The Many Faces of You

Getting a job is no longer a simple matter of sending in a resume in response to a job posting.  With the Internet and so much information available at the click of a mouse or tap on a touchscreen, a resume is just the beginning.  And it could also be the end.

Resumes contain a lot of information. To a hiring manager or HR Director, it’s like one of those connect-the-dots puzzles. Connect the dates of employment with each other. They should fit like puzzle pieces, with no gaps in between. Connect a candidate’s skills, experience and education with the bullet points on a job description and posting. Does each job duty have a match? Or are there missing pieces?

Resumes make a lot of claims about past performance. Each accomplishment statement makes a candidate look great, but opens the candidate up to scrutiny and questions. Hiring managers love bullet points because they usually quantify what a candidate can do. They also like them because they are material for great interview questions. “So, you improved team performance by 50%. What does that really mean?" Sounds great, until the candidate confesses that the team was two people, and you raised the performance percentage from 20 to 30 percent. Unless you have great explanations for your accomplishments, they are better left out.

Another reason hiring managers like resumes is they are a baseline for all the other information floating on the Internet about you. Be sure your resume is up-to-date and matches your Facebook page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn account and all the other social media sites you subscribe to. If you don’t think hiring managers won’t take the time to check those sites, you’re mistaken. Even if you haven’t friended the hiring manager (and some companies make it part of the interview process), chances are you know someone who is friends with someone that they know. The classic six degrees of separation gets smaller in Cyberspace.

Depending on the job, hiring managers may ask for samples of past work. Writers, designers, social media or digital communications or website designers should be able to provide work samples that back up the claims on a resume. Customize any additional materials meant to move you to the top of the list. Choose carefully. Writing samples with spelling or editing errors, websites with links that don’t work and outdated material, photos or content can cancel out a great interview. If you list your blog as a sample of your design or writing abilities, be sure your blogs are current. You won’t impress an employer if your last blog entry was six months ago.    

All this coordination takes time, patience and attention to detail--all good qualities for just about any position. A job search can take months. Don’t think that just because you don’t put your website URL or LinkedIn address on your resume the hiring manager won’t notice. Searching social media is about as common now as checking three professional references. Make your resume work for you. Help a hiring manager easily connect the many dots of your past performance to your next opportunity.

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