Patwoman's Job Hunting Tips

Oh, Dear Friends. I hope you are still not out of work. If you are, I hope you are reading these tips seriously. I know. This is sometimes a very funny monthly posting, but I have to think that some people don't know this stuff because I still have people show up for an interview with their baby, or tell me they will take my job offer "until something better comes along," or answer their cell phones during the interview.

Seriously. There is enough of this happening that I feel I have to keep advising on the matter.

This month, let's talk about your resume. I want you to think of your resume as an advertisement for you. It tells me all the reasons why I want to talk to you about a job. Now I'm going to tell you a recruiter secret here. This is completely honest, uncut and uncensored insider information here. Are you ready?

I will spend about 15 seconds looking at your resume on the first pass.

It's true. On the first pass, I'm looking for key words to stand out. For an administrative assistant, for instance, those words might be "Outlook calendaring," "Meeting logistics," "PowerPoint presentations," or "Web conferencing." Administrative duties vary from place to place, so just saying you performed administrative duties doesn't really tell me much of anything.

At some companies, that's "answer the phone and make coffee" at others, it's "run payroll," and at others, the Administrative Assistant may make some high level decisions in the place of his/her manager and be privy to the company's most confidential dealings.

So, list what you did on the job. And here's another tip: bullet points read easier than paragraphs, so bullet points are more likely to get read. There should be at least three bullets under each job. If you can't think of three things you did on your last job, you need to be thinking a little harder. It's one of the first things a recruiter will ask you about.

Check your spelling. I'm going to say this again because it's a pet peeve of mine: Check your spelling. Anyone know how many spelling errors should be on your resume?

Zero. That's how many.

And don't rely on Spellcheck, either. Spellcheck will not warn you when you say you operated a heat press machine that team blocked cats, even if you meant the machine steam blocked hats. Spellcheck is either stupid or evil. I haven't figured out which.

So check your resume for spelling. Especially if you are using the phrase "detail oriented" to describe yourself anywhere on your resume. I have never seen a resume that listed "detail oriented," which didn't also have at least one spelling error. If you have a spelling mistake on your resume, you know what you are clearly not?

That's right.

Here are some other things I don't need to see on your resume:

-Your age, marital status, number of children, religion, or hobbies.

-The reason you left a previous job. (I will ask about it in the interview.) But particularly if you are going to lie to me. For example, if you are a cashier and it is not January when you leave, you probably didn't get laid off. I'm highly familiar with the retail world. Non-seasonal cashiers do not get laid off. They get fired.

Here's a good rule of thumb: if someone else has your old job, you didn't get laid off. You got fired. Or, look at it this way, if you are not welcome to go back to the same company and work in the same job, you got fired. Not laid off.

-How artistic you are. So, one font for the whole resume. And something normal, like Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri. Never anything that looks like calligraphy, dot matrix printout, gothic script, or letters made of cats. (All true stories.) One text color for your whole resume--black. Remember the 15 second thing? It takes me less than a second to toss a resume written with pink ink. Zero watermarks or background graphics.

Your goal is for me to put your resume in my "further review" stack. Those are the ones I take a longer, more considered look at. You want your resume to stand out for good reason. Like, you have the qualifications I'm looking for. Like, you've done similar work or have transferable experience. Like you understand the job you are applying for.

You do not want your resume to get my attention because it's weird. Don't be weird in the interview, either. (As I've said repeatedly.) You can be weird later.

Once you have the job.