Minnesota Headhunter

4 Simple Things That Hurt Your Resume

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

 

When we review people’s resumes, we often see a basic document with lackluster content and outdated formatting.  These are pretty common, but what we also see are resumes that contain some pretty fundamental mistakes.  Here are some examples of things to not do:

1.  Under the document properties section of your resume, make sure it shows you as the author of your documents.  Having someone else’s name there, particularly if the name is completely different from yours, can make employers wonder. At worst, it suggests that you borrowed (or copied) heavily from another person’s document.

2.  Include basic contact information.  It always surprises me to see a resume in which someone has not included a mailing address, as many employers do still mail rejection letters.  Also, the phone number you include on your resume ideally should be a line that only you can access.  The e-mail address you use should be a personal address, not your e-mail address at your current job. I would also encourage you to include your customized LinkedIn URL. It makes it easier for the employer to research you and you get to ensure they are finding the right “you” on LinkedIn.

Top Five Overused Resume Phrases & How To Revive Them

 

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:
 

While we have good intentions when we use common phrases to describe our abilities, the fact is we are boring hiring managers to death! These are skills that are expected in today’s workplace and don’t do the job of making you stand out to employers. In fact, hiring managers see them so often on resumes that they don’t even notice them anymore.

For example, people commonly state they have “great communication skills”. While that is a good trait to possess, is more or less expected and tells them nothing about how you’ve demonstrated this skill, or the results it has created.

A great way to convey your communication skills is to add quality (e.g. examples) and quantity (e.g. measureable results) to pump them up and actually prove you are an ace communicator! A suggestion would be “Sharp, articulate communicator as proven by multiple large-scale presentations and applauded departmental reports.” You would follow this up with bulleted details about the presentations and reports you have completed.

Job Ads Do Not Have To Suck | Minnesota Marketing Job

I have not ever posted a job from someone else on my blog but I received a nice email from Jon Parshall, COO at CodeWeavers, and I am going to make an exception.

First time for everything, right?

Here is why, it’s a cool ad. It engages. It is a bit funny. I doubt it was approved by an attorney.

In other words, this is something I can support.

See folks, your job ads and descriptions do not have to suck.

Disclaimer: none needed. Code Weavers is not a client and I have not worked for them in the past. But you know, should they ever need a good recruiter… :)

Another reason to post this is if I can do something to help promote a local tech company I will. (Yes, that is an invitation for others to ask if I can help)

Their Marketing position:

Don’t Sabotage Your Job Search

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

There are a couple of cardinal sins of job seeking that you should avoid at all cost. Here is a short list:

1. Never go around your recruiter and try to contact the hiring manager after you have spoken with the recruiter.

2. Never assume that a follow up interview will happen just because you have a good feeling.

3. Don’t send sales material to the hiring manager outside of the recruiter.

4. Don’t send generic cover letters.

5. Do not under any circumstance show up at the office and demand an interview.

6. Do not show a negative attitude toward your recruiter.

7. Do not assume that the recruiter will print out your resume and give it to all the managers.

8. Do not lie about you education or past salary.

Minnesota Business Community Lacks Confidence

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has released their 7^th annual Minnesota Business Barometer Survey and to be honest, I am a bit shocked at the low level of confidence.

I would have that it would be a bit better, not great, but better than the numbers show:

• 30% said the state’s economy was improving
  
• Nearly the same number said
  
• 20 % said they were more profitable than last year
  
• 30 % said they were less profitable
  
• Just over 40% said Minnesota was emerging more slowly than other states from the recession

There is some good long term news:

• 79% said they were optimistic about Minnesota's economic future over the next 10 years
  
• 18% said they were pessimistic

The Job Search: Why is it such a challenge?

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

 

What do you think it is that causes job seekers to miss so much during their job search? Is it the frustration that comes with being unemployed, sometimes for as much as 2 years? Are they lazy? Are they not concentrating on the importance of focusing on their search? Are they as inundated as recruiters and hiring managers and feel as overwhelmed as some do?

Many are challenged by, and have a genuine concern for those who don’t have a job. The challenges are; dealing with job seekers that don’t read the job descriptions completely before applying, finding that an applicant is not as qualified as they think they are, not taking the time to prepare an appropriate resume for the position, that they have left things out of their resume, failed to provide a cover letter (if requested) or short bio to assist in the process or even lie during the process in hopes of getting an interview!

Some are challenged by, and understand to a degree, the negative attitude of some applicants as recruiters speak to them, knowing that they are, in some cases, very desperate! “Look, I only want to pay my bills” is what’s heard so often. Hearing this has the tendency to bring everyone down a little. When you’ve been searching for such a long time, encouragement doesn’t always feed the family. Try to be as encouraging as possible.

