Even in enlightened lands like ours, however, there are choices of how much information to include, and it really depends on how close you are to the degree/educational experience in question.  If you are, for example, a recent ‘master’, details from time spent on that is relevant and if you can note briefly that you graduated with honors, or received an award, or had high grades, or a particularly interesting thesis topic, you should do so.  If, however, it’s been 20 years since you got your last letter grade, you can leave out things beyond degree, school, dates.  You can even omit the thesis topic for your Ph.D. dissertation - if it’s been a long time (and you aren’t applying for an academic job), unless it is directly relevant to the job you are applying for.  If the topic clearly shows how old you are (e.g., ‘Conversion of Punch Card Data to Fortran: An Empirical Approach’ for your computer science Ph.D. from 1974 or ‘Single Payer Health Care is Just Around the Corner’ from your public policy Ph.D. also in 1974), definitely drop it.   Employers might hire an older person, but it’s still best not to trumpet how pre-historic you may be.

Upcoming posts:

• Applying to US employers versus overseas employers.

Consulting can be a whole other kettle of fish.   In the first type, working as a consultant in a consulting firm (non-profit, international, business consulting, technical consulting, whatever), you are really applying for a job.  The organization needs to have you work for clients -  so you must have certain talents, but they also expect to provide some training and expect you to move ahead, leading teams, leading projects, and eventually bringing in clients and work yourself.  Your resume for this type has to show strong substantive competence, but needs to show more.

The second type is as an independent consultant on a long-term project.  This is often found in international development work as teams of ‘consultants’ (I would refer to them as technical assistance providers, but many call them consultants) are posted overseas on a project.  To get the project, the firm bidding has to present a team that clearly meets the job requirements defined by the funder, so if you are applying to the firm to be included, they really need to see a very focused resume showing you not only can do tasks x, y, and z, but have actually done them successfully in the past.  That is necessary.  However, the firm - if they are any good - also realize that things change on a long-term project: task requirements change over time meaning you want people with flexible skills; people leave and may need to be replaced and moving someone up within the team can have advantages; the personal attributes that make for a successful PCV are important over time, even if they don’t make up for hard skills in getting the work.  (I find it depressing that funders seem to evaluate teams presented to them on such narrow, narrow grounds, but that’s another story).  Anyway, for this type of position, be clear about your substantive abilities (and if you don’t have them, don’t apply), but also present your other, softer skills, since the best employers in these fields will value them.

The third type of consulting position is a short-term, we-need-someone-to-fix-something job.  Think of a plumber.  Not too many folks want a plumber who is learning on the job.  If you are this kind of consultant - doing short-term jobs for, hopefully, big bucks - or want to be, your resume has to really be a presentation of work done, results accomplished, and references.

Upcoming posts:

• How much education should you include?
• Applying to US employers versus overseas employers.

Now that everything has gone to hell in a hand basket, a situation that pretty much started when I finished high school, people can and do produce a new resume for every job they apply for, so they can show on Monday that their entire life has been focused on the monitoring and evaluation of public health projects in sub-Saharan Africa and then, on Tuesday, show that everything they have done has been focused on human rights in Asia, with a particular focus on Uighurs.

And yet, in spite of this new found power, are people really any happier?  Or do they feel they can just chase more jobs (and more disappointment) than before?  Who really knows, but I would say (and since this is my blog I get to do so) that the old way had some advantages:

• You crafted a document called a resume which reflected you, not a job advertisement, and so may well have been more honest in presenting your capabilities - and honesty does pay, as we all know;
• You then spent your time on what is the most important part of your paper presentation - the cover letter - and used that time to clarify how you (as more-or-less honestly presented in your resume) truly fit the job requirements;
• If you realized in doing so that actually you weren’t a good fit, you threw the letter in the trash and saved yourself 14 cents in postage.

Even though you kids may not know what ‘postage’ is and why one would even care about 14 cents (at the time is was enough to buy what we then called a ‘record’ and have enough left over for a malted), take to heart the idea to spend your time on the cover letter and let your resume, once done well, present you to the world as you are.

Upcoming posts:

Applying for consulting positions versus ‘jobs’

How much education should you include?

Applying to US employers versus overseas employers

I just can’t figure out the reason - you think your ethnicity/race will be an advantage and don’t want to mention it in a cover letter?  Maybe, I guess.

You think you are incredibly hot and that will help you get an interview?  Take it from someone who has tried this (not using my own photo, of course - I pick them off the internet), it won’t work.  (Only kidding on the example,   but not the conclusion.)  Never mind what happens once someone at the organization prints out the resumes received electronically on a crappy, black and white printer - even yours truly looks less hot (if that is possible).

