Conservative navy or charcoal suit, white shirt, traditional tie. Learn about the company, you've got the internet.
You don't need to wear a suit if the job/position doesn't require a suit for everyday attire. Not everybody is looking for a cubicle office/white collar job. Dress for what the position/job entails; or business casual (slacks, conservative dress shirt/polo, dark socks, casual dress shoes) if position attire is inbetween the realm of white collar and blue collar definitions. Also, simple questions to ask HR is what's the culture like in the company and when do you think you will make a decision on the hire.
Awesome response, dandorotik. I had a feeling about this, so instead of making it boring, I pretend it's an ad to sell my services and hopefully make them think this guy isn't a stiff or different enough to take a deeper look at the resume. I definitely research the company for an idea on their culture. One that's a blank wall gets the stock canned online cover letter. Not sure if I really want to work there anyways. I wonder if they keep the cover and distribute it to the interviewees. That might be another consideration to spend more time on it. This one answers a debate between me and my friends. They think one page is the norm...direct, concise, efficient, while I stuck with 2 pages...mostly because I have less work "history" but I feel I have enough skills to back it up. I also put my title (name/contact info) on the second page. They say to remove it, but I'm thinking if people print this out for an in-house interview (assuming I get that far), they still see my name formatted nicely on page 2. I've given interviews before so I can see both ways. Big deal or no? Eye candy makes the day go by quicker, you workaholic.
Kind of if you're young and/or minority. If not a full matching suit, then at least a dark blazer, complimentary-colored slacks and either a tie or a dark sweater vest. And then apologize for being over-dressed, but wanting to look serious. Or even joke about wanting an excuse to dress well.
a) never hurts to overdress for a job interview, unless it's actually a construction job or something definitely blue collar (and most people don't come asking for advice on those) b) unless you're right out of college, asking "when you will make a decision on the hire" doesn't count as a question. gotta be more prepared about the company than those 2 things for sure
1. Every career document I send out has to be absolute top-quality, for the very reason you mentioned- you have no idea who's reading it, so it's always a safe bet to write a compelling, professional letter. 2. 2 pages is definitely, by far, the norm. I've written over 12,000 resumes over the past 11 years and probably viewed even more than that (not all prospects become customers, but they all send in a resume for review). And I can vouch for the 2-pager as the norm. It's really about making sense. My one rule is that, if I write a 1-page resume, it's a full page- 2 pages, a full 2 pages. No wasted space. So, based on that, if I write a resume and I can't get past more than 1/3 of page 2, I create it as a 1-pager. If it goes beyond 1 1/2 pages, I stretch it to 2. The main point is relevance- if someone has 20 years of experience but he's only had one employer, maybe his resume is only 1 page. If a student is applying for a position with the UN and they require a detailed list of the student's projects and internships, maybe the resume stretches to 2. No hard and fast rule. What I mentioned was general guidelines based on my decade-plus experience with this. I would like to think that most employers don't care whether it's 1 or 2, only whether it contains relevant information. What really infuriates me is these HR reps or recruiters or hiring managers that say things like, "If it's more than 1 page, I throw it in the trash." A**holes- as if that matters. 3. Yes, always put name, page #, phone, and email on page 2. This is for the resume that may be printed. If you do what's called an electronic resume, the version that is only going to be used to copy-and-paste into online formats, then of course you don't need a page 2 header because there is technically no page numbers.
HR people are always too self-important -- making it seem as if their work is "hard" and "challenging" when in reality it's busy work and if ever an HR person (who is in it as a career) tries to defend that assertion, the simple fact is they aren't qualified to do the actual tasks that a company performs). GlenRice could probably gain a lot of knowledge from this article; maybe he/she would see a bright future in HR?
I disagree always put you contact info at the top. Sometimes my boss would give me some resumes and told me to interview these people. I had no access to the jobs database so I was just trying to find the email or telephone number and it helps when it is at the top of the list. Usually you can ask really simple questions and you can gauge how much of the resume is BS.
I think dandorotik knew what I meant about putting contact info at the top of both pages 1 and 2. The ones I electronically submit are a pain because it ruins all the formatting I have on my word doc, but I do remove the title where page 2 would be. I've noticed a lot lately that putting in key words and search terms in your resume will get replies, but you'll also get recruiters who don't really read anything else and try to book you for a position that you're not qualified for. So I can get bites for a Sr. position with the requirements 2 times the years of experience I have. Thanks for saving us both some time and doing some diligence to read a resume your searchbot returns...
i was just saying that the minimum requirement for people is higher than what was posted unless you're right out of college. Even if you're right out of college, you can ask good questions. Do your research ahead of time on the company and know about recent events. Find out how they've performed over the last few quarters or couple of years, specifically in the group/division/etc. you're going to work in and ask a question about that. Learn about a product or service or whatever they offer relevant to what you're interviewing for well enough so that you can ask a question related to it, or ask if they've considered some improvement that makes sense to you. Learn about their competitors and ask how they're trying to continue to be better than those competitors in the future in some specific area. There are so many paths you can take, but it all centers on knowing stuff about the company. If you do your research, you can ask stuff that sounds intelligent, and more importantly, when they respond, you can actually say something intelligent again rather than "oh ok thanks" or whatever
That's the thing, I've gotten an interview before and I did research on the company, which I think had new ownership in recent years during that time, and I couldn't find any good question to ask. Maybe stuff like "what has changed with the new management..." or something about their new mission/vision or something really boring like that. Of course I didn't get the job, probably partly because of what I wore to the interview (severely underdressed). One of the campus deans I've spoken to once told me not to ask generic questions such as the culture in the office or the work environment and stuff like that.
You misunderstood me (my fault, I wasn't clear)- of course you have to have your full heading on page 1- name, address, phone, and email- many have started putting their LinkedIn URLs on there (yes, this may contain some of the same information as the resume, but it also has the Recommendations section that you can't fit on a resume). What I meant was that you also have to have a semi-heading on page 2 Name, Page 2 Phone; Email Should be something like that.
Electronic resumes should be saved as a .txt file- it's Plain Text in the Save as File Type in MS Word. You can copy-and-paste most .doc Word documents now into online forms, but some wreak havoc on scanning systems, so your best bet is to save it as a .txt- that format is fully compatible with any online system. After the MS Word resume is complete, you open it up, save it as Last Name, First Name E-RESUME, and save it as a .txt. Then, you can go in and clean up the file- fix spacing, etc.
This is so dead-on. I work for a ridiculously competitive company that will probably "flag" your resume if you didn't get a high GPA at a top tier university - its likely I will never see your resume unless you wow them with some stupid number. However, I have two awesome employees who don't have college degrees...BECAUSE I HIRED THEM DIRECTLY. If you have 5+ years in the industry and good buzz, I could care less if you pulled bong hits throughout college. Obviously you turned your **** around, and good for you. (Of course, if you fail your piss test, you're an idiot) HR's job is to filter out the bad seeds...which is a good thing in most cases, but if you're smart as hell but partied like a madman in undergrad, you might want to find an alternate way to get your resume into the firm.
