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Resume Strategy – A Conversation with Exec Recruiter Paula Marks
As part of my research on recruiters’ perceptions and expectations of résumé strategy for today’s job market, I had the great privilege to spend an hour in conversation with Paula Marks. Paula is a managing director with New York-based retained executive search firm Gilbert Tweed International, and the founder of Hire Resources, Inc. With a wealth of executive recruiter experience that spans three decades, Paula has touched the lives of thousands of people and helped corporations such as American Express, Time Warner, Macy’s, and Bloomingdales attract top calibre candidates for their senior management teams. As such, she has unique insights on how résumé strategy has evolved over the last thirty years, and on the challenges that both executive job seekers and corporate employers face today. I started our discussion by asking Paula her thoughts on the quality of the résumés and the candidates that she sees today.
Too many résumés today are “puff” pieces. Outplacement firms have pushed for accomplishment-driven résumés, but executives are focusing too much on their opinion of themselves. “Excellent, highly successful”. Who would ever admit the opposite?
I believe that the problem is a reflection of a broader issue in North America. The art of communicating, both in writing and in conversation, has deteriorated. Thanks to electronics, we have access to vast quantities of often conflicting information, but people have a hard time focusing in on what is relevant. It shows in the way that they write and speak. We are in a hurry to get the next piece of electronics, but we don’t move very swiftly to make sure that our communication skills keep pace. For one thing, there is a tremendous amount of filler and negative presumptive language. We spend too much of our day in useless “did you get my email, my fax, my voice mail” types of interactions. After two minutes of back and forth, we don’t know anything more than we did before, and we’ve wasted precious time.
The only thing we can’t get more of is time. The bottom line is that you need to be able to present yourself in a way that makes somebody want to spend more than 30, 60, 90 seconds on your résumé. It is up to you to keep your résumé short and compelling, no filler words; no empty language; and no redundancies. If you can’t put a cogent message together, why would I think you could manage a group of people?
If you think colourful graphics or fancy layouts are going to mask bad writing, you are kidding yourself. Graphics without substance won’t even get you an interview, let alone hired. And if you think great writing is going to mask bad communication skills, you are kidding yourself even more.
I’ve met too many executives who lack the curiosity to actually explore what they have accomplished in their careers. They don’t have a good grasp of who they are – both strengths and weaknesses – and what value they can offer to a company. I’ve had executives come in who invested a hundred dollars in a so-called “professionally written résumé”, and then get defensive when I point out that the document lacks substance and focus. You get what you pay for. If your professional résumé writer hasn’t asked you intelligent questions, hasn’t taken the time to get to know you, then how can you expect that they can create a résumé that conveys who you are? Personally, I don’t type a candidate’s résumé (they don’t need to pay me to do that), but I do ask provocative questions to understand their background in order to develop language that best describes what they have actually done and can do for a future employer. In the end though, if a candidate can’t communicate effectively, I think the hiring company has the right to know.
I often hear executives say to me, “I didn’t know this was going to be an interview.” Everything in life is an interview! In every personal interaction you are communicating something about yourself, and are getting judged on the basis of what you do and say. In the age of LinkedIn and Facebook, this is being taken to a whole different level. So you need to be aware of the messages you are presenting.
Somehow, in the US, we moved toward “the spin” over the past twenty years. If you were good at “the spin”, you were more likely to succeed. When the economy was in growth mode, this may have worked, because the demand for talent far outpaced the supply. People who weren’t necessarily good at their jobs but looked the part and could spin a great story were able to climb to the top. Or they became serial employees hired by one blue chip company after another, with each future employer concluding “they must be great, XYZ hired them!” I believe quality was sorely compromised. A reformation of our behaviour and talent acquisition systems may be in order. This is the main reason why I continue to be a strong advocate for using retained services for talent acquisition. Firms such as Gilbert Tweed International can take the time to really pre-screen candidates in order to find the “best of the best” based on the client company’s specific needs.
In today’s job market spin isn’t going to be good enough. You need to have something substantive to bring to the table, and you need to be able to communicate about it clearly and succinctly. Not just in your résumé, but in your personal conversations. I call this having a good “talking résumé.” If I can offer one piece of advice to executives, it is get to know yourself and deal in reality. Everybody says they are hard working, enthusiastic, upwardly mobile – who isn’t? Find out the specific skills and experience that you have to offer, and learn how to convey it in a way that is compelling, accurate, and targeted to the needs of your next employer.
About the Author
Karen Siwak is a Certified Resume Strategist and the Executive Director of Resume Confidential, www.resumeconfidential.ca.
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