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Hiring Managers and Recruiters Want to Know: Who Are You?

Apr 18 2021

Your resume is your introduction to hiring managers and recruiters. They are happy to learn about what you have done in the past, but they also want to know who you are right now. They want your resume to tell them about your:

Career goals. The first line of your resume, right under your name and contact information, should tell them the position you are seeking. For example:

Senior Executive, Product Development | Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare

Proudest accomplishments. The first paragraph of your resume summarizes your proudest achievements and your expertise. For example:

Product development executive who drives multimillion-dollar sales of healthcare products that transform the marketplace, garner industry awards, and improve consumers’ lives worldwide.

Note that this sentence describes what the candidate does (drives sales) and why (improve the lives of consumers), giving hiring managers and recruiters insight into the person they are considering. Here is another version:

Product development executive who drives multimillion-dollar revenue by focusing on customer needs, building insightful relationships with physicians, and encouraging innovation at all levels.

This version emphasizes how the candidate drives revenue. It will resonate with companies that are concerned with customer needs, physician relationships, and innovation.

Both versions are fine. The candidates are each being honest in their own way about their proudest accomplishments.

Capacity to make a difference. The bullet points in your resume tell prospective employers what you have accomplished in the past. But they also tell prospective employers what they can expect from you in the future. That is why you start with what you did and then move directly to how you did it as in the following:

Streamlined manufacturing operations by using SAP to analyze customers’ order history and change production planning from demand-driven to level loaded.

This bullet point describes your familiarity with manufacturing operations, SAP, analysis, and production planning and processes. It tells employers that you have transferrable skills that are valuable in their manufacturing operations.

When you reveal yourself to hiring managers and recruiters, you also differentiate yourself from the competition. A resume that is clear about your career goals, proudest accomplishments, and capacity to make a difference reassures prospective employers you bring the required skills, education, and experience; fit their culture; and add your unique prospective to their diverse staff. Robin’s Resumes® will help ensure that your resume will answer the question “who are you?”

The 6 Most Crucial Resume Questions You Should Ask Yourself

Mar 07 2021

Your resume is a marketing tool: it honestly shows you, but it also shows you in the best possible light. Hiring managers and recruiters consider you based on your potential and achievements—and your lack of resume skills might make those difficult for them to understand. Here are 6 important resume questions you should ask yourself before you consider your resume ready to send out:

What job do I want? If you need to know your career goals because no recruiter or hiring manager will search your resume for clues. You need a clearly written resume to show your qualifications for a specific position in a particular industry or company type.
How can hiring managers and recruiters contact me? If a hiring manager or recruiter can’t reach you, they will not hire you. Set up a professional email address dedicated to your job search so that emails do not get lost in the shuffle—Gmail or Outlook accounts are acceptable. Avoid Yahoo accounts since they are now paid or have advertising attached to them. Double and triple check your contact information on your resume. It is easy to transpose numbers.
Whom have I worked for and when? Your resume must present the names of the companies you worked for and your dates of employment. However, a line about the company’s size and purpose may provide the context that hiring managers and recruiters need to understand your achievements if relevant and the company is not known. Leading a team in an international manufacturing company with $10 billion in revenue is quite different from leading a local software startup team.
What do I bring to the table? You are competing for each job against people who have likely performed the same tasks and have the same skills. What have you achieved and what goals have you met that set you apart? What makes you proud?
What have the people I work with said about me? Maybe a sentence from an annual review or a customer letter is worth quoting in your resume. Those words may also give you important clues for writing your profile. Whether or not you have written praise, here is another critical resume question you should ask yourself: what do people expect when they come to me and why do internal or external customers seek me out?
What are hiring managers and recruiters looking for? Search job postings and examine the profiles of others in your field to discover what key words crop up repeatedly. These are the keywords that should appear in your resume to reassure hiring managers and recruiters that you honestly have the skills, education, and other job requirements.

Finally, if you have difficulty answering any of these questions, ask yourself whom you would go to for resume writing and career advice? If you answer Robin’s Resumes®, you are well on your way to a successful job search.

How to Make Recruiters and Hiring Managers Love You

Feb 14 2021

While recruiters and hiring managers may fall in love with your resume, they never fall into blind love. They check everything you write. They will:

Use an Applicant Tracking System to ensure your resume shows the essential skills they are looking for and those they asked for in the job announcement.
Call your references.
Do a background check, including checking your degrees, certifications, and licenses.
Search Social Media for additional information.
Read your resume for facts—not a slew of adjectives and self-compliments like “team player” but actual descriptions of times when you demonstrated teamwork and collaboration.

