We've talked a bit in the past about how to make your resume stand out so it's at least read by a human being -- not relegated to the slush pile where it will never see the light of day. In those posts, two readers left especially useful comments that I wanted to share with you all. Here's the first -- from my post titled The Best Way to Make Your Resume Stand Out:
I used to work in HR as a HR Assistant for a large company. It was my job to open the resumes and scan them into a computer. Bulky packages do get noticed, as annoying.
Even if a resume was sent FedEx it would end up with me to log and process. We had to track them for legal purposes. As the hiring decision was not up to me, the effort to stand out with special mailings was wasted. The resumes with keywords that matched the job requirements were the resumes that got passed along.
Networking, on the other hand, worked well. We would often get resumes from managers that someone had passed them and they would more often than not get put on the interview list.
If you don't have a contact in the company, match your resume to the position, making sure that you are what they are looking for. That will get your resume past the first hurdle. Then make sure your resume is well written, with a good cover letter. If you have a hard time with this, invest in a resume service. I did and they took my blah resume to rock star. It is a good investment in yourself.
So the suggestions are:
1. Use your network to get the resume hand-delivered to a decision maker (as I suggested)
2. Be sure your resume is well written -- full of key words and, of course, accomplishments.
The second comment was left on my post titled The Best Way to Produce Your Resume and talked about the value of sending in a hard copy resume versus simply emailing it:
I agree completely! I just hired four new staff members. We put ads online to advertise. I only got one resume in the mail. You better know that I read it completely.
I think people depend on email but don't realize that in the electronic age, USPS could actually distinguish them from the competition.
Unfortunately the person that mailed the application wasn't qualified for the job, but I did think it was an excellent way to get her resume read!
It should be on nice coordinated paper. The crest is a way the paper company shows quality. I think it's nice but certainly not required. As long as it's on nice paper, no typos and the envelope matches, it will say that the applicant has some attention to detail.
As usual, the basics apply too -- well written, nice paper and NO typos.
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