Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Job-hunting tips from the July 21, 2008, issue of
QuintZine.
In his Gilbert Gazette newsletter, Marty Weitzman includes an article by Laura Raines on resume trends from the
Atlanta Journal Constitution in which he is quoted. A few excerpts:
The resume [is] still the traditional workhorse of the business world: the same 8.5-by-11-inch, white or
cream-colored document designed to get you in the door for an interview.
It's your "ticket to the show," says Martin Weitzman, managing director of
Gilbert Resumes in New York.
References to religion, politics or hobbies -- unless they directly elate to the job -- are out, Weitzman said. Education, computer and
language skills, and professional certifications are in.
A resume is an advertisement, and you're the product," Weitzman said. "The first page -- particularly the top quarter of the first page -- has
to have impact. This is where you position or brand yourself."
An objective statement can be an eliminator. Instead, write a summary of qualifications. This is your sales pitch. Use it to establish your value
by telling people why you're ready for this job and what you bring to the table," Weitzman said.
"You can change the thought processes of the reader by what you put in your summary of qualifications and what skills you choose
to highlight," Weitzman said. For example, if you have both sales and buyer experience in retail, you might describe yourself as "an accomplished
buyer with 20 years' sales experience" or "a successful salesperson with strong buyer experience," depending on which is more applicable to the position.
"There's nothing wrong with emphasizing one area over another, as long as you don't lie. You're creating a roadmap for the employers
to follow, presenting the information the way you want them to read it and setting up what they'll ask in the interview," Weitzman said.
A new study by Office Team shows that less than 15 percent of hiring decision-makers feel that cover letters are NOT
valuable. A whopping 86 percent consider cover letter valuable in evaluating candidates:
As the job application process increasingly moves online, some job seekers might be tempted to think a formal cover letter
is no longer necessary -- not so, the survey shows. Eighty-six percent of executives polled said cover letters
are valuable when evaluating job candidates. Moreover, eight out of 10 (80 percent) managers said it is common to receive
electronic resumes accompanied by cover letters.
The study was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by OfficeTeam, a staffing service
specializing in the placement of highly skilled administrative professionals. The survey is based on telephone interviews
with 150 senior executives from the largest U.S. companies. Executives were asked, "When evaluating prospective job
candidates, how valuable is the cover letter that accompanies the resume?" Their responses:
Very valuable: 23%
Somewhat valuable: 63%
Not valuable at all: 14%
Executives also were asked, "When you receive a resume electronically from a job candidate, how common is it for that
resume to be accompanied by a letter of introduction or cover letter?" Their responses:
Wondering about the maximum number of bullet points to include in each section of your resume? The answer is more than 50 years old:
Technical writers, business writers, instructional designers and others have elevated the central concept to a truism of writing, called
Miller's Magic Number, based on a scholarly article by George A. Miller from 1956. Basically, it goes like this:
A list or sequence, to be retained easily in short-term memory, should contain no more than 7 +/- 2 items.
Some interpretation has been used to apply the number:
A list or sequence could be a bulleted list or a numbered list.
Corollary: Use subheadings to break long procedures into shorter sub-procedures (chunking).
Use subheadings to break long bulleted lists into shorter, related lists.
Original article: The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information, George A. Miller (1956),
Harvard University, First published in Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.
In his Gilbert Gazette newsletter, Marty Weitzman includes an article by Laura Raines on resume trends from the
Atlanta Journal Constitution in which he is quoted. A few excerpts:
