Elimination-Avoidance Maneuvers
Sorting through resumes is the easiest chore for the recruiter, and thus is the step in the process at which errors are almost guaranteed to be lethal. The decision-maker can whimsically eliminate hundreds of qualified candidates and still be left with too many to interview. You have perhaps heard horror stories about recruiters who toss a pile of resumes into the air and automatically discard all that do not land face up.
While this sort of thing rarely happens, most people would accept it as an accurate approximation of the selection process. All recruiter randomness aside, the keys to getting through the average resume review process are straightforward: Appear qualified, make no obvious errors, and distinguish yourself without turning people off or scaring them away.
The Selection Process
When a firm is preparing for college interviews, there are usually three or four people involved in the resume-sort process: two members of the official recruiting committee, one of whom will be interviewing on campus; a second campus interviewer, typically an alumnus; and perhaps one more alumnus who wants a chance to wreak revenge on his old school. For walk-on candidates—college graduates and seniors at schools that the firm doesn't visit—there are usually two or three young professionals who alone decide whom to invite for an office interview.
Each member of the review team receives copies of all the resumes and reviews them independently, ranking them from top to bottom, or at least dividing them into four or five groups based upon perceived "hire-ability." A few days later the group convenes and compares selections by noting the mutual favorites and squabbling over the not-so-mutual favorites until all of the interview slots are filled.
Although many a candidate's fate is determined in the selection meeting, the dynamics of that situation are far beyond the candidate's control. All an applicant should worry about impresses each decision-maker independently.
Who is your audience? At this point in the process, it is unlikely that any senior members of your target firms are even remotely involved. At least half of your reviewers are probably working in the very position for which you are applying, and the others are no higher than middle management. One, or more at the largest firms, may be from the personnel department. They have all seen quite a few resumes, and certainly remember their own from not very long ago.
These people may find the screening of resumes tedious, but the reviewers who are not from the personnel department probably consider it a nice interruption from more routine work. For the younger decision-makers, the job also provides some weighty responsibility at a time when they are relegated primarily to support roles.
Each reviewer develops their own technique for sorting through resumes, and rarely are they instructed on how to do so. Some reviewers, unsurprisingly, simply look for similarities between their own background and those of the applicants they are screening. However, I have found that the method followed does not differ significantly among firms or reviewers, including myself. Here is the system I have developed for turning a pile of two hundred resumes into twenty favorites.
Step One: Eliminate Those at the Bottom
This part is by far the most fun. It involves a single sort through the pile, in which the goal is to throw out at least half of the resumes. I first assess my own attitude before embarking on this task, making certain that I feel no charity toward anyone. At this stage, applicants find their way into the reject pile either by not demonstrating the qualifications for the job or by making obvious mistakes.
Errors—grammatical or stylistic—are entirely inexcusable in a process as competitive as this one. Most of the mistakes that I find take the form of inconsistencies: unwarranted changes in verb tense, punctuation, and capitalization. Even layout inconsistencies, while sometimes tolerable, can be cause for rejection. And as much as people may warn each other about it, someone always spells liaison wrong.
While the assessment of qualifications is a more subjective task, my colleagues and I have managed to divide our rating criteria into four categories: academic standing, previous work experience, extracurricular activity, and likely interest in the job. More detail on each category is given at the end of this section.
If the candidate does not qualify in at least two of the categories, I can remove his resume from my pile on the first round. If I do my job well, I am left with fewer than seventy-five resumes out of the original two-hundred.
Step Two: Comparisons
At this point, I am able to gather a sense of the general quality of the resumes. If I am lucky, I may find that many candidates score high in three of the four categories that I am investigating, in which case I can again eliminate those who don't measure up.