I will admit I see this very infrequently among people born and raised in the good ‘ole USA; it seems quite prevalent in some countries and in those countries I say go with the flow.  But if you are applying for jobs with US-based organizations, I really think the flow here goes with no picture.

Upcoming posts:

• Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?
• How much education should you include?
• Applying to US employers versus overseas (non-US? foreign? - you know what I mean) employers.

Yes you can.  Don’t waste your (and the reader’s) time) applying for positions that might have worked for you 20 years ago, but are for someone 20 years younger than you are now.  This is a particular problem, of course, for older applicants (younger applicants may often think they are over-qualified, but they are totally mistaken in all cases, said the 52-year old blogger).

It can be tempting to apply anyway, if you see something moderately interesting that is conveniently located, in your general field, and if you’ve been looking for a while.  But in the same way the question for the under-qualified isn’t ‘can you do the job?’, it is ‘are you arguably one of the best applicants for the job?’.  Age does play role here; if the organization is thinking the position is for someone in his/her 20’s, having a youthful attitude as you show up in your walker will not be enough.

Also, think of the employer: they want someone who will be happy to have the job, not just for the first paycheck or two, but for quite a while and then, ideally, move up to something better within the organization.  Even if you can make yourself believe that will be the case for you, can you make an interviewer buy it?

Upcoming posts:

• Should you include a picture on your resume?  (The answer starts with the letter ‘n’)
• Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?

The short answer is no.  If the position is being advertised and you don’t meet (or come very close to) the minimum qualifications, don’t waste your time.   Best case is you are ignored by the hiring manager; worst case is you get remembered as someone who applies for everything and seems to have trouble reading.  Just because you think (with reason, perhaps) you ‘can do the job’ isn’t enough to get hired - the organization is likely to get numerous applications from people who can do the job and who actually meet the requirements and who have done very similar work in the past, with success and references.  Suppose you were the one deciding who to interview for the position - would you pick you?

Suppose, however, that you are differently qualified?  If you can objectively look at your experience and qualifications and objectively look at the position being filled and truly make a believable case that your qualifications don’t just mean you can do the job but can excel at it and, ideally, bring more to the organization than someone who just meets the requirements, it may be worth a shot to apply, with two caveats:

1)     The requirement(s) you fall short on can’t be the key part of the job.  If the job is to be a brain surgeon and you don’t have a medical degree…well, you get the idea.

2)     Be very clear about your reasoning in your cover letter.  Don’t insult the reader by telling him/her that the requirements they are looking for are largely unrelated to the job (even if they are - these were probably determined by a committee after all), but positively explain why the qualifications you do have make you particularly well qualified for the position.

Should you address the fact you don’t meet a particular requirement?  I think it depends on how important the requirement seems to be.  It’s a judgment call, but I would say if they are asking for a specific credential like being a CPA and you have lots of accounting experience but aren’t a CPA, I would address your lack of this qualification in the cover letter; if they are asking for a ‘masters degree in a related field’ and you don’t have it (but do have significant experience), I wouldn’t point out your lack of degree in the letter.

There’s no sense pointing out a lack on your part that the organization doesn’t seem overly concerned about, but it also doesn’t make sense to just ignore a shortcoming if it is a qualification the organization clearly cares about.

Next post:  Can you actually be overqualified?

Upcoming posts:

Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?
Including photos - risky or what?

Apart from all the jobs you aren’t going to get because the hiring ‘executives’ don’t know what the hell they are doing and don’t recognize your perfect suitability for their stupid little ‘position’ that you wouldn’t have taken even if it had been offered to you since you’ve certainly got better things to do with your life than work in a drab office all day marking time until the boss’s half-wit son-in-law finishes at Harvard Business School and comes back to drive the company into the ground…apart from those jobs, you won’t get jobs you are much, much too qualified for  and jobs you are completely unqualified for.

Are there times you should apply anyway?

Of course there are, otherwise this wouldn’t be much of a post!

Let’s take the case where you are clearly overqualified - a real entry level position without much upside for which you would have been a strong candidate 20 years ago…or more.  So I’m not talking slightly overqualified or overqualified only in your mind, I’m talking you are really unsuitable for the position…but you are also really interested in the organization and don’t know anyone who works there and when you call the best address you get is to email jobs@xyzorg.org…a mailbox that returns an automatic reply that hasn’t been updated in two years.

If something like that is the case and the job you are overqualified for asks for applications to go to an actual person, I’d suggest waiting a month or so and then writing that person, including a resume, and being upfront about the situation: you are interested in the organization (ideally for some reason), have some potentially valuable skills (let’s assume this is true), haven’t really found the right person at the organization to approach (don’t mention that their HR department is all screwed up, the person probably knows this), and just wanted to provide your information in case this person is involved in hiring people like you (that is, skilled in whatever you are skilled in) or knows someone in the organization who would be good to talk to.

