Include the Cover Letter!

What's a good comparison?

How about, "A resume without a cover letter is like a brownie without ice cream."  It's nice, but it could be a lot better with very little effort.

Colleges and career counselors focus a lot on why you should have a great resume, but they rarely even hint that without a cover letter, the resume has very little impact.

Maybe they take that approach because so many jobs that are advertised online simply ask candidates to upload their resumes, with no provision for a cover letter.  However, as a recruiter, I can tell you that at least 80% of all jobs are never advertised, online or otherwise.  Companies just do not want to deal with the onslaught of resumes from candidates who are not qualified and do not meet the basic job requirements.  In many cases, finding great candidates for those jobs is contracted out to a recruiter. Whether you are working with a recruiter or dealing directly with the hiring authority, you will do yourself a huge favor if you include a great cover letter with your resume.

Why is it so important?  There are several reasons.  First, it allows a bit of your personality to show through your writing.  People who read these resumes are no different than anyone else in that they like to get at least some idea of how the person represented by the resume connects with other people. A cover letter lets a little bit of your personality come through, and that is always an advantage.

Second, it gives you the opportunity to do a little pre-selling.  A good cover letter inspires the reader to continue on and to read the resume.  It allows you to express why you are interested in the job, whereas the resume itself expresses how you are qualified.

Third...and especially important if you are pursuing a job that will require you to communicate effectively within and perhaps outside the organization...it shows that you know how to write a letter and that you have basic communication skills.  The more "unknowns" you can answer with your resume and cover letter, the greater your advantage in getting the interview you want.

If you are not skilled in writing and do not feel comfortable creating the cover letter (and if the job you are seeking does not require this skill), hire a professional or get someone you know who is a good writer to help you with the cover letter.

It does not take much time to write a good one, and the payoff can be considerable.

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock and Associates Recruiters and New Wave Resumes, and the author of Your Completed Guide to Job Search and Career Change. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, and construction industries. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents to a higher level.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE FIT

The cover story of Time magazine for the June 22, 2015 issue is all about how companies today are using personality testing in their hiring decisions.  What these companies have discovered is that no matter how well qualified someone is on the technical side, if they cannot work well with others, they are a liability rather than an asset.

My guess is that your elementary school experience was somewhat like my own.  We would get report cards every six weeks (on actual paper!) that had our academic grades on the left side of the page.  We pretty much knew how we were doing by seeing letter grades that showed our mastery of the subject.  On the other side of the page however, was where our social skills were assessed.  That side of the page measured things like "Pays Attention in Class," "Arrives on Time," and a few other components of functioning well in the classroom.  The letters that appeared on that side of the page were "S" (Satisfactory), "I" (Needs Improvement), or "U" (Unsatisfactory).

Of all the social skills measured, the biggest one then and the biggest one now are the same: "Works and Plays Well with Others."  When companies ask applicants to go through one the many assessments that are available, they want to know how well that person will be able to work with others who are already there and how well they will interact with those outside the organization (vendors, customers, stakeholders).   The term most often used to describe this capacity is "Culture Fit."

Why are companies suddenly putting such importance on culture fit?  Because they can.  We are in a strong buyer's market now in the employment arena.  That means that there are more great candidates than great jobs, so companies can afford to be very selective...and they are.  The cost of a bad hire can run into the tens of thousands of dollars (or more) when you consider what a company will spend training the individual, the time it takes for the new employee to actually become productive, and the opportunity cost incurred when a few months down the road it becomes apparent that they hired the wrong person and now they have to go through the whole process again.   The time spent with the wrong person in the position can never be made up.

In most cases, a bad hire has an impact significantly beyond their own responsibilities.  If that person, for example, causes others to have to fix things they messed up, or causes other employees productivity to decline by having to wait on the offender's job to be done before they can do their own, the negative impact of the bad hire can spread outward immeasurably.

This can be particularly harmful in the sales side of the business.  One of the oldest and time-tested phrases in business is that "People buy from people they like."  It really is true.  Product knowledge is certainly important, but it pales next to the "likeability" factor.  If customers do not like the person who is calling on them, they will find a reason to do business somewhere else.  A reasonably intelligent person can get the product knowledge and the industry knowledge usually in a few months at most, but if that person does not get along well with others, the impact on sales can be devastating.

Why is this important in the job market today?  It's very simple...if your resume looks pretty and is well-formatted but does not have anything that give the hiring authority any knowledge about your character, creativity, work ethic, resilience, attention to detail (or whatever is critical to success in the position you are seeking), you are at a decided disadvantage compared to those who do share that information on their resumes.

Interviewing and hiring is time-consuming and expensive.  Managers want to eliminate as much risk as possible when choosing the candidates they will interview.  If you take some of the guess-work out of process, you have a much better chance of being one of those that they want to speak with about the job.  They will most likely do their own assessments on you as well in some point in the process, but you have to be one of the chosen few to get to that point.

