A Recruiter's Pet Peeves About Resumes

By Suzy Kridner
Career Specialist
What happens when you send out hundreds of resumes and hear nothing back.
No telephone call asking for an interview or acknowledgement that your resume even reached the right person.
It's one of the most frustrating aspects of job searching. Is anyone out there even reading your resume that you labored to hard to make perfect?
What to do? You can keep plugging away, making sure your resume is the best it can be and is tailored for the job you are seeking.

Read some pet peeves from one recruiter who is tasked with reading resumes.

Detective Work

Posted by: Darlene Duncan, CWDP, JSS, CCC, JCTC, JCDC
Training Coordinator

In the workshops at the One-Stop where I work, we often tell job seekers that they need to research the company for which they want to work. Some people look at us as if we have suddenly grown a second head. Sometimes I feel like I should find a mirror to see if maybe I’ve sprouted another noggin.

Perhaps the word ‘research’ is the problem, or at least part of it. Don’t let the word put you off. All it means is to gather information. In this case, gather information about a company or organization. Make it into a game, where you’re a detective and you need to know as much about this company as you can discover.

In regards to your résumé, the information you collect about the company helps you aim your résumé at the company’s interests and needs. The same applies to the interview. The greater your knowledge of the organization the better your answers will be to interview questions.

Collecting information (aka research) is a skill that everyone should learn. It’s a great tool for job hunting and you never know when it might just be a skill you need on the job. To help you get started I’ve provided a link to an article about researching for job seekers. In the article are many links to different sites to assist with your information gathering.

Research Companies

Interview Bait

Posted by: Darlene Duncan, CWDP, JSS, CCC, JCTC, JCDC
Training Coordinator

You’re looking for a job and you need to update your résumé. What do you include and what do you leave out? How long can it be? These are valid questions. I will attempt to answer these questions in this blog.

What do you include and what do you leave out? You include the information about your abilities, skills and experience that are relevant to the job for which you are applying. For instance, if you’re a Teacher and you have worked some summers as a Bartender, should you include the bartending jobs on your résumé? No! In spite of your belief that there is little difference between dealing with a group of inebriated adults and dealing with a bunch of kids on a sugar high, don’t include the information. It will only muddy the waters. Instead, put in the information about your previous teaching positions. Things like, created lesson plans for class of up to 30 students and maintained order in classroom.

How long should your résumé be? Remember, your résumé is the bait you use to fish for an interview. It needs to give enough information to get the reader interested so they call you for an interview. If you can do this in one page, wonderful. If you need a second page, okay. No more than two pages.

Remember, your résumé also needs to be pleasing to look at and easy to read. So if you have a one page résumé with almost no margin and everything is font size 10, increase your margin to an inch and bring your font size up to 12 and go to that second page.

If you’ve been doing your research on résumés I’m sure you’ve discovered many conflicting opinions. Writing a résumé is not a science; it’s an art form. So what does that mean? It means that there are aspects of résumé writing that are strictly a matter of opinion.

If you live in Volusia or Flagler County contact your local One-Stop for the dates and times of their Résumé Writing workshops.