I have been advertising recently for a new employee. The standard of resumes range from one page of crap to ten pages of crap. Therefore, I have been looking for the perfect resume. OK I googled “best resume” and generally the advice was the same:not too fancy; no more than three pages;etc. But I have been reviewing resumes for many years and what stands out to me is someone who in the first paragraph says why I should hire them, it is really that simple. I don’t want to know about them winning the under thirteen’s backstroke, or their views on global warming or that they spend there spare time caring for terminally ill people. I just want to know can you do the bloody job.
Some years ago I was in Beirut meeting some joker who had applied for a project director post in Morocco on a 850US$ million development. He had a masters, a phd, a list of qualifications and references, in other words a typical Harvard educated cretin. After an hour I fired up Google Earth and asked him to show me a job he had started and finished ie he was there when the cranes went up and he handed the keys to the client at the end. He could not, so I said ok show me a small project, a service station, a Maccas but he could not because he had never done it. Yet his resume was fantastic and yes it got him the interview.
The moral is, if you have not done it, don’t BS that you can.
PREMDALE CONSULTING 