The takeaway here?  If you are preparing your resume, or if you are hiring a professional to do it for you, be sure to include what companies want to see today.  Ask yourself, "What qualities are common to those who are outstanding at this job?'  Then, ask yourself how many of those qualities you have.  Where you see a match, put it on your resume.

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock and Associates Recruiters and New Wave Resumes, and the author of Your Completed Guide to Job Search and Career Change. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, and construction industries. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents to a higher level.

How to Make Yourself Attractive to Recruiters on Linkedin

LinkedIn is one of several tools that most recruiters use when searching for talent for their clients.  Contrary to what most people think, for many recruiters LinkedIn is as much of a secondary or confirmation tool as it is a primary tool for some who are in the recruiting business.  By that I mean that when a recruiter finds someone through another source, that recruiter will often look at that person’s profile on LinkedIn to gain more knowledge or to confirm what he or she already learned through his or her primary source.

Whether LinkedIn is the primary or secondary source for candidate information, there are several key points of information that a recruiter looks for in evaluating candidates.  If you are an actively looking for a career change or if you are not actively looking but are receptive to hearing about outstanding opportunities, these key elements of your LinkedIn profile will often determine whether recruiters and/or hiring managers put you on their contact list or skip your profile altogether.  The first group of “rules” is all about your photo:

11.     Have one.  Various surveys have consistently revealed that your profile is five to seven times more likely to be viewed and examined if you have a photo than if you do not have one. I very rarely look at profiles that do not have photos. However, if you do have one, keep these guidelines in mind?

A.   Have a good headshot photo...you from the shoulders up. The purpose of the photo is not to determine how attractive you are, but rather to see if you have a professional appearance, that you cared enough to do it right, and that you are not sporting blue hair and a nose ring.  There are jobs where blue hair and a nose ring might be assets, but those positions are rarely assigned to recruiters.

B.   Your photo should be just you and no one else…not even anyone else’s hand or arm on your shoulder.  A photo that has clearly been cropped to show just you out of a group tells the viewer that you did not care enough to do it right, and that is never a good way to advertise yourself.

C.   No tuxedos, bridesmaid dresses, motorcycles, children, party scenes, dogs, or graduation photos.  Again, anything other than an intentional headshot makes it appear that you put the photo in as an afterthought rather than as an intentional, professional statement.

2.2.   Put your email address in the “Contact Information” portion of your profile, and make sure it is a personal email address…not your email address through your employer.  No recruiter wants to do anything that would jeopardize your current employment.  Many company email servers are set up to scan all emails for inappropriate content, and for a lot of companies, that includes recruiters or anyone else contacting you about other career opportunities.  Remember, your company email address belongs to your employer, not to you, and they can read anything they choose that is on their server.  Most recruiters will tell you that they have a much higher response/reply rate from emails than they do from LinkedIn in-mails, and that email is the much-preferred contact option.  There is a section in your profile called “Contact Info”.  Use it to add your personal email.

33.  If you provide information about a former position, do not provide it in the present tense.  You are not there anymore, and a description that sounds like you are there is, once again, a sign that you are not about doing things the right way.

44. No deceptive degrees.  Many times I have seen profiles that list the person’s name followed “MBA” or “BS in Electrical Engineering then later in the profile it will state something like “expected completion May 2016.”  That is simply another way of saying that you do not have the degree.  Recruiters and hiring managers are interested in now, not a year and a half in the future.

55.     Most of the better recruiters know their clients’ preferences very well.  They know what they like, what they do not like, and the specific skills, experience, or character qualities that will be a good fit for that client.  So, in addition to listing where you have worked and what your responsibilities were, also add the specific, transferable skills that you learned and applied in that job.  Nobody cares where you worked or what you did there unless you can tell them how your experience in that position gave you valuable skills that you can bring with you to a new position.

66.  No spelling, punctuation, word use, or grammar errors.  Incomplete phrases that are clearly part of a part of a pattern of similar phrases for the sake of brevity are fine, but be sure to use the correct form of all the words.  The most common errors I see are “too  -- to” and “there  -- their.”  Often even spell checking programs will not catch those errors.  The spelling may be correct, but the form of the word is not.

77. If you are open to receiving inquiries from recruiters, include “Career Opportunities” in the “Contact for” section of your profile.

88.  Keep your profile current.  If you receive a promotion, change jobs, or relocate, update your information.

99.  No information about your nationality, family, or marital status. Questions about those areas are illegal to ask about in an interview, and there is no benefit to you gained by volunteering this information.

1110. Get some recommendations from those you have worked with in the past. That includes associates and supervisors, customers and clients, vendors, or anyone else who can provide a personal insight into what you do well, how you work with others, or any specific skills that set you apart from others.

We are in a strong buyer’s market now.  That means that employers can be, and are, very selective in considering prospective employees.  The better your profile, the greater your chances of being contacted about that position that may be the right job for you.

So, You Want to Start Your Own Business?

Entrepreneurial spirit has never been as robust and widespread as it is today. Older workers who have been laid off, or retired, as well as young newbies to the business world are starting businesses in every conceivable niche one can imagine.
For those who have already taken that leap as well as anyone who is thinking about it, here is what I call the Thirteen Commandments (a baker’s dozen) for entrepreneurial success. Most of them I have learned by doing them wrong at one time or another.

