What goes on a resume?

A lot of clients are unsure of their resume. I often hear “Should it be one page? How do I know if this is strong? Will this stand out enough to make it through the black hole of online resume submission? How will a recruiter interpret my resume?”

So, how can you know if your resume is what an employer is looking for? The quick answer: you don’t. The good news: there are a few things you can do to cover the basics. Below is a checklist for some common questions and mistakes:

• Number of pages- it is best to stick with one page, but ok to overflow on a second if necessary. I argue that few resumes need two pages. When I first challenged myself with this task on my own resume, I was in the workforce for about 10 years. I thought- there is no way I can get my education, accomplishments, and experience down to one page. After a painful week, I did it. I edited to the important points. I realized it wasn’t important to list all of the tasks I was responsible for 10 years ago in an assistant level job.

• Less is more- it is estimated that the average recruiter looks at your resume for 6 seconds. The more words you use, the less you emphasize your key accomplishments.

• Fancy fonts and fancy formatting- avoid it. It will help your resume stand out, but not in a good way. Often the intent is good but the outcome is bad. Fancy resumes are harder to read and are more prone to jumbled formatting.

• Be honest- do not lie on your resume. Don’t “stretch the truth”. Eventually you will get caught. There’s a very good chance a job offer will be rescinded or you will be fired once your lie is discovered. Lies do not help you.

• Power words- use them as lead words for your accomplishments. Words like: “lead, drive, initiate” are power words. Words such as: “responsible for, received, maintained” are passive. Using those words makes it sound like you are checking a box rather than an engaged employee.

• Accomplishments not responsibilities- for the most part, your job title conveys your responsibilities. Tell the prospective employer what you are proud of. What did you do to make a difference at this company?

• Use numbers- if you say you grew a business, give a percentage. I hear from clients who are designers that their jobs don’t have numbers, so they can’t add to their resume. That is not true. Designers have an impact on cost, revenue and liabilities. If you are a designer and struggling, find a sales or merchant partner to help you get at some relevant numbers.

• Personality- what is your passion and how does it connect with the company for which you are applying? For example, if you have a fashion blog and are applying at a high fashion house, maybe add “fashion blogger” to your interests. If you are an avid yogi and are applying to a fitness company, think about adding “avid yogi” to your interests.

• Proof read- hit spell check. Have a friend or someone you trust read your resume. I once had a client tell me she had a great resume. When I read through, I found the word “ass” on her resume. Clearly a typo, but why would an employer want to hire someone who can’t even get this one very important piece of paper right?

Hopefully this quick checklist will help you polish your resume. Having a great resume is the first step to getting you in the door!

To learn more about career consulting or coaching, go to www.katekibler.com

Don't push submit and wait!

On June 3^rd we talked about customization of your resume.   Now that you have created a version of your resume for a specific job….what next?  Before applying online,  print your resume.  Proofread it  first thing in the morning the old fashioned way:  marking any errors with a pen.  For some reason errors are easier to spot when reading a hard copy.  Make sure your spacing is consistent and the document has a good visual balance.  Check your font size, punctuation, indents and tabs to make sure things are lined up where they are supposed to be.  Check your grammar and spelling.  Spell check is NOT a catch all.  A long time ago I read a resume for a stock room manager that said:  Shit custom packed boxes for inter-store transfers.   Print and proofread.

Resumes should not contain fancy graphics or pictures without testing how they look when sent electronically to both macs and pcs.  Here at Apparel Resource we have received resumes that were beautiful on the sender’s desktop but a hot mess on ours… the formats can get jumbled.  As a general rule graphics should never dominate the text.

Once you have edited your resume and you have a final draft, you are ready to submit.   If you are applying on line, follow up.  Don’t push submit and wait.  If the company you are applying for is well known, based on odds you will get an auto reply and nothing more.  I used to recruit internally for a fortune 500 retailer.  We received more resumes for every opening than we could read.  So we used key words to filter.  Use your professional network, LinkedIn, Google or other resources to find the Corporate Recruiter and or potential Hiring Manager.  Once you have their contact information, follow your resume submission with a direct contact via email, a LinkedIn message, or a phone call.   All corporate headquarter phone numbers are public.  You can call during business hours and go through the corporate operator.  Many have name directories after hours and you can capture the extension and call directly the next day or leave a message.  Practice what you intend to say out loud several times before making this call.  I guarantee it will sound much better.  How many times have you had to re--do your out of office messages because you hadn’t really thought about what you needed to say?  Smile while you speak it gives your voice more energy.

Print and Proofread.  Do some tests and email your resume to friends and family to make sure they transmit as you intend.  Once submitted online…follow up with a direct contact. 

Let us know if as a hiring manager you have ever read a resume with errors.  Did you edit the candidate?  Think about your network.  How could you find the hiring manager or internal recruiter at the employer you are interested in working for?  Do you know someone that works there?   Do you think a direct email or a phone call is more likely to get a response?

To find out what job opportunities we are working on contact:   kari@apparel-resource.com

Resumes – One size does NOT fit all!

