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EMPLOYMENT: The job chase By MATTHEW CROWLEY Review Journal
Although resumes move to e-mail, experts say old writing rules still apply
August 10, 2003
Brand new format, same old tactics.
Résumés for years have been the basic tool of job hunting and hiring, pages pored over, photocopied and mailed by the dozens. But new technologies are threatening to push paper résumés from their prominent perch.
But even if résumé formats are changing, local hiring experts say decades-tested presentation lessons still apply: write short, write clear, write clean.
"A lot is changing in the way companies are soliciting candidates, and the way people are submitting résumés," said Jennifer DeHaven, executive vice president of Millennium Staffing & Management Services, a Las Vegas executive search firm. "But we continue to see the résumé as the most important tool in job searching. Always has been, always will be."
Résumés remain important particularly because job competition is widening, said Leanna Nalley, human resources director for Lake Mead Hospital Medical Center. It used to be that job candidates only competed with local job seekers applying through newspaper ads. But now, with job applications flooding in through online job boards, candidate files are thickening.
Nalley said she once received applications from the United Kingdom for nursing jobs in Las Vegas that were advertised on the Web sites of both the hospital and the hospital's parent, Tenet Healthcare Corp.
More applications means recruiters have less time for résumé perusing. Dan Kruger, vice president of human resources for Sierra Health Services, a Las Vegas-based health-maintenance organization operator, estimates human resources workers usually only get to spend between 30 seconds and a minute with each résumé. Therefore, Nalley said, résumés, and the cover letters that often accompany them, need focus.
"When we're looking at so many applications, we don't have a lot of time to spend on them," she said. "We shouldn't have to work to see if their experience is going to be a match. Résumés need to be specific, but also need to be concise."
When sending an electronic résumé, Kay LaRocca, the author of the electronic book "Secrets to Successful Job Hunting in a Sluggish Economy," advises writers lead with a summary paragraph headed "key words." This paragraph, she said, should include all specific job titles in which the résumé writer has interest. Someone looking for a job as an executive secretary, for example, might also include "administrative assistant" or "office manager" in a key words section.
Job objectives also matter, DeHaven said. If the objective on a résumé doesn't fit the job advertised, a recruiter will probably disqualify it.
"If it looks as if you're applying for every single job in the newspaper and throwing out résumés at random, a serious recruiter probably isn't going to look at you."
Applicants should be able to articulate clearly what they're looking for in jobs they want and what they've accomplished in jobs they've had, Sierra Health's Kruger said. Instead of having just one résumé version, Nalley said, a job seeker may keep many. Each draft could highlight job experience to a specific job ad.
A clean look is as important as a clear message, LaRocca said. She suggests using basic fonts: Helvetica, Futura, Optima, Universe, Times, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook or Courier. Point size should be no smaller than 10 points and no larger than 14 points, she said.
Although e-mailed résumés dominate electronic job hunting, they're not the only e-method. Wendy Enelow, president of the Lynchburg, Va.-based Career Masters Institute, and author of "Expert Résumés for Computer and Web Jobs," and some Web-savvy job hunters are using personal Web page résumés to restore any design edge lost in plain-text e-mail versions.
"It's the latest and greatest," Enelow said. "What Web-based résumés have done is allow you to use the latest technology but also create sharp visual presentation. Now you have the best of both worlds, you have the aesthetic presence combined with state-of-the-art technology."
If job seekers aren't comfortable with electronic job searching and applying, they need to get comfortable, and fast, said Traci McCarty, president of Traci McCarty Inc., a Las Vegas executive search firm.
"If you don't have access to a computer to do online applications, you'll be left behind," McCarty said.
Updating a paper résumé for keeping in a paper file requires a job candidate to reprint it and resend it, either by mail or facsimile. But with electronic résumés and Web-based application systems, people can update data in a few easy keystrokes. McCarty said this constant information refreshing is critical for tracking hourly workers, who in Las Vegas are famously transient.
"You may get a résumé on paper and then two weeks later, find the person who sent it is gone," she said.
Even if they're posted on the Web, résumés should stay relatively short, DeHaven said. The old rule of one to two pages still applies.
"Someone (recently) sent me to a Web-based résumé that was 25 pages long," DeHaven said. "I don't want to know the details of absolutely everything someone has done. This was just too much detail, about 23 pages too much."
And, as simple as it sounds, résumés, in whatever form, must be error-free, Millennium President Donna Lattanzio said. There's no excuse now for not running spell-check.
"The biggest turnoff is a misspelled word," she said.
Even if résumés on paper grow scarcer, DeHaven and others believe they'll probably never completely vanish. Often, Kruger said, during interviews, managers have printed a copy of a job candidate's résumés to hold and reference. And, Enelow said, even if someone lands an interview with an e-résumé, he may bring a paper one to an interview as a complement, or leave one behind as a reminder.
Paper's low-tech nature is sometimes a plus. Kerri Mytych, job recruiter for Las Vegas-based online travel arranger Travelscape.com, said even the best technology has drawbacks.
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