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Jobseekers need strategy, good advice

Posted on 16. Oct, 2005 by Bill in Employment News

Jobseekers need strategy, good advice

Mark Sussman was pitching in at UNC Children’s Hospital, there were so many other volunteers that his contribution to the cause was of questionable worth.

Still, he hung in there simply because he knew the experience would add a little luster to his résumé.

Such is the state of today’s ultra-competitive college environment.

“There are altruistic reasons, but there’s always a consideration: ‘Will this help my résumé?’ ”

Sussman, a UNC senior, acknowledged recently. “It wasn’t really the best experience for me. I didn’t really help anybody. But what kept me going was knowing it would help my résumé.”

These days, the job hunt no longer is a spring-semester-senior-year pursuit that involves whipping up a résumé and borrowing your buddy’s last clean dress shirt.

It begins much earlier.

College recruiters already have been on area campuses this fall looking for the best candidates. And students are armed with the finest résumés they can muster, their accomplishments — if they have any yet — on prominent display.

Résumé creation is an art requiring strategy and good advice. For many ambitious, job-seeking 21-year-olds, the résumé is their one make-it-or-break-it shot at scoring a coveted interview.

Talk about pressure.

“I changed it for every company [I interviewed with],” said Sussman, who has kept a version of his résumé at the ready since high school. “It changed in major ways four or five times in the last year. I’m always working on it.”

Brevity and clarity

To Pam Angle, the importance of a solid, eye-catching résumé can’t be overstated.

Angle recruits for BB&T. During recruiting season, she flips through hundreds of résumés, spending 20 to 30 seconds on each.

That isn’t a lot of time, so grabbing Angle’s attention at all might be considered a victory. From a stack of 100 résumés, she might select 20 people to interview.

“The résumé is a reflection of the individual,” Angle said. “We cannot see them or talk to them, so that piece of paper will present a picture of that person.”

Angle likes brevity and clarity. She wants to know what you’ve done, and the briefer the summation, the better. She likes bullet points and specific descriptions of accomplishments.

She’s also interested in extracurricular activities, an indication, she said, of a person’s level of ambition and breadth of interests.

Sound simple enough? Don’t be fooled. Putting all this information into a few lines, then determining which information gets top billing, is no easy endeavor.

For example, a student with a couple of solid internships would be well served to list that real-world experience first. But a student with no work experience might be better served putting educational accomplishments at the top of the résumé.

That would include a student’s major and minor, if applicable, as well as extra, relevant course work if it isn’t already obvious.

Then there’s the grade point average. If it’s stellar, it ought to be mentioned. If it’s below a 2.5, don’t bother, Angle said.

Tricky game

But that again points to the tricky nature of this résumé game. An applicant who doesn’t know whether to list a 2.5 GPA might be out of luck either way. Listing it might emphasize a less-than-perfect academic record. Not listing it?

“I’m suspect if I don’t see a GPA,” Angle said. “It’s tough.”

Hundreds of résumés come across Linda James’ desk, and she’s become pretty good at separating the serious job candidate from someone simply casting as wide a net as possible.

The regional recruiting manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Morrisville, James recruits heavily at area universities, looking for good candidates for her company’s management training program. Her best advice for students writing résumés? Know your audience.

Most companies are pretty clear about what they’re looking for. Some place more value on a thorough application. Others want to see an extensive, well-written cover letter and résumé.

Students who figure that out and apply accordingly are the ones who catch the eye of the recruiter, James said.

“That is the biggest key, doing the homework,” she said. “It’s got to be catered to the employer. A lot of people have more than one résumé.”

Templates for everybody!

At UNC, career counselors are putting added emphasis on résumé creation these days.

They recently bought new software students can use for free to create résumés that better highlight their accomplishments. Called Optimal Résumé, the software helps job-seekers through the writing process. It offers 11 templates, each targeting a specific area or situation.

For example, one is specifically tailored for a student-athlete; another is designed for a doctoral science student.

“There’s definitely a strategy involved, and it’s definitely not one-size-fits-all,” said Marcia Harris, who directs UNC’s career services office. “They’re not going to get in the door without a good résumé.”

When Kang-Shy Ku first crafted the résumé she figured would score her a few job interviews, she crammed every last experience she had onto it, including the fast-food job she held in high school.

After a UNC career counselor got through with the thing, it was so dotted with red ink it looked more like the rough draft of a mediocre essay.

Ku, a UNC senior who finished her course work this summer and graduates in December, realized then the importance of simple, clear résumé writing.

The key wasn’t showing every last thing she’d ever done. The key, she ultimately discovered, was highlighting experiences directly related to the position or field she was seeking.

“That was the hardest thing, just deciding what is most relevant,” said Ku, who now is job hunting in advertising or public relations. “I feel confident with the résumé now. It’s concise and to the point, and everything I want to say is on there. I went through a lot of revisions to get to that point.”

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