I also begin to look more closely at the quality of the document itself and examine any design or layout merits. Depending on varying inclinations towards the use of color and design elements, resumes will span the range—from overly flashy to bare bones. You can determine what type is most suitable for the position at hand. If it is a position requiring design thinking and background in graphics, a well-designed and formatted resume is the way forward. In many other cases, a well thought out though bare-bones resume will suffice just fine—letting the individual’s experience speak for itself is really most important.
Two more quick reviews allow me to toss those that no longer comply with the toughening standards. Eventually, I am left with about thirty or forty resumes of excellent quality, from which I have to pick twenty.
Step Three: Personal Preferences
By this stage, I have inevitably found the five "stars" in the pile—the campus leaders, well-rounded 4.0s, and entrepreneurs worth half a million dollars— and set them aside as definite.
It really doesn't matter which of the remaining candidates I now choose; I truly cannot distinguish who is likely to be a good hire. However, the ones whom I do not choose will not even be mentioned in the selection meeting (unless by someone else), so this point is a crucial one for the applicant. This is when the reviewer starts to think, "Who do I like here?" and when it is important to have something on your resume that, very subtly, differentiates you.
The safe approach is to list something unusual or otherwise interesting under your extracurricular activities or job experience. If you have done something worthwhile that sets you apart from the rest, be sure to mention it. Good examples are starting a campus club, teaching a mini-course, or coaching a team. Your chance of arousing the recruiter's interest will also improve as you move away from the confines of campus life. Community activity or other volunteer work would often win my approval.
And, believe it or not, unconventional activities are also smiled upon. One candidate I met held a summer job as Goofy at Disneyland. Everybody gave him interviews.
If you come up empty in this category, the other solution is to include a "Personal" section at the bottom of your resume. This is a touchy area, and it must be approached carefully as it can often cause more problems than it solves.
For example, traveling around the world is impressive if it is in the form of solo backpacking or bicycling, but if done as a guest of wealthy parents it is grounds for rejection. For this very reason, I am a strong believer that a "Personal" paragraph should only be used if you absolutely need to distinguish yourself further. (I can't tell you how many "Enjoy tennis, skiing" sentences I have read.)
Just from the interests they list, I get the impression that the applicants in the first group are unusual, creative, adventurous, inventive, analytical, disciplined, and hearty, while those in the second group are commonplace, lazy, privileged, spoiled, ditzy, regimented, and boring. This may not be true, but the truth doesn't matter; the impression matters. Hopefully, these examples give you a good sense of the DOs and DONTs of writing a "Personal" paragraph. Once again: Avoid it if you can.
Deciding who I like the most out of these resumes cuts my number to twenty, and now the original two hundred have been divided into five piles:
1. Five stars
2. Fifteen other interviewees
3. Fifteen qualifiers who didn't make the final cut
4. Forty second-round rejects
5. One hundred and twenty-five original rejects.
If I have done my job well, only the candidates in the first two piles are likely to get an interview. The candidates in pile three stand a chance only if the other reviewers find them extremely interesting.
A Final Word on Resumes
A resume is not something to be taken on single-handedly. To get started, you should definitely consult at least one book on resume preparation. That book should be a standard, respected guide. Be suspicious of any book that recommends business resumes exceeding one page in length.
Also elicit the help of your friends, parents, guidance counselor (even if you've graduated), and any connections you have in the business world. Working with a neatly typed rough draft, get as much advice as you can in a week or two, and then stop. After a while, your sources will begin to contradict each other, and then you'll have to trust your own judgment. When choosing between contradictory bits of advice, always favor the person in the industry over the person in the guidance office.
The "results-oriented" resumes and letter resumes are bygone trends. They may be effective in other fields or at higher levels, but they are not considered acceptable by conventional corporate recruiters. You will get the best results if you stick to a biographical format.
Some guides suggest sending along photographs or, worse yet, "head shots," in which your resume is printed on the back of an 8V2-X-11-inch glossy portrait of you-know-who. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't read it. I suggest you ignore that advice unless application instructions explicitly instruct you to do so.
