We welcome you to JobBank USA and hope your job hunting experience
is a pleasant one. We hope you find our resources useful.
July 12, 2004
"Employers are rewarding honesty with respect to résumés these days," said Joseph McCool, the editor of Executive Recruiter News. "That means being direct, honest, and succinct. They don't want vague résumés, and they don't want juiced-up résumés."
McCool said that as the economy improves and more U.S. employers increase hiring, workers most likely to find new employment will be those who are forthright and honest about their experience. Hiding dates, exaggerating compensation and providing vague descriptions of work habits will hurt an applicant's chances, he said.
Nevertheless, when ResumeDoctor.com reviewed more than 160,000 résumés recently, it found that nearly half -- 49.6 percent -- used vague phrases to describe their workplace skills and experience.
Brad Fredericks, a partner at the online résumé service, said the phrases are hackneyed and offer little information about the applicant's true skills.
"Many job seekers fail to realize that phrases like 'team player' and 'problem solver' have become clichés," he said. "On your résumé, you actually need to state what team you played for and which problems you solved."
Of those polled, he said, more than 12 percent used the term "communication skills" and failed to fully describe those skills or how they were used. Seven percent said they were team players but did not mention the type of project involved or what their contributions were. The survey, released last week, listed 10 of the phrases that most often appeared in the résumés surveyed.
Jeff Goro, a recruiter with Graphic Resources and Associates Inc., said that inexact phrases have little impact.
"I prefer résumés that are more specific to the individual's accomplishments and experience in 'their' industry," he said. "In turn, this information is what clients want to see in the résumé."
He said that each résumé should be unique and designed to meet the needs of "specific opportunities." That means an accountant who is being interviewed for a position in academia should tailor a résumé that spotlights experience working for universities or other institutions.
The same applicant should prepare a different résumé for an investment firm, with greater emphasis placed on audits, federal regulations and other matters that are of interest to corporations.
Chris Shoulet of Top Dog Recruiting Inc. said employers are not interested in "fluff. What a hiring manager wants to see is quantitative information," he said. "What does this candidate bring to the table? What is his or her track record? Show, don't tell what you've accomplished."
McCool said applicants who use vague language might also arouse the suspicions of cautious employers. He believes that a lack of due diligence with regard to résumés by recruiters and hiring managers over the past few years has made companies especially concerned about bringing in the wrong candidate. Failure to be direct and to the point could cause some employers to back away, he said.
LEADERSHIP
Chief heavy: American business is rife with chiefs -- you've heard of COOs and CIOs. But farther down the corporate food chain our chiefdoms can get rather odd.
And all these chiefs come with potentially deleterious effect to organizations, contends David Silverstein, president and chief executive of Breakthrough Management Group Inc., a Longmont, Colo.-based business consulting firm.
As costs and regulatory requirements have increased, an abundance of U.S. companies have turned to "niche executives" rather than train the full organization to manage such issues, Silverstein said.
For example, chief risk officers and chief ethics officers have proliferated in recent years. Is risk or ethical behavior a domain that a business ought to specialize in such a manner? Silverstein argues no.
"Understanding risk is a core competency for every business manager," Silverstein said. "It is not a specialty, and to make it into one minimizes its importance."
Manager mistakes: Your boss might act infallible, driving you nuts.
But they make mistakes as supervisors, and most of them know it, according to a survey of 150 executives in finance, marketing and human resource departments.
The biggest problem area is in deficient communication -- a full fifth of the managers said they need to communicate more and to do it more effectively. Poor hiring decisions was cited by 13 percent.
"Managing people effectively requires offering support and making tough decisions, and few people are naturally adept at both," said Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps, a financial temp-staffing firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.
Managers had a few responses when queried on the biggest mistakes they had made -- withholding praise was a common response, as was letting poor performance go unchecked.
P-I reporter Paul Nyhan, who covers labor and the economy, compiles "On the Job." This report includes information from P-I news services.
Email This Page!