Therefore, if you want recruiters and hiring managers to love you and your resume, you must tell the truth and be specific. Write your resume to pass successfully through an Applicant Tracking System by paying attention to the most in-demand skills listed in the job posting or advertisement. Additionally, let your references know the company may contact them. What else can you do so that recruiters and hiring managers love you and your resume? They will expect you to:

Know what you want. Make it clear from the header on your resume what type of position you are looking for (such as “Manager of Customer Service,” “Director of Sales,” “Senior IT Executive”). You need to tell hiring managers and recruiters what type of position you are looking for—they will not invent a position for you.
Provide the expected information in the expected places. Resumes have a standard format, which varies only slightly depending on your experience and your goals. Provide only the information that is appropriate to the job and legally acceptable for the company to know.
Write a resume that is easy to understand. Define acronyms; use everyday language, not jargon; and avoid complex designs and small fonts that are hard to read.
Give them a reason to hire you. Concentrate on results first, then explain how you reached them very briefly and clearly; for example, “Reached 1,000 new customers a month through new social media marketing (SMM) campaign.”
Set yourself apart. Place numbers wherever you can (“mentored five team members,” “answered 30 phone calls daily,” “increased revenue 6% annually”). No one else will have the exact same accomplishments as you.
Be professional. Handle any gaps or problem areas of your resume professionally.

If you have problems with any of these goals, contact Robin’s Resumes®; we will help you develop a resume that recruiters and hiring managers will love.

Resume Q&A: How Do I Show Creativity on My Resume?

May 10 2020

Q. Resumes are boring! But I’m a very creative person, and creativity is a large part of my job as a marketing assistant at my company. I helped design our website, and I am the graphic designer for the white papers, flyers, and other materials we take to trade shows. I also write a lot of our copy—I love coming up with new ideas to grab the attention of our online customers. How do I get that creativity across in a boring resume?

A. Resumes do not have to be boring. There are good and bad ways to show creativity on a resume. One of the bad ways is to use cartoons, colorful fonts, or colorful backgrounds. A survey by Accountemps found that up to 35% of hiring managers and recruiters found overly designed resumes to be annoying and a reason to reject a candidate.

Also, the more design you put on a resume, the less likely it is to pass through Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), which cannot read tables, text boxes, images, fancy fonts, and other graphic design elements. If your resume fails the ATS, the resume—and your creativity—will never be seen.

While creative ways for delivering resumes (in bottles, with food delivery, as a song) may result in an interview, they seldom result in a job. Unusual approaches may work in small companies, but they are highly unlikely to work in large companies with many levels of recruiters and hiring managers—one person’s appreciation of creativity is another person’s irritant.

Now for the good ways to show creativity:

Accomplishments and results. How did your website design improve the hits and conversions on your website? How many people picked up your materials at the trade show (compared it an industry average or your company’s previous average)? How many hits has your online copy generated?
Online portfolio. Now is the time to post a portfolio online and link to it. You can mention the link on your resume and/or include it as part of your LinkedIn profile. Let your creativity shine.
Social media. These days, hiring managers and recruiters seek out candidates on social media. Use that trend to your advantage by, for example, writing an interesting LinkedIn profile, showing your designs on Instagram, or posting a video that showcases your creative projects.
Volunteering. If you need more creative outlets than those at work or in a different area, volunteer for a nonprofit that will allow you to flex your creative muscles. Volunteer experience—as long as you keep records of the results—is as valuable as work experience in showing creativity.

Boring resumes do not need to be boring: the English language has many ways of showing enthusiasm, innovation, and creativity. Content is king. We have decades of experience at Robin’s Resumes® in writing resumes that attract the attention of hiring managers and recruiters in many highly creative fields. Contact us today.

Religion on Your Resume

Apr 12 2020

With very few exceptions, which will be listed later, you should avoid mentioning religion on your resume.

Why You Would Not Include Religion in Your Resume

Hiring managers and recruiters do not want to know your religion. Employers, per the law, are not allowed to discriminate based on religion and do not want to be forced into a position where religion is even a remotely possible part of their decision to reject or accept your resume.
Your religious views and affiliations are usually not integral to your employment. Resumes have limited space; if religion is not relevant to your job performance, mentioning it is a waste of that space.
A 2014 study by the University of Connecticut found that people who mentioned religion on their resumes were 26% less likely to be contacted by potential employers. Why reduce your odds by that much?

Why You Might Want to Include Religion on Your Resume

You are applying for a position with a house of worship or religious organization.
You honed your education and skills at a religious college, religious nonprofit, or similar organization and want to mention that experience on your resume. In this case, the emphasis should be on education and skills, not on religion.
You have researched companies with the express purpose of finding out whether they support your religious beliefs and want to indicate that you are in sympathy with their values.

Accommodating Your Religious Obligations at Work

If you belong to a religious group that has dress, prayer, Sabbath, or other practices that might require accommodations, your employer is required to provide those accommodations as long as they do not cause undue hardship or raise safety concerns. There is no law regulating the timing of your request, but you should strive to be as open-minded, consistent, and sincere as possible so that you and your employee can work together toward a reasonable solution.

Robin’s Resumes® can help you navigate any questions that arise regarding the mention of religion on your resume. Please contact us today.