5 Tips to get your Resume to the Top of the Stack

5 Quick Resume Tips For The Lab Industry

There are tons of articles out there detailing what to include and what not to include on your resume, what you should detail, how you should format it, whether to add or to omit your references, so on and so on. I look at hundreds of resumes daily, and sort through many different types of resumes, ones that are formatted with tables, some that have catchy objectives or titles, some with cursive font, some with all capital letters, some with extremely long cover letters, and some even have pictures and graphics on them. This details the top 5 tips that I live by for resume building. I know this might not work for some industries, like say, Internet Technology (IT), or Web Designing Jobs, or you know, those jobs that require you to be artistic and savvy with all the formatting and table building within a document, but I am speaking for the Medical Field, the Laboratory field to be specific. This is just from my experience, what my clients respond to, and what resumes that I have referred obtain the most positive feedback.

1) NO TABLES. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME. I can go on and on about this. But I will just name a couple reasons why there should not be any tables. 1.) It is hard to read, when you do tables you have your job title at the left of the page, then the dates at the right of the page five spaces down, then the name of the company at the left of the page in the middle of the page, you get it, It is just all over the place and hard to read. 2.) When you submit your resume to a job, your resume will most likely go in to the recruiter’s or human resources manager’s candidate tracking database systems. When your resume has been formatted with tables, usually there will be issues in uploading into these candidate-tracking systems, and most of us do not have the time to type your entire resume into the system since we review hundreds of resumes/day, so it will most likely be overlooked and not kept in a tracking system to contact you for future job openings 3.) The FIRST thing a hiring manger looks at is “experiences” so keep it basic, truthful, and easy to read, then bullet every bit of your job, and job tasks that relate to the position you are applying for. For Example:

Job Title

Dates of Employment

Title of Company

· Job Duty 1

· Job Duty 2

· Job Duty 3

**When sifting though hundreds of resumes a day to find a qualified candidate, this makes it quick and easy to read and will put your resume at the top of the list for a prospective job opportunity and interview.

2) Do not make your resume in all capital letters. Generally, when you type in capital letters it means that you are screaming. There is not need to scream on your resume. That is pretty self-explanatory. Moving On….

3) When typing out words on your resume. Rather then make words abbreviated, type the entire word out, unless you are abbreviating your type of degree (Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree), or when you are abbreviating your type of certification. Other then those two things you should write the entire words. For instance, University should not be abbreviated as Univ. Or, in my industry, Lab should be written out as Laboratory. Another one, Supervisor should not be written Supv. Just write out the word, it shows that you did not just slap your resume together and rush through it.

4) Do Not “Forget” the dates of employment. Always, always put the dates of employment on your resume in the work history section of your resume. It doesn’t matter why you omit the dates of employment from your resume: Because you have been out of the field for a while, because you have a very long job history since you have been in the field for a very long time, because you have short job stays, because you retired and want to come back into the field, because you are a entry level job seeker. It doesn’t matter the reason because either way, the hiring manager will ask for them and they will find out at some point. And when they have to ask for them and wait on them, then your resume may get lost in the mix of the other hundred resumes while the hiring manager waits on your omitted dates of employment.

5) Cover letters. Whether you write a cover letter or not is up to you. What I will tell you is that 1) NONE of my clients ask me for my referred candidate’s cover letter. 2.) You should rather spend time putting together an amazing reference sheet. You do not have to add your references to your resume, but if you get further along in the interview process, then you will 99% of the time, be asked for about 3 professional references. Be sure to keep your reference sheet up to date. Meaning, make sure your references know they are your reference, take the time to call ahead of time to give them a heads up. Also, try to put the reference’s personal phone number on there rather then their general work number where it will be hard to get in touch with them during their work day, unless you can provide a specific extension or direct line for the work number. Be sure to include their email address. For most of us, email is the best way to get in touch.

-Melissa Phelan

Allied Search Partners

3 Recruiting Techniques To Use Before Scheduling An Onsite Interview

Hiring is one of the most complicated tasks within an organization. Without a proper pre-employment screening process you are decreasing your productivity, wasting significant amounts of your recruitment budget, and wasting your time that you could be using to work on tasks delegated to you daily. The three following techniques to be used BEFORE scheduling a face to face interview will not only save you time and productivity, it will give you a better idea of whether or not this candidate who looks great on paper, is a good fit for your organizations environment and culture. The follow techniques will also help eliminate any last minute candidate rejections and prepare you for the obsticles that a candidate will have to face when accepting your position.

1. Do not just ask for a resume. Ask for a portfolio.

The first step to candidate prescreening is verification of required qualifications by reviewing resume, checking license, checking registrars, and verifying education and previous employment. One way to streamline this is to ask each candidate when applying to submit all required documentation with resume. i.e. “Please submit resume, copy license verification, copy of degree/diploma or transcripts, and copy of certification to be considered for this position. NO resume will be considered without the requested information*.” This simple statement will gather all required information to form complete portfolios of candidates interested in your position, and will save you a great deal of time in verifying qualifications. If a candidate is truly interested in a position then they will do everything necessary to be considered for an interview. If you have a candidate who does not send in the required information then you can almost certainly be sure that they do not qualify for this position, or they are not truly interested in the job. This statement will create a portfolio of each qualified candidate for your files to share with the department manager.

2. Schedule a 15 minute prescreen interview before scheduling a time for the candidate to speak to the department manager.

Once you have a candidate who has submitted their “portfolio” of qualifications, and you can be sure that they meet the minimum requirements you can move on to scheduling what we call our “Personal” phone screen interview. This phone screen can consist of questions like the following:

• What kind of personality/ person do you work best with?
• What did you like and dislike about your current and previous jobs?
• If you could change one thing about your last job what would it be?
• When faced with a problem how do you usually deal with the situation?

You can also probe the candidate even further in reference to any obstacles they may have to overcome when accepting a new position with your organization by asking questions like the following:

• Are their any obstacles that you will have to overcome to relocate to this area?
• Are their any obstacles that you will have to overcome when considering a career change?
• What are your salary expectations?

These questions among others are going to give you a good idea of how they fit within your company’s specific environment, team, and culture. They will also prepare you for any hurdles you might encounter with a particular candidate when getting closer to the time of offering that candidate employment.

3. Equip the department manager with the candidate’s portfolio and “Personal” phone screen prior to scheduling a phone interview between the department manager and the candidate.

Following the phone screen the next step for you is probably setting up a phone interview with the department manager(s). Because prior to this you have already verified minimum qualifications, have an idea of personality fit, and have an idea of any hurdles you may have to overcome when hiring this particular candidate, you are less likely to encounter any “surprises.” The only thing left for the department manager to do is speak to the candidate and formulate their own opinion about the candidate. At that point you and the department manager will have all the tools necessary to figure out if you are going to take the next big step of bringing this person in for a face to face interview.

These three techniques will greatly decrease the time and money spent by your organization for interviewing new candidates. The portfolio and “personal” phone screen will better prepare you and the department manager for making the decision to spend the money and time in bringing the candidate in for a face to face interview.

Allied Search Partners can become a full service extension to your HR department by offering the following services:

• Attraction of candidates
• Employment Prescreening: Phone Interview, Background Check, Reference Checks (1 and 2 rounds), Employment Verification, Education Verification, Registrar Verification, License Verification, Drug Screening/Tests
• Offering the candidate employment: Salary Negotiation, Counter Offer Issues

Please contact us today about our pre-employment screening and the opportunity to fill your next open position!

Welcome to our Blog

At Allied Search Partners, we are always looking for new ways to bring the community we serve closer together. We are, after all, in the business of bringing the right talent together with the right organizations :-) That’s why I’m excited that we are opening this blog. We have a lot of talented individuals on our staff who bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the job. Over the coming weeks, months (and years), they will join me in blogging here to try and spotlight current issues, trends, and resources that will hopefully help our clients find that perfect candidate and our candidates find that perfect opportunity. We recognize all of you bring years of knowledge and experience to the table as well, and I invite each and every one of you to post your thoughts and questions here too. Of course, you are always welcome to contact me directly (melissa@alliedsearchpartners.com) with any of your questions, comments, or concerns and I will be more than happy to help in any way that I can. I hope you’ll join us in this ongoing conversation and I look forward to meeting and speaking with all of you!

Sincerely,

Melissa Phelan
President, Allied Search Partners