Generally, the better-rounded you appear the better your chances are at an interview. You don't want to come across as one-dimensional, even if that one dimension is business. If you do not have a strong business background, you are wise to make the most of whatever related experience you do have. But if you are a business, finance, economics, or accounting major, you have to stress the factors that make you unusual.
Finally, don't put anything on your resume that you wouldn't be able to explain impressively during an interview. I once interviewed a recent graduate from the Ivy League whose main activity for the past six months had been "Independent Film Study." When I asked him what that study entailed, he responded, "Well, I stream movies and watch them over and over again.” Others may have been able to explain it better, but that "activity" doomed him to failure.
Walk-Ins
If you are not a student at a college where one of your target firms collects resumes and/or conducts interviews, you qualify as a "walk-on." You may have graduated several years ago, or you may currently attend a college that does not draw recruiters from some or all of the big-name corporations. In either case, a similar situation prevails: The firms that interest you have decided that their entry-level employment needs can be met elsewhere, probably by recruiting seniors from ten or twenty choice colleges. A candidate with your background represents a peripheral addition to the process.
As an aberration of sorts, you will find yourself with a bit more work to do and a number of additional choices to make. This does not mean, however, that you are any worse off because of it.
The first question you face is whether to approach these firms through their college recruiting system or through some other function. The fact is that most other avenues toward an offer, such as the want ads or the personnel department, are primarily geared toward hiring secretaries, technicians, and upper-level management. Most large firms have discovered that the place to go for intelligent, unspoiled, entry-level workers is college. As a veritable tabula rasa--a college graduate with few specific job skills-you have little to gain by taking any other path (unless you can work your way in through connections or information interviews). In fact, many firms, if they don't toss you aside, will refer you to their campus recruiters no matter what channels you apply through.
The problem with becoming a part of the college draft is that you are immediately presented with a tremendous amount of competition. Wouldn't it be better, perhaps, to wait until summer, when the college recruiting season is over, and then try to find a job? The answer is no, only because firms that complete successful college recruiting seasons will not make many offers in the off-season; they have already met their hiring needs. If you already have your eye on a specific firm, you probably cannot afford to wait.
Joining the college draft is not as bad as you think. Your competition in the toughest part of the process, the resume-sort, will probably be only the other walk-ons. This is because the resumes received are so plentiful that most firms do their resume-sorting and interviewing school by school. Since you are not affiliated with any of the schools designated, you will probably end up in a walk-on pile, which is often smaller than most of the others.
And there are other factors at work. Theoretically, companies have certain universal standards concerning who is worthy of an interview. But, as described earlier in this chapter, most colleges send along more than enough qualified resumes, and the number of interviews at each college is strictly limited by the number of people the firm can send to campus. Since walk-on candidates interview at the company's offices, there is probably no set limit to the number of these applicants that are granted interviews. So, not only is your pile smaller—and probably less competitive as well—but more interviews also result from it.
It is a fact that many of the college students my firm rejected last year would have made it as walk-ons. If a company is in the habit of interviewing walk-ons, the walk-on pile may be the safest place for a qualified resume.
Recent Graduates of Solicited Colleges
Bearing the previous discussion in mind, if you are a recent graduate of a school that solicited for resumes, then you probably want to avoid being classified with the undergraduates. If you went to the University of Pennsylvania, for example, being placed with the current seniors would perhaps give you as many as five hundred U. Penn resumes as competition. You would do much better in a pile of two hundred resumes from a wide variety of schools. Many firms will automatically review the graduates separately, but the only way to ensure that you are kept out of your alma mater's resume pile is to delay submitting your resume until the school's selections have already been made.
The campus career counseling office will be able to tell you when this has occurred, and then you should forward your resume immediately. This practice only becomes dangerous, thus inadvisable, toward the end of the season, when callback interviews are already in progress.
An opposite strategy would apply if you have graduated from a small school that is nonetheless visited by a company that interests you. If the current class of seniors does not pose stiff competition, try to land yourself an on-campus interview. Either through the career counseling office or independently, have your resume arrive with those from this year's class. (Make sure that it goes to the same person.) In your cover letter, mention that you are a recent graduate and are willing to interview either on campus or at their offices.
Of course, if you find out that a firm simply does not conduct walk-on interviews, this approach would be your only choice, aside from the connections.
Seniors and Graduates of Unsolicited Colleges
If your school does not interest your most-wanted firms; you are deprived of the career counseling office's information flow. Thus, a bit more research is required on your part. Don't be afraid of the telephone—a few calls will let you know whether walk-ons are welcome and where to send your resume. Call the division that interests you (through the main switchboard) and ask for the professional who typically handles recruiting for the position you seek. If that doesn't work, ask to speak to someone holding that position—he will be sure to know who's in charge.
Don't speak to the personnel department if you can help it. They will tell you, in bland monotone, "Send your resume to us." That puts an additional level of screening between you and the job. Even if they like you, by the time they pass your resume upstairs, you could be running your own company.
Despite your apprehension, most people will not be annoyed by a quick phone call. As long as you are cheerful and concise, they will probably appreciate the interruption. Perhaps the only exception to this rule would be the trading floors at brokerage firms, but even those tend to get friendlier in the late afternoon. Before you call, find out how the market did that day.
If your entire research sill fails to locate the person who screens resumes, send yours to someone senior in the firm (below CEO). A resume passed down from a superior is often assumed to have connections and to deserve special treatment. If you are applying for a job at a company that gets hundreds of walk-on resumes a week, you know you have to do something different to get an interview. Don't write a crazy letter; just try to work your way in through a different approach. Connections and information interviewing may be your only route in this situation.
The Off-Season
Even in the hiring off-season, which usually runs from July to December, positions are definitely available. There may not be many openings at the firms that most interest you, but, for the firms that are hiring, your chances are better now than at any other time. Like the seniors at unsolicited colleges, you now need only determine whether it's worth sending in your resume and where to send it.
Though friends are helpful at every point in the process, they can come in especially handy here. Due to the disorganized nature of most off-season hiring practices, a much larger percentage of the jobs available go to people with connections. When the head of the off-season recruiting effort at my firm was a recent Princeton graduate, was it mere coincidence that half of the people hired were from Princeton as well? Especially if you've been out of school for a couple of years, you are very likely to have one or two friends at some of the corporations that interest you. Find them.
Of course, the biggest reason that friends play such an influential role in off-season hiring is that they can notify you if an opening exists. Their influence on the process would be greatly diminished if more unconnected were willing to do the footwork to find the openings. Don't use your lack of contacts as an excuse until you've made all of the necessary phone calls.
Connections
Connections are your number one resource, period. If you can somehow get around the resume-screening process, you should do so. And connections are the only legitimate way to jump quickly over this most difficult step in getting a job.
There are two types of connections: those you have and those you make. The former are more helpful, but both are worth taking advantage of.
Connections You Have
The best connections you can have, due to their likely seniority, are friends of parents and parents of friends. These people are at just the right age to be running companies, or at least departments. You may not think that you know anyone of this stature, but are you sure? Uncles and aunts are worth considering as well. One may be all that it takes.
If you do locate such a person, you must decide whether you know them well enough to ask for a real favor. If they were around when you were growing up, or if you've spent any nights under their roof, you can likely ask them to pull some strings for you. If your relationship is more superficial, it would be best to play it safe and start with an informational interview. If they want to be more helpful, they will probably make it obvious.
Once a connection offers to lend a hand, solicit their help in determining the next move. If they pull some weight in an organization that interests you, chances are the best next move is simply an interview. Your likelihood of getting an interview depends primarily on that person's title. When I was making interview decisions at my firm, vice presidents would ask me, "If this person qualifies, could you interview them?" Managing directors would just say, *Jeff, I want this person to get an interview."
If your connection is not in your desired industry, they could still be incredibly valuable. Do they conduct business with anyone in that industry? A firm's clients are often a lot more powerful than its officers. I almost had to hire someone once, just because he knew an important client. If your uncle is Chief Financial Officer at Ford, there isn't one accounting company, investment bank, or law firm that won't give you an interview.
Friends of yours who have recently graduated can also be quite helpful. If they are two years out of college, they may very well be running recruiting campaigns, and even last year's graduates are probably doing some interviewing. While these junior executives are generally averse to abusing their authority, they'll gladly do it for a good friend.
Once again, you have to determine whether their primary allegiance lies with the company or with you. If you lived or frequently socialized with a recent graduate, you can expect him to be on your side. But if an old "friend" has been working for two years and you two haven't spoken since graduation, be careful. You'd be surprised how quickly someone can become a corporate tool.
Communicate with your friends by telephone, at home if possible; written correspondence makes you look like just another applicant. If you are fairly certain that a friend would want to get you an interview, go ahead and ask. Otherwise, just ask for advice and see where that leads you. If nothing better materializes, settle for an information interview.
Your college faculty is another potential source of connections. Economics and business professors often have significant ties to the private sector. Many are taking some time off from high-powered corporate jobs, and others work part-time as consultants. The problem with turning to them for help is that they are equally accessible to hundreds of other students, so you can't expect them to do you any special favors. Typically, they are most valuable as sources of information.
The exception would be professors with whom you have developed a personal relationship or those who regard you as their star pupil. If you consider them more likely to help you than most other students, they are definitely worth approaching. Also, since many students neglect to access the faculty for job-hunting assistance, these professors may not be as burdened by requests as you think.
Connection You Make
For the most part, these are businesspeople with whom you are already connected—they just don't know it yet. Alumni of your college, members of your fraternity or sorority, professionals who live in your neighborhood or go to your church—these people might be willing to assist someone who shares an aspect of their background.
The most that you can probably expect from them at first is an information interview, but that may lead to better things. Once they get to know you, they could end up being as helpful as a family member.
You're responsible for finding out who does what in your community, but most colleges and some fraternities and sororities have alumni directories that can lead you to the right people. Don't be shy; if you tell them where you found their name, they can hardly resent your call.
The Cover Letter
If there is a Catch-22 situation in job hunting, it involves the cover letter. Even in situations where it is not requested, such as in placing your resume in a corporation's folder at your career center, you should attach a cover letter to your resume. However, a review of the cover letter is one of the most common methods by which candidates are eliminated from the process. The cover letter is rarely anything but a liability, yet you must include it because its absence is worse.
The key to surviving a cover letter review is to keep it simple and take no chances. Don't think that a fancy or unusual one will disguise a weak resume. I have never seen a cover letter help an otherwise unqualified application; all you can achieve by being unorthodox is to disqualify yourself.
There is a standard, accepted format for a cover letter.
Diverge from it at your own risk:
One sentence stating who you are and that you are looking for a job in the firm's industry. One sentence saying that you would like to apply for a position at the firm.
Two or three sentences summarizing your qualifications for the job. No more.
One or two sentences stating that a resume is enclosed and that you would like an interview. One sentence, if necessary, arranging the mechanics of getting back in touch. A final sentence stating your appreciation for their consideration and that you are awaiting a reply.
The most important concept to keep in mind when writing a cover letter is that you are writing a cover letter. The worst are those that forget their purpose and instead dissolve into self-serving statements of qualifications. Some letters don't even include a request for a reply.
There are very few cover letter DOs. They are as follows:
- Know specifically what position you are applying for and what it entails.
- Know how to spell names. If you do not know to whom to write, a few well-placed phone calls are acceptable.
- Use the same stationery for the cover letter and the resume. Do not use gray paper or any other shade that photocopies poorly—most reviewers look at copies, not originals.