1. Play to your strengths. Don’t jump into a business just because you see someone else having success at it. If it is not something that enables and requires you to do the things you are really good at doing, it is not for you. Maybe you are good a selling something, or fixing something, or creating something. Whatever it is, if you are going to start a business, be sure that it is one that involves you doing what you are exceptionally good at doing.
2. Do something that makes you feel good for having done it. Knowing that what you do has created a positive impact for others as well as for yourself will give you an ongoing tool for perseverance in challenging times.
3. Do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Customers, whether they are consumers or other businesses, want to know that if they do business with you, they can count on you to provide them with what they want, when they want it. If you can do that one simple thing, you will separate yourself from the great majority of your competition. This action also applies to your dealings with vendors. If your business relies on others who provide you with essential products or services, they will (more often than not) run through a brick wall for you if you treat them right.
4. Make a list…every day. Decide at the end of every day what you intend to accomplish the next day, and don’t stop until you complete everything on that list. Not only will it increase your productivity by keeping you focused, it will give you a sense of accomplishment that is critical in reaching your objectives.
5. Be resilient. There are going to be setbacks, things that do not work out as you planned, and others that you deal with who will fail to perform. Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Just resolve to find another way to accomplish the task at hand. Some of your best discoveries of what works will come from “Plan B.” Some of my greatest efforts have resulted in nothing, but some of my greatest successes have come out of nowhere. Those things even out over time.
6. Know your market. One of the biggest sins a new business can make involves trying to sell something to people who cannot buy. Another is trying to sell something to someone just to get the sale. If what you have to sell does not make your customer better off, back off. Focus your energies on someone who will benefit from what you do. You will also sleep better.
7. Understand that you cannot be everything to everybody. If your customer needs something that you do not have or cannot do, you are much better off by referring them to someone who can provide what they need than you are by falling short in your own efforts when you step out of your area of competence.
8. Do not spend ten-dollar time on ten-cent tasks. This may very well be one of the most common causes of business mediocrity or failure. If for example, you determine that your efforts produce a return of $200 per hour by calling on customers, you do not save money by doing tasks yourself that you can pay someone else $10 per hour to accomplish. Do not remove yourself from what generates your revenue to take care of menial, time-consuming tasks that others can do.
9. Talk to people. When I first started my recruiting business, I called an old friend that I had worked with in another company when I had just finished school. He had been in the recruiting business for a few years and had done very well. I asked him what he thought was the most important element of success, and he simply said, “Talk to people.” You have to let people know what you do. At least twenty five percent of my business has come from people who do not need my services, but who referred others to me who do need what I do.
10. Do not accept marginal business. Most businesses learn this the hard way, as I did. If getting an order or a new customer requires you to compromise on quality in your product or how you perform your service, it is a losing proposition. Sometimes you will have to walk away from business. However, marginal business will hurt you in one of two ways…maybe both. You will either have to lower your price to a point where you cannot make any money, or you will have to cut expenses by eliminating essential elements of quality and therefore deliver an inferior product or performance. Either way, you lose, and so does your customer in the long run. You cannot maintain that manner of business. The most effective way to learn this lesson is to have your time and resources tied up in marginal business when good business presents itself and you cannot accept it, but it’s a lot less painful if you just take my word for it.
11. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Without even looking for them, you will see all kinds of statistics about how many businesses fail within five years. I think those statistics are probably true, but I also think that most (not all) of them got into business for all the wrong reasons or, more commonly, without a plan. If you start just to make money but do not enjoy it, you will fail. If you think you will succeed just by working hard, but without a clear sense of direction, you will fail. However, I have always believed and have seen it more times than I can count, that in any business, there is always room for a good one. There will be a lot of well-meaning people who will tell you all the reasons why you should not start your own business, but if you like what you do, you do it very, very well, and you do not let setbacks derail you, you will succeed, no matter how many others are doing it besides you.
12. Remember that almost all businesses run in cycles. There will be great times when you think you have it all figured out, and lean times when you will ask, “What the hell was I thinking???” Neither of them will last forever. Put something away in the good times to get you through the lean times. You will pick up business during recoveries that was abandoned by those who do not make it.
13. Have a diversion that helps you think about something else and relax. Exercise, reading, a hobby…whatever works for you. You need a break from thinking about business all the time. Truthfully, when you’re in your own business, it’s always simmering in the furthest recesses of your mind, but you will operate a lot better when you can come back to it with a fresh head after some activity that takes you away from it.

When people ask me what it’s like to be in your own business, I tell them that is a lot like being an animal in the forest. You know there is food out there, somewhere. You just have to find it. Some days you may run across it easily...maybe it even comes to you...and some days no matter what you do, you cannot find anything. Remember that it’s a numbers game. If you do the right things, the right way, enough times, you will be one of those who defies the statistics.
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Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock and Associates Recruiters and New Wave Resumes. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents to a higher level.

How Technology Affects Your Job Search

It has been only about 20 years since the Internet began to change the world.  Transactions and communications that used to be conducted using paper and the US Mail prior to the mid-nineties have almost exclusively shifted to electronic communications.  As is the case in every other facet of a company's operations, recruiting and hiring rely heavily on the Internet for searches, background checks, and just about every other method of communication between companies and candidates.  Paper cover letters and resumes are no longer the preferred way of sending or receiving information from candidates or within organizations.  

Unfortunately for many job seekers, more often than not they are unaware of how electronic communications can affect their job search.  It is estimated that more than half of all resumes submitted electronically are rejected, no matter how well qualified a candidate may be for the job. If a candidate thinks that an electronic resume submitted to a company that has posted a position is reviewed by a decision maker, the candidate would be correct, except more often than not that decision maker is a software program instead of a person. The program looks for key words, phrases, and acronyms that will determine whether the resume will ever be in front of human eyes. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are the default tool for deciding which resumes proceed and which ones are eliminated well before a hiring manager ever talks to anyone.  Additionally, even when a resume does contain enough of those key words, phrases, and acronyms in the right place within the document, it is usually just the portions of the resume that have that specific content that are presented to human decision makers, not the entire document.

Candidates who try to sound too formal or who use too many less common phrases to describe something simple often eliminate themselves as a result of their clever choice of words. For example, a candidate may have an outstanding skill set and excellent experience for a particular job, but if that a candidate uses "Scholastic Achievements" rather than "Education" to list and describe their formal training, the ATS may very well ignore that entire section. Or, if "Work Experience" is discarded in favor of "Employment History," the ATS may ignore the information in that section.  Any ATS program can be set up to either look for or ignore whatever the user want to use as screening criteria, including the overuse of any term.

Does this type of system sometimes eliminate candidates who would be/could be outstanding hires?  Absolutely it does, but the hope and expectation of the users is that the system will select the top five or ten (or whatever number they choose) resumes and that a worthy applicant, or two, or three will surface from that process, and that from that number an excellent candidate will emerge.  The additional benefit to the reviewer is that the process is much faster than anything a person could accomplish.

If you are writing your own resume, be aware of how it may be evaluated.  Do your research and learn as much as you can about what the company is seeking and do not try to use a different name for something than what the company uses.  Often the job description and/or job requirements provided by the company will give you much of what you need to know.  One of the main reasons that an Applicant Tracking System is used in the first place is to save time. When a company lists specific skills, certifications, education, or experience as requirements, they will usually get at least seven or eight resumes that do not meet those requirements for every one that does.  Those resumes take as much time to read as do those that do meet the standards in place.  The applicants who send in the resumes that do not qualify do so with the attitude of having nothing to lose, so why not try?  A good ATS will weed out the time wasters.

If you are working through a recruiter, the ATS is usually irrelevant.  The recruiter is the one who does the vetting.  However, if you are submitting a resume to an electronic collection box, you can be assured that what you submit will be screened by an ATS.  If you are thinking of using a professional resume writer, be sure to inquire about that writer's familiarity with ATS systems for the particular job/industry you are pursuing.  Familiarity and competence in one or two industries does not automatically imply the same expertise in others.  The best writers know the key terms and where they should appear in the resume.

If you are attempting to re-enter the working world after a significant time away from it, or if you have been in a job for several years and have not needed or prepared a resume lately, know that it is a different world than what you experienced previously.  Ignorance of that fact could keep you from getting the job for which you may be ideally suited.

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock and Associates Recruiters and New Wave Resumes. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

An End to Age Discrimination?

No doubt you have heard about the law of unintended consequences. Originally, it was described as "outcomes that are not the ones intended by a purposeful action." This particular law is most often cited if something bad happens when the intent of the original action was to accomplish something positive. We see it exemplified often in nature when one species is introduced to control another species and the new species creates its own set of problems.

Sometimes however, the law of unintended consequences can have a positive outcome from a trend rather than a purposeful action, and that is exactly what is occurring in the job market with people in their mid-forties and older being hired by companies to fill positions formerly dominated by much younger workers.

It's no secret that average job tenure for today's younger workers is not nearly what it was for their parents and grandparents. "Move on to move up" has become almost a mantra for millennials and other younger workers who have a much different attitude toward job structure and tenure than their parents and grandparents had. Job tenure of 2 to 4 years is common. Even among younger baby boomers, males have an average of 11.4 jobs and women 10.7 jobs during their working lives.

With tenure statistics like these, employers are beginning to realize that the idea of hiring a young worker with the expectation that they will eventually retire with the company is unrealistic. These statistics have been a motivation for many employers to look at older workers, who have traditionally been seen as "over the hill" to fill many positions that used to be the domain of younger workers. The rationale is that it makes more sense to hire someone in the mid to late fifties who has an excellent chance of staying in the job for ten to twelve years than to hire a much younger person who will use it as a springboard to the next position.

Age discrimination is still very real and is common in some industries, but more and more employers are beginning to consider the skill set more than the birth year as the main criteria for consideration in jobs they need to fill. I certainly see it in my recruiting business. I would not say that it is the norm just yet, but it is certainly moving in that direction. It is particularly evident in the hard-to-fill positions involving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) knowledge and experience.

Employers reap the benefits of the older worker's experience and get an employee who is unlikely to use the position as a temporary parking place while looking for the next career move. Age discrimination is not going away anytime soon and probably will never disappear entirely, but the combination of high demand for many professional and/or skilled workers and the short job tenure in the millennial cohort is putting a dent in it.

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Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock & Associates Recruiters and New Wave Résumés. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

To Get the Job, You Must Close the Sale!

Augusta National Golf Club is very well known for its exclusivity. Unlike most prestigious clubs, you can pretty much guarantee that you will not be admitted to membership if you even hint that you are interested in joining it. Everything is discreet, and membership is by invitation only. They must invite you…you do not ask to join.

The job and career search process is not at all like how August National operates. In this very strong buyer’s market, if you do not express your interest in joining the organizations where you interview, you can almost assure yourself of not receiving a job offer.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the number one rule of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy. In the old seller’s market that existed prior to the economic downturn that began in 2008, there were more great jobs than great candidates to fill them. Companies were competing with each other to attract the best candidates for critical positions, and the best candidates often had multiple job offers. That changed as companies began to downsize, merge with others, or go out of business altogether.

While companies today still want to attract top candidates, for most positions there are more of them to choose from than in the previous market conditions. When a hiring manager has a choice between a great candidate who expresses interest in the job and one who gives no indication either way, the candidate who says that he or she wants the job will stand out more favorably than those who do not express interest.

There are a lot of nuances that can affect whether an interview goes well or not. Body language, eye contact, how you answer questions, and the questions you ask all play a big part in how you are perceived by the interviewer. Remember this: Companies want to hire people who want to work there, but hiring managers are not mind readers. Even if you answer all the questions well, ask good questions of them, smile, and have great body language and eye contact, if you do not let the interviewer know that you want the job, your chances of receiving an moving forward in the process or receiving an offer are slim.

You may be thinking as the interview comes to a close that you have really nailed it and that your performance could not have been better, but if you do not express that you want the job, the interviewer may very well be thinking that you are not interested at all. This applies to every position, but especially so to sales jobs.

In my recruiting business, the first and last counsel I give to every candidate I send to one of my clients is to listen well, ask good questions, and if they want the job, to say so. My clients who often hire sales people will not make an offer to any candidate who does not ask for the job. Their reasoning is that if the candidate will not ask for the job, neither will they close the sale with customers when representing the organization's products and services.

Of all the important steps in the interview process, candidates are typically more reluctant to “close the sale’’ than in any other part of the process. For many, the reason is that they simply do not know how to do it and they feel awkward. So, here is a very easy and effective method of doing it. As the interview is drawing near to a close, the interviewer will typically ask you if you have any questions or would like to add anything to what you have already said. This is your golden opportunity to say something like:

“I appreciate the time we have spent discussing this opportunity with (name of organizations). Based on everything I have learned about the job and the company on my own before today and what I have picked up in our conversation, I think there is a great fit between what I can bring and what you need in this position. I would like to take the next step in the process. How can I make that happen?” Then, do not say another word. Continue to smile at the interviewer. You have asked the closing question, and it is time for you to stop talking and wait for a response.

If you have done as well in the interview as you think, this may be the question the interviewer has been waiting for you to ask, and you will get a favorable response. Even if the interviewer does not give you any definitive answer at that time, you have planted the seed for moving forward. Quite often, in the post-interview discussions and deliberations about you after you leave (and there will be some), the question of whether you asked for the job will likely come up. More often than not, the interview process may involve three or more meetings with various others in the organization. You should “close the sale” in each step.

Interviews for the positions that you really want are not easy to come by in this market. You cannot afford to do less than your best in any of them. I cannot guarantee that you will get the job if you ask for it, but I can promise you that most of the other candidates are not doing it, and when you do, it makes you stand out in a very positive light. All other factors being equal, your odds just went up considerably.

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Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock & Associates Recruiters and New Wave Résumés. He recruits for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

Why Your Resume Is Not Getting Results

This is a copy of an article I posted on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago.  If you did not see it there, I think it's worth repeating here...

As a recruiter and resume writer, I see dozens of resumes every day. Many of them are from candidates who want to make a career change and are responding to an inquiry from me about a job I'm trying to fill for one of my clients. Others are from people who want to change their resumes because what they have now is not getting them any results. Most of the resumes I see are not very good and do not meet the standards I have for anything I would send to one of my clients. It's not that they do not have the margins set correctly or the layout is sloppy. It's not even the information they contain that is the problem. The problem is what they do not have in them.

One of the first rules of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy. Prior to the economic downturn in 2008, a candidate who had only the basic resume components of name, contact information, experience, and education could get interviews and probably multiple job offers. We were in a strong seller's market at that time and there were more great jobs to be filled than top candidates to fill them. The best candidates often had multiple offers in their field.

