REmatrix
Interview with Forbes J. Rutherford,
President of Rutherford International
Executive Search Group Inc.
May 5, 2007 – Toronto, Canada
Topic: Resume Design – An
Overview
Forbes Rutherford has
provided specialized HR consulting and
Executive Search services to both national
and international property and investment
firms for the past twenty-one years. Having
dealt with a broad cross section of the
industry’s senior executives and rising
stars, Mr. Rutherford is in a unique
position to observe the changing macro
trends and oncoming challenges facing the
Canadian and International real estate
community. Additional information on Mr.
Rutherford’s background may be viewed at the
following web links:
www.rutherfordinternational.com or
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rutherfordintl
REmatrix.com
www.rematrix.com
When a client comes to you
seeking a new opportunity, what advice do
you give them?
Forbes Rutherford
It’s probably best that we
clarify who my client is; it’s not the job
seeker but rather the corporation doing the
seeking. The simple description of a client
is “one, who pays my fee,” which in all
search assignments is the hiring company. I
do provide career counseling and some degree
of executive coaching, however the majority
of my practice is
“creating
wealth for clients by matching talent and
ideas with capital.”
Getting back to your
question, I do get industry professionals
coming to me for advice on how they should
approach their job search. What I tell them
is contingent on whether they’re using an
“outplacement” service or doing it on their
own. If they’re using third party assistance
(generally provided by the former employer)
then it’s likely that they have gone through
a battery of tests and assessments that are
designed to determine behavior, personality
and interests. If not, or they’re on their
own in this job seeking adventure then I’ll
let them use my assessment services. Self
appraisal is important at this phase of
their life; by understanding ones strengths
and what truly motivates oneself, one can
recognize career opportunity more
effectively.
Ask a CEO what his or her
greatest human resource challenges are; I
can assure you that one of them will be the
challenge of finding motivated talent. If
you don’t understand your strengths, what
gets you passionate, or the optimum working
environment, then the odds of finding the
right position will be based entirely on
serendipity. Since eighty percent of the
workforce isn’t happy with their job, I’d
say serendipity hasn’t struck the average
worker very often. So before offering
advice, I ask three fundamental questions,
“Do you know your strengths, your interests
and what gets you excited each and every
day?”
REmatrix.com
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Do most job seekers know what
they’re looking for, and how they fit into
the industry?
Forbes Rutherford
By and large, the answer is a
resounding “No!” Some of course are looking
to clone their former position with another
firm. They may not have the luxury of time
to reassess their career or decompress from
a previous position; or they’ve taken the
position – allegorically speaking – “office
leasing is office leasing, it doesn’t much
matter who it’s with.” Of course, they’re
dead wrong. Job’s are usually chosen this
way, not careers. You can tell by the resume
if a person hasn’t taken adequate time to
think through their career.
REmatrix.com
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Would you comment on resume
errors that you’ve seen, and the resume
format you prefer?
Forbes Rutherford
Whole books are written on
this subject, but I’ll give you the abridged
version of what I tell candidates. A resume is simply
a marketing tool designed to get you through
the door; it’s not meant to land you the
job. It’s a living document, which defines
your growth in knowledge, states your
underlying value in the past and present;
and the likelihood of success in the future.
It’s the most important
personal document the average person will
ever draft, and yet many spend little time
in its creation. For example, the
professionally written resume, which I find
abhorrent, suggests either bad time
management or inferior writing skills – if
you can’t take the time to design and draft
a document to effectively market yourself,
how thorough will you be in representing
your employer?
There are three basic formats
for resume design – “functional”,
“chronological” and a “hybrid” of the first
two. When I receive a functional resume, I’m
instantly suspicious and look for what’s
being hidden versus emphasized. Candidates
with significant gaps in their employment
history favor the “functional” format.
I prefer a chronological
format or a well thought out hybrid for the
simple reason that it’s easier to interpret
the flow of the person’s career decisions;
and the growth of their accomplishments in
successive positions. When assessing a
candidate by their resume, career choices
are as important as duties
and accomplishments. One can tell a great
deal about a person’s judgment and the
quality of their decision making by their
career choices.
One other reason for a
chronological format is “technology.” Large
corporations and companies such as mine use
data bases that optically scan resumes and
drop all the critical information into
searchable fields. Functional formats are
poorly suited for this type of technology,
as the information must be manually inputted
through a cut and paste process. It’s
tedious, and we get to it when we have time,
and we have very little time.