- Type single-spaced in proper business-letter form.
There are an infinite number of DON'Ts when it comes to cover letters. Here are a few of the most offensive:
- Unsubstantiated boasting. Don't say, "I expertly led swimming lessons," when you can say, "I directed swimming lessons for two-hundred children."
- Patronizing your reviewer with sentences like, "The management consulting business has become increasingly competitive, allowing only the most talented people to qualify and succeed."
- Starting your letter with, "My name is . . . ."
- Fancy language, exclamation points, or overdone signatures.
- Obvious (not word-processed) form letters. I couldn't believe some of the fill-in-the-blank letters I received. (They went straight into the trash.)
- Personalized letterhead. You are (or recently were) a student, not a corporate vice president. Likewise, printing up and sending along business cards is a big mistake. This is an acceptable course of action only if you now hold a job that you think will be especially helpful in landing you a new one—and you don't mind getting telephone calls at the office.
Two-page letters. Even five paragraphs is an excessive length.
You cannot be overly careful with a cover letter. As a little experiment, I spent fifteen minutes going through fifty cover letters from students at good schools and found more than fifty bad sentences. Some blunders were due to what was said, others due to how it was said, and still others were due to both. Here are a few sorry examples:
"Let me tell you about myself."
"My interest in banking developed during my dad's tenure at General Motors."
"We are still awaiting impatiently to learn of our national ranking."
"A recent association was retained as a business assistant with a small venture capital firm."
"In addition and as the marketplace becomes increasingly international, I feel that it would be important to point out that I have traveled in both Eastern and Western Europe."
"I have worked for summers for the Apex Chemical Company, utilizing my analytical skills gain through my engineering education."
"My resume may state that I am looking for a position in publishing, but I am also interested in banking."
"Thusly, I became a bouncer."
These sentences are by no means the worst that I have come across, and the fact that they were all found in a pile of fifty cover letters serves as an indication of how common such errors are.
Keep it simple, keep it safe, and have an English major read your letter before you send it. A sample cover letter is shown on the following page.
If You Don't Get an Interview
This is when the fun starts because you have nothing—or almost nothing—to lose. Within the limits of propriety, you can try any trick you like. For example, if you are denied an on-campus interview, send in another resume with a cover letter indicating that you would like to interview at the firm's offices. If you make no reference to your on-campus denial, you may be accidentally grouped with the walk-on candidates and reviewed again. If your school is a prestigious one, you stand a better chance against the walk-ons.
Although things may seem pretty bleak if you are a true walk-on who has been rejected, don't give up. Try re-submitting your resume through a different, more senior member of the firm. Paperwork control is so haphazard at some companies that a resume can be reviewed three or four times before anyone realizes that he has seen it before.
It is important to stay within the limits of propriety because recruiters at different firms are often in communication. When I was a recruiting coordinator, my roommate had the same job at another investment bank, and we would regularly discuss unusual candidates. You can rest assured that my roommate heard all about the rejected candidate who, when requesting a second chance, called his denial a "sad misunderstanding." Anything crazy you do is likely to get around.
Once you have tried all the tricks you are comfortable with, there is one last thing you can do. Call the person who signed the rejection letter and let him know that:
1. You're sorry to bother him.
2. You were not granted an interview.
3. Your interest in the firm is still great
4. You will be available should any openings come up.
While this approach rarely produces any results, it can't hurt if you do it politely. It is most likely to be helpful toward the end of the recruiting season when some firms discover that they have not met their hiring quotas. Under those circumstances, a humble phone call—or letter, for that matter—can get you in the door.
See the following articles for more information:
- Ways Job Posting Has Changed in the Last 10 Years
- Some Truths about Hiring Practices Today
- 8 Commonly Misunderstood Aspects of Work-Life Balance
- Support Your Employees and Help Them Discover Their Potentials
