TOP 5 RESUME TIPS

Susan Ireland, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Resume, Manager of the Damn Good Resume Website, and specialist Job Search Coach, wrote this article...

TOP 5 RESUME TIPS.

Susan says; “set aside at least three hours (that’s an average length of time to complete a resume if all goes smoothly). Before you start, print out the following set of notes and tape it to your computer, on the wall next to your desk, or someplace where you’ll see it throughout the process.

Print out the following tips and keep them near you while writing your resume. They hold the answers to all your resume questions.

Top 5 Resume Tips:

1. Your resume is about your future; not your past.
2. It is not a confessional. In other words, you don’t have to “tell all.” Stick to what’s relevant and
marketable.
3. Don’t write a list of job descriptions. Write achievements!
4. Promote only skills you enjoy using. Never write about things you don’t want to repeat.
5. Be honest. You can be creative, but don’t lie.

Most job seekers have the same problem when writing their resumes: they feel overwhelmed when it comes to presenting themselves in such a concise format. If you’re suffering from this problem, you might want to work with a partner — a friend, a fellow job hunter, a counsellor, or a professional resume writer — someone who can ask you probing questions and provide objectivity”.

Read more articles by Susan Ireland... see her videos or visit her website:
http://susanireland.com/resume/how-to-write/tips/

What makes YOU stay?

They say a change is as good as a holiday... but everyone knows that staying in one job too long can equal career suicide in today’s workplace. But how long is too long? What are the top 5 reasons people stay in one job for longer than 3 years... and lastly, how do you know when it’s time to move on, and what will look good on your resume?

Recruiter options vary - but most agree staying in a job for less than 2 years is to short, whereas staying in the same job for 5 years are considered by some employers as not having enough ambition and drive. Especially in a senior position.
Three years seems to be considered an ideal time frame to stay in any one job at a time. It shows potential employers that you have ambition and are serious about personal growth.

A few years ago, changing jobs created a negative perception, but nowadays that’s not an issue.

But way do some people stay in a job for longer that 3 years...

A survey, conducted by Ajilon office www.ajilon.com, a national speciality staffing and recruiting firm, identified the top 5 reasons...

* Being paid well
* Linking their co-workers
* Having job security
* Having good benefits (medical / dental insurance / pension plan)
* Being used to the job

Have you been sitting in a job for longer than 3 years?
Then what makes you stay?

Adapted and revised.

Introducing Gary Nuttall, Director of Charles&Nuttall Limited

Gary Nutall, Director of Charles&Nutall Limited, and latest UK Engineer Search Partner, is a proactive and responsive consultancy formed to provide innovative and professional recruitment solutions in the Renewables market place.

Our resourcing solutions have been developed through building successful client relationships throughout Europe, USA & the Far East. With over 20 years of recruitment expertise our consultants recruit within the following sectors: Wind, Wave, Hydro, Solar/PV, CHP, Nuclear, Carbon Reduction, Oil & Gas, Biomass, Bio-oil, Anaerobic, Waste to Energy, Power Generation.

Charles&Nuttall brings you the very best professionals in the energy industry.
These include but are not restricted to: Project Managers, Development Engineers, Designers, Technical Directors, Product Managers, Business Development Managers, Power Systems Engineers, Project Engineers, Due Diligence Consultants, Feasibility & EIA Managers, Energy Assessors, Operations Managers, and Acoustic Consultants.

More about Gary Nuttall at: www.engineernetworkgroup.com

Welcome to Richard Triggs and his team...

Welcome to Richard Triggs, Managing Director of Arete Executive and his team... Peter Mastoianni and Enya Cannon.

Richard and his team are the latest Search Partners in the ENG-Egineer Search Partner Group.

Arete Executive is an executive search, recruitment and coaching firm that specialises in providing recruitment solutions to identify, attract and retain world class business leaders to create true competitive advantage.

Read more about Arete Executive on the ENG-ESP Website: www.engineernetworkgroup.com

Double dating and double crossing ...

As the job market begins to pick up, I believe that we will see a lot more double dating going on and for that matter double crossing. When a search consultant realizes that their candidate just got double submitted, they know that their reputation has been dented. Unfortunately it’s a situation that hurts both the job seeker and the recruiter and typically leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the client hiring manager. The important lesson here is that candidates should be open and frank with recruiters when they apply for a position or when they list their expression of interest. Inform the recruiter of all applications that has been made in the last 6 months , even 12 months to make absolutely sure that your search consultant does not get egg on his/her face. I picked up some pointers on RecruitmentBlogs explaining why this double submitting thing happens and what are the consequences when this happens to a job seeker ...

You are working with a bad recruiter –
Some recruiters and their agencies only look to "turn and burn" through candidates. They give you insufficient information, rush you for your resume information, and then throw you to the client in the fastest time possible. You can sniff these recruiters out though. They typically won't know much about the position they are trying to recruit you for, because they are trying to juggle 5 different positions at the same time. Ask the right questions and dig in for information. If you're not comfortable with their level of knowledge, seek out another recruiter working on the same job.

You are working with a liar –
There are good ones and bad ones. Unfortunately, there are many recruiters out there so motivated by their metric goals that they will do whatever it takes to pad their numbers. They might submit you without your knowledge or even submit you knowing that you've already been submitted.

You are not managing your job search well enough-
Most jobseekers who have worked with recruiters for any time at all, know that they can get inundated with calls and positions in a matter of hours. Positions can get confused with other positions and before you know it you're having to go back into your dairy and pull the different job descriptions to make sure you haven't been submitted before. It's thus very important that job seekers come up with some type of system to ensure that they aren't increasing their chances of being double submitted.

You aren't making the recruiter disclose their client-
Recruiters are often very hesitant to disclose their clients because they have been burned in the past with candidates going directly to their client or going to another agency with the information about the job. This is a legitimate concern for the recruiter. So he/she might not be willing to tell you upfront, until they determine if you are a good fit for the position. Just make it clear to whoever is trying to recruit you that you do not wish to be submitted until you know the name of the client.

The consequences of double submitting in the recruitment industry, and I have came across triple submitting , is not to be taken lightly.

You will end up "burning" one (or both) of the recruiters-
One side will win and one side will lose. The side that looses will have a harder time working with the other party from that point on. It's never a good thing to burn the people or the bridges that build your career.

You can be rejected by the client –
Some clients/companies will completely reject you for the position you've been double submitted to. These zero tolerance clients are concerned with time efficiency and take a "principal based" approach to this issue. They realize that it takes a lot of time and resources when vendors fight over candidates and don't want to take part in this drama. They can also see it as candidates wasting their time and not having control over their job search and ultimately their career.

You can choose-
Many companies leave the double submittal fiasco up to the candidate to decide who should represent him/her when double submitting occur. This situation is ultimately the best for job seekers since it allow them to pick the recruiter who they are most comfortable with. However, this way of dealing with double dating is flawed and it could snow ball. On the one hand unscrupulous recruiting agencies realize that they still have a chance to represent candidates who have already been submitted. On the other hand candidates do not learn to manage their job search effectively in order to prevent double dating.

My personal view, and most of the companies I work with, is that of “first come first served”. No exception. If a CV has been presented by a recruitment firm it is seen as active and valid for six months. After six months the candidate’s profile may be submitted by another recruiter. This philosophy makes sense and it prevents infighting and unnecessary emotions, which we do not need in this industry.







Adapted and written by: Louis Botes - www.engsearchrecruit.com

Welcome - David McDermid

David Mc Dermid is the Director of The Specialist Group Consulting

David is our latest Australian Engineer Search Partner

To view David's profile on the Engineer Network Website, follow this link: www.engineernetworkgroup.com

So stick to the fight...

Don’t Quit

Unknown Other

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit.
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out:
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far:
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

A few points on Australian CV content and format - Greg Preston

Many people think that a CV or resume is a static document which is applicable and relevant for all countries and all situations. It isn’t. There are regional differences in the way CV’s are written and presented, and it’s important to recognise this if you are planning on applying for a role outside your home country. While my experience is predominantly head hunting and recruitment within the mining and minerals processing sectors, the comments here are relevant to most industry sectors.
Below are a few notes on how a CV or resume should be presented if you are applying for a role in Australia focussing on what resumes should look like and what they should and importantly should not contain when they are presented to a recruiter or a potential employer.