However, what worked then does not work now. We are in a very strong buyer's market now, which means that hiring managers can be very selective on who they choose to interview and hire...and they are, simply because there are more great candidates now than great jobs.

Despite this very obvious change in the market, most job seekers and even most universities (who really ought to know better) continue to use the same resume style and format that was effective in the long-gone seller's market. They simply put facts about themselves on the resumes...name, contact info, education, and where they have worked, and they expect the reader to figure out the benefit that will accrue to them if they talk to and/or hire the candidate. It really doesn't work that way in today's market. If you don't also add information that gives the reader some good information about your "soft" skills, such as problem solving, creativity, tenacity, organization, attention to detail, and several others that may be specific to the job you are seeking, you cannot expect the reader to assume that you have these things going for you.

When we were in the strong seller's market, companies were mainly interested in skills, qualifications, and education. If the candidate happened to be a good fit into the culture of the organization, that was a plus, but the real focus was on whether the candidate could do the job. Today's market is much different. The challenge for recruiters is not in finding skilled, qualified, experienced candidates. There is a wealth of them out there and available. The challenge is finding someone who has all those qualities and who will be a great fit into the organizational culture.
Hiring managers are busy people. Running their businesses is how they make money...not by reading resumes and conducting interviews. Those activities are a necessary, but costly exercise that takes away from what managers normally spend their time doing. So, it only makes sense that for someone to take time to consider a candidate for an interview, that candidate should give them some good reasons for wanting to talk to them.
An effective resume today is one that makes it plain to the reader what benefits will accrue to them by talking to the person that the resume represents. If you cannot make those benefits obvious on the resume, do not expect the reader to realize them from the information you have presented. Adding those benefits is the first change I make to any resume I make for job seekers as well as those resumes I send to my recruiting clients. The results have been significantly better for those candidates whose resumes reflect benefits than for the candidates who focus only on the facts about themselves and expect the hiring manager to read between the lines and recognize the benefits for themselves.

 

Ken Murdock is an author, speaker, recruiter, and resume writer.  More information is available at 

http://www.newwaveresumes.com/ and http://www.murdockandassociates.com/.

So, Why Should You Use A Resume Writing Service?

I have seen several articles recently about whether anyone in a job search should use a resume writing service.  There are several good reasons to do so:

1.  Some people just are not very good at writing, especially about themselves.  Your resume is most often the only way someone may learn about  who you are and what you can do, and it is critical that what they see in that first impression is positive.  Not only should the information be positive, but it should be relevant to why they should consider you for a position.  The biggest mistake that most job seekers make in their resumes is putting in too much irrelevant information that obscures what a hiring manager wants to see.  A good resume writer can sort out the important information from the unimportant, and put what needs to be there in the right places.

2. Since the economy took a nosedive in 2008, the "rules" for writing resumes have changed considerably.  The first rule of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy.  The type of resume that would have garnered you several interviews in the previously strong seller's market will not get it done in this strong buyer's market.  Unfortunately, most universities have not realized this and they continue to promote the old style that does not help their graduates get the interviews they need.  The best resume writers can make sure that your resume provides the information that will make the difference in whether you are separated from the crowd or part of it.

3.  Companies today are interested in not only your education, work experience, and contact information, but also anything they can learn about you that will tell them whether you will fit in well with their organization.  It is not enough in this type of market to simply list your qualifications such as experience and education.  In a strong buyer's market like this one, organizations want to know much more about someone than just that information.  They want to know about what kind of person you are.  "Soft" qualities such as perseverance, creativity, attention to detail, and curiosity matter in today's market.  A professional writer will help you identify the qualities you have that can separate you from other equally qualified candidates and make you stand out from the crowd rather than blend into it.

4.  A professional resume writer will customize your resume to the opportunity.  There is no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all" resume.  If you pursue five different positions, you should have a specific resume for each one.

At New Wave Resumes, we take the time to learn which outstanding qualities you have that are the same as those needed to excel at the position you seek.  When you have that information on your resume, you separate yourself from other candidates and are much more likely to secure the interview for the position you really want.

Check out our website at http://www.newwaveresumes.com or contact us at info@newwaveresumes.com.

IT'S A BUYERS MARKET

One of the most basic concepts a student of economics learns is the law of supply and demand.  That law describes the effect that the availability and the supply of a commodity has on the price of that commodity.  So, if the demand is high and the supply is low, we would have what is known as a sellers market.  Those who have the commodity can extract a higher price for the commodity when the supply is limited and the demand for it is high.  Conversely, when the demand is low and the supply is high, those who are the buyers have the upper hand in any sales transaction.

Prior to October, 2008 we were in a strong seller's employment market.  The demand for skilled, experienced, talented people for many different jobs was high.  There were more great jobs than great people to fill them, so those who were interested and/or available could be very selective in the job hunting process.  It was not unusual for good candidates to have several interviews in their field and to get multiple job offers as a result of those interviews.  Candidates were very selective for one simple reason...they could be.

