When JSR was asked to build a resume development practice, you might imagine how we reacted as former search firm owners who hated editing resumes. The thought of doing this as a regular service was repulsive.

We did however, agree to research the industry, hoping we would find some firm we could simply endorse. We are posting this in an attempt to give you some insight into the recruiting world.

So in this process we had to research multiple areas

1. Employment communication

2. The mind of the employer (from the moment they first look at a resume until they make an offer)

3. The existing resume services available in the market (hoping we could simply endorse someone)

4. Why candidates build their own resumes

Employment Communication

Employment communication all by itself is a limiting factor in obtaining new employment.  It is much different than ordinary communication. At least in ordinary communication each party has the same options. They can;

1. Set up a face to face meeting
2. Make a phone call
3. Send an email
4. Send a letter

With employment communication the candidate is forced to send only a resume first. This forces the candidate to decide the most important information that the employer will learn about them and limits the candidate to 2 pages. So now, instead of having an interaction, it is a one way statement that limits the candidate to what the resume says they offer.

The Mind of the Employer

Our research revealed that each employer has their own specific job requirements relative to the position they are trying to fill. They had questions about the candidate relating to those requirements. Here is what we found that was interesting to say the least;

1. Every employer has 7 questions on their minds that have nothing to do with the job description
2. Every single employer has these same 7 questions
3. These are questions the employer has to answer in order to actually hire the candidate
4. These questions have nothing to do with the job description
5. Employers know the questions but are not conscious that they can be anticipated and strategically answered in a resume

The employer is then forced to schedule a series of interviews to obtain the answers.

1. First Interview – The resume is out, the questions are about statements in the resume. The employer is attempting to clarify missing information; Information that could have been in the resume.
2. Second Interview – The resume is still out but the employer has picked certain topics that they want to know more specific information about; Information that could have been in the resume.
3. The Third Interview – The resume has been put away, the employer is now revealing the true nature of their need for a new employee and asking the candidate what they would do if they had the job.

We thought, what if the answers to all of those questions were written into the resume? How would that affect the questions in the interview? We tested it and learned that the candidates with that kind of resume were being asked 3rd interview type questions in their first interview. While their competitors are providing the missing information from their resumes, our candidates were being asked for specifics of what they would do if they were hired.

The types of Resume Writing Firms out there now

This was a frustrating experience to say the least. We knew that a great resume writer was someone who can write about a candidates ability in such a way that it communicates well with a potential employer, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, we also learned the following;

1. Career resume writers spent their days talking to people who are in a job hunt and did not know the mind of the employer. They were not even conscious of the 7 questions.
2. Career resume writers build essentially what would be called a brochure to be presented to the employer in an attempt to secure an interview but few to none of them had any real experience selling to employers.
3. Most of the Career resume writers were people who had a journalism or writing background. They could write well but could not be strategic in their writing.
4. Most of them did not become Career resume writers by choice but rather by circumstance (long term unemployment).

So here are the questions that developed in our minds;

1. If a career resume writer spends their time talking to people in a job hunt, how do they know what the employer needs to see on the resume?
2. Why would anyone hire someone to build a brochure for them that had no exposure to the buyer lthey are targeting?
3. Why would anyone hire someone to build a strategic document that had no strategic experience.

So the final piece of our research was to understand why people, especially executive and leadership types built their own resumes but by this time, we already had our answer.  That is what led us to develop the 7 questions into the 7 dimensional resume communication system.

Just a thought; unless the core competencies that built your career to what it is today are resume writing core competencies, get a referral from one of our partners and let us show you what people who have made their living selling to the same people you are trying to sell to can do with your resume.

We look forward to hearing from you soon

Jackson Stevens Resumes

This is a very common question. So common in fact, if it is not asked, one might question the experience and preparedness of the interviewer. Every executive or manager is expected to have goals. The higher the level of the position, the more refined those goals are expected to be.

The following list of responses was compiled from our recruiting partners. These are responses candidates gave as their primary goals.

Take a moment and review the list to see if your primary goals are listed and make a note of it;

1. To get back to work
2. To find stability with an employer where I can work for the long term
3. To make more money
4. To gain a better challenge
5. To attain a higher level or responsibility
6. To Find a job that I really enjoy
7. To shorten my commute time
8. To work for a more stable company
9. To obtain a better work life balance
10. To retire
11. To obtain a position where I can get excited about what I do

Did you identify if your goals were similar?

