employeeze

I saw an interesting Tweet over on Twitter about UK job seekers with the question “who is actually helping the jobless?” I’d have to say this is one of the first summaries I’ve seen on the internet that I agree with.

 I also got an email from one of my clients that I am helping with her job search strategy, and she showed me an email she had gotten from our local UE office. (She had a mandatory job log check in last week.) They sent her two attachments on “using linked in” and “how to write a letter of intent” (as opposed to a “Cover” letter.)

 First of all, I’ve written all of my client’s cover letters. And while I agree with their approach in theory, they advise using a table for sending matching the JD to a candidate’s skill. Bad move. Most systems will tear apart a table and make it unintelligble. You want to put it in paragraph form, *if* you decide to use a cover letter. Secondly, my candidate has had a LI profile for years and the first thing we did was update it when she got her pink slip; way ahead of you.

I was at a Career Panel the other night for my local collegiate sorority chapter. I’ve participated for the last three years, and have actually made some good contacts and friends from it. I was the only recruiter on the panel, and there was a Hiring Manager sitting next to me. It amused me that most of the students asked resume and interview questions of her rather than me. In 75% of companies, unless they are very small, the first person to see resumes is the HR department.  I would say that while hiring managers can certainly tell you what they like to see on a resume, it’s generally going to be the HR department that is the gatekeeper to what the HM *sees*.  And since we see *thousands* of resumes weekly, it’s probably a good bet that we are a pretty good resource for initial resume distribution.

It’s always a great combo to have a HM and recruiter/HR rep in tandem. Hiring managers will tell you what *they* look for for their departments in terms of content and interviewing.  Recruiters can tell you how organizations in general view resumes, and they can also tell you about how the systems work from a sourcing perspective. In this economy, *that* is the most important information to know WRT resumes. Luckily there are a lot of recruiters out there happy to give you information and share. It makes our jobs easier, because if you write your resume well, we have an easier time finding you. 

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