It’s a long shot, to be sure, but so much of getting hired for interesting work involves your resume coming across the right desk at the right time, and this at least gets you in front of a human being, even if just on paper.

You might ask yourself if you really want to work with an organization that is so hard to approach, but sometimes HR departments can be unwelcoming and unhelpful to both candidates and internal staff, even as others in the organization may be desperate to fill a position and would love to have the right person magically appear.  Talk to anyone in a large organization in particular about how hard it is to fill positions through channels and it will give you hope!

Finally, this approach can also be useful if the recruitment is being handled by a headhunter.  Wait until they’ve dealt with the initial onslaught of job seekers, and then send a note to the recruiter saying you are interested in organizations like the one they were recruiting for and wanted to pass along your information in case they were recruiting in a similar organization for something more along the lines of …whatever it is you do.  It certainly can’t hurt.

Next post: Applying for positions you aren’t likely to get & how to make it worth it - Part B:  Suppose you are Under-qualified?

Upcoming posts:

Can you actually be overqualified and should you apply for jobs that appear ‘beneath’ you?

Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?

So what are you going to do about it?  A surprising number of people think that if they avoid the issue, no one will ever notice…this is not correct.  One avoidance technique is to skip putting in years of graduation - you aren’t fooling anybody!  If all your jobs have been part-time in the hospitality industry with a short period as a test subject in psych experiments, everyone knows you just graduated from college.

If you had a job in the Carter administration…well, you get the idea.

The point is, unless you lie on your resume, you aren’t going to fool anyone and even if you do lie, they will see your age soon enough.  So be up front!  Put in the dates of your university time - don’t make people guess!  Show the dates of your most significant jobs - you don’t need to go back to 1955 with every part-time or temp position, but don’t think you’re putting anything over on anyone.

If appropriate, address the issue in your cover letter - why, although you are young/old, you are perfect.  You’ll have to convince them sometime.

Of course, if you are lucky enough to be applying for  a job where your age/experience is perfect for the position, you don’t need to worry or explain.  But if you think you might be considered too young/too old (for a job you really want and are at least arguably qualified for), don’t hide your age - flaunt it!

Next post: Applying for positions you aren’t likely to get & how to make it worth it.

Upcoming posts:

• Can you be overqualified?;
• Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?

Now suppose you are hiring someone to looking to hire someone to run a building maintenance department.  Sure, you want technical skills, but you are looking for other things, including the skill to grow and learn as the job changes over time.  This person, if you’re lucky, will be with you a long time.  His/her ability to fix an air conditioner today, for example, isn’t so important.

It’s somewhat similar among companies hiring consultants for a specific task, and companies hiring for permanent positions.  I’m not talking about companies that hire people as ‘consultants’ just to save money on taxes, but have them in permanent positions.  I’m talking about a company, either domestically or on an international development project, that is hiring a person to do a pretty well-defined task for a set period of time.

In this case, the company cares most about ­what you have already done and wants you to do it again in this job.  They aren’t looking for people (generally) who can grow on the job and learn.  They want to be sure you can fix the stupid air conditioner, not translate lessons you’ve learned on other tasks to air conditioner maintenance.

If applying for this sort of job, tailor your resume specifically to the tasks at hand.  If you can’t really show that you have already done the tasks being called for, it is probably best to skip applying for the position.  (More on weaseling your way onto a project without applying for the advertised position in a later post.)

Consulting work, especially if of a decent duration and as part of a team, can lead to promotions and on-the-job learning once on the project, but in my experience that isn’t what hiring managers want up front.  People who can’t show they meet the exact requirements don’t get serious consideration.  (One note: I am not talking here about working with a consulting firm as an employee - that is getting an actual job, as described now….)

For a full-time position, a broader resume can be useful, and applying for positions you might not be exactly qualified for is OK.  Job announcements may ask for very specific skills, and it’s nice to have those, but you can be a bit more creative in your resume (and cover letter) since hiring people do want to pick someone who will be a long-term benefit to the organization, even if some technical skills may be missing initially.  Obviously you stand a better chance if you have the specific skills, but position announcements will often list skills (because that is what can be easily quantified and agreed to by the committee writing up the announcement) when what they are really looking for is a certain type of person.  When that is the case, you can make the case you are that type.  Or at least try!

Next post:  How to deal with age (yours, that is)?;

Upcoming posts:

• Applying for positions you aren’t likely to get - how to make it worth it? (This is the weaseling noted above.)
• Can you be overqualified?;
• