Tips from the other side
Resume do's and don'ts
- Make it easy on the eye at first glance! Aim for well-structured lay-out, a clean font, 1 to 2 pages long, with clear sections and heading titles and the majority of text in bullet points rather than prose.
- Directly after your name and contact information include a career summary, a type of elevator pitch that can hook the recruiters’ attention and convince them that you are the right person for the job – all within that 7-second window. The summary typically is a short paragraph of a few sentences, containing your skills, expertise and achievements that are relevant to the role you are applying for. Start with your professional title or degree (if relevant) and make sure to include descriptive, high-impact and relevant keywords.
A few examples:
- Match up key words as much as possible! It is of vital importance to use the same language in your resume as on the job description; recruiters increasingly use automated search tools or Applicant Tracking Systems; software that does the initial screening, and if certain terms are not mentioned on your resume will not be retained. It can also help to avoid confusion with recruiters who are most likely not an in-depth specialist.
- Recruiters (and hiring managers) highly appreciate resumes that include responsibilities, backed up with achievements. For example:
BONACHAT | Lyon, France
Sales Executive
January 2016–March 2020
Key Achievements: Topped Europe-wide individual sales figures for six months running in both 2018 and 2019.
- Be mindful that the information is relevant and time appropriate, eg. If you apply for a sales role, include KPI’s and achievements. If you’re an IT specialist, your certifications are probably best mentioned. If you’re several years into a career, you should focus on relevant professional achievements rather than accomplishments from high school or college.
- Include hobbies and interests yes or no? There is no hard or fast rule, but I personally would do so. Although I never missed that section if a candidate chose to omit it on a CV, I valued learning about their extracurricular interests and activities; it brought a light and personal to an otherwise rather dull document. It also provides an easy way to connect with a candidate in an interview and get to know the person behind the buzz words. Keep it short and to the point. Eg. listing ‘crochet and needlework’ when applying for a senior data analyst role is not adding any value, but activities such as volunteering, blogging, traveling and team sports is appreciated by most hiring managers.
- What about extra-curricular achievements? If you have the space for it and they are relevant in the wider sense they may be worth including, eg.
– Raised €10,000 for cancer research through community efforts
– Volunteered at the local food bank from 2017 to 2019
– Was teamleader at the Belville summer camp each July from 2014 – 2018 - At risk of stating the obvious, get definitions and cultural varieties straight and be mindful of your audience (local, national vs international). I’ll never forget my colleague’s baffled face when she received a seven-page long CV from a German-speaking candidate, including testimonies from former employers and copies of all diplomas… nothing unusual in Austria, but out of place in London!
- Things to avoid:
– Gaps in your timeline. One of the first things I used to do when I had narrowed down the candidate pool was scanning all the dates from bottom to top to identify inconsistencies.
– Embellishing your accomplishments; it is rather embarrassing when you get found out.
– Mentioning political or religious achievements, unless expressly relevant to the role.
– Having more than 2 pages (bearing local customs in mind)
– Writing in first person.
– Stating career objectives. It is not wrong, but of little value to a recruiter.
Practical tools
Sites like jobscan, indeed, zetv, reed, resumegenius, … have a wealth of information, templates, lists of top keywords to use etc. You can even have your CV scanned against a particular job descriptions to get suggestions on how to optimize it.
Optimising your LinkedIn profile
Know what matters!
Once I agreed to interview a candidate, one of my first questions inevitably was: “if you had a blank piece of paper or a magic wand, what would your ideal job look like?”. This list my help establishing the underlying criteria
- If the answer to above question is not crystal clear in your head just yet, I suggest you go over it for yourself.
- having gone through “your values” should definitely help figuring out what matters to you in the big scheme of things. If need be, review that section again.
- As a next step I suggest looking at LinkedIn profiles that come close to your ideal job and note down jargon, skills, job titles and key words that could apply. Don’t forget to include transferable skills! Of course talking to real people in such roles is even better, so use (and abuse) your network.
- Lastly try to get into a recruiter’s head: what type of key words and job titles would they search for to find a candidate that (realistically) fits your ideal job? Include those in your profile. Possibly this tool (or similar) could be of help.
Make use of all the available features in your profile:
– Enable the #OpenToWork feature on your profile
– The headline is the first major piece of information seen in search results alongside the name and profile photo. Don’t just limit it to be (former) job title, you have 220 characters to use in your LinkedIn headline, plenty of space to communicate exactly what you do, your specializations, and/or what role you’re pursuing.
– Updating the ‘skills & endorsements‘ will go a certain way but they are not weighted as highly as keywords in other sections.
– this may sound trite, but a context appropriate, professional looking profile photo is vital! I cannot recount how many times we had a laugh (or raised eyebrows) in our office when we came across inappropriate profile pictures. To state it loud and clear: avoid using images (even if cropped) from weddings, holidays, night or kiddie clubs etc.
– If you would geographically like to work in a different/ new location, you may want to consider changing putting your target location in your profile, as that is one of the first things a recruiter will look at and filter on. There is also the option to specify which cities/countries you’re willing too relocate to in you “Career interests” settings.
– Work your network! The more common connections you have, the higher the likelihood that you will be found. More specifically, the more connections you have with a searcher (recruiter or hiring manager), the higher your profile will be in the results when they search words relevant to your profile. Recruiters can also specify degrees of connection in their searches. The more connections you have on LinkedIn, the more likely you’ll be a 2nd degree connection to a recruiter.
– Make full use of the sections detailing ‘Education, honers & awards, causes, interests and languages’.
– And last but not least, recommendations by former managers, colleagues and clients go a long way when it comes to the final filtering.
Is LinkedIn Premium or LinkedIn Career worth it? From a recruiter point of view it doesn’t make a difference if a candidate has ‘premium’ behind their name or not, it will depend on whether you will be reaching out proactively – and need a certain allowance of InMails – or will mainly apply to roles.
And when you get to interview stage
Good things to know in advance are
– Are you dealing with an agency or an internal recruiter?
– Who will be present?
– Is there anything you can prepare for?
– What dress code would they recommend?
– How is the role of your interviewer(s) related to the role you are applying for?
– Bad-mouthing your previous employer(s) is bad form. When asked details about your previous company or manager, state your opinions in a neutral, respectful way.
PS: feel free to send me a connection request on LinkedIn, mentioning this course.