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what's up with that? |
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In a recent TechNews article, Bob Levey opens the floor for ranting from a recruiter who can't stand objectives on the top of resumes and that some resumes tell you absolutely nothing. True enough, I have come to believe that resumes are merely a large format business card and literally nothing else. They give you a basic history and contact information but not a thing about the true nature behind that piece of paper nor that persons' true talents, abilities and inevitable disabilities. Everyone has them. I finally came to this brilliant epiphany after months of cramming my document with everything I thought was useful and impressive and really interesting anduhh, -- WRONG. It was a pure case of over-sharing and there's not one recruiter out there that would read it and understand it. So I trashed it. Not that it wasn't an absolutely cracking good read, it was, in fact, Dickensian in its' scope and Speilberg-esque from a purely entertaining standpoint. It was also simply not appropriate for the situation. No one will teach you that, it's usually learned the hard way. People forget that recruiters are extraordinarily similar to sales people. They just need the facts. They move very quickly and can't waste time. They have a quota to meet. Don't waste their time. They will remember you if you do. Ouch. What job-seekers always forget is that they are people too. Think for a moment how a recruiter feels coming to work with a pile of resumes stacked on their desk and their task for the day is to weed through this pile of paper -- not paper but people as well. The good ones have a good dose of compassion. The one's who don't seem very compassionate are probably twice as stressed as you feel. The next inevitable question is: How then do you, as a job seeker, make yourself stand out? In the Bob Levey article the aforesaid anonymous recruiter described the ridiculous attempts by desperate job-seekers to gain attention. However, it's always the wrong sort of attention. One candidate sent a cake with their resume in frosting (staff ate it but didn't hire). Another candidate drew cute pictures in the margins (circular filed), another sent a photo album of pictures from birth to the present -- no doubt leaning on the 'human element' factor (BUZZER SOUND). And yet another sent a CD of himself singing, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (made the HR bulletin board under the 'SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID' heading). So back to that inevitable question of standing out amongst the crowd and am I doing it any better than I used to? I really hope that I am but I gotta tell you that the letter writing campaign is tedious and hard fought. I have spent and continue to spend a good portion of my time writing personalized cover letters and after a few hours of that noise I would end up in "Giddy Land". My God, how could I be that passionate about every single company that strikes my interest? Well, you can't or at least I can't be that passionate all the time. It's like looking at your toes for an hour, after a while, they just look like the silliest things. Yes, sadly, I've actually had the time to contemplate my toes. To relieve the stress and exercise my ability to not take myself that seriously, I started writing silly cover letters basically for my own amusement which I then sent to friends as a joke. Greetings, My name is Jacqueline Christina Noguera and I am writing to you today to introduce myself to you and to your company. I'm good at stuff. I like money. I would certainly welcome a discussion at a time, hopefully very soon, that would be convenient to your schedule. Thank you very much for taking the time to review my qualifications. I wish you the best best. Yours ever sincerely, Jacqueline Christina Noguera. And then I added the tag/punch line at the bottom: "I really just can't understand why I'm not getting better responses with this golden cover letter...." >Insert RIMSHOT here< Most everyone got it. Not everyone. Yeah, believe it or not, someone thought I was serious. However, to my utter joy, it broke up everyone else's day. I took my cues off of Joe Mozian who was laid off from BMG Entertainment over two years ago and instead of succumbing into despair, turned it into a comedic journey. You should read some of >his< cover letters. He's got his own television show now so the tactic of humor works. Hang in there. The point of this little anecdote is, just be honest; be yourself. You stand out by being yourself in all your tattered glory than by taking yourself too seriously and trying too hard. Trying too hard is something that I'm absolutely gifted at doing so trust me on this point. However, these days, I've taken to not caring so much. I do care, don't get me wrong, I'm just not going to invest so much emotion into the mix which is likely to make sending a cake with your resume written in icing a viable tactic. It's not. (--unless you're a baker -- that is...) Self effacement is a skill and one that needs to be nurtured heartily in all of us. Don't be too gimmicky either. You're not a new soda or some squishy-mint-flavored gum or anything, so don't market yourself like a thing. The only enclosure I include with cold calling letters is a self-addressed stamped postcard for feedback and networking purposes. It's not my intention to look smarter than anyone else, I'm actually out for the pure empirical data and a next step in the process. Sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't respond. Get used to that one. I had a recruiter tell me that I was being too aggressive by including the postcard. It's a real toss up at that point. What do you say to something like that? Well, you acknowledge the comment and use your best judgment. I explained to the recruiter that I thought it showed my organizational abilities as well as my interest without being too pushy. He then agreed that it did show off my organization skills. Again, I think that you just have to use your best judgment. What I've found very recently is that if there is a company that you really want to be a part of and employed by, you should continue to keep your name and face on their radar. Don't send them a cake, send them what you can do. I had great success with this idea with my job at The Discover Card. I just kept hammering at them. I wrote letters and sent Arbor day cards, I kept at it. I interviewed with the regional manager at that time, John Grassadonia, a scruffy old-school salesman by his own admission. He said, 'Jacqueline, I had to hire you because you're spunky and I got tired of opening your mail.' You know,...whatever works. That reminds me, I owe him a card. I recently proposed a digital imaging project to a company that I was affiliated with through my last project and they just loved the idea. The proposed project would move years of paperwork and archive offsite for storage and allow all of that media to be archived and accessible to staff digitally via their website and LAN. This allowed considerable savings and time and most importantly space because the archive would be moved off site and the space vacated would allow for more work spaces and a general high quality of life for the staff. However, they didn't want to pay my price which was significantly less than what the market price is at present for this type of work. I know, I checked. What happened in the end was that they put the project together themselves and got the receptionist to do all the leg work. Did I stomp off in anger? I did for about an hour but I also felt vindicated as well. I saw a way to solve a problem, it saved money, it elevated the morale of the staff because the working spaces would be less crowded and it was a solution that no one had thought of or even considered as viable before. I love that when that happens! The only tricky bit for me is how then do I market that part of my talent as a visionary? It's tricky but it's doable. (I think I just did it.)
download as pdf soon
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