A resume is simply a brief, descriptive summary of your career-related life experiences, skills, and accomplishments. It provides a prospective employer with a fairly standardized yet individual statement of who you are-your educational background, past employment, work experiences, accomplishments, and interests. Most individuals seeking entry-level positions construct a one-to-two page (preferably one-page) resume that summarizes their life chronologically-with most recent employment or education first-or functionally-with most relevant skills and accomplishments first. Chronological resumes are most effective when past work experiences are similar to the current career preference. For a functional resume you analyze past experiences in terms of relevant functions or skills; the resume is designed to convince the prospective employer that you possess those skills that will be useful in the career you are applying for. The functional resume is the best choice for people changing career areas, since past work experiences may be viewed by prospective employers as irrelevant unless the transferable skills are clearly identified. A mix of the chronological and functional styles can be used when you move from one career area to another, closely related area (e.g., from product management to advertising, or from securities analysis to corporate finance).
What should be on a resume? Your name, address, phone, educational background, work experiences (including employers' names and addresses), accomplishments, special skills (computer languages, foreign languages, etc.), and particular personal characteristics (hobbies, accreditations, skills, etc.) that indicate your suitability for the position you are seeking. Including a clear, concise, and specific statement of your career objective for the next five years is optional, but something we recommend highly. You may also include information about your personal interests and awards you have received.
What should not be on a resume? Any overt statement of age, race, sex, marital status, family situation, or religion should be omitted, as well as anything that cannot be substantiated. It is risky to list more than one objective, or to display prominently more than one career area among the accomplishments and personal characteristics. It is unnecessary to state, "References are available on request," or, "Willing to relocate," and so forth. Of course references, further data, and the issue of relocation will be discussed before a job offer is made-but cluttering up your resume with such obvious statements communicates nothing to the prospective employer and wastes space.
COVER LETTER
A cover letter introduces you to a prospective employer via the mail. If you can meet the prospective employer directly, without having to write (for example, through a college placement interview), you are one step ahead. However, more often than not, some form of direct-mail campaign will be necessary to reach some of the organizations you are interested in. Therefore, you need a very effective cover letter. If your cover letter is poor, the reader may not even look at the enclosed resume.
A good cover letter is more personalized than the resume. Cover letters should always address a specific person within the prospective company. You must find out who the relevant person is, and address him or her in the letter by name and title. Cover letters should be targeted to that employer's current employment needs, if at all possible. It is best to write a letter expressing interest in and capability for a specific position that is vacant at the time of writing.
A good cover letter provides the opportunity for you to show some of your business-related skills. It should-
- reflect some of your knowledge of the employer and industry,
- reveal your goals in approaching this specific company,
- suggest how you will be able to apply your skills in the position you seek,
- provide a more informal and realistic picture of your personal style,
- demonstrate your ability to think and reason,
- illustrate your written communication skills,
- clarify any ambiguous points on your resume (a gap in employment, a major career change, etc.)
RECRUITING INTERVIEWS
Recruiting interviews, unlike job interviews, are generally prearranged by a college placement office, employment agency, or personnel office of the employer. They allow the employer to screen dozens of potential candidates for several possible openings. Recruiting interviews are often done by a professional recruiting interviewer over the course of a few concentrated days or weeks. Each interview is scheduled for a fixed amount of time (generally thirty minutes), and is usually sandwiched between other recruiting interviews. Primarily, recruiting interviews allow an employer to see many job applicants with the intent of rejecting 50 to 80 percent outright. If you get past the recruiting interview, you are asked back for a job interview. However, if you are able to obtain a job interview without going through a recruiting interview, by all means do so. This will help you avoid possible recruiting-interview rejection. For example, a good cover letter sent directly to the manager with a position vacancy may lead to a job interview.
As you participate in a recruiting interview, keep in mind its purpose: The recruiting interviewer is primarily looking for reasons to exclude each applicant from a subsequent job interview. Reasons typically mentioned for rejecting applicants are that the interviewee:
- knew little or nothing about the company,
- was interpersonally ineffective (e.g., arrogant, poor listener, obnoxious, too aggressive, too withdrawn),
- was unenthusiastic or seemed to lack interest,
- lacked clear career preferences and goals,
- was shopping around,
- was unqualified in terms of education or work experience
Recruiting interviews do offer certain benefits to you. First, they are usually arranged by someone else-taking the burden of coordinating the interview, off you. Second, since the recruiting interview is less focused on a specific position than a job interview, you need not be as knowledgeable. Recruiting interviews provide an opportunity to learn more about a firm and the positions available in it, while allowing you to display what you have already learned through other sources (informational interviews, library research, networking, etc.). Finally, recruiting interviews tend to occur intensively for a four-to-six-week period. Many individuals get keyed up for this period, and then go back to other activities until actual job interviews and offers begin to materialize. The concentration of effort into a relatively short period of time is particularly helpful to the less experienced job seeker.
JOB INTERVIEWS
All the advice to job seekers about job interviews can be summarized in a single sentence: Be prepared and be natural. Be prepared by knowing as much as possible about yourself (self-assessment), your resume (the readiness to answer any question about what you have included on or omitted from the resume), your preferences, the employing organization, the target position, and the interviewer. Be natural by treating the actual interview as a discussion between two people with similar goals but, perhaps, different perceptions of the information being shared. Both of you have the goal of achieving an effective job-person match. Here are some useful interview tips:
- Don't try to control the interviewer; control your responses.
- Don't try to please; try to discuss and share information.
- Don't take notes during the interview; be attentive and enthusiastic.
- Don't do all the talking; interviews should be interactive.
- Maintain normal eye contact.
- Respond to nonverbal as well as verbal stimuli.
- Use your responses to emphasize your strengths and self-assessment themes.
- Be honest and open.
- Send a follow-up note.
