Tag: resume tips | Page 4 | Artisan Creative

Experience or Trainability?

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013|

Every job seeker wants to know the answer to this question. In trying to create the perfect resume and to choose the best jobs to apply for, there are ways to focus on one or the other. What is our answer?

It depends.

When Experience Wins

If a company is looking for someone to hit the ground running, experience is paramount. There may not be training available or resources to provide it. Especially if someone is being brought on to complete a project that already has a deadline, specific experience requirements are a good idea.

For hiring managers, make sure job listings say clearly what skills are required. Software packages and levels of expertise should be listed in the requirements.

For job seekers, if a job posting looks very particular, the company probably need candidates who have done those things before because they will not want to train. Evaluate this listing carefully before applying.

When Trainability Wins

A company that has long-term plans and growth strategies in place can afford to train smart people with transferable skills. If a company culture wants their teams all working the same way, using the same systems, they need adaptable people who can learn to fit into their existing dynamics.

The job descriptions can be less specific for skills, but more specific for development, education and the kind of challenges candidates may be faced with.

A resume tailored for this style of job description should feature bullet points that show accomplishments that were obstacles overcome, growth achieved and especially changes in responsibilities.

Attention to the tangible requirements of a job serves both sides of the hiring process. More appropriate candidates speed up the hiring process and applying to more appropriate jobs leads to less frustration for job seekers.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Job Posting Red Flags

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013|

If you’re like most job seekers, you spend hours searching for, identifying, and applying to jobs that seem like a great fit for your skills and experience. Most of the time your resume and cover letter disappear into the “resume black hole” with no response or feedback. Sometimes when you do hear back and go through a round of interviews, the job or company really is too good to be true! In both cases – you’ve wasted valuable job-seeking time.

If only there were a way to know which job postings had the best potential for success?

While our recruiters know of no guaranteed solution, they can suggest a few red flags to be aware of when reviewing job postings:

- Details about the position, requirements, or salary are lacking. This usually indicates that there is not an actual position. Rather, the company is using the posting as a way of collecting resumes for future positions. It’s not always a bad thing to respond to these kinds of posts – especially if you are a freelancer. However, if you’re searching on a deadline – you’re better off applying for something more targeted.

- The job description doesn’t match the title or the job pairs two skillsets not normally found together. When companies are asking for unrealistic or hard to find skills, it usually means they either don’t value those specific skills in the business (and therefore don’t understand what’s required for certain positions) or their budgets are too tight to allow for more than one position (and this person will be called upon to wear many hats within the business). Candidates should consider the effects of work environment and ability for growth in organizations like these.

- The job is older than 30 days or is constantly reposted. This can indicate the job is not a high priority for the company (and they are in no rush to fill it), there is a high turnover at the company (requiring them to refill the job often) or the job has already been filled (and not removed from the company website). None of these reasons is good news for a prospective candidate.

The job description asks for sensitive information. Before you provide your Social Security Number or Bank Information, be sure you are considering a legitimate company and providing the information through a secure talent management solution. You have enough to worry about when searching for a new job. Don’t add identity theft to the list!

While one or two of these red flags don’t necessarily mean something is wrong with the job, the more you see in one job, the less likely you are to find a successful match.

Jess Bedford, for Artisan Creative

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Spring Cleaning? Don’t Forget Your Resume!

Thursday, April 11th, 2013|

If you’re like me, you spent some time this weekend putting winter clothes away and checking to see if last year’s shorts still fit. Maybe you’re going through the things you put in the garage to deal with later or pulling out last year’s tomato plants.

Spring is also a great time to refresh your resume, whether you are on a job search or not. Here are some housekeeping tips:

Check your keywords—With more employers and recruiters using computers to filter through dozens or even hundreds of resumes submitted via the net, keywords for titles and skills are all-important. Make sure your keywords match your skillset and your accomplishments.
Write new bullets—More recent accomplishments should be added or used to replace older items if you are out of space. The more tangible – the better. Add numbers wherever possible.
Responsibilities—Did anything about your current role change this winter? If so, make sure it is reflected on your resume.
Activate your language—Verbs such as “maintained” and “managed” sound tired in the spring. Use a thesaurus to find more active verbs for your bullet points.
Proofread—Yes, again. You can never proofread enough. If you made any changes to that resume, have someone (or a few someones) take a look. You don’t want to add any new mistakes.

It can be fun to take a new look at an old resume. My career coach recommended 5 hours of resume work every quarter, whether you are on a job search or not. If you are a creative, updating your portfolio of work regularly is just as important. Spend a couple of those hours now and it will pay off later!

Wendy Stackhouse for Artisan Creative

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4 Common Resume Mistakes (and How To Avoid Them)

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012|

We hope that you re-read your resume every time you send it out, especially since you should be tweaking and updating it often. But any time you make changes, you can also make mistakes.

Recruiters tell us about some of the mistakes they see all too often:

Incorrect contact information—You’ll never know if a company wanted to interview you if your email, phone number, or portfolio / URL has a typo.
Relying on Spellcheck—If your resume uses the wrong form of a word, your attention to detail is definitely called into question.
Too much personal information—While it’s important to have a life outside of work, your resume is not the place to highlight your extensive stamp collection or fondness of hiking. Save it for onboarding!
Listing recognitions that have nothing to do with work—Your mom is glad you won Top History Student your Senior year in High School, but your hiring manager probably doesn’t care.

Our tips for avoiding these mistakes and others like them:

Always have at least 3 people read your resume before you send it out. One of them will probably catch any errors or odd information.
Print out your resume and read it on paper.
Take a break between the revising and finalizing stage to review with a fresh perspective.

Everyone makes mistakes, but your resume is a place where those mistakes could really cost you. Make avoiding them a priority.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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So What?

Thursday, November 1st, 2012|

When I began a complete overhaul of my resume not long ago, under the tutelage of a wonderful career coach, the first thing she taught me was to quantify everything possible.

Her first instruction for my resume rewrites was always to add numbers wherever we could: How many? How quickly? For how many people? Made of how many pieces? To raise how much? To sell how many?

But then she made us ask a question about every resume bullet point that seemed, at first, quite difficult to answer:

So what?

It seemed like the resume project had evolved into a journalism project.

We had the Who (us), the What (the job), the When (how long ago), the Where (the company) and even the How (the numbers) but we still needed the Why.

Why?

To make your resume really tell the tale of your work life in a way that will make a hiring manager want to meet you in person—and that really is what a resume should be used for—you need all of the elements of a good story.

The Why is where you go from a cut-and-dried list to a three-dimensional description of your experience – the passion you brought to the purpose behind your work.

So what?

To increase the effectiveness of internal communications.
To build better relationships between sales staff and customers.
To bring a marketing strategy into the 21st century.
To make a difference.

That’s why you really did what you did. Tell that whole story and get those interviews.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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I Can’t Believe I Missed That Typo!

Thursday, August 16th, 2012|

It happens all the time.

You hit “Send” and just as the button goes click you see it–a mistake. It’s so frustrating, but since it happens to all of us occasionally, even if we are careful proofreaders, it might help to know why we don’t see errors on the first–or second–or even third reading.

It happened to me just yesterday. I had to send an email out to a large group of people and, although I read over the body of the email before I sent it, I neglected the Subject line. Yikes! No one has mentioned it yet, but someone will eventually. Luckily, I’m a volunteer and so are my audience. They are a pretty tolerant group. But what if I had been sending out an email cover letter? I would have to assume that I had made a fatal error.

Why does this happen?

Our brains are programmed to figure things out, not to find anomalies. If we understand what is being communicated, our minds move on. In fact, as long as the first and last letters of words are in the right place, our brains read them almost as quickly as if they were spelled correctly!

If you are spending hours–and you should be–tweaking your resume until it gets you every interview you are qualified for, you will become extremely familiar with what is on it, so familiar in fact that you probably will miss a small error in spelling or formatting when you think you are finished.

How can you avoid sending out materials with typos?

The best way to be sure there are no errors in your materials is to have other people read them before you send them out. A trusted friend or colleague is a valuable tool in a job search for this as well as for interview preparation. Be sure to run your resume under some eyes other than your own before you apply for that dream job. If you have time, send a draft of your cover letter to someone with a good eye as well. Spell check is not enough!

At Artisan, we want your resume to always make it into the “Yes” pile and although thoughtful proofreading cannot ensure that you will, typographical errors can get you culled out before a hiring manager ever sees how perfect you are for the role they are trying to fill.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Resumes: One Page or Two?

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012|

I used to think that a one-page resume is always the goal. Fit it all on there, and if you can’t, cut something or use a smaller font.

In the business world, however, there are times for a one-page resume and times for a two-pager. Most recruiters generally like one better than the other, but since you don’t know who is reading your resume, here are a few general guidelines:

One Page:

Entry-level candidates – if you are right out of school, you probably don’t have a lot of experience to list. And that’s fine. Make sure you do list your education and any technical skills. Remember, internships count as experience!

Transitioning candidates – if you have been working but are changing career paths, it’s okay to have a one-page resume rather than filling up two pages with irrelevant work experience. However, you should take time think carefully about what skills you can transfer from your old career to your new one and use keywords relevant to your new career to describe those responsibilities. Think about every previous job before you decide not to list them.

Transitioning candidates can also benefit from using a “functional” resume rather than a chronological format. A functional resume focuses on your skills rather than your titles.

Two Page:

Experienced candidates – if you have five to ten years of experience, it’s likely you need two pages to list everything that is relevant to your job search. It’s okay to leave plenty of white space – as it makes your resume easier to read. However, be sure to use at least 75% of the second page if you go on to two pages.

When using two pages, you should have room for volunteer experience, awards and recognitions, professional affiliations, and more bullet points for your job responsibilities and accomplishments.

Three Pages or More:

Unless you are a C-Level executive, three pages is too long. But if you are, go for it!

For what it’s worth, some recruiters and hiring managers never like to see a two-page resume, no matter what your experience level, but since you can’t predict that, do what makes the most sense to you.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Resumes: You Have 6 Seconds…Go!

Thursday, April 19th, 2012|

In recent days, the internet has been a buzz about recruiters taking only 6 seconds to look at resumes before deciding whether to toss it or read more.

6 seconds.

That is definitely a bit depressing, right?

My career coach says it takes 80 hours of work to perfect a resume and, even then, you have to tweak it every time for every application. Goodness knows how long we are working for that 6-second look.

But if your resume is effective, of course, you get a lot more than 6 seconds.

We asked the Artisan Recruiters about their thoughts on resumes and whether the 6-second rule really applies:

Account Manager, Carol Conforti, looks at resumes for more than six seconds, but often looks at a portfolio first so she can relate the work to the experience. Carol feels that creative staffing is different from typical recruiting, as often a few creative hands go into making a campaign and job titles can vary from company to company. However, if the resume is from someone that is not local and the client is not willing to relocate anyone, they get a shorter look.

MD, Katty Douraghy, definitely spends more than 6 seconds looking at resumes but, like Carol, weighs portfolios more heavily since we are a creative agency. Katty looks at resumes for: keywords, gaps in employment, agency vs. client-side history and evidence of leadership skills. She checks for longevity and if jobs were for a short time or whether they were clearly freelance projects. It takes more than 6 seconds to do a thorough job.

Creative Recruiting Manager, Jamie Grossman, looks first for at least one well-recognized company, industry or brand, but if the candidate is just out of school, she considers where they went. If a talent does not meet the bare qualifications – you can tell pretty quickly they are not going to be right. But that often requires much more than 6 seconds on average.

Account Manager, Jess Bedford, says the better formatted a resume, the longer she spends looking at it. She likes the use of bold, underlining and bullet points to make it easy to read. Short descriptions of companies are also helpful to get a sense of industry experience. Education should always be at the end and the information should be contained to one page.

We all hope that our resumes get a good look – and we can definitely always improve them. A few key takeaways:

Make sure you are using the keywords from the job description in your bullet points or Summary.
Be as specific as possible about your responsibilities and achievements, especially where you showed leadership.
Leave some white space to keep it clean and clear.
Never neglect the importance of a portfolio when applying for creative roles.

Good luck!

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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Overqualified? Really??

Thursday, March 29th, 2012|

A friend of mine recently heard that she had not landed a job because she is “overqualified.” She was gobsmacked!

What does that mean? How could that be a bad thing? She wanted to know, and I’m sure there are many out there wondering the same thing – “How can anyone be overqualified for an empty position?”

With today’s poor, although improving, employment climate, there are many highly experienced but unemployed folks out there looking for work. Some of them are moving into freelance projects and entrepreneurship, but some are changing career paths and applying for entry-level roles in new industries, perhaps at a lower salary than they previously earned and with fewer or no direct reports.

I asked our team of recruiters what it means when a job seeker is told they are “overqualified” and what it might mean about their experience in relation to that specific position:

You may have more experience than the person that you will report to.
You may have a higher salary requirement than what they are willing to pay.
You may take a position and then be more likely to leave because you are working below your potential and are not challenged by the work.
The person you would be reporting to is intimated by your skills and knowledge.
Someone with too many years of experience may have work habits that are hard to break. The position might want someone more “green” so they can “mold” them to fit the company’s style and culture.

At the end of the day, turnover and training are both expensive. A company wants to know that the investments they make in new employees will not have to be repeated anytime soon. Most companies would prefer to leave a position vacant until the right person can be found, rather than hire and then lose someone who is overqualified who takes “the first job that comes along”.

If you are one of the highly-experienced job seekers in the market, here are a few ways to avoid appearing overqualified for positions, before you ever have an interview:

Edit your resume bullet points – Replace the accomplishments that don’t apply to this role with ones that do. Or simply remove them. Be sure to include keywords for the current position in your bullets.
Education – List any degrees or certifications that are relevant to the role, but leave out more advanced degrees. Your Ph.D. or MBA is an incredible accomplishment! But do you need it to get this job?
Cover Letter – A cover letter is really the only way to express why you would be challenged and excited about the role, even if you might appear to be further along in your career on your resume.

Remember that your resume is simply a tool for standing out in a pool of candidates. As long as everything on your resume is true, it doesn’t have to tell your whole life story.

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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What’s Your Resume Really For?

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012|

The purpose of your resume is to get you a job, right?

All those hours, all that tweaking, all that proofreading, and when you’re finally DONE, it will get you the perfect role.

Truth is – you’re never done. Every job application needs its own resume. Every single one.

Why? The purpose of your resume is NOT to get you a job. The purpose of your resume is to get you an INTERVIEW. Only you can get the job.

So – how can your resume get you an interview?

Truth be told – it really varies from job to job. However, there is one best practice you should always follow to better your odds!

Identify and use keywords.

Read that job description again. Get out your highlighter and mark the essential responsibilities or skills. Those are your keywords. What verbs are they using? Use those verbs. What qualities do they want? Put them in your Summary or sprinkle them in your listed achievements or responsibilities. The more keywords the hiring manager (or his computer) sees in your resume – the more likely they are to identify you as a potential candidate for the position.

Everybody hates working on their resume. It’s definitely tempting to just send out the same resume for every job that looks like it could be the right fit. But as more employers and recruiting firms use applicant tracking software to cull resumes, keywords will continue to play a huge role. Make sure you’re not left out!

With a little extra time and a bit more focus – your customized resume will help you get the interviews you deserve. Before long – you should notice those candidate response rates going up as well.

Happy tweaking!

Wendy Stackhouse, for Artisan Creative

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