However, on October 8, 2008 the stock market tumbled as some of the giants of investment banking either went out of business or saw their market value drop when the housing market "bubble" collapsed. Trillions of dollars of investments, owned by both institutions and individuals, vanished over the next few months.  Layoffs, consolidations, "downsizing" and liquidations became the norm rather than the exception, and in very short order the seller's market that we had seen for the previous several years turned into a buyer's market as jobs disappeared and millions of workers found themselves unemployed. 

Many organizations that were not hurt as much as many others saw the market conditions as an opportunity to rid themselves of marginal workers and to cut expenses just in case economic conditions continued to decline.  Others took the opportunity to automate, upgrade technologies, and put more and more machines to work doing the jobs that people had done before the economic decline started.  Within just few months, millions of employees who thought they would be in their jobs or at least with their employers for the long term in some capacity found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly in the job market.

The result of the market turmoil and the accompanying job losses was that the numbers of people employed declined sharply, and since that time we have been in a strong buyer's market. 

While one of the most basic concepts in economics is the law of supply and demand, one of the most basic concepts in marketing is that when demand conditions change, there must also be a change in promotional strategy.  Simply put, the strategies and tools that a job seeker could use effectively in the seller's market are not at all effective in a buyer's market.

A job seeker today who uses the same style résumé that was common in the seller's market will not find it to be nearly as effective in a buyer's market.  The job search strategy has to change to accommodate the new market conditions.  It is no longer enough to have a résumé that simply provides name, contact information, work history, and education.  There is no shortage of skilled, qualified people. Organizations want to know much more about the person than just the basic information.  They can afford to be very selective because there is a large supply of skilled candidates, but not that many great jobs.

You have only one chance to make that critical first impression.  Don't waste it with a résumé that you have to dust off and simply update your contact information.  It will need a lot more changes than that to be effective in a buyer's market.  Take the time, and if necessary, be willing to invest the money, to do it right.

Ken Murdock
New Wave Resumes
http://www.newwaveresumes.com

More Than You Ever Thought You Knew...

Since October of 2008 when the US Economy took a nosedive, the advantage has shifted to the hiring side.  That means that we are in a strong buyer's market.  Companies are more selective than ever, and mainly for one reason: they can be.  There are a lot more great candidates out there than great jobs, so the companies that are hiring are doing all they can to make sure that they hire the best and the brightest from among all those who are candidates for a particular position.

One of the tools that companies use is a "personality assessment."  Certainly they want to know that you have skills and talents and can do the job well, but once they establish that, the bar is raised considerably in the selection process. You see, they want not only bright, talented, skilled employees...they also want those bright, talented, skilled employees to fit in well with the organizational culture and the other people who already work there.

So, enter the personality assessment.  These assessments measure things like compliance, independence, patience, creativity, leadership, attention to detail, how you process information, problem solving, your need for stability, and how you react to stress among other qualities as well.  Different positions require different qualities, so when a hiring manager is considering, for example, someone to work in the accounting department, attention to detail would be a very important quality.  An outgoing personality might be just right for the sales position they need to fill, while the Chief Technology Officer position might require someone who is a creative, independent thinker.  There is no single personality type that is right for every position.

With the cost of making a bad hire higher than ever, companies want to get it right.  The money they invest in training, benefits, compensation, and opportunity cost of hiring the wrong person can be a crippling sum.  So, I think you can see that when they are considering making an offer to a candidate, they want to know all they can possibly know about that candidate.

Do you think it would be valuable to you to know how other people perceive you and to know without question the "soft" skills you bring to the job?  In other words, would you like to know the same things about yourself that the companies who interview you will know?  What if you learned that how you think you are perceived by others is nothing at all like others really perceive you?  Would it be valuable information to know what, if anything, you need to work on and improve before you go to an interview?  If you are already great at something and do not realize it, would it be helpful to you to know about yourself what others have seen for years? 

I think that knowledge would be very valuable, indeed.  In fact, I think it would put you in a very advantageous position relative to all the other candidates to have that information.  In addition to all that I have already described, you will learn which historical figures had the same personality type that you have.

What if I told you that you can have this information immediately, and that it would cost you nothing?  FREE, in other words.  For a very limited time, that is exactly what I am telling you. 

On my website (http://www.newwaveresumes.com) you will see an offer on the home page that can make the information I just described available to you for free.  These reports normally go for $100 to $150, but from now until the end of September I am offering the best personality on the market...the DISC Report from Peoplekeys (http://www.peoplekeys.com)...for free with every résumé order.  There are a lot of good reports out there, and I have used most of them over the years, but the one I find most useful, most accurate, and most reliable (meaning that if you take it more than once, you will get the same results) is the DISC report.

The assessment will take you, literally, about five to seven minutes to complete online with an access code I will provide.  Once you complete it, you will receive your report online immediately.

A great résumé and the knowledge you need about yourself to go into any interview prepared and confident...I think that is a combination that is hard to beat.

