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Resumes are very important, they make the first impression to a hiring manager. Being a recruiter for a large government contractor, I work with candidates/employees daily on re-writing their resumes to target specific positions. Most of the people I talk to have multiple resumes to meet different positions. I think it is a good idea because you don't want to have a 10 page resume, but have a few, ex.. Software Developer resume, Project Manager resume, etc...
I know resumes in our company are extremely important because we need to get the customer's buy in on the candidate. They typically want to see how the candidate can fit into the job that they are trying to fill, and specific information detailing their experience related to the technology in their environment.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lauren <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
Date: Friday, March 2, 2007 0:31 am
Subject: RE: resumes/recruiters
> Hi Joanne,
>
> I think that there are a few issues here. One, is that after the
> dot-com
> bust, there were more people calling themselves Technical Writers
> becausethey lacked enough qualifications for other work. Another,
> is that
> searchable databases made it easy to find people with right
> "keywords" in
> their resume. I think that hiring managers are beginning to see
> flaws in
> increased competition and improved technology. I also suspect
> that some job
> descriptions are posted to get names in a database, while there
> really isn't
> a position open.
>
> An issue that I see while competing for State contracts, is that
> with fewer
> jobs than applicants, there is a lot of nepotism where jobs go to
> peoplethat are friends or family or previous associates of the
> people doing the
> hiring. I also saw an odd case of incompetence procreating
> itself, where
> there was state worker (programmer) that needed to hire another
> person, so
> she hired somebody who had less skill than she had, and she did
> not have
> much skill.
>
> Some of the issues that concern getting work these days is finances.
> Companies got very burned by the sudden growth of technology and
> technology-focused applicants. I think that they are reluctant to
> hiresomeone that might cost too much. So an applicant with an
> excellent resume
> could be too pricey. If that applicant also happens to be willing
> to work
> for a low rate, then there might be a problem with that applicant,
> otherwise, there would be a higher rate.
>
> I work as a contractor for short-term contracts. I had an old
> resume on
> Dice and a recruiter called me about FSR work. (A real recruiter
> from a
> company that I had worked with before and not a recruiter using
> some search
> tool to fish for leads.) I sent her my latest resume and she
> mentioned that
> my resume had more business analysis than technical writing
> lately, so she
> wanted me to call myself a Business Analyst on some jobs.
> Whatever, I don't
> care what my title is. Then she proposed a higher rate. Well
> that's nice.
> The resume that I sent is appropriate for an FSR Writer, but it
> could be a
> little heavy for a Technical Writer. I think that many of us can
> write very
> heavy resumes for ourselves, but hiring managers don't really want
> someoneto come in and take over and this is a possible
> interpretation for a very
> heavy resume. On the other side, however, a resume that is too
> light will
> look under-qualified.
>
> It is important to strike a balance in a resume and not come on
> too strong
> or too soft. When you say that a job description fit your resume
> precisely,did you limit yourself to the points in the description
> with minimal but
> sufficient support of your qualifications? Or did you include a
> lot of
> other qualifications that were not really required by the job? If
> there is
> too much, then you could look like you might be too busy with too many
> things to focus on the job.
>
> A resume with too much information can easily cover nearly every
> technicalwriting discipline and more. I imagine that there are
> many people out there
> competing for the same jobs that will try and cover everything in
> theirresume. How does a resume like this stand out from the rest?
> The key here
> is to stand out and look like the ideal candidate and not look
> like the
> other applicants that are covering everything and more with their
> resumes.
> Lauren
>
> > I'm sure I'm not the only one that has spent months
> > crafting a very targeted resume. Throughout my career I have
> > been very successful in getting responses to my resumes. It
> > is with the adoption of web submission and scanning of
> > resumes that I suddenly find I cannot seem to hit the target.
> ...
> > I had one recruiter remark that "resumes don't really tell
> > you much anyway". So what the heck are we all doing?
> > Joanne
> >
>
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