On May 20^th (my first guest post on Kate’s Blog) we promised more on resume customization.  A resume should be a fluid document tailored for each position and company. Homework needs to be done before submitting your resume.  The same key does not work on every door.

Titles vary depending on the company.  Merchant, Buyer, Product Manager, Brand Manager, Product Line Manager and Category Manager can all be titles for similar roles (check out more merchant titles from Kate’s May 31^st post).  If you are a Merchant applying at a company where the same position is titled as Buyer, what can you do?  You can’t misrepresent your current title but you can use a slash: Merchant/Buyer.   You can also use a headline under your name that captures your current title and the title you are targeting.

Kari Harsch

Recruiting - Talent Acquisition - Executive Search

Product category, language and customer should be termed accurately.  Plus Size can be called Plus, Extended Sizes, or Women’s.  Sometimes it is accessories and sometimes it is Non Apparel.  Does the company use the term Children’s, Kids, Youth, Tween, Juniors, Little Girl, Girl etc.?  Make sure your resume language matches the job posting. 

Carefully review the job description of the role you are targeting.  Almost all postings include responsibilities and skill requirements.   Address each of these responsibilities with your success in that discipline.  For example a posting states:

·         Drive product development timelines to ensure calendar deliverables and dates are being met.

If you are able to quantify past success in this responsibility it should be a bullet.  For example:

·         Shortened the product development timeline 2 weeks in swim by coordinating first fitting with key vendor present.

Skill Requirements can be more challenging because they tend to be less measurable.  For example the posting reads:

·         Attention to detail, follow-through and organization skills are critical.

Potential resume bullet:

·         Drive 150 styles from concept through top of production approval working with a cross functional team of 6 and 15 external vendors, meeting all calendar deadlines through attention to detail and follow up.

Be careful that your resume doesn’t read like a posting but communicates your actual performance/contributions related to your responsibilities.   Include all relevant product categories you have worked on.

Most companies share a lot of corporate culture information on their career sites, their LinkedIn and Facebook pages.  Reading this information will help you write your resume in a tone that fits their values and culture.  While it might seem easier to write one resume, the extra time you invest will increase your odds of being contacted for further discussion.

Have you ever applied for something that you were confident you were a great fit for and never had the chance to speak to anyone?  Are their additional steps you might have been able to take?  We would love to hear about your successes and challenges regarding your resume as a first step to winning an interview.

In my next post June 17^th,  I will discuss how to follow up once you have submitted your resume to an employer.

You can always see what open roles we are recruiting for at www.apparel-resource.com.

Resumes - What is critical?

I was hooked on fashion at 13 and started working in retail very early to support my clothing habit.  It turned into a career in a chaotic industry that I adore! My degree is in Retail Merchandising and Management. My career path has included Merchandising leadership, Retail Management and In-house corporate recruiting.  The journey has led to the creation of Apparel Resource a boutique recruiting firm servicing the fashion industry for the last 7 years. We are blessed to work with amazing candidates and clients! Kate (one of those amazing people) invited me to guest write.  So where to start?  We decided Resumes.

How do you possibly get your entire career story onto one or two sheets of paper?  The simple answer is you don’t and you shouldn’t try to.  Resumes typically get about 11 seconds of attention.  If the reader sees something in 11 seconds that they are looking for, they will stop and read the entire document. In our competitive industry your resume needs to be more than a chronological career recap.  Your resume needs to be a marketing piece that showcases you for the unique talent that you are.

The top third of the first page is the sweet spot.  Ditch the objective statement. Your killer achievements need to be there.  Merchant’s, if you doubled the women’s graphic tee business in one year through cleaning up the assortment…share the numbers. Technical Designers, if you reduced return rates by 30% by fixing the curve in the rise of 5 pocket denim…share the numbers. Designers, if you introduced a product that was a top seller and an entire assortment was built around it…that bullet should be in the top third of the first page.  It can be a section called “Career Highlights” or “Select Achievements” with 5 or 6 bullets. Use your performance reviews and your colleagues to quantify these contributions if you don’t have daily access to the financials. Don’t tell the whole story, just the win.  You want the reader to be dying to pick up the phone and find out how you achieved these feats.

Below the sweet spot lay out your chronological employment current job first and taking the most space. Key words are very important. Include product categories you have worked with.  If I am looking for a denim designer, or a plus size merchant I search with those words. Titles are tricky.  In our industry Buyer, Merchant, Product Line Manager, Brand Manager can all be used for one skill set.  Know what your target audience calls you and make sure it is on your resume or you will get missed in searches. More than once we have been paid an agency fee by employers who had our candidate’s resume in their database but missed it. The dreaded “black hole” of internet resume submission. If you are applying directly make sure you customize your resume using the titles, key words and jargon that are in the employer’s job posting and increase your odds of getting pulled from the pool of applicants. I will write more in depth about customizing your resume in my next post.

What are your greatest career achievements? How can you write each of them in one or two lines of bullet text?  P.S. The best time to work on your resume is when you are happy in your job and having a banner year.  After performance reviews is a good time to update it annually. Then should an amazing opportunity present itself, you are prepared. Let us know what else you would like to hear on the topic of resumes.