Face to
Face
With Fred Coon
June 8, 2004 - 20 Pet Peeves Recruiters Have About Resumes
Courtesy of Mike Worthington, ResumeDoctor.com
# 4 - Incomplete Contact Info
Jennifer Baker of Inter*Link Technology Solutions in Daytona Beach, FL shares, "I think that
candidates often don't think about what might happen to their resumes once they hit a recruiter.
Many of the resumes I get now are electronic in form, so the resume does not stay attached to the
candidate's e-mail for long. Any candidates who are seriously seeking a position should make it
as easy as possible for a recruiter to contact them regarding their credentials. That means
providing as many ways to contact the candidate as possible."
It is imperative that your complete contact info be easy to read and at the top of the page. This
includes your full name, phone numbers, (home, cell and a daytime number), home and email
addresses. Noah Rahm of ResumeDoctor.com explains, "At least 1 out of 7 resumes that are submitted
to us for assistance do not have an email address on them. In this day and age, it is like not
including a phone number. I recently had a candidate not include any contact info on his resume.
When asked about such, his response was that it was on his cover letter. Who is to say that the
cover letter will make it from Contact A to Contact B and all the way to the hiring manager?"
Speaking of email addresses, your address should be professional. Recruiters shared with us that
they do receive the occasional resume with an email address such as hot-sexy-kitten@yahoo,
son-of-satan@hotmail, beer-guzzler@hotmail, etc. Remember, a resume will be the first impression
an employer or recruiter will have of you, so make it a good one!
As discussed in last week's article, do not use the headers and footers feature in Word to
include your contact info. This requires recruiters and hiring managers to manually put this
information into their database. As also discussed, many job seekers use the standard Word
template format. Not only do most candidates often pick a very small font size for their contact
info, which requires the reader to set his/her screen display to the 150% setting, but also your
contact info will most likely be lost when it is entered into a HR recruiting system. Furthermore,
do not shade your contact info in gray, use fancy hard to read fonts or graphical lines around
such. If your resume is more than one page, it is often a good idea to include your name, phone
number and email address on page 2.
In closing, whenever your contact info changes, make sure any and all recruiters you are working
with or have in the past, are updated. If anything, it offers a great excuse to touch base again.
You never know what new requisition just came across their desk. Being on the top of their mind
can never hurt.
Recruiter Tip: With the many ISP's changing hands everyday or going out of business,
create a permanent email address. There are plenty of free services out there such as Yahoo or
Hotmail. Many candidates opt to use a work email address. It is often not a good idea to do so,
for two major reasons. One, what if you leave that position? How will a recruiter be able to
email you a new posting? Two, many employers monitor their employee's email boxes. This could
compromise your current position.
Recruiter’s likes and dislikes in a resume were surveyed nation-wide by Mike Worthington of ResumeDoctor.com.
FACE to FACE will publish all twenty pet peeves in this column over the next months.
ResumeDoctor.com is a service provided by Personnel Department Inc. PDI is Vermont’s largest independently owned
staffing agency. They have been locally owned and operated for over 14 years. They have been featured in
many publications, TV news programs, and radio broadcasts. You may contact them at:
http://www.resumedoctor.com.
About the Author:
Fred Coon
Why Shouldn't We Hire You?
Effective Personal Marketing