I saw Mayor Michael Hancock the other night. An old friend from our days from when we attended Manual High School, we noticed that we happened to both be wearing blue leather loafers. I joked with him that I had recently told my step son “When buying clothes, never skimp on the shoes!”
Later that evening, I was talking with a friend who had recently had their resume re-done through my friend, resume-writer Ruth Pankratz. He told me how excited he was about his new resume. He’s a senior-level professional and hadn’t writtedn a resume in a long time. He explained how painless the process was working with Ruth and how she had spent an hour just interviewing him about his positions, accomplishments, responsibilities, skills and expertise before she began drafting the resume.
When he received his resume, he said he showed it to his wife and joked, ‘Hell, even my wife said she’d hire me!”
All joking aside, the reality is this: when I buy a pair of shoes, I’m willing to spend a little extra money. Everyone’s feet are unique. You want your shoes to fit you, to be comfortable and to last a long time. You want them to look good, you want them to feel good and you want your shoes to give you confidence in your step.
The most expensive pair of shoes I ever bought were an Italian leather pair of dress shoes that cost me $400. I bought them over 7 years ago and I still wear them today. I’ve re-soled them twice, but they still are my favorite pair of shoes and look as good as they did the day I bought them.
In the same way, your resume is the most important document throughout your career. Why skimp on something that is so important to your job seeking journey? You need a resume that is unique to your skills and background, exudes confidence and is an accurate and robust portrayal of your professional life! You need a resume that you feel 100% confident about when you are applying for a job and a resume that is going to result in job offers for the jobs you want!
A study published by my friends at www.theladders.com sheds a new light on how recruiters review resumes they receive for open positions.
In the past, the standard initial resume review time as self-reported by HR professionals averaged 3-4 minutes. The Ladders followed 30 recruiters for 10 weeks (or more accurately, it followed their eyes using eyetracking gear) and it turns out that recruiters on average spend only 6 seconds on the initial resume screening.
Only 6 seconds! That is the average time a recruiter in the study spent to decide if your resume went into the initial ‘yes’ pile or the ‘no’ pile. In that same studay, professionally created resumes landed job offers 60% more than ones created by the job seeker themselves.
A few years ago, I went on quest to identify a resume writer I could confidently recommend to job seekers who were frequently asking me for resume help and advice. I feel I’m a good resume writer, but I just didn’t have the time to write resumes as part of my business. I met Ruth Pankratz who is a trained, certified professional resume writer. She also specializes in cover letters, LinkedIN profiles and a wide variety of additional job-seeking related documents necessary for a job search.