Minnesota Recruiter Jobs

The following new Minnesota Recruiter Jobs have been added to the Minnesota Headhunter Recruiter Jobs Page:

• Recruiting Assistant - Full Time Job - Brigham Group Staffing
   
• Recruiter - Full Time Job – Cargill
   
• Senior Recruiter - Full Time Job - Life Time Fitness
   
• Recruiter - Full Time Job - Copier Careers
   
• Senior Technical Recruiter - Full Time Job – Magenic
   
• Recruiter - Full Time Job - University of Minnesota Physicians
   
• Recruiter - Full Time Job - ABRA Auto Body and Glass
   
• Corporate Recruiter - Full Time Job - SIRVA, Inc

Check out Minnesota Recruiters. An informal group of 2,050 corporate, consulting and search firm recruiters - you must be in Minnesota to join.

 
 

Click Minnesota Recruiter Jobs for more jobs, Minnesota Headhunter for most recent blog posts.

Stay in touch with me by clicking Blog Posts by RSS, Blog Posts by Email and/or the From The Desk Of Paul DeBettignies Newsletter

Minnesota IT Jobs And Internships With Minnesota Non Profits

The following new Minnesota IT jobs have been added on the Minnesota Non Profit IT Jobs And Volunteers page:

• Technical Support Specialist - Full Time - University of St. Thomas
  
• Application Developer II - Full Time - University of St. Thomas
  
• Report Developer - Full Time - Hennepin County
  
• Web Developer And Social Media - Part Time Internship - Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project
  
• Help Desk/IT Support - Part Time Internship - Lifeworks Services, Inc.

 

Click newsletter to receive an email of nonprofit needs, Minnesota IT jobs I am recruiting for, Minnesota recruiter jobs, most popular blog posts of the week, links and random thoughts.

If you are using a RSS Feed click Volunteer.

13 Major Resume Mistakes

CareerBuilder has results from a survey that include “13 Most Memorable Resume Mistakes” which I have listed below.

Before getting to the funny unfortunate list here are some statistics from the survey of human resource managers and hiring managers:

• 48% typically review 25 applications or less for open positions
• 38% on average spend less than a minute reviewing a resume
• 18% spend less than 30 seconds reviewing a resume
• 79% pay more attention to resumes that are tailored to their open positions

13 Most Memorable Resume Mistakes:

• Candidate put God down as a reference (no phone number).
• Candidate listed her hobby as alligator watching.
• Candidate claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings.
• Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.
• Candidate listed “Master of Time and Universe” under his experience.

The Great Recession: December 2007 To June Of 2009

Woo Hoo, The Great Recession is dead. Well, at least according to the experts who make the call.

A committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research has decided that it started in December of 2007 and ended June of 2009.

Click Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research to see the full report and here is the introduction:

CAMBRIDGE September 20, 2010 - The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months.

Job Search Tip: What Have You Done to Prepare for Your Interview?

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

You might be surprised at how little time many candidates invest preparing for an interview. Then again, you might be even more impressed with how much time other candidates do invest preparing for an interview.  But the bottom line is, you probably would not want to attend an interview without being as well or better prepared than the individuals that you will be competing with for a given role. How do you ensure that you are clearly the most-prepared candidate for any given position? Read along and you will find out.

An interview begins long before you step in front of the interviewer. Wise job seekers will prepare with this in mind. Some important steps to take on the journey to your interview are:

    * Research the company. Know about finances, product plans, recent news, noteworthy executives, physical locations, operating challenges, the range of products, pricing, typical sales processes, operational approaches, and anything else you can find out prior to stepping into the room.

Minnesota IT Consultants And Contractors: Contact Me

For 13 years I have only practiced in the full time, permanent job part of the industry. I have passed consulting/contracting requests and consultants/contractors on to friends at other firms.

Around October of 2009 I noticed an increase in requests from clients for this service. In March of 2010 it was easy to see the market definitely picked up and as this summer has progressed more momentum.

A few weeks ago I had a client tell me I was an “idiot” for not expanding my business. Actually there was a word in front of “idiot” but I usually save that for Gopher football games.

It may have taken much longer way too long to take the plunge but take it I am.

As we get into Q4 of 2010 I am going start talking with clients to see how I can better serve them with both offerings and by Q1 2011 have this up and running with all the glitches worked out.

I have much to learn but I have a lot of friends who are giving me their time to educate me.

So if you are looking for a full time or part time contract in IT send me an email with:

Wordy Resume? Consider An Addendum

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

If you feel your resume is too lengthy, it probably is. These days, resumes longer than two pages with very little open space are likely to remain unread.

However, there are options to shorten your resume for marketability, and transfer your more detailed "nuts and bolts" information to a separate document. This is called an addendum and it is especially useful for IT and academic professionals who may have a lot of certifications, trainings, speaking engagements, or published work that should be highlighted, but will bog down a resume.

It is becoming increasingly popular to offer a shortened resume, or "executive summary", that highlights your best attributes, including hard skills (e.g. computer software knowledge) and soft skills (e.g. sales know-how). Then, you can use an addendum to present at an interview or send upon request. An addendum is an often bulleted listing of your detailed qualifications that serves to essentially back up your resume data.

For example, your resume may state, "Successfully presented Oracle training to five large-scale conference audiences." Then, your addendum would actually list those conferences with dates.

3 Minnesota Companies Listed On 2010 Working Mother 100 Best Companies

WorkingMother.com has released their 2010 Working Mother 100 Best Companies and 3 Minnesota companies are on it (links to company web site):

• Carlson
  
• General Mills ranks in the Top 10
  
• McGladrey

WorkingMother,com gives a lot of background on why they like the companies and some statistics.

I like the “It’s a Fact” they do. Here are the links to each companies entry along with the fact:

• Carlson

Infants, toddlers and their parents can take baby sign language classes at Carlson Companies’ HQ childcare center.

• General Mills

In 2009, General Mills offered free career counseling to its employees’ unemployed family members.

• McGladrey

McGladrey’s free Coach-on-Call program offers employees access to sessions with a licensed coach to help them achieve their desired success.

One Reason Why I Use Social Networking Sites To Source And Recruit

I was doing a recruiter training the other day for a Minneapolis software company and after talking about the why and showing the how of social network sites I noticed one of their hiring managers sitting in the back of the room with his arms crossed and giving off a bad vibe.

So I took a deliberate pause, one of those awkward ones and then asked if there were any questions, thoughts, comments or wanted to challenge me on some of the content.

There were questions and comments, a lot of them, but I could not provoke the hiring manager to speak up.

I took another awkward pause and as I was about to move on to another topic the hiring manager leans forward and says:

“But why do we go to these sites? We have a career page, we post jobs on different job boards and we do other things too...”

A senior recruiter cut him off with:

“Yeah and how is that working for us? Our talent pool does not know who we are. We are passive in everything we do. We wait for people to find us and they are rarely who we want to be hiring.”

Anecdotal Analysis Of The Minnesota Job Market Q3 And Q4 2010

Over the past six weeks between Recruiter and HR events, meetings with senior management in companies of all sizes and industries, what I hear from job seekers and what I see from job postings here is an anecdotal analysis of the Minnesota job market as we end the 3^rd quarter of 2010, ready???

I don’t have a (definitive) clue.

My Magic 8 Ball has a cracked lense and some moisture has gotten in there making it difficult to see the answer to my (all of our) question.

Yep, that’s what I have come up with.

Hold on here is some information you can use to come up with your opinion and do me a favor, tell me what you are seeing.

Please note that this is not scientific and specific to skill set, industry, education attained or salary range unless otherwise stated. But it does come from enough varied sources that I feel comfortable giving an opinion.

What I know I know:

College Grad Job Search Resources - What You Think

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” - Robert McCloskey

It doesn't always have to be about me, sometimes it can be about you too. I get lots of emails suggesting links that many of you think will appeal to CareerAlley readers.

I generally collect these until I have enough that is worth a dedicated post and today is your lucky day. So thanks to all of you who have submitted your ideas and please keep them coming!

The Best Of Job Search List

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure." - Bill Cosby

I often get asked "what's the best job search board" or "who are the best recruiters".

There are so many resources for job search, literally, tens of thousands. And, as with everything in life, what is considered the "best" is sometimes a matter of opinion.

But generally speaking, "best lists" are a good indication of where to focus your time. Today's post focuses on some of the "Best of" lists.

Recruiters:

• Students and College Grads - List of top recruiters,email addresses and other contact information - This is an amazing list for students and college provided by Askstudent.com. This list includes companies with contacts (so these are "internal" recruiters), email addresses and links to the companies recruiting website. There is a short overview, followed by the list. There is a second list at the bottom of the page which provides additional company career site links.

Minnesota Recruiter Jobs

The following new Minnesota Recruiter Jobs have been added to the Minnesota Headhunter Recruiter Jobs Page:

• Recruiting Assistant - Full Time Job - Brigham Group Staffing

• Talent Acquisition Manager - Full Time Job - MnSCU - Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

• Virtual Part Time Sourcer - Part Time Job - Collective Genius

• Senior Recruiter - Full Time Job – Ceridian

• Contract Recruiter - Contract Job – ADC

• Recruiting Coordinator - Full Time Job - Cargill

Check out Minnesota Recruiters. An informal group of 2,050 corporate, consulting and search firm recruiters - you must be in Minnesota to join.

 
 

Click Minnesota Recruiter Jobs for more jobs, Minnesota Headhunter for most recent blog posts.

Stay in touch with me by clicking Blog Posts by RSS, Blog Posts by Email and/or the From The Desk Of Paul DeBettignies Newsletter

Minneapolis & St. Paul Rank #48 As A Stressed City

Portfolio.com and Business Journals released an analysis of 10 data points and the 50 largest metropolitan areas and ranked the cities by those “most stressed”.

Click A Stress Test for America for more results.

The Top 10 most stressed cities are:

1- Detroit

2 - Los Angeles

3 - Cleveland

4 - Riverside, CA

5 - St Louis

6 - New York City

7 - New Orleans