Free Resume Advice For Job Seekers

According to a new and recent survey (of approximately 800 professionals) conducted by Robert Walters, it was revealed that the two biggest influences on job-seekers’ opinions of an employer are: the length of the recruitment process; and the person(s) conducting the interviews. The survey showed that over 75% of prospective employees were turned off a job/employer by a lengthy recruitment process. Specifically, the research found that 79% of job seekers were turned off from a job by a long recruitment process; and 45% had withdrawn from a recruitment process because they did not like the person(s) conducting the interviews. These findings are consistent with feedback regularly received from candidates.

Source: Human Capital (HC) Online 4^th July 2011

Cheers,

Annie Cerone

I would like to share with you some details on an interesting excerpt in the ‘Recruiter Daily’ I read this morning regarding a charter that has been developed (its still in draft form), which will be open to changes pending the results of a large survey being undertaken on current recruitment processes (both with recruitment agencies and employers). The charter covers up to 10 key areas and I would like to discuss 3 of them that I’ve been rallying for, for quite some time now:

1. Keep selection criteria questions to a minimum.
I believe that there are many suitable job applicants who are simply not applying for certain advertised positions because of the daunting process of addressing pages of criteria. The industry is already changing as I’ve dealt with many clients who have applied for positions within several government departments (for example, Queensland Transport and Queensland Health) where the addressing of criteria is set to a 1-2 page maximum. Now doesn’t this make the whole process so much easier!

2. Require that applications contain only a CV/resume and/or cover letter.
Wow, even better, way less documentation for applicants to prepare! I firmly believe that resumes can be tailored and developed to showcase the requirements of advertised positions. I am currently developing a resume for a client in Canberra addressing 6 main general criteria points (one to two sentences each) in an Overview section on the first page of the resume. I have used this format for two clients within the last two weeks who have gone on to win job interviews.

3. Conduct interviews in as informal a manner as possible.
Remember what I said in my blog dated 1^st July 2009 about changing the manner in which job interviews are conducted, steering away from a more formal approach to a less formal one. Looks like others in the recruitment industry are concurring. Stay tuned for a blog I’ll be posting soon that will give even more examples on the informal approach.

Cheers,
Annie Cerone