Career Advice

Provide the name you use day-to-day. It’s fine to be a bit formal, but also provide the name you use in parentheses. Recruiters don’t like to feel stupid, and we would feel stupid if we called Tiger and asked for Eldrick.

Provide all your contact information. Lots of business is done via email today, so provide an email address that you check frequently. Also, provide your cell number – we’ll probably call there first to reach you and avoid your assistant.

Don’t waste your breath with an “Objective” statement. Your experience will dictate what makes sense as a next step in your career.

Include a “Summary” statement, but make it meaningful. Some say these paragraphs are useless, but why not have one? The key is to view it as your “elevator pitch” – what are your headlines if you were on the elevator with a hiring manager? Don’t fill it with fluff; use it to communicate specifics and unusual strengths. A tip: think about important credentials that do not appear on the first page of your resume. If your experience includes early time at P&G … or an MBA from Harvard … mention it.

Do not use the “experiential” format. As executive recruiters, we really want to see the companies you’ve been with, and the jobs. Most important, we want to see your current (or latest) job. That’s why the tried and true “chronological” format remains the best.

Provide the timing overview for each company. Don’t make us figure out that your three roles at Spacely Sprockets covered a total of eight years.Provide the timing for each individual role, but also provide the overall timing for Spacely. Also, this establishes a sense of continuity for your career, rather than having it appear like a series of short-term roles. And if your company merged (e.g., from Bestfoods to Unilever), don’t show them as two different companies. It looks like job hopping.

Define the who/what/when/where/why/how of each job you held. If the company is not a well-known name, what does it do? What were you responsible for? How big was the business? Who reported to you, and who did you report to? What was the major mission or charter of the job (turnaround, retrenching, etc.)?

Provide a few key accomplishments for each job. Provide a few bullet points of accomplishments. Make them quantitative and specific when possible, and remember that proposing something is not an accomplishment. Limit this section to three or four accomplishments per job; our eyes glaze over after that.

Eliminate acronyms and buzzwords. Every company has its own language – the acronyms and buzzwords that help you communicate more efficiently. Unfortunately, your language sounds like Greek to the rest of us. And some things have different meanings at different companies – for example, does $700M mean $700 million or $700,000? Why not just say what you mean?

Keep it to two or three pages. A one-page resume makes sense only for someone just coming out of school. After a few years, you should need more than one page to present your accomplishments. Three pages are fine if you’ve advanced enough to need them. Four pages are a signal that you’re self-impressed or wordy … and neither is particularly desirable.

Show the date of your college degree(s). We recruiters are a skeptical group. If you don’t list the year you graduated, we’ll assume you didn’t finish or you’re trying to hide your age. Again, neither is good.

Feel free to list some personal interests. If they help bring you to life as a real and interesting person, mention your interests. Just don’t list your date of birth, and avoid things that might be controversial. Don’t brag about things like your Mensa membership. A rule of thumb: sex, politics, and religion are not good conversation topics.

As a final step, eliminate typos. Typos suggest you’re dumb, careless, or not interested. All are bad. Therefore, check and recheck your resume. Watch for “manger” instead of “manager”. The past tense of “lead” is not “lead”. And for goodness sake, spell the name of your company correctly – you would be surprised how many P&G alums put “Proctor” instead of “Procter”.

Save your resume with a simple, clear name. You want a recruiter to save your resume for future use. Therefore, make it simple and easy to do that. Don’t make us come up with a descriptive name for your resume – mine would be “Dave Hardie resume” rather than DNH2003 or something equally obtuse.