Tips for Polishing Your Resume

Just as April is a perfect time for some spring cleaning, the last few weeks of August — when things are slower and most of us start looking ahead to the busy fall — is a great time to dust off the cobwebs from your resume. Hiring experts say that even those not involved in an active job hunt should have an updated and polished resume — because sometimes when you’re not looking, that’s just when someone gets interested in you, right?

And for those on a job hunt, it’s important to continually update your resume. Use the hard-won knowledge you’re gaining about what works and doesn’t in a job search to ensure that you are using your resume to its best advantage — and that all parts of it are working for you rather than against you. Also, you want your resume to scream relevance — and the best way to do this is to highlight what you’ve been doing lately, such as freelance or consulting work.

Here are some tips for polishing your resume whether you’re actively job hunting or not:

How to Handle Screening Interviews

A fair number of email correspondents have been telling me recently that before they even get to speak to a hiring manager, they’re being put through a screening interview, usually conducted by someone in the organization’s HR department and often over the phone. With all the competition out there and with companies taking care with each precious opening these days, screening interviews give the company a chance to weed out those who may not have the necessary qualifications, and to focus hiring managers’ attention on those who likely will be the best candidates.

Yet a screening interview also offers an opportunity for the job candidate —  not only is this a chance to win over the first interviewer and get to the next round, but you may also be able to throw your hat in the ring for other openings in the company. So treat this as seriously as you would any other interview and make the most of it, rather than viewing it as a hassle.

Here are some tips on how to handle screening interviews:

What Makes the Real Difference for Hiring Managers

Recently, I was asked to help diagnose what went wrong for two job candidates who didn’t get a  job they thought they were about to land. Their resumes and cover letters got them in the door, their interviews seemed to go well, and while the situations were obviously somewhat different — one was seeking a journalism job and one a policy position — each felt they stood a good chance of getting an offer.

And then, for whatever reason, the job apparently went to someone else. (In one case, the applicant believes they were the No. 2 choice, having been told that by a “source” in the organization.) Their obvious question: What happened?

While they may never know exactly why they didn’t get these jobs, it gave me an opportunity to check in with some hiring managers and ask this basic question: What makes the real difference, especially in a competitive environment between equally qualified candidates? And while different hiring managers have different lists, all included this: someone who seems truly interested in the position — those who appear likely to enjoy this job and therefore will give it real effort and energy. If a candidate isn’t qualified, this won’t matter, but then, they wouldn’t have gotten this far in the hiring process.

So here are some tips for impressing a hiring manager with your interest:

When You Think You’ve Made a Big Mistake

During a long career, everyone at one time or another is likely to have made a bad choice — taking an internship, job or promotion that ends up being a mistake. Sometimes you just didn’t do as much research as you should have on the organization or the position. Other times, the hiring manager may not have been entirely honest and may have left out some key details about the job (or alternately, may have oversold the “opportunity”). And sometimes it’s not your fault or theirs — it’s just not the right position for you.

If you get that nagging feeling that you have accepted a position that’s a bad fit, you’re faced with a hard choice: Do you tough it out and hope things get better, for the sake of your resume and career (not to mention a paycheck), or do you figure it’s time to cut your losses and start sending out resumes like mad in the hopes of landing something else?

Obviously, this is a highly personal decision and will be based on a number of factors including the stage of your career, how long you had been looking for a job before you found this one, how tough you think it would be to land another position and whether you have other means to support yourself (you won’t get severance if you quit) while you look again.

Yet here are some common-sense suggestions on what to do when you think you may have made a big mistake:

How to Change Their Minds About You

Sometimes, a hiring manager has a preconceived notion about you and your abilities (or lack thereof) that may no longer be accurate — if it ever was a correct picture. Other times, someone you are trying to connect with in a networking situation appears to have an image of you that doesn’t square with how you view yourself and your career goals. If these people end up being important in your job search, it could spell trouble.

So, how can you get them to change their minds about you?

This can be done but it will require some psychological strategy on your part and some effort. In some cases, it may not be worth the trouble to get them to change your mind about you — if they are only a minor player in an organization you’re considering, for instance. Yet hiring experts say it’s important to try to erase negative and especially outdated images of you, as that could hurt your overall reputation, certainly in a town like D.C. where image and reputation are paramount.

Consider these tips for getting others to change their minds about you during a job search:

Five Ways To Move Your Search Ahead Even in the Dead of August

It’s starting to get pretty quiet out there. The benefits: less traffic, it’s easy to get a table at your favorite restaurant and you actually run into old friends you haven’t seen in a while who just happen to be in town, too. Yet for those job hunting in the D.C. area in August, it can be a pretty lonely place. Hiring managers are out of town or are too busy filling in for vacationing bosses to pay attention to filling open positions. Listings are thinner. Getting callbacks — difficult even in busy times — seems impossible now.

What’s a job hunter with a self-imposed deadline to do? First, don’t despair. It’s not you, it’s just August in D.C. While it used to be dead here starting in late June, now it’s still pretty active until the halls of Congress empty out, and then, everyone seems to get outa town. While you might consider taking a break — even a short one — too, you also can use this time to sharpen your candidacy so that you’ve got a head start when hiring revs up again in September.

Here are five ways to move your job hunt ahead even in this deadest of hiring months in the D.C. area:

Figuring Out Whether It’s a Good Fit

When people leave a job, often pay or a personality mismatch with a supervisor aren’t the only reasons. There’s often an issue of “fit” — when you don’t feel that you fit in with an organization or a team, every work day can seem interminable and the thought of staying years with this company may be unbearable.

Yet fit is, by its very nature, difficult to determine before you join an organization. You can do plenty of research on the company and your supervisor and you can ask around about the pros and cons of this workplace. Yet seeing how your individual personality and work style would mesh with this place is a whole other question — until you work there, how can you know?

Because of this question mark, and because fit is such an important ingredient to job satisfaction, hiring managers suggest that you try to take the temperature of the actual workplace — not just what it’s like talking to a few bosses in an interview or two — before you accept a job. Here are some tips for figuring out beforehand whether or not an organization is a good fit for you: