"How to get a Job Interview"

How to get a Job Interview from a Hiring Manager's point of view

I'm a software vendor and I have been hiring people for 20 years.

From my way of thinking, most resumes suck. I still see one page resumes, which generally tell me nothing.

Think about things from my side of the desk for a moment. I want to hire the best person, who can become immediately productive for me, who will work well with the others in the office, who will follow directions and still display initiative.

If you want my attention, don't talk about you, talk about what you can do for me - by showing me what you have done for others, by listing all your skills. Sure you know VB, so do 3 million other people, what have you done with it?

Sure you know Robohelp. At least you know how to spell it. A laundry list alone will not do me or you any good.

So list your languages, products, etc. - but also give them in context. Remember, after I narrow the list down to five or six, I am going to be using that resume as a checkoff list. I just hired a marketing manager - I got 40+ resumes, including a dozen or so who thought marketing was sales. I interviewed three people.

One person (not the one I hired) put their picture on their resume. Why doesn't everyone? Do you realize that when we have 40 resumes, we start to get you confused, even after the interview? I sometimes do seven to ten first interviews, and the last one might be 8 or ten days after the first. It becomes a blur. Even more so when I call in another manager during the interview.

Later discussions go like this: "Which one did you like best?" "Rebecca" "Was that the one with the five earings or the one with the tattoos of spider monkeys running up and down her arms?" "That was the one with the crewcut." "The blue crewcut or the green crewcut?"

I know it is difficult to take your attention off yourself in the interview - but if you do you are more likely to get the job. The person on the other side of the desk doesn't want to hire a person who will make them look bad. Do you understand how much I hate to have to fire people? I generally put it off until it is absolutely necessary. I told the sales manager today - every person out there that he hires costs the company 10 thousand dollars in direct costs, if they don't sell anything and he eventually fires them or they leave. They also cost double that in lost sales because they screw up good accounts that a good salesperson could sell.

The marketing manager I hired went to our website, learned as much as she could about our business, and even remembered some of our key customers. She made some suggestions in the interview. She was working for us before I hired her; I didn't have much choice but to pick her.

If you have a series of jobs that have lasted 6 to 18 months, my first assumption is that you lasted just long enough for your employer to give up on you because you are incompetent or a borderline case, or you quit the first time you experienced on the job conflict. You had better explain why you left those jobs, without my asking, and it better not be 3 versions of 'they took advantage of me and didn't appreciate me.'

If the job you are going to do for me depends on your skills, you better list them in context and also in summary. At some point I am going to be reading that resume mighty fast, along with 20 others. It's marketing literature.

I see one resume in five that doesn't have at least one typo, or extreme grammar problem. Read your resume out loud to see how it sounds. If it jars, you will jar. Read it backwards from the last sentence to the first sentence to help catch grammar and typos. Have at least three other people read it without you standing over them. Tell them there is a hidden typo and you want to see if they can find it.

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(My sister is a marketing manager and she showed me her new catalog this weekend when I was visiting her and my Dad. I opened it to a page in the middle and found a typo in five seconds. She and my Dad (who had also proofread the copy before printing) were put back a little. I also pointed out that the blurb about her company's environmentally conscious extraction methods was placed directly to the right of a picture of a big yellow backhoe scrunching thru the earth - "that wasn't my part of the catalog, but I will point it out to them.")

My ad for the marketing manager in the newspaper said "send resume and writing samples to" and my email address. 2 out of three sent only the resume. Half of the remaining ASKED me by email if I wanted writing samples. Then, how many. Some said that they would bring samples to the interview. What interview? You can't follow the directions in a three line ad, and you want me to give you an interview? You have to ask me how many? Surprise me.

(As I remember, the person I hired did not send me a writing sample until after the resume - but she explained why and sent the samples on before I had to ask. Since her resume was perfect for the position, I was very forgiving.)

I wrote half a dozen emails to people who applied with the wrong credentials, or to offer suggestions for changes to their resumes. I still have't had time to email about 35 people to say someone else has the job - I see I need an automated workflow system for this.

Your resume should look professional - but not austere. One typeface is plenty. I find italics annoying - and I've seen some resumes (briefly as they passed on their way sailing into the trash can) that were written entirely in italics.

It better be on white paper so that when I Xerox it (please no style nazis, this is something of a rant) it doesn't look stupid. For each job, starting with the most recent, start and end dates, where the company was located, and what they do, even if I should know, and what you did for them, because I might find your tasks similar to something that I want you to do - that you don't know about. If there are gaps between employment of more than 90 days, better explain them.

References with actual phone numbers and email addresses are a good idea. I'll email them so I can get them on the phone.

You want to make my life easy. You want to give me as much information as I can stand. You want to hook me with something that you have done, or plan to do.

I want people who are already competent, who invest in their employment, who plan to grow on the job. I want people with the ambition to learn more, do more, and achieve more. I want to be there while they are doing it. I want it to benefit my company; and I want to reward them for their efforts.

My software helps people make elearning now. I need people who are focused on solving other people's problems, knowing that their own will be solved in the process.

Brad Jensen
TBG
Eufrates.com



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