Now let’s break it down;

When an employer is hiring a leadership candidate, they want to know that the person they are considering is driven and focused. How could one be focused without an established benchmark to focus on?

If a leadership candidate does not have developed and documented goals, they will probably not be advanced. Remember; in the mind of the employer you are always replacing someone. Either they had someone who was very good at the job or who was very bad at the job. Either way, the employer has goals for that position and they want to be sure you line up.

There are 2 types of goals we found when surveying our recruiting partners;

• Exocentric
  • Goals that are outwardly focused
    • For the good of the team

And

• Egocentric
  • Goals that are inwardly focused
    • For the good of self

The entire list above is egocentric and would not help to advance you in the interview process. If you identified any of those common responses, you will not create differentiation in your candidacy.

An executive or manager who does not have well established exocentric goals is sending the message that they are not driven beyond their own benefit. Professional career goals are target points for the improvement of the organization. Anyone who has succeeded long term at anything that was worth while did it using exocentric goals.

Most often when you are asked this question in an interview, the employer is looking for the following information;

1. Does this candidate have goals at all?
   1. If not, why would I hire them?
2. Are this candidate’s goals in line with our organizational goals?
   1. Are they too aggressive?
   2. Are they too passive?
3. How developed are this candidate’s goals?
   1. Do they extend to and beyond 5 years?
   2. Do they extend to and beyond 10 years?
4. How visionary is this candidate?
5. When asked this question, did the candidate focus on themselves with their goals or on our organization?

Now for some answers;

We believe the best answer is to thoroughly research the organization you are interviewing with and find where their goals are already in line with your goals. Don’t be too specific about your goals but find the balance. Make sure you have taken the time well in advance of your research to really think about, and then write out your professional goals.

Don’t focus on your personal/professional goals; making more money, having greater responsibility, or finding work life balance. Those goals are not likely to ever be in line with what an employer is looking for. Instead think about your potential contribution and focus on that.

Here is an example of some statements that were created by some of our résumé writers;

 Employer: What is your 5 year goal?

Candidate: Are you looking for professional or personal goals?

                       (Shows how the candidate thinks)

Employer: Professional

Candidate: Would you mind if I started with my first year?

                        (Confirms how the candidate thinks)

Employer: That would be fine

Candidate:

I believe goals have to be fluid. You set a goal based upon what you know and then your augment it based upon what you achieve. My focus the first year would be to continue the momentum that has already been established by your company and do everything in my power to fuel that momentum. I would not make any change for the sake of change itself. Once I have a clear grasp on the methods and processes that are already in place and working, I will be able to develop improvements, check them against the team and my leadership, and then implement them.

I have learned that to succeed in attaining goals one has to teach their subordinates to make momentum the rule and not the exception. I would not do anything that interrupts momentum.

I have led teams that have worked hard and achieved fantastic results. My job is to facilitate and motivate.

So my first year goal would be to fuel what is working while identifying what is not.

Then carefully implement the changes monitoring results. To me this is continuous improvement at its core. Within 5 years we should see a dramatic shift in momentum and have to restructure our 10 year goal based upon our successes. That is what I mean by goals have to be fluid.

I have done my homework on your organization and I have a vision for what we could do together. I brought an outline with me, would you like to see it? I am not an insider yet but what I learned from the outside might benefit you. 

The candidate then lays out a 5 year plan based upon all available information about the company’s goals. The interview runs on for several hours as the hiring authority asks more questions and becomes more interested. The offer comes a few weeks later. 

This article was written by one of our resume writers; a former search firm CEO with more than 25 years experience in the industry and is available to give you a free resume critique (see below).

JSR has lots of free interview training modules on the way. Watch for these insights to help you navigate these uncharted waters. Good luck to you!

Jackson Stevens Resumes

Click here to hear why more Search Firms partner with Jackson Stevens than any other Executive Resume Service

Click here to put your resume in our system and get notification on new positions

Contact Jackson Stevens Resumes

We heard this statement so many times we decided to survey our recruiting and search partners on this subject. There was not one who has not heard this statement hundreds of times. Interestingly, few could give us examples where in the end, the statement was found to be true.

If you are a job search candidate and have never been a recruiter you just don’t know the lay of the land. You rely on your instincts, just like   when you drive for the first time in a city you are unfamiliar with. You make mistakes. Interviewing is both tactical and instinctive but it is not like making a sales pitch. It is like making a sales pitch without looking like you are making a sales pitch. How much experience could a person have doing that?

The search firm owners and managers we surveyed said that thay work in the profession every day and see business titans make silly (some said stupid) mistakes during the interview and then rationalize why they did not get the job.

Here are a couple of comments we heard when we asked our search firms about this subject;

“When a candidate says; “Just get me in front of them. I will get the job!”, it’s like my 5 year old asking me to let them play with the real shotgun because they are good with the plastic one!”

“Dad, let me take the motorcycle out, I ride my bicycle every day!”

Have you seen that commercial where the dad is giving his daughter the keys to the car and when they show the daughter she is 8 years old? It’s not until the end of the commercial that you see the 8 year old is really a young woman going off to college. Unfortunately, false reasoning is the most common mistake made by executive level job seekers. The second is the notion that a great writer makes a great resume writer. In desperate situations it is even more common. The frustration we heard from our recruiters when asked about his subject was

“I cannot get executive candidates to just stop talking and listen.”

Our advice to the recruiters was that they have to do something that will convince the executive or manager that they don’t know the lay of the land. To ask them some of the questions that have caused others to lose the opportunity in an attempt to show the candidate what they don’t know and convince them to be more prepared.

It is interesting that we as human beings will plan and prepare for a presentation to sell a product that does not mean all that much to us personally, but do not prepare nearly as intensively for something like this, which is so much more important to our future.

If we truly were all great presenters then why so often are there people in authority over us who do not offer as much as we do?

The moral of our story is;

Try not to fool yourself into thinking that interviewing is a core competency. Ask any recruiter anywhere about the people who interview for positions in leadership and they will tell you what they told us.

Think about it for a moment. If you are really great at what you do at work, how could it be possible to develop a core competency in an area that you have so little experience? Have you ever seen a commercial where the star is the business owner? Have you ever seen one where you thought the business owner was fabulous? Have you ever seen a freeway billboard with a confusing message? You think; I know they didn’t have professionals involved in that one!

If you have only interviewed from the candidate’s side of the desk a few times in your life, how could you be an expert?

Expert candidate interviewing is a gift that very few people in the world have. We polled our Search firms and they agree. Most cannot think of one candidate that “aced” every question but they could all think of several situations where a candidate was fabulous at what they did at work but failed to make an impression on the employer.

So take the time to truly prepare yourself for the interview, just like you would an important sales call. If you are not the persuasive type, ask around and find someone who can help you but make sure they have worked at your level in an organization and have extensive candidate side interviewing experience, then, only work with a firm that will allow you to pay them by the hour.

JSR has lots of free interview training modules on the way. Watch for these insights to help you navigate these uncharted waters. Good luck to you!

Jackson Stevens Resumes

Click here to hear why more Search Firms partner with Jackson Stevens than any other Executive Resume Service

Click here to put your resume in our system and get notification on new positions

Contact Jackson Stevens Resumes

In this modern, internet driven job market, Search Firm owners and operators need help sourcing some of their most difficult searches. JSR works on behalf of the Search Firm sourcing and forwarding resumes of appropriate candidates. Since we work on behalf of the search firm there is no fee to the candidate. Post your resume in our system and be found when appropriate searches are conducted.

Jackson Stevens Resumes

Click here to hear why more Search Firms partner with Jackson Stevens than any other Executive Resume Service

Click here to put your resume in our system and get notification on new positions

Contact Jackson Stevens Resumes

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So, you have all of the needed qualifications and skill sets but still did not get the position.   Remember, your perception of a good fit is not always theirs. The match is crucial when employers assess your candidacy.  Once they are beyond the qualifications match, they continue to assess the skill sets match and then finally to the cultural match. More positions are lost in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the interview than at any other moment. They have decided to speak with you because from the moment they began reading your resume they began to see a fit. If you can keep that momentum going, you may get to the offer. You have to see to it that the elements you bring out from your past experiences flow with the needs of the position. The better the explanation of your experiences, the more likely you advance. It is your job to control yourself in that moment to make sure that the employer has an accurate view of you as a person. That is why preparation is such a key element to success in the interview; chemistry, personality, appearance, communication skills, energy, motivation, passion, assertiveness, are all areas that may be misinterpreted if you are not careful. You must plan your marketing image, not hope for it. The following is the first “What to do” and “What not to do” so bookmark this page for future articles.

