Fine tuning the resume in the electronic age

I will see a resume that sets off a red flag for me, from time to time.  Maybe it’s a confusing chronology, or some gaps in employment, and I start to feel like something that I’m missing.  Worse yet, like something is being obscured.  I can sometimes compare a resume I received some time in the past from a particular lawyer and find inconsistencies between it and their current copy.  When my internal alarm bell rings, I also go to LinkedIn.  Today, LinkedIn was kind enough to tell me that a lawyer who seemed to have too many employment moves in their career failed to include FOUR OTHER LAW FIRM employers on the resume that I saw.  I was concerned, but it didn’t take me long to discover that I didn’t have half of the story.

This particular resume wasn’t untruthful–there were no falsehoods that I could tell.  But this lawyer did choose to drop off over 5 years of post-admission legal experience.  I think it’s unlikely that a future employer won’t go through the same process I did in filling in the gaps.  I was never a fan of creative resume writing–I think that all your employers should be front and center.  Now the online world reinforces my view that there is likely no getting away from all of the particulars of your employment history.  In my opinion, you are always much better off controlling the delivery of how your job history is discovered by having a detailed chronology.  The alternative is leaving a recruiter or potential employer up to their own devices to fill in the gaps.  Most folks prefer getting the information at the outset than searching for it in cyberspace.

Very very temporary?

I recently had a conversation with someone who didn’t want to add a contract position to their resume.  I am of the opinion that all positions, including contract positions, MUST be on the resume.  This lawyer disagreed.  She felt that because the position was brief, she hated it, and the work was so unlikely to create a future conflict it was unnecessary to put it on the resume.

I get what she’s saying–especially because a firm may view contract positions negatively, a short contract position seems like a likely candidate to fall off the resume.  Even so, I think it absolutely has to be on CV.  The truth is that partners and administrators at law firms will view it differently, but there are plenty of folks who will view the omission of ANY job, no matter how brief, as lying on one’s resume.  Certainly this is one side of the spectrum, but that’s the side I think it’s prudent to cater to.  If, during an interview, your conversation gets derailed explaining that you worked somewhere and then why you didn’t include it on the resume, I think it’s unlikely that the meeting will end on a positive note.  You’ve just caused a distraction–a distraction from the firm thinking about anything other than what a good job you’d do if they hired you.

I know it’s boring and conservative, this 100% disclosure and writing a resume to appeal to the most meticulous of hiring professional.  As time consuming as a job search can be, I promise it’s more time consuming to back-track over your rationale for omitting a job from your resume–and potentially will completely derail your efforts.

Don’t Rely on your Acting Skills

Here in the Midwest, the economy is improving (finally!) and we are seeing more and more opportunities.  This is great news, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the job offers are going to start pouring in.  The competition for the jobs is brutal, and there are some pretty fantastic candidates out there competing for a relatively small number of positions.  Consequently, when interviewing for a job, you need to be fully prepared and engaged in the position, firm and process.  Without this focus, there is almost no chance that you will secure the position.  That is, unless you are a professionally trained actor.

The other day, I was preparing a candidate for an interview.  The firm with which he was interviewing was a great one:  strong reputation with solid work and a collegial atmosphere.  The position, on the other hand, was not a perfect fit for him.  This candidate began his career in commercial litigation, and after four years of practice moved into white collar crime before being laid off for economic reasons.  The current position was for a commercial litigation associate, and while my candidate had the requisite skills and experience (and expressed interest in applying to the job), I was having a hard time preparing him for the interview.  It seemed like he had a dull, almost apathetic response for every question I asked him, after which he’d say something like “in the interview, I’ll be more enthusiastic,” a statement I have learned not to trust.

After a few minutes of this painful question and answer session, I finally stopped and said something like “why are we wasting your time and mine on this interview if it’s clear that you don’t want the job?”  To which he replied “because I don’t have a job and I need one.”

I get it.  When unemployed, it is best to keep an open mind and apply for positions even if they do not appear to be the exact fit.  But, needing a job, without other reasons, does not qualify as a good enough reason for wanting the position.  If a candidate is going to bother with this process (especially if he is using a recruiter), he should be interested in enough to be able to sincerely state why he wants the job and why he would be the best choice for the position.  My candidate was expecting to rely on his acting skills for the interview and planned to throw out a couple of generic reasons for wanting the position.

Simply put, his plan was a recipe for failure.  In order to have any chance of getting a callback interview, my candidate needed to have some sincere reasons for wanting the job.  So, I spent the next half hour breaking apart the job, the firm and the opportunity in order to help him to see that there were things about the job that were very attractive to him.  There was tremendous opportunity for growth and business development, and the firm did a little white collar crime, so there was hope that in the future, my candidate might be able to partake in that work.  By the end of the prep session, my candidate could actually answer the questions I posed with a little bit of sincerity, energy and (almost) excitement.

It wasn’t an easy process, but I am pretty sure that it helped him secure the callback interview he has next week.