Rule of
Thumb: A resume is only meant to get you through
the door for an interview.
REmatrix.com
www.rematrix.com
What are your basic rules for
resume design?
Forbes
Rutherford
-
The format you use after
graduation shouldn’t be the same
format after five years of experience.
-
Don’t itemize the same
duties for each position held. When I’m
reading resumes, I find bland redundancy
to be a constant annoyance.
-
Resume should be no more
than two pages. A cover letter
emphasizing key parts of your resume
that relate to the position your
applying for is acceptable, and even
helpful to the reader. When sending your
resume digitally, attach the cover
letter at the end of the resume rather
than as a separate attachment. Some data
bases that electronically scan the
document aren’t sophisticated enough to
handle two separate documents for the
same applicant. You could end up in
their system twice.
-
Write the resume in the
knowledge that it will eventually reside
in a searchable archive. You may hear
from the search firm today and likely
two years from today on another
assignment.
-
Use contact
information that isn’t likely to
change especially your email address. Do
not use your company address or a cute
personal address. The address you use on
your resume should be one that you check
regularly. Consider a service such as
Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, which allows
you to set up an account and forward
mail to your personal home account.
-
Make it as easy as
possible for the employer or search
consultant to reach you during the day.
A personal cell phone number is best –
again, not the company cell.
-
After your contact
information, insert your Career
Objective or Executive Summary. This
section should be indented from the main
resume body, highlighted and no more
than twenty words.
-
A chronological
employment history, with proper
title and employer name comes next.
Accurate employment dates on the left
side, not the right. If you’re not sure
of the actual employment and departure
date, then month and year are
sufficient.
-
Statement of duties and
responsibilities
for each job entry should be limited to
the four or five that take up eighty
percent of your working week. Quantify
the scope of your duties without
divulging proprietary information that’s
critical to your former or current
employer. If duties and
responsibilities’ are similar for each
position, avoid redundancy and leave
more room for “significant
accomplishments.”
-
Significant
Accomplishments
are successes that surpass the norm and
where possible should be: quantifiable
in dollars saved, earned, budget or
project size; number of subordinates
managed; percentage increase in market
share; or square footage built or
leased, etc. Why quantify your
accomplishments? Look at a page of text
with a few numbers dispersed among the
letters, your eye will always gravitate
to the numbers first – a resume is no
different. You want the interviewer to
see the numbers.
-
Managing Proprietary
Information
- Get permission if you need to use
information that is borderline
proprietary. Why? I’ll ask you if you
had permission to use the numbers. If
you don’t have it, it’s an indiscretion
I wouldn’t want you repeating with my
client.
-
Emphasize personal
performance
metrics in comparison to peers in
relation to division, department or
personal performance.
-
Assign responsibility
for stated accomplishments to your team
when it’s accurate to do so, but don’t
avoid claiming your right to personal
achievements in some misconstrued belief
that there is no “I” in team. There is
no “L” in Team either, but every team
has a leader. A resume is your time to
blow your own horn, not to do so is a
contrivance.
-
Education
– emphasize degree and successes if
you’re writing the resume at the early
stage of your career; but as the year’s
progress you’re going to be judged on
you success and accomplishments.
Continuing education is critical –
individuals that are intellectually
sedentary aren’t overly attractive
especially if the company you’re
applying to considers itself a “learning
organization.”
-
Community Volunteerism
– “if you want something done, ask a
busy person.” Some companies avoid
individuals that are socially active in
their communities; my advice is to avoid
these companies as prospective
employers. To be motivated daily, your
values at work need to parallel your
values at home.
-
Interests
– Painting, gardening, writing poetry
and long walks in the woods are not the
kind of interests an employer wants to
see for a position that requires a high
degree of social interaction. If you’re
applying for a position that calls for
behavioral traits that are inconsistent
with whom you are as a person, then
perhaps you need to reevaluate your
employment goals.
-
Key Words
– At the bottom of the resume, create a
box labeled “Data Base Key Words”
and insert “nouns,” which describe your
functional duties. This is not advice
you will read in most books on resume
design but it’s a feature at the end of
the resume that will increase the
likelihood of your information being
found by a data base search engines.
Most large corporate and headhunter data
bases use search engine algorithms’ that
locate key words and organize the search
result based on relevancy. The greater
number of key words found in a
document, the more likely your name will
he highlighted on the output.
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