Be Prepared

Advanced preparation is not just important, it is imperative. Being prepared is something you cannot do once you have failed the interview. Interviews are the #1 event where you are asked open-ended questions (#2 is a courtroom).  Ambiguous questions are asked so that the interviewer can get to the heart of who you are without the benefit of you filtering your answers, what we mean is; most people have the persona they want the outside world to see and then there is the “real” persona. This is more true in an interview than in any other scenario. When the interviewer asks the infamous “Tell me about yourself”, it is only the first of many open ended questions that will be hurled at you. This can be a trap as you cannot possibly know what part of you they want to hear about and frankly we at Jackson Stevens recommend that you be yourself first and foremost. The simple truth is “you” are what they will get if they hire you.  So begin your preparation by thinking hard and long about your answer. Categorize it into as many categories as you can think of. How many different elements are there to you? Start with an organizational pyramid, with “you” at the top, and then divide the question into 2 segments; you as a person on the left, and you the “employee” on the right. They are not likely to be interested in you as a person at the beginning of an interview process so this question is almost always about you as “employee”. Now, break you the employee into further categories; your dedication, your work ethics, you as a manager, your tenacity, your ability with customers, finance, technology etc. make as many categories as you can think of. Answer the question in detail for each area of “you” that you discover but no more than 1 minute on each area. Do not elaborate too much unless they ask you a clarifying question, which would indicate interest in the subject. Make sure to keep a mental note on both what their questions are and when they were asked. That way you can determine what areas of you they were most interested in. Make sure when you build your answers that you think about how the listener will perceive what you say.

Jackson Stevens Resumes

Click here to hear why more Search Firms partner with Jackson Stevens than any other Executive Resume Service

Click here to put your resume in our system and get notification on new positions

Contact Jackson Stevens Resumes

When a firm asks this question it can be a two-edged sword.

The recruiter or search firm represents the employer, but even more they represent themselves. They have to get some idea of what kind of income you expect in order to avoid wasting their time. If your salary requirements are iron clad, give them the minimum base. But don’t backpedal later. Every search has a salary range. Knowing your requirements enables the recruiter to qualify you financially. Just remember, they may use this information to disqualify you as well. Your requirements may be flexible but you do not want to look desperate.

So what do you do? The recruiter needs to at least have some idea of your needs and at the same time you need to be vague enough to be flexible and get to the offer. Jackson Stevens Resumes recommends you answer this question in stages;

The Best Answers

Answer 1 – For those who wish to avoid giving a number

Am I to assume this information is confidential?

If the recruiter says no;

“I appreciate your question. You should know that my career growth has primarily been based upon my performance. I believe when I focus on and achieve results, the money will take care of itself.”

Now be careful. You might get ruled out by some because they feel you are not being cooperative. If you feel forced to give a number, don’t use your current or most recent salary as a template. It is not relevant to the new employer. However, if you need to make $120k, our advice would be to state the following;

Answer 2 – For those who want to give a range

“I appreciate your question. You should know that my career has always developed based upon my performance. I believe that when I focus on and achieve results, the money takes care of itself…

I want you to know that I am open to any level of compensation to start as I believe my performance will dictate my financial future. Please do not consider my salary history when speaking to employers.” My base income has always been in the low 100’s. Understand, though this is not a requirement.

Remember, the recruiter and employer do not know what you can do for them yet and you are no where near the negotiation table. Do not let your answer keep you from even being considered. Make sure they know that growth and development are your primary motivators, not living expenses. The recruiter will respect you as a player.

Jackson Stevens Resumes

Click here to hear why more Search Firms partner with Jackson Stevens than any other Executive Resume Service

Click here to put your resume in our system and get notification on new positions

Contact Jackson Stevens Resumes