What You Should Know About Résumés

8/7/2019 What You Should Know About Résumés

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What You Should Know About Résumés

1. “Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered pretty muchunemployable. We assume that other people have already passed you over, so we don’t

want anything to do with you.” –Cynthia Shapiro, former human resources executive andauthor of Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know

2. “When it comes to getting a job, who you know really does matter. No matter how niceyour résumé is or how great your experience may be, it’s all about connections.” –HR director at a health-care facility

3. “If you’re trying to get a job at a specific company, often the best thing to do is toavoid HR entirely. Find someone at the company you know, or go straight to the hiringmanager.” –Shauna Moerke, an HR administrator in Alabama who blogs at hrminion.com

4. “People assume someone’s reading their cover letter. I haven’t read one in 11 years.” – HR director at a financial services firm

5. “We will judge you based on your e-mail address. Especially if it’s somethinginappropriate like [email protected] or [email protected].” – Rich DeMatteo, a recruiting consultant in Philadelphia

6. “If you’re in your 50s or 60s, don’t put the year you graduated on your résumé.” –HR professional at a midsize firm in North Carolina

7. “There’s a myth out there that a résumé has to be one page. So people send their

résumé in a two-point font. Nobody is going to read that.” –HR director at a financialservices firm

8. “I always read résumés from the bottom up. And I have no problem with a two-pagerésumé, but three pages is pushing it.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant in FortLauderdale, Florida

9. “Most of us use applicant-tracking systems that scan résumés for key words. The secretto getting your résumé through the system is to pull key words directly from the jobdescription and put them on. The more matches you have, the more likely your résuméwill get picked and actually seen by a real person.” –Chris Ferdinandi, HR professional inthe Boston area

10. “Résumés don’t need color to stand out. When I see a little color, I smirk. And when Isee a ton of color, I cringe. And walking in and dropping off your resume is no longer seen as a good thing. It’s actually a little creepy.” –Rich DeMatteo

PLUS: 13 Things Your Financial Adviser Won't Tell You



Secrets About the Interview

11. “It’s amazing when people come in for an interview and say, ‘Can you tell me aboutyour business?’ Seriously, people. There’s an Internet. Look it up.” –HR professional inNew York City

12. “A lot of managers don’t want to hire people with young kids, and they use all sortsof tricks to find that out, illegally. One woman kept a picture of two really cute childrenon her desk even though she didn’t have children [hoping job candidates would ask aboutthem]. Another guy used to walk people out to their car to see whether they had car seats.” –Cynthia Shapiro, former human resources executive and author of CorporateConfidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know

13. “Is it harder to get the job if you’re fat? Absolutely. Like George Clooney’s character said in Up in the Air, ‘I stereotype. It’s faster.’” –Suzanne Lucas, a former HR executiveand the Evil HR Lady on bnet.com

14. “I once had a hiring manager who refused to hire someone because the job requiredher to be on call one weekend a month and she had talked in the interview about howmuch she goes to church. Another candidate didn’t get hired because the manager wasworried that the car he drove wasn’t nice enough.” –HR professional at a midsize firm inNorth Carolina

15. “Don’t just silence your phone for the interview. Turn it all the way off.” –SharlynLauby, HR consultant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

16. “If you’ve got a weak handshake, I make a note of it.” –HR manager at a medical-equipment sales firm

17. “If you’re a candidate and the hiring manager spends 45 minutes talking abouthimself, the company or his Harley, let him. He’s going to come out of the interviewsaying you’re a great candidate.” –Kris Dunn, chief human resources officer at Atlanta-based Kinetix, who blogs at hrcapitalist.comPlus: 10 More Secrets About the Interview

Things to Know About Salary Negotiation

18. “There’s one website that drives all HR people crazy: salary.com. It supposedly listsaverage salaries for different industries, but if you look up any job, the salary it gives youalways seems to be $10,000 to $20,000 higher than it actually is. That just makes peoplemad.” –HR director at a public relations agency

19. “On salary, some companies try to lock you in early. At the first interview, they’ll tellme to say, ‘The budget for this position is 40K to 45K. Is that acceptable to you?’ If thecandidate accepts, they’ll know they’ve got him or her stuck in that little area.” –BenEubanks, HR professional in Alabama



20. “You think you’re all wonderful and deserve a higher salary, but here in HR, weknow the truth. And the truth is, a lot of you aren’t very good at your jobs, and you’redefinitely not as good as you think you are.” –HR professional at a midsize firm in NorthCarolina

21. “Be careful if a headhunter is negotiating for you. You may want extra time off andbe willing to sacrifice salary, but he is negotiating hardest for what hits his commission.”–HR professional in New York City

22. “I once hired someone, and her mother didn’t think the salary we were offering washigh enough, so she called me to negotiate. There are two problems with that: 1) I can’tnegotiate with someone who’s not you. 2) It’s your mother. Seriously, I was like, ‘Didthat woman’s mother just call me, or was that my imagination?’ I immediately withdrewthe offer.” –HR professional in New York City

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What You Should Know About Résumés