latter is determined in an interview.

The résumés that are concise, easy-to-read and digest jump off the computer screen. Available research supports this. Statistically, the favorable response rate for the concise dwarfs those resorting to puffery, hype and fillers.

On a daily basis, résumés arrive from across the nation. Many individuals are highly qualified, but encountering obstacles due to indigestible résumé content. In majority of situations, their résumés challenge readability.

The technical ones stand out for wrong reasons. IT technocrats and engineers readily assume that only a likeminded clone will read and appreciate their highly refined, technical skillsets. With that fixation in mind, they proceed accordingly. After months—sometimes years—of minimal replies, they track me down seeking a solution.

Résumés have becoming technologically sophisticated. They do not need to be convoluted—unless one chooses to make them so. Strive for clarity and Internet portability, and you stay in the game. Strive to inflate, and your invites to interview will arrive late.

Copyrighted © 2014 by Robert James

Think Like Employers

Think Like Employers

Thinking like a potential employer is easy for me: I am in the business of walking in other people’s shoes, and hardly give the task thought. Creating résumés, however, requires the ability to envision things from an employer’s perspectives—an occupational hazard, if you will.

Traditionally, jobseekers do not approach their résumés from this viewpoint. Other priorities win out, such as I need to get my story out there, or I need to explain my unique situation. Some see the entire process as, “It’s all about me-me-me!”

While employers are interested in what you can do, there are limits. Jobseekers attempting to overreach resort to throwing in the unnecessary to satisfy all employment contingencies and all situations. Superlatives are used to exaggerate, inflate and otherwise hyperventilate the mundane.

Accomplishing that mission requires extra verbiage—usually three full pages. Sometimes four or five pages are deemed inadequate--especially for those with extravagant egos. Inflated material comes with a price. From an employer’s perspective, long-winded résumés carry unintended con­sequences, some of which only appear obvious to employers.

As you flash read[1] your résumé, see which unintended message your material might convey. Perform this exercise from the recipient’s perspective. Remove yourself, and imagine you have 50 emails to scan read over lunch. Pretend someone else’s name is plastered on your material.

(Lengthy résumé.) Another old-timer who thinks my time is worthless. Next.

(Lengthy paragraphs.) Oh-brother, this is going to be a struggle to read. Next.

(Too many bullet points.) Am I supposed to figure out what is important here? Next.

(Focus missing.) I wonder what this person is looking for. –Okay, not really. Next.

(Vague or too general material.) Hmm? Seem we have a communication disconnect. Next.

(Riddled with rationale or explanations.) Sounds like an excuse maker to me. Next.

(Non-relevant content.) What does this nonsense have to do with our opening? Next.

(Too much detail or too many givens.) This person must think I am stupid. Next.

(Too many qualifiers or superlatives.) Sounds like someone full of him/herself. Next.

(Glaring date gaps and date omissions.) Is this person trying to be slick or what? Next.

(Functional résumé.) I wonder where this individual did his/her hard time. Next.

(Scattergun résumé.) Hey, Phil, this person can handle our IT, HR and COO needs! Next.

While protecting yourself into the mind’s eye of employers poses a challenge, nonetheless, you should consider the intended audience. The difference between content substance and infor­mational overload or any illusions listed above amounts to a judgment call. Small adjustments can cause a significant difference in the mindset of the recipients.

Copyrighted © 2014 by Robert James

Confidential Résumé Writing

---

[1] Flash reading is how employers scan volumes of material in short order. Initial flash reads generally require less than 15 seconds. Being selected from the flash read, places your material on the short list. Those receive a second review.

Bad Haircuts

Doing one’s own résumé can be a lot like cutting your own hair. It can be a risky proposition. Sure, you save a few bucks, but more often than not, you end up looking a mess.

Homespun résumés arrive weekly. This week, one arrived from a multi-directional jobseeker needing a makeover. At the employment level he was seeking, he had perused volumes of résumés. For him, it was a matter of cherry picking the ideas of others, and repackaging them as your own.

That appeared to be the case. He had managed to cherry pick every buzzword known to man, and incorporated the overcharged verbiage into his presentation. For three solid pages, the material buzzed, but not in a good way.

He presented himself as Mr. Marvelous who could perform anything and everything from soup to nuts. The only items not mentioned involved sweeping floors and making coffee. Everything else was amply covered.

There was a critical chink in his armor, however. Aside from being an otherwise spectacularly individual—he was unemployed! That oops undid him. He had no comeback to, “If you have been so damn successful, why are you unemployed?”

Such a question is rhetorical by nature. No explanation can satisfy that type of inquiry once you present yourself as the end-all and be-all perfect candidate. It is a dichotomy of substance—not to mention the get-real factor.

By the time this jobseeker made contact, he was in crisis mode. He needed an immediate trim-job. He brashly informed me that all the information I needed was right there in his existing résumé. All I would have to do was make a few minor snips and clips so he could apply to any upper-level opportunities. (That raised an eyebrow.)

I reluctantly agreed to review his material, only to discover utter chaos. The jumbled mess did indeed fly in multiple directions. Worse, it made no sense. After 20 minutes of head-spinning jargon, I concluded it would not be prudent to proceed.

On such short notice, little could be done anyway. He had been styling his own hair too long for me to reshape his material into a smart hairdo. He was informed I would be taking a pass on his otherwise ‘interesting’ project.

The potential tragedy was that he might have been immanently qualified to do something. Unlike re-growing hair, résumés change as rapidly as technology. What was in vogue three years ago can quickly become blasé today.

While it is okay to cut your own hair (or do your own résumé), such decisions come with consequences. How you approach any project often determines the results.

Copyrighted © 2014 by Robert James

Once Upon a Time Résumés

This is going to sound whack-a-doodle for many jobseekers, but it is worth mentioning. If you were to sell outdated subscriptions, how well do you think would you succeed? For illustration, let us suppose the subscriptions you’re trying to sell are a year out-of-date. What type of static do you think you might encounter?

         Okay, you think I am pandering to obscurity. After all, who is in the market for outdated publications? Damn few, no doubt. Furthermore, locating a market for your outdated product would be nigh to impossible.

Admittedly, this example qualifies as ridiculous, so let us select something closer to reality. To put things into perspective requires a brief comment: Everyday—as in 360-plus a year—résumés arrive in my inbox. One-hundred percent are from jobseekers requesting assistance.

Three-hundred-sixty does not constitute a staggering amount, but multiple that by 20 years and a sizeable figure pops up. Now we are dealing with thousands, and the jobseekers span from New York to California. Many might just as well be trying to sell expired subscriptions.

From a résumé-writing perspective, marketing once-upon-a-time material amounts to a hard sell. Projecting that fresh, up-to-date, with-it image can pose an even greater challenge, especially when a jobseeker entertains an altered-reality mindset.

Writing résumés is easy: Convincing jobseekers that attempting to market old news poses a far greater challenge. A jobseeker with 20-plus years of experience wants to believe his or her record of accomplishment is of substantive value.

To some extent, it is, but that substantive-value portion has severe limitations. Habitually, you will hear or read that one’s résumé should not exceed a certain length. There is no ironclad rule, but like milk, résumés come with expiration dates, which start to expire after ten years.

Why 10 years, or thereabouts? Why not 15, or perhaps 20?

The issue is the message. Every résumé sends a message—intentional or otherwise. No matter how you assuage that message, one way or another, it gets transmitted. Sometimes the message is blatant, but more often than not, it is implied.

Just this morning, a résumé arrived in my inbox from a referral living in Illinois. Her one-and-a-half page résumé is presented in 10-point type, includes four employers, and stretches back to—hold your breath for this—1987. That is 27 years!

Honestly, I tried desperately to be objective. I sincerely wanted to give the jobseeker the benefit of a candid assessment, but my eye fixated on 1987. The expiration date stuck in my head. I literally stopped reading. I had gotten her message.

Surely, that was not the message she intended to transmit, but there it was in bold-type no less. I was annoyed with myself for letting that date-reference influence me. There is small doubt the woman qualifies for being honest-to-a-fault. So I asked myself, ‘Will such honesty enable her to cash in those reward miles on her Visa Card?’

If I instantly spotted this message, what are the chances an employer will spot it? Does this qualify as merely a minor oops oversight, or does it fall into the oh-shit category?

Résumé Messaging

Regardless what you may entertain to the contrary, every résumé—from the sublime to the disorganized—sends a message. Sometimes that message is subliminal, but usually, the message blatantly looms out like a flashing neon sign on a dark and stormy night.

Whether that message is intentional or otherwise, the recipient decision maker(s) will jump to a snap conclusion. The ‘otherwise’ tends to be the glaring norm. Jobseekers rarely look at their résumé presentations in the same as the recipient.

The majority honestly believe that it’s important to leave no stone unturned: Everything gets mentioned. To accomplish that, they resort to lengthy sentences, dozens of bullets and include a thesaurus of buzzword superlatives.

For recipients, the blurred message turns into blah, blah, blah: This was not the jobseekers’ initial intention. Jobseekers believe employers are interested in the minutia, the facts, statistical data, dates and accomplishments. Well, when they have loads of free time they are.

By in large, employers want quantitative substance, rather than fillers and fluff, but there are limits. The normal mind can only synthesize and retain so much. Eventually, the mind reaches informational overload. When that occurs, it shuts down and stops processing.

Some résumés are so saturated with details; the reader’s mind encounters mental gridlock the instant the material is viewed. In one passing glance, the lengthy paragraphs communicate to the reader the material will be a chore plowing through it.

At the opposite extreme, there are wordy résumés that communicate nothing. Such material reverberates with expository verbiage designed to dazzle the reader with alluring suggestions that accomplishments occurred. Readers interpret this as prevarication.

While these messages were not intentional, they color the reader’s perception like food on a dirty plate. When this occurs, the flavor of the résumé content becomes a secondary issue because the reader has already formulated a negative opinion.

Résumé length remains important. Imagine if 200 jobseekers each sent four-page résumés. For the recipient, the individual résumé represents a chapter in a grueling novel! It also signals the jobseeker thinks the recipient’s time is of no value. Good luck sending that message.

Okay, here is the secret formula. The message comes down to three issues: The elements include focus, relevancy and fit. When the feng shui of the material delivers that message, you’ve got it right. To enhance the delivery of that message,

•  avoid small type, lengthy paragraphs, long sentences and superlatives, as well as too many bullet points.

Choose your words carefully, and eschew obfuscation. (For my regular readers, a touch of levity might clarify the message.)

                                               Copyrighted © 2013 by Robert James