If you’re playing hide and seek on your resume, your recruiter is definitely running away.
Over my seven year career of recruiting and hiring for businesses and writing resumes and providing career coaching for job seekers, I’ve seen a lot of games being played.
Here are a my top three games that no recruiter wants to play with you or your resume. If you are on the job hunt, make sure you’re being treated seriously by following these tips.
Resume Hide and Seek. Peek-a-boo and hide and seek are great games for me to play with my young niece and nephew but not for you to play with a recruiter when it comes to your resume. If information is scattered, incomplete or vague then a recruiter will not typically spend the extra time looking for it. Need clear examples on what I’m talking about? Here are a few:
- Missing dates in Month/Year format on your resume
- Missing contact information (yes, this does happen!)
- Non-chronological resumes or resumes that flow down in a progressive chronological order as opposed to reverse chronological order
Name that Tune. Okay, this one is a bit more obvious but it still bears sharing. A recruiter or HR pro shouldn’t know you’re a fan of Taylor Swift before you pick up the phone. Sure, we live in a country where you have freedom of speech and expression but the reality is that it is unprofessional and can lead to a negative impression before you even answer the phone. What should you do instead? Follow these rules:
- Eliminate ringback tones and unprofessional voicemail messages
- If you’re not sure what to say on a pre-recorded voicemail, write it out and read from the script
- Be mindful that if you’re searching for a job, your phone is liable to ring at any time
Let’s Make a Deal [after we’ve already negotiated]. Once you have an offer and make what are your “final” negotiations, I wouldn’t recommend that you try to get anymore out of the deal. If the company has heard and responded to your negotiations and a revised offer letter is sent then you should take the position. Sometimes it’s hard to negotiate because a company is pressed for resources. However, once you’ve agreed to terms you should take the rest of the package.
Recruiters and HR pros, did I miss anything? Leave a comment or tweet me at @JVPsaid!
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