Don't Let Ignorance Cripple Your Career

There is a lot to be said for stability and security in a career.  After all, there is a certain degree of comfort and relaxation in knowing that you are in a job that you can keep for as long as you want it and that you will have a steady paycheck coming in until you retire.  Maybe it's not your dream job, but the familiarity with it and your expertise in doing it offers a low or no stress environment.  Maybe it doesn't give you the rewards that you thought you would receive when you started on this career path years ago, but it could be a lot worse.

Here's some news...it very well could get a lot worse.  If you are in a position with any institution in the private sector in today's environment, you are not in nearly as stable an environment as you may think.  Capitalism is a brutally efficient system for rewarding the innovators and casting aside those who think things will always be as they are now. 

It has been a common cliché for a long time now, but we really are in a world economy, and because of the tremendous advances in communications technology and the ability to move things...almost anything...to somewhere else in the world quickly and inexpensively, no industry and no company is assured of staying in business or maintaining their position within their industry.

It used to be that graduates from the local schools competed with other graduates from the same or surrounding schools for jobs in the area.  There is still some degree of that, but it is rapidly disappearing.  Why? Because more and more jobs that used to require being on-site at an office or manufacturing facility can now be done remotely from just about anywhere in the world.  It is just as easy for an architect in Mumbai, India to design your house and send the plans to your local contractor as it is for another architect down the street from you to do the same thing.

It is not only a possibility, but a promise that someone, somewhere is working on a way that your job can be eliminated.  It's nothing personal, it's just the efficient market system at work, and the most efficient companies that can operate at the lowest cost will always win in the long run.  Do you want examples?  Here are two: Wal Mart and Southwest Airlines.  Both companies are their industry leaders in low-cost operations. 

So what is the take-away from this realization?  It is simply this...there is absolutely no assurance that your job will still be there tomorrow.  Just as it is always a good idea to have some money saved for a rainy day, it is also advisable to have a Plan B in place if your Plan A disappears. 

There are many experts out there who say that we live in a world today where those who are starting their careers will have eight to eleven jobs in their working life.  A few others predict even more than that.

A good place to start getting ready is to do an objective assessment of your skills that would be valuable and transferable to another organization if your job disappeared tomorrow.  We specialize in helping people identify just what those skills are and putting them in a document that can help you market yourself most effectively if the need or desire to do so occurs.

Ken Murdock
New Wave Resumes
http://www.newwaveresumes.com

Avoid These Résumé Killers

Think about what a résumé really is and its purpose.  It is a marketing document with the sole purpose of helping you get an interview.  That is its only purpose.  Without question, the best way to get an interview is to know an influential person in the organization.  The second best way is to know someone who knows that influential person in the organization.  However, the method that most candidates are relegated to is the most common, which is to send the organization a résumé and a cover letter and hope for the best.  With competition so tight, it is imperative that if this is your way of introducing yourself to the organization, your résumé has to be very, very good.

As a recruiter, I have seen many thousands of bad résumés, but only a few hundred really good ones.  I have seen many more that would have been good, possibly very good, if they did not have one of these very common errors that make a recruiter or a hiring manager immediately discard it and go to the next one.  What are the big offenders?

1. The wrong form of a word, such as "to, too, two", or "there, their, they're", "capital, capitol".   Probably the most common error I see is with "its/it's."  "It's" is the abbreviation for "it is."  "Its" is possessive, but you would be surprised at how many people do not understand the difference.
2. The wrong word altogether. The most common offenders? "Loose" (adjective) when the verb "lose" is appropriate "quiet" rather than "quite", "lite" instead of "light", "write" instead of "right", "insure" rather than "ensure."
3. Any spelling error.  This is the quickest way to have your résumé discarded.
4. Run-on sentences, even if they are grammatically correct, tend to become confusing the longer they go. This is especially true to a reader who is looking at dozens or perhaps hundreds of resumes to select a few candidates for interviews. 
5. Redundant or unneeded modifiers (where the first word is unnecessary or has the same meaning as the second), such as "completely finish (it's either finished or it isn't, "past experience" (is there any other kind?), "one and only" (no such thing as "two and only"), "honest truth" (is there another form of truth?), "free gift" (if it's not free, it's not a gift).  The one I see more than any other is when someone is describing the "end result" of one of their accomplishments.

Early in my recruiting business I submitted a resume to a client company for a candidate that I had personally interviewed and had every confidence that this candidate would be an outstanding hire.  The hiring manager sent the résumé back to me with a spelling error highlighted and a comment that made it very clear to me that if this person could not take the time to proofread and spell-check the résumé before sending it out, there was every chance that he would be just as careless in communications with customers, which was unacceptable. What was not said, but was certainly implied, was that I should have caught that error before I sent it to my client, and my client was right.  Since that time I have triple checked every résumé that I send to clients.

The job market is very much a buyer's market now and it appears that conditions will not change anytime soon.  You have only one chance to make a good first impression, so take the time to ensure that none of these errors are in your document.


Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock & Associates Recruiters and New Wave Résumés. He recruits for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.