How to Write A Resume Cover Letter Blog

Despite the cries of unemployment soaring to 10.2%,  there hasn’t been much talk about unemployment for professionals.  Despite reaching a ten year high of significant drop in the unemployment rate among professionals: from 5.2% in September to 4.7% in October!   That’s big news.  If you haven’t figured out a way to get yourself into the professional ranks, you need to go back to Fake Resume and study up on making the jump.

At the core of the numbers was the fact that unemployment dropped for professionals and managers in October (it also dropped for those with college degrees). This continues a decline that began in the summer and has seen the professional unemployment rate decrease from a decade-high 5.5% in July to 4.7% last month. Are you starting to see the BIG picture here?  People that are considered professionals and have college degrees.  Those that aren’t in that league are in a world of hurt right now.  Do what you have to, but get yourself there.

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Sometimes What You Leave Out of Your Resume Is More Important Than
What You Include

There’s an old saying that says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  Unfortunately this adage is very relevant to writing resumes and cover letters.  Over the years you’ve probably been told to add anything and everything that shows what a great citizen you are.  Perhaps you’ve been told to add a section at the bottom of your resume detailing your volunteer affiliations, hobbies or groups you’re a member of.  Doing so can immediately put your resume in the garbage.

Why would showing your civic or volunteer pride ruin your chances of getting a job interview?  One word…litigation!  You see, for Human Resources managers, keeping the company from getting sued is job #1.  Hiring a stellar candidate for the position comes in at a distant second place.

Resumes that reveal volunteer affiliations, hobbies, interests or memberships in groups that reveal such prohibited information as religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age are magnets for potential future lawsuits.  Companies do not need to know nor should they know any of these things about you.

For example, a resume may reveal that a person does volunteer work for a church or belongs to a group that is clearly associated with a particular race or nationality.
The Federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and the state equivalents specifically state that an employer is prohibited from obtaining or using such information.  If a company has this information in their files in the form of a resume,it  could come back and haunt them should the employer ever become the subject of civil litigation or a government investigation into their hiring practices.

So guess what an HR manager will do as SOON as they see that you’ve added information that could potentially get them sued? It ends up in the trash.  So regardless of how much relevant experience you have or how much money you spent on a professional resume writer to create a masterpiece for you….it WILL end up in the trash.

*Question of the Week*

Question:  After staying home with  my autistic son for a few years I’ve been trying to get back into the work force but the large gap in my employment is killing me!  I’ve sent my resume out to dozens of companies and I’m getting no responses.  What’s going on?

Answer:  I haven’t seen your resume or the cover letters that you’re using so I’m going to have to base my answer assuming that you are indeed qualified for the job and that your resume and cover letter are well written.

The best way for me to answer this is to share with you a story that an HR Manager told me.  He related to me how one time he had an amazing candidate interview with him for a mid level management position paying $75,000 per year.  The candidate’s background was perfectly matched for the position and she was articulate, presented well and breezed through three rounds of interviews to make it to the final three being considered for the position.

The HR manager told me that despite her being the best candidate of the three she wasn’t given the job offer.  When I enquired as to why, he responded by saying that during the third interview, she mentioned that she had a special needs child at home but he was in school now so she was up to the challenge of being employed full time once again.

His past history of people with children in general was that they often took more time off then their childless counterparts.  The final nail in her coffin was when somehow during the interview she mentioned being a single mom.  At that point she was “dead in the water”, since visions of her having to miss work or having to leave early were all that the hiring manager could think of from that point on.

Was what they did illegal? Absolutely, but hiring decisions like this are made every single day.  DON’T ever give someone any information that can give them a reason to rule you out.

So how do you navigate this minefield? Well the less you say the better.  An executive recruiter colleague of mine told his candidate to explain her employment gap by saying that she took time off to take care of  “Uncle Charlie,”  a fictional relative that had a terminal illness and had no one else to care for him.  Once he’d “passed on” she was ready to get back to work full time.  The truth of the matter was that she’d been a stay at home mom until her child was old enough to go to pre-school.  And yes, she got the job

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under How to write resume, Human Resources, Job Interview, Uncategorized, resume cover letter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.