This post is written for 4 audiences:

• Candidates looking to write a great resume and cover letter.
• People looking to build a career that will *allow* them to write a truthful great resume.
• Hiring managers looking to make an initial screen of the best talent based on resumes and cover letters.
• Myself when I'm older and forgot how I used to do everything I do.

I just finished personally reading through each of more than 150 resumes and cover letter for an Executive Assistant job I advertised. Took me from 9 PM to 4 AM last night, and from 4 PM to 7 PM today.  That's 10 hours. 15 resumes per hour, or 4 min per resume. That includes replying to those who made the cut. So if your hiring manager is anything like me, you have 3 minutes to impress him.

Here are some of the things that impressed me:

• Candidates who took the time and interest to research my company/ies.
• Candidates who expressed some passion about what we do.
• Candidates with a sense of humor. This is BIG.
• Candidates which managed to convey concisely several unusual skills that I thought I could use. The most important question I ask myself when looking at a resume is, what has this person done well before, and what can he/she do for me?
• Candidates who stayed with one interesting job for a long time --typically means they can't be that bad.
• Candidates with GPAs of 3.6 or more (I'm being facetious about the cut-off, but higher is better).
• Candidates with degrees from good colleges.
• Candidates who stayed for a meaningful period of time doing a relevant job at a well-respected company.
• Candidates who listed relevant admirable specific accomplishments. This was very rare.
• Candidates that showed a clear understanding of my business.
• Candidates that had worked for a long time for people who clearly have a wide choice of whom to hire.
• Candidates who admitted to a weakness (and pointed out a way to overcome it).

Here are some of the things that did NOT impress me:

• Typos. Especially those with two typos in an email w/a single short sentence. Especially those with two typos in an email w/a single short sentence telling me that a URL with a typo did not work.
• Those whose descriptions are too long and fail to highlight the important. 3 minutes is not enough to read something long if you don't first find a good reason to.
• Generic cover letters that showed no interest in the job I was offering.
• Resumes and cover letter that were so vanilla that I could not find a single special reason why I'd want to hire that candidate over the other 149. You are looking to differentiate yourself from the rest!
• No cover letter.
• Candidates asking if I could provide a website to research my company, when the website was provided in the job posting.
• Resumes submitted by a woman for a male candidate (I'd say or viceversa, except that did not occur). It does not bode well for you if your significant other is trying to get you off your ass!
• Candidates who never stayed with any employer longer than a year.
• Resumes which indicated a college without indicating degree. That smacks of not having finished a degree, which is not a great sign unless you dropped off to start Microsoft.
• Candidates that expressed anger about things they should not have been angry about.
• Candidates who forgot to attach their resume. Although if this was their only shortcoming, I would overlook it --everybody is allowed one mistake even in this highly competitive context.
• Lists of references with two friends (described as such, no less) among the three references.

So if you want to get a great job next, make sure you:

• Try to get in to the best college you can get into. College admissions is one of only two stages in a career where candidates are ranked by a very clear pecking order, so which one you get in to is a powerful indicator that future employers will look for in the absence of outstanding achievements.
• Finish college.
• Get a great GPA. College GPAs is the second stages in a career where candidates are ranked by a very clear pecking order.
• Make sure you accomplish specific outstanding achievements at every one of your jobs, that you list them in your resume, and that you have references willing to speak about them.

Good luck!

Alex Backer

9/18/2009

Entrepreneurship

Who Alex Bäcker is