Over the past fourteen years I have looked through hundreds of resumes and conducted many dozens of interviews with candidates, most presented by recruiting agencies. Something I have noticed and commented on to recruiters on several occasions is the lack of format to resumes presented and the almost total absence of coversheets. I feel this is a disservice to your clients and the programmers you represent. To address this I would like to offer the following advice: Proof-read your candidates’ resumes, and help them craft cover letters. Not only will you be helping your clients and candidates, if you do it right you will also have the opportunity to strengthen your brand.
Formatting Resumes
In “Secrets of A Great I.T. Resume,” I address what goes into making a great resume. In this article I make the case that a resume is an advertising tool and the item being offered is the programmer. As this is the case why forward resumes to clients that have typos, grammatical issues, tense issues and other easily corrected problems? In “Secrets of A Great Resume” I mention that the characteristics of a good resume are well known and yet (in the I.T. world at least) the factors that contribute to a good resume do not appear to be well known. You as a recruiter are the salesperson selling the services of you candidates. Allowing them to represent themselves with sub-optimal resumes is akin to a marketing representative who allows clients to send out brochures with typos, grammar issues and the like.
Take time to review the candidate’s resume with the candidate. Point out grammar, tense, spelling and other issues. Better yet create a standard resume template that you send to clients and work with the candidate to fit his / her resume to the template. Adopt a standard font and form. Doing so allows your clients to quickly locate wanted information with every resume you deliver.
Formatting can be automated through several means. The easiest would be to create a web form (such as those offered by Monster.com or Dice.com) that prompts the candidate to enter desired information and then presents the resume in a pre-determined format.
Performing these simple tasks increases the appearance of professionalism of your firm and the candidates you represent. As an added bonus to you, include branding elements on the resume declaring that this is your candidate.
Include Relevant Cover Letters
A resume describes your candidate. A cover letter describes how the candidate matches the client’s position and briefly explains why your candidate is a good fit for the client’s position. Again, the job you are doing is selling your candidate to the client. As explained in “Secrets of A Great Resume” a cover letter should be targeted to a specific position of a specific client. At the very least create a list of the requirements desired by the client matched to the skills of your candidate. As mentioned above it has been rare when I have been sent a cover letter with a resume. When I have the candidate that sent it was given additional consideration for the position being filled. As with resume formatting this is a task that can be easily automated using templates. Likewise the cover letter presents you with an additional means to present your firm’s unique brand to your client.
The competition between recruiters to place candidates is fierce. I usually receive calls and emails from several recruiting firms for every position I am offered (yes I am still a very active programmer). Based on this I know that many recruiting firms submit candidates to the same client. Taking the time to review and edit your candidate’s email is a must. If you take the time to create standardized resumes and include cover letter you will set yourself above your competitors and have the opportunity to strengthen your brand.
login