Resume Advice from Me!

As an adendum to my previous post, please see the following on "Resume Design Tips" and "Writing a Better Resume"

Resume Advice from the Experts

A co-worker forwarded this article to me, probably because she knows how I feel about resumes. (Or perhaps she’d noticed I hadn’t blogged in a while!)

Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com, recounts the following Biggest Resume Mistakes, as collected in a recent Careerbuilder.com survey.

These included:

• Applicant attached a letter from her mother.
• Applicant specified that his availability was limited because Friday, Saturday and Sunday was "drinking time."
• Applicant explained that he works well nude.
• Applicant explained an arrest by stating, "We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig."
• Applicant drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said it was the hiring manager's gift.
• Applicant explained a gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for three months.
  

I have to agree with Ms. Haefner in her conclusion that there are the keys to writing a memorable and successful resume.

• Keep your personal life personal (see my previous post on “Too Much Information”. We also don't need to see photos of you in your cheerleading uniform.)
• Present yourself professionally (For example: Using pale blue paper with teddy bears around the border isn't going to strike anyone as anything but weird.)
• Be Relevant (Emphasize achievements and experience specific to the job you're applying for and provide quantifiable results)
• Check, Check, Check & Recheck: (After you proofread your résumé a few times, ask someone else to review it)

New Daily Haunt

I officially added Jessica Hagy's Indexed Blog to my Daily Haunts list today.

As a recovering Ohioian, I had chuckle at:
http://indexed.blogspot.com/2007/04/see-were-optimists-here.html

Which oddly enough applies to us Michiganders as well.

BEST Interview Questions??

And just when I’d promised myself I was done discussing “Odd Interview Questions” this article from Ronald Katz on ERE. “Results-Focused Interviews: Are these interview questions the best you've got?”

The purpose of Ron’s article is to illustrate how inane questions like “What would your best friend say about you? Your worst enemy?" have no bearing on whether the candidate can do the job and to provide his readers with an understanding of what is critical to understand about a potential employees: “What were the results?”.

The article was inspired, by Ron's finding a discussion forum that asked interviewers to submit the "Best questions they use in interviews"... let me say that again "Best Questions"...

---

“Is honesty always the best policy” – That depends on your definition of the word ‘is”

"If a spaceship were to land outside this office and you were asked to get in, would you? Why?" –Yes, because then this interview would be over.

“Am I a good interviewer? Why or why not?" - Let me guess, this goes back to that “Is honesty always the best policy?” question?

"If you were a part of a car, which part would you be and why?" – If I say the accelerator, will this be over more quickly?

"If you had the opportunity to participate in a circus performance, which role would be yours?" - Anyone but the clowns, no clowns, never clowns, clowns are bad. BAD CLOWNS!

"What are ur strengths and weeknesses?" - Wait, Wait can I guess yours instead?

"If u had ur life to live over again…what would u do differently?" - Not be here right now.

---

Okay, I know someone is going to try to illustrate the value of questions like these. I want to see their problem solving skills, their ability to the think on their feet, etc.

My response to that is: Doesn't understanding the results of their previous work illustrate their problem solving skills and ability to think on their feet in a more relevant (and wholly less silly) way?

I'm baaccck!

Wow, I've certainly been away for a while! I have no good reason for this, although I did take a few days vacation. The significant other and I visited Las Vegas, NV and the Grand Canyon some of his family visiting from the UK.

It was great trip. However, upon returning to work, I have been absolutely swamped and blogging has been pushed off the planner every day until now!

Having finally caught up, I did a little searching around my favorite haunts to see what I'd missed:

Great Quitters Never Win (A phrase I often envoke to justify my continued bad habits, but with a much more interesting subject matter.) And a link to what will probably become newest daily haunt Jessica Hagy’s Indexed Blog. Indexed is a great collection of commentary on careers (and life in general) all organized on 3x5 cards.

Here's one of my favorites:

---

---

Overall I’m glad to be back. I hope to be back to my pseudo-regular blogging schedule in the next week.