Missed off the manners

I hope you are not wondering where I have been for the past three weeks. If you are, I presume that you have not attended the Jobs Fairs Workshops and Roadshow across Sydney during September, and either sat in on one of my talks, or had a heart-to-heart with me at my table. For you, I am sorry. It was a great experience and I definitely recommend that you go next year. Met some wonderful people.

Today's entry is inspired by a sales consultant who called me this morning and made a rude hairy mistake. He wanted to know if I'd received the information he sent last week (no) after speaking with his colleague in customer service (who?) and did we want his service or not (no...). When he was sure that I was totally unsure of what he was talking about, he hung up in my ear.

As far as this consultant was concerned, I was the one making life difficult - and he wasn't reluctant in letting me know it. The great advantage of electronic media and the telephone is that they allow the communicator to be rude and vent after the conversation has finished and disconnected, rather than handle the exchange in person.

Be careful who you choose to make your anger known to, especially when it comes to employment and recruitment. As infuriating as some people in the industry can be, you never know who knows who, or when you might incidentally contact that person yourself again the future.

The average employment tenure of a recruitment consultant with any given company is quoted by several sources as being 6-11 months. If this is accurate, you can imagine that the typical six degrees of separation is therefore reduced to about 3 in this industry as consultants move around to different firms. Without a doubt, candidates and clients become known from individual consultants' experience.

So don't always think of your consultant in terms of the one person - think about their network, their closest contacts and clients at their fingertips. Consider the positives that can result from such a web of associations.

And if someone really has treated you appallingly, there are appropriate industry authorities to speak to, plus your family and friends. Be professional even if others can't.

What we can learn from trash.

Apologies for the lag in updating - the past few weeks have been all-consuming, but this weekend fortunately granted me (Sarah) a much needed breather.

So in the midst of enjoying a slow Sunday, found myself watching a couple of episodes of the Bachelor on Arena (the start of Season 7 as I discovered from looking on the website this morning). This tv show has a track record of consistently flakey outcomes, no doubt perpetuated by the type of women who enlist to compete for a husband in the first place, and the completely cheesy, drama-soaked rituals these individuals are subjected to. Nevertheless - the whole concept of this series has several relevant points to the process of recruitment. It is intended, after all, to be about one person recruiting for a wife.

So, what can we learn from the Bachelor?

1. It's about chemistry. Your brief job interview is more about determining compatibility and testing the vibe rather than assessing your skills and experience. Your resume has already done that. If you click with your interviewer, then you can be confident of a second interview.

2. Don't take it personally. If you have 25 amazing candidates and one vacancy, then it is still likely that 24 amazing candidates will be without a job (or husband) by the end of the process. Don't clock it up as a failure, it's just a decision process that has to be made. If you have ever watched the Bachelor, the poor bloke never seems to enjoy making the decision, and be assured that employers rarely do either.

3. Be yourself. The women in this show who come on way too strong and behave like menacing, catty high class escorts generally go down in flames with few friends to support them on the way out. If you can be confident in who you are regardless of the outcome, you will earn great respect from all observers, and you are more likely to earn long term relationships (which could see you return for the next season...err..round).

4. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's bizarre as a onlooker to see how these women think that this one man could be the answer to all their hopes and dreams, but when emotions get in the way, it can feel like a make or break situation. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. Try to have a few options on your plate at any given time so you never feel like it's 100% or nil.

5. Make sure you're there for the right reasons. Do you want to ace this job interview to feel valued and recognised for your personal worth, convince your interviewer that you've still got what it takes, or do you really want the job? It's not unusual to get excited and swept up in the attention and momentum of a selection process, only to have it all turn solid and real if you get the job and start working. Keep your wits about you and keep asking yourself, is this what I really want?

Perhaps you'll be watching the Bachelor in a different way from now on. I know I am.

Happy rez-iversary

Resumes are a bit like car insurance. You know you have to have it. The upkeep and filing is a hassle. Maybe years go by without a need to check your details are still correct..yeah, nothing has changed. It's just the same as it ever was.

Then BAM. Suddenly you're walking out of your familiar job for the last time. You've been made redundant or the company's folded - the bottom has fallen out of your income - and you are thinking quickly now about a rescue plan for yourself - how to get back on your feet and working again as soon as possible.

Like insurance, that resume is now the most important item in your life...which file on which hard drive is it on? Do I have a hard copy I can retype? Horror of horrors, will I have to write it from memory?

Unfortunately it's pretty clear to anyone if a resume has been written from memory, especially if the writer has become a bit bored with it as they journey back in time over their employment history. A job in the distant past might be described as say, a management role which involved looking after a team, managing all aspects of the business, controlling a budget and increasing sales. That's really not doing you or the commitment and dedication you gave to that role any justice at all.

So prevention is always better than cure (or damage control). If you are employed right now and quite comfortable in your position, start recording your key responsibilities and achievements.

Come back to it every three months or so, or more often as you need to. Not only will this be a great point of reference for you on a low day as a reminder of your value to the company, it will be a simple matter of copying your excellent selling points into your resume if you do find that you need it again in the future. This is not jinxing your security in your current role, it's a record of your success however you choose to use it.

Hand me my lucky pants.

In talking to a job hunting friend last night, she was full of renewed determination to unearth and score the best hidden role out there - fast! And her plan? "I am definitely going to get a job tomorrow. I just need to get lucky pants."

Fortunately a resume, suit, shoes and interview research were also going to figure in the solution. Nevertheless, the psychological edge that the right underclothing can bring is huge. Superstitious apparel is very common among sportspeople, the right gear is vital for an "extended" night out on the town, there have even been movies made about them.

It could well be a hit for Bonds or Davenport - printing underwear with "Lucky Job Interview Pants" on the front. In this market especially, they could be immensely popular.

Seriously, an extra nudge of confidence - whether it is your favourite underwear (your best bet at feeling like an individual under that corporate getup), new fragrance, maybe even some new ink that will never see daylight - may be just what you need to carry that x-factor and nail the interview. And you were wondering how to start that tell-all autobiography...

It's different when it's your own...

We have always been marvellous filterers, tuning out the information around us that simply isn't interesting or relevant to our thoughts. Our relationship with technology has taken this skill of ours one step further however. A couple of clicks will take us to any corner of the internet we desire, from increasingly portable devices, saturating our senses.

Being spoilt for choice, it's just as easy to get rid of what doesn't appeal. If it's not personalised, it won't capture our attention. A simple highlight all and delete from the inbox will sort that out.

Yet we don't apply the same rules to our own efforts. A job application without due care to personalise it and follow the guidelines of correct address is effectively spam. The writer would be most offended to be told it was junk mail after several hours of keyboard jabbing, but the emotion of securing a job can cloud your perspective. What is important to you won't necessarily matter to someone else.

It's not a domestic chore. It's not homework or detention. Sending your resume out to 300 inboxes and hitting the off switch after another day's exertion is a waste of time. Just because this resume is about you does not make it better than everyone else's - 300 new messages could well equal 300 deletes.

A better strategy is trial and error. Ask recruiters and hiring managers for feedback and tips on who to talk to, where to go next. Don't settle for their politeness - get the hard honest facts. Get others to read through your selection criteria statements. Get serious about what your reader wants, not what will satisfy you for another day in front of the computer. If you're not sure, call and ask questions. You will end up sending out less applications, but every one will get you one step closer to the prize.

Looking for a Specialist...

How good are you at making decisions? Are you ever given the responsibility of choosing a new restaurant to visit on the weekend with family or friends? Their potential satisfaction and enjoyment of the night is riding on your decision, and the more you reconsider and second-guess, the more agonising it can get. Who likes colourful places and who likes quiet? Has your choice of venue received any press lately - good or bad? And what about their signature dishes - what do they do really well that you can count on if you decide to go with them?

Imagine there is one joint which has advertised in Yellow, eatability and their own website as a bit of an all-rounder. They do lunch and dinner really well, and if you choose to eat there, they'll do their very best to give you a first class meal which includes all the main food groups. They are open to anyone who wants to dine there, and they really want to give them great food as well. Really really.

Does anyone else think that this place will be sadly frustrated with the amount of foot traffic? Despite their assurances of gastronomic euphoria, there's just not enough detail there, especially when there are so many other restaurants with important information to digest. There's no doubt that they could be astounding in their talent to provide the ultimate dining experience, but it simply has not been expressed sufficiently to the first time reader.

So, enough of the analogy. This one is about your Career Objective. Writers of the Resume must be aware that the Career Objective is the first item to be looked at when your email attachment is opened, and usually the first to be ignored if it looks like rubbish. The amount of applications we see which have something to this effect is genuinely soul-destroying:

"I would like to find a position which uses my range of skills and experience, and make a important and productive contribution to my employer company in a fulfilling and satisfying way."

It's hard to even write that. It might be an example of crazy vagueness to the extreme, but if you are guilty of making your Objective sound as though you will only be pleased with your job when your boss is pleased, that's a problem.

Researching restaurant options, you will note that no venue is asking for your approval or just begging to be given a chance. This is despite the fact that they can only exist with the continued patronage of people like you. Confidence is the key to attraction - if you get the impression that there are thousands of people keen on that restaurant, then your faith in them will be strong.

You need to write your Career Objective as though the masses are begging for your autograph, then you are establishing yourself as a object of desire. Break it down into three parts: past, present and future. A couple of details on your origins, what you do best now, and what the future holds for you. Your employer doesn't want to feel responsible for your happiness just by opening your resume - you're the best and they would be lucky to have you.

New restaurants and new staff are both very exciting and stressful choices, but they are out there for the rest of us to discover. Isn't it time everyone woke up to a new option for their company?

How much is enough?

Writing your resume can feel like putting together an autobiography minus the fun anecdotes. Names, dates, locations, applications....it can be both stressful and frustrating getting all the details straight.

Once the job history framework has been put into place, it's time to consider how best to display the knowledge and experience which fleshes out the resume and separates you from the rest of the applicants.

Many CVs fall short of the mark however because they are approached from the same angle as someone writing their autobiography. The more you rack your brains for snippets of information, the longer the document grows and the better you feel. It looks important bulked up with text, and it looks like you were in fact incredibly busy in those past jobs. What an interesting collection.

What looks great to the writer doesn't necessarily look good to the reader however. The recruiter or hiring manager doesn't have time to read through a short novella of your life's work. They won't always know what your acronyms mean or the significance of certain clients you brought on, never mind the software you used or the special projects you lead.

Resumes are not designed to list your achievements for your own record. It's a statement selling your value to a prospective employer. If they sense that you are not sure what you're getting at, the interest will not be there.

The key is to expand and explain on the major features: no more acronyms, wins, software or projects as bullet points. If a friend or family member can't understand what you are talking about, no-one else will. Minimise the minor points: no-one needs to know that you rinsed the coffee cups and took the post each evening. Think quality, not quantity.

Make your resume easy to read, and it will be read.