I’ll start by talking you through some myths:

1) Length – A CV should be of a certain length - either long or short.

Wrong – A CV should contain appropriate amounts of detail - and no more and no less. If a CV does not adequately capture your level of seniority, background, achievements, qualifications, then it has no hope of serving your purposes or your best interests. Ignore specific advice about page length; it’s irrelevant. Format is a different matter and I’ll deal with that in a separate point.


2) Personal Details – leave them in or out?

Let’s cut to the chase. Are you married, single, old, young, middle aged (whatever that means) ? Nobody has a right to ask any of these questions and expect an answer. Nor should they. However,.........it’s not hard to find out how old someone is, or if they have kids or any other detail. Social networking sites have taken care of most of that for us, for better or worse. Your CV will also be full of other clues as to your age, when you graduated from university being the most obvious marker. I’ll give an example: If John Smith graduated from University in 1994, he would most likely be 37 right now.
Put the details you want to down on your CV, and it will save everyone from guessing. Personal details that aren’t important should of course be left off. I’ve yet to meet anyone that was trying to find a candidate who had collected and read the entire works of John Grisholm or who was the President of the local ferret society.

3) Education – amazingly some people leave this out, fail to put down enough details and leave off the year they graduated. It’s all important and should be spelled out easily and concisely.

Eg. Bachelor of Engineering (Hons)(Mechanical) Curtin University of Western Australia 1994-1997
Current – Masters of Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne 2007 – current
It’s a personal choice as to whether or not you display your high school and year of graduation, but I’d suggest you do as it sets everything out nicely in a chronological order, and that’s important to most recruiters and HR folks, and particularly to engineers who have a penchant for order and structure.

4) The ‘functional or thematic’ CV – this is where details are grouped into categories and usually to suit the job a candidate is applying for. For example, details or bullet points may be grouped around things such as technical skills, leadership, values and safety.

This type of document is guaranteed to get you nowhere as it’s difficult to wade through, hard to get a timeline on what happened and where, and most of all looks like the candidate is trying to hide something. Don’t do it.


5) The never-ending document.

We’ve all seen these, and some of us may have had them – the CV that starts in 1995 and has just been added to and updated with the latest position and never really culled or adjusted for relevance. Not much that happened in your career in 1995 is relevant now. Refer to it sure, but where you worked and a title is enough....................unless you invented something significant or were selected for s space shuttle mission, it doesn’t matter much other than as a demonstration of continuous employment.

6) Referee details – leave them off or put them on?

This is a personal choice, but I’d err towards leaving them off unless you are very clear with the recruiter that they are not to be contacted until you (the candidate) give the go ahead. It’s worth remembering at all times that recruitment at all levels is a sales job, and many recruiters behave as salesmen, and will use any advantage they can to get the fee. Having a reference early in a process can sometimes provide this advantage. Don’t feel pressured to give them if you don’t want to early in a process, as it will not have any material impact on a good selection exercise. Leaving the details off the CV also means you are certain to retain control over part of the recruitment process. Very important. If you are one of the final 2 applicants, your referees will be contacted after you have had the time to explain the situation, the job and other relevant details.

The key point is that a CV should be easy to read, follow a reverse- chronological order, and get to the point concisely and quickly.
Below is the sort of format that I’d suggest goes down well with Australian client audiences. It’s not perfect but it’s easy to follow and easy to access relevant information. Of course some of my colleagues in the industry will disagree, but
I wouldn’t recommend that this document was overly long, but I would suggest that you include details for the last 10 years of employment with most detail and emphasis being given to the current or most recent position, thereafter reducing the levels of detail for each previous role.
The personal interests are entirely a matter of preference. They can provide some insight into who you are, but once again it’s of marginal importance and relevance.
Lastly, best of luck applying for a role in Australia, and if you have any questions or want to contact me to discuss anything that you read here, please do so as I’m always happy to help.

Written by Greg Preston.
Mail: greg@theseusprojects.com.au
Web: www.theseusprojects.com.au

Download Sample CV - Pdf