Liberate your résumé from obscurity
When a search engine is “reading” your résumé, it doesn’t care one iota that you’re a people person, a team player or that your favorite hobby is collecting bottle caps. Nothing personal, but it’s got a one-track mind programmed to ferret out only the keywords, or search terms (to use the correct lingo), indicating your application might be worthy of a recruiter’s 30-second — more in your case, once you’ve incorporated my advice here — attention span.
Repeat after me
So you must take pains, great pains, to repeat those keywords and to do so consistently — yes, that’s right: over and over again — throughout your résumé copy, while also making sure you’re using the right ones. The more heavy-handed you are in salting your application with them, the higher your ranking — i.e., likelihood of being plucked as a “best match” out of the vast maw into which most online submissions are sucked, then sunk.
Remember: you can never use too much salt
And while you’re at it, sprinkle some over your left shoulder for good luck.
That my friends, in a few quick shakes, is the simple-minded logic behind SEO, aka Search Engine Optimization — a bane to creative wordsmiths like me because it’s just so predictable and…unimaginative. (Go ahead and add your own equally descriptive adjectives here, but don’t you dare use them in your CV.)
Now before you reach for the aspirin bottle at the thought of fiddling with your résumé AGAIN, here are a few quick tricks to ensure yours floats effortlessly to the top of the heap and onto the recruiter’s computer screen where it will glow with promise and land you that much-coveted job interview.
Be liberal in applying core search terms
Squeeze them in wherever you can. Repeat relevant, easy-to-grasp job titles and responsibilities in your headline, brief profile/intro/summary and every succeeding job description. Do the same for strengths, using the posted job requirements as your guide.
Because you can never be certain which exact search terms a recruiter is using, also do a synonym search to cover off all your bases, or variations on your theme. Now weave those in liberally as well.
Whatever you do, refrain from using former employer-given titles if they diverge from commonly understood ones.
Take a few practice test runs
The best way to test my advice in action and get immediate feedback is to start by revising your LinkedIn profile. Then, using keywords, conduct an Advanced People Search function on yourself using different job titles. Keep at it until you’re positioned at top of the list.
For more on how to used LinkedIn for this purpose, I recommend you turn to LinkedIn Strategies Group Nathan Kievman’s video at: http://www.linkedstrategies.com/linkedin-keyword-optimization.htm
Up, up and away you go. Remember: Cream always rises to the top, even though you have to master a bit of SEO to get there.
— Judy Margolis
Are you ready for your closeup? Do you understand STAR power?
Yes, I’m talking about behavior-based interviews, my all-time personal bane as a job seeker and maybe yours, too. These interviews tend to start off innocently enough:
- Tell me about a situation when circumstances required you to…
- Give me an example of a time when you…
- Describe for me the most important…
And then the level of difficulty increases. The recruiter’s questions start growing legs, even tentacles, and before long you’re choking. For example:
Tell me about the last directive from senior management that failed to achieve its desired goal. Why do you think it failed? What role did you play in the process or failure?
Another turn of the noose:
Give me an example of a time when you had to present material or implement a process you didn’t fully support. Did you voice your concern? How? Who did you voice your concern to?
You’re becoming apoplectic:
Describe a situation in which your leadership skills were rejected. Why were they rejected? How did you manage the situation?
OMG! Your mind is racing, your heart pounding, you’re breaking out in a sweat, you feel floored — “um, um…I, uh (gulp), well….” You try to deflect, to buy yourself some time. You ask the recruiter to clarify. If only you had come better prepared. Too late now.
So you scramble for an answer, feverishly sifting through the slot machine of long-buried images in your head, memories of past conversations, the failures to communicate, rejecting the scenarios that only make you look bad. You’re desperate to depict yourself and your past actions in a positive, make that a glowing, light. Ha! Fat chance! Then, having exhausted all your stratagems and the recruiter’s patience, the rambling ensues.
The verdict is a foregone conclusion: You just talked yourself out of a job. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
The STAR approach
Behavior-based questions require you to provide specific — not general or hypothetical — examples of how YOU handled work-related challenges in the past. Recruiters are sticklers about this. The person posing these questions will be assigning marks to each of your answers based on pre-established technical and performance-related criteria, such as competency, strategic and problem-solving ability, command skills, integrity and trust. Three strikes, maybe less, and you’re out. You can squirm, object, get angry, beg for more time, even walk out, or — best tactic of all — you can come prepared.
Situation —> Task —> Action —> Result, a.k.a. STAR and sometimes just plain old SAR, is a framework you must learn to master, or at least adopt, to succeed in answering behavior-based interview questions. You might even add a “Q,” for quantifiable, to this formula. Trust me, I’m still working on it, given how vivid are the memories of my own failed attempts at winging it.
You will have 90 seconds, up to a maximum of three minutes, to articulate your answers, ensuring your description of your actions and accomplishments adheres rigorously to this deceptively simple STAR(Q) outline. No deviations.
My best advice, based on painful experience: get a hold of some sample behavioral questions, carefully formulate and write out your answers, then commit them to memory. What’s more, consider how you might adapt your three or four strongest accomplishments to variations on these question types.
— Judy Margolis
Or how not to brand yourself a dinosaur
There’s just no substitute for plain old experience, I grant you that. It’s safe to say we are all experienced. It’s when you drop the number qualifier — 25-plus years, or what have you — as I advised in a previous blog post, that you start straining for other adjectives. And that’s where you can get yourself in real trouble.
Do you seriously want to risk sabotaging your job-search campaign and all-important sales pitch by making yourself sound old and tired, or leathery like a well-done steak? No, of course not.
You want to sell the sizzle. You want to appear ripe for the picking. Not too ripe, mind you, but fresh with pluck, promise and enthusiasm. You’re bristling with it. Not only are you up to the task, you know how to present yourself in as flattering a light as possible, as the solution to an employer’s prayers.
Now let me rhyme off a few choice descriptors that can send your résumé straight to the circular file:
- Seasoned
- Well-seasoned
- Extensive track record
- Veteran
- Mature professional
- Long tenured
- A long and illustrious career
- Long-standing
- Long-time
Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative
What most job seekers of a certain age fail to understand, and I’ve certainly been guilty of this, is that your value to a prospective employer stems not from your years of experience but from your personality, attitude and the unique skill set you can bring to the job in the here and now. In a buyer’s market such as this, you can ill afford to misplace the emphasis.
Repeat after me: It’s your strengths, capabilities, qualifications, and achievements — not your previous job titles, duties and length of service — that you need to underscore.
What’s your wow factor?
As in, “Wow, we need to talk to this person!”
Choose language that is empowering, attention grabbing and persuasive. Good writers make it a point to use the active rather than the passive voice because it’s direct and in the moment. Think about applying that same rule when composing your cover letter and résumé.
To be able to articulate the many talents you can bring to an organization — to convince hiring managers that you’re a candidate worth meeting — consider using these or similar terms to better convey your can-do attitude and intrinsic worth:
- Dynamic
- Enthusiastic
- Energetic
- High energy
- Prodigious energy
- Excited
- Self-motivated
- Skilled
- A quick study
- Ready to hit the ground running
- Thoroughly schooled in
- Well-versed in
So start compiling a list of your positive attributes, business accomplishments and successes, all of which speak to your strong work ethic, and you can’t help but demonstrate your complete confidence in your own brand.
— Judy Margolis
Your New Year’s resolution Don’ts
When it comes to defending against ageism in the workplace—in particular, inviting unwanted attention to your possibly advanced years—here are some resolutions you can make and keep.
Resolution #1: Resolve to look forward, not back
The past is past. Most people, recruiters especially, want to know:
- What have you been up to lately?
- What can you do for me now?
- What do you want to accomplish in the future?
It’s time to break out of the habit of touting your 15, 20, 25-plus years of experience or more, as though it were a hard-won badge of honor you wish you could frame or take to the bank. Your time in the trenches is so First World War.
Do you really want to come across as an oldster in this competitive a job market where, as a Boomer, say, you’re vying with Gen Xers, Yers and Millennials? Drop any mention of this stuff in your cover letter and résumé. Do it now.
Resolution #2: Never let ‘em count your candles
Face it, there’s a good chance you’ll be working for a younger boss when you land your next job and with colleagues who are younger still. Or maybe you already find yourself in this position. Recognize that ageism is pervasive even though few will openly admit to its existence. Do you want to be subject to unfair stereotyping through your own careless missteps?
Resolution #3: Don’t do anything to stereotype yourself as an old fogey
No catnaps at your desk, either. Nor do you want to come off as the know-it-all eminence grise. Or the technophobe. Or the person who’s made fun of for tapping out messages on your BlackBerry using your index finger. Or, worse yet, checking your clunky old wristwatch when you want to know the time? Perish the thought.
Resolution #4: Don’t lead with your experience or patronize
Why risk threatening younger bosses or co-workers with your deep well of knowledge? You want to make friends, not enemies. Before you start mentoring or coaching them, make sure they have clearly expressed a sincere willingness to learn from you and see your offer of assistance as well-meaning, not merely an opportunity to show them up.
Resolution #5: Don’t be dismissive of new ideas because you think you know better
You may be senior in years and experience but not in seniority. Keep in mind that curmudgeonly phrases such as “I remember when” or “we used to do it this way” won’t endear you to your listeners or impress them with your forward thinking. More likely they’ll be perceived as a real turnoff, labeling you as even more of an outsider, and an unwelcome naysayer at that.
Now for some Do’s
Appear open to new ideas and enthusiatic about embracing them.
Stay current by seeking out professional development opportunities.
Keep up with industry, technology and social trends, as well as popular entertainment, even slang, by regularly combing the Internet.
Narrow the age gap by dressing in contemporary fashion. Don’t shop your closet if your wardrobe dates back to the 1980s.
Most important: remember that age is only a state of mind, so think young(er).
Whenever we start to get desperate, we job seekers often dig ourselves ever deeper into the trench of despond. Then the phone unexpectedly rings and a friendly, chipper voice on the other end lures us with the promise of employment. We perk right up, momentarily drop our defenses and put on our best corporate voice.
Warning: You may have just fallen prey to the bottom-feeder, the recruiter straight out of central casting (or is that hell?), a master at playing on our false hopes. Is it worth your time to just play along?
Do you believe in miracles?
Telltale signs you might as well hang up right now
- When they’re vague about where they found your résumé
- Talk too fast
- Have no interest in meeting with you in person, but can’t wait to submit your résumé, pronto, to a client in need of a warm body
- Play coy about revealing the client’s name
- Tell you they’re on retainer, that the listing is unadvertised and exclusive to them. Later, of course, you discover the posting on Monster
- Start picking your brains to determine if you might have already been scooped by another recruiter or have ever applied on your own
- Feign polite interest when you try to talk up your value and unique skill set
- First order of business: Finding out what you’re looking for by way salary
- Second order of business: Asking if you’re willing to settle for less? — say by about $20K to $30K, maybe even more
- Assure you up and down that there’s no room for negotiation
- Demand to know if you’re still interested
- Make you feel chastened, cheapened and even more desperate to give in
- Ask you to tailor your résumé to fit the job description, even when that means stretching the truth
- Keep sending you emails to hurry it up; the deadline is imminent
- Follow up with an urgent email the next day, or two or three, asking you to supply a cover letter or complete a lengthy questionnaire
- Call you yet again about something else they forgot to mention, like the need to add five references, including full contact information for each
All that effort and in return only silence. You never hear from them again. Don’t fall into this trap. There are far better ways to use your energies, which I’ll be discussing in my upcoming blogs.
— Judy Margolis
