Resume Digest Blog

When was the last time you have been intimidated or abused by so called recruiting agents? If they treated you like a commodity rather than a unique human being could you do better than them? After all you know the product intimately well.

Welcome to the real world. Finding work is entering into a relationship where you trade your time and knowledge for cash. If someone is going to take a cut along the way and do a lousy job at it - fire them!

What is a recruitment agency after all and what prevents from doing for yourself what they are supposed to do? Agencies claim to companies they have a database of experts at the ready who can jump into a role with no training and no induction. You feel at a disadvantage because your database has only one person on it - you!

But wait a minute. Since you are a talented, versatile, articulate, knowledgeable, fast-learning professional that could count for as many aliases of yourself.

Another thing agencies do is to unearth job vacancies before they get advertised. Sometimes they even advertise vague roles on their books and you wonder whether there was really a role there in the first place. It is like the case of the real-estate agent with pretty photos of properties that are not really for sale. They are there just for the sake of not having an empty window...

Ever heard of LinkedIn? Can you be recommended by former work colleagues? Another drawback with agencies is their blind date approach to matching candidates. You have to tell everything about yourself first only to find out the job is with a company you don't really want to hear about.

Just like a sales professional you are only as good as your network of connections. Luckily it is not a static thing and you need to swap business cards where ever you go. When is the last time you went to a trade show in your industry? Have you heard of BNI, Toastmasters, Rotary, etc... don't kid yourself. You won't find a job on facebook but you might re-kindle with an old acquaintance.

The idea of maintaining your network of connected people will be a glaring need when you are looking for a job but that's something you should be doing year around.

The irony is that you might be able to find a job for someone else before the compliment is being returned!

Yes job hunting is a full-time job, but don't despair. Why not use an online tool like Resume Digest to do it like a professional?

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Employers are after self-motivated people with drive. The type of person who can permeate the workplace with a healthy, positive attitude. Someone who sees every obstacle as a challenge to overcome, every problem as an opportunity to solve.

The only way you can have those attributes over a sustained period of time is by having some fire in your belly, something to live for, some passion to share...

Those people will be very charismatic during an interview but may non-the-less be screened out because of an average resume.

How do you translate the passion on paper? Step outside the box. When everybody else presents themselves as the sum total of their past work assignments, the champion tells a compelling story.

Instead of listing dates, places and mundane achievements, sell yourself as being the problem solver that you are.

Bear in mind that this is not for every run-of-the-mill type company. An average boss will feel threatened by hiring someone too bright who might take his job soon after...

Again a recession might just be the ticket to force an average company to put all hands on deck and score a marketing coup ahead of their competitors. That level of desperation might just be the climate you need to enter to make your mark. The challenge is to figure out who to talk to. The company might not be hiring right now... in fact they might just be doing the opposite trying to be more lean and mean. Only by reaching to the top can you get the audience that resonates with your message.

Your approach will be more like a partner than an employee. But if you come with ideas and no equity, they might just create a new position for you. Remember that a large number of positions filled never get advertised. Companies would rather procure a candidate through the grapevine rather than being, by a deluge of applicants. If you have never been a salesperson before, this is the one time in your life where you do have to sell your skills in the market place.

Taking rejection can easily be handled this way. Say your monthly salary will be $5,000 and it might take you to knock on 100 doors to get the role you want. Say to yourself each time someone turns you down: "I just made $50!" You might hope to bump into the person you will hire you first and forget about the other 99. But if it turns out to be the other way around you will have enough motivation to last the ordeal.

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Even though a recruitment agency takes a cut on your salary or hourly rate they are not working in your best interest - instead they are doing the employer's bidding. This is exacerbated by the fact that few employers will grant an agency exclusivity to field candidates for a given position.

Agencies like to play it safe and build their reputation in front of their clients. That means they will go for the no-risk candidate who has already been in a similar role for years. The person who is the perfect mule who will not get bored doing it again twice as long. Too much passion and lateral thinking from an agency's point of view are risk factors.

Agencies have a predilection for a chronological resume that exposes you bare with gaps and changes of direction in your career. They store candidates' resumes on their database and check several revisions you submit for inconsistencies. That way they can screen out people who are fudging things. The chronological resume allows agencies to calculate your average tenure in a job and screen out applicants classed as high risk.

On the other hand the perfect fit for a given position will be a functional resume matching every requirement of the job with your own skills listed by order of relevance - not chronological order. With an agency that is not an option because they claim they are prevented by law to alter your resume... They already do that anyway by masking your contact details so that their client can't bypass them and call you directly. Sadly that shows the level of trust or lack thereof.

Agencies like you to go for a blind date - not disclosing the employer's name until you are booked for an interview. This has some severe drawbacks. You might be applying for a role to be filled at your current employer and through the agency indiscretion your boss will find out if you have itchy feet. You might wonder if in the future we could turn the tables around and apply for jobs with a dummy name - only revealing our real identity when we land the job and have to disclose our banking and insurance details...

Agencies like the bait and switch approach. They will parade you in front of their client as an articulate, well mannered candidate but also have ready on hand some migrant who will undercut you by 20% which they have especially sponsored into the country.

Agencies like asking for references. Normally you should only give references to the employer after the first interview. Agencies on the other end may ask for them as early as possible not so much to check on your background but to try to place other candidates there. Needless to say that when your valued referee gets a call to speak well of you all that bother will dampen their enthusiasm.

I will stop there in case you get depressed. There is hope though if you take the matter in your own hands and target one specific job that you like - one at a time. There are still employers out there who dare to advertise roles in their company name. It sounds that this boldness alone makes them people worth working for. In order to give yourself the best possible chance you will have to analyse closely their requirements and craft a functional version of your resume to suit.

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The articulate candidate learns to read between the lines during an interview. Here are a few examples:

We need someone with a minimum of 3 years experience is a similar position.

Translation
We want to do a brain dump of someone who worked for our competitor and then get rid of that person before they get disloyal against us.

This position has been created as part of our new budget expansion.

Translation
We have the money to pay you as long as you reach your target.

Somebody will leave us in 2 weeks. We need you ASAP to learn as much as possible from that person and then hit the ground running.

Translation
There is no guarantee the outgoing person will be cooperative - leaving you stranded might be their parting gift to an employer they can't stand anymore.

I need to replace someone I just fired last week. I don't have much time to train yet another person - I just need to find someone I can trust...

Translation
The last guy was a liar and a cheat - you'd better be on your best behaviour. Even if you last the distance you will still be taken for granted.

The last guy was OK but when he asked for a pay raise we decided to sack him and get someone cheaper...

Translation
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

We are in no hurry to hire somebody right now but given the right chemistry and the attitude to match we would like to talk to someone who can help us reach our corporate goals.

Translation
Some people enjoy conducting interviews without ever hiring anyone. They call it market research (thank you for wasting my time).

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Employers assume the care with which you write about yourself is akin to the care you will have for their business.

Proof reading #1 Print a hard copy

Details are easier to spot on a piece of paper than on the screen.

Proof reading #2 Read it aloud

Never mind your flatmates or the neighbours. Pretend it's the TV. No joke you MUST hear it out and get a feel for how it actually flows...

Proof reading #3 Mark it

As soon as you spot something that's not quite right - annotate on your piece of paper. Refrain from going to the keyboard to make the correction straight away. Stand up and hear the whole thing out.

Proof reading #4 Read it backward

This is a writer's trick to force you to look at each word in isolation. Mask the page with a postcard to reveal each last word in turn.

Proof reading #5 Enter all your changes

Now you're not treating each correction in isolation but you may have spotted a misspelt word occurring several times.

Proof reading #6 Repeat until happy

Remember this is your sales brochure. How can anyone hire you if you're not satisfied yourself?

Proof reading #7 Sleep on it

The next morning you may have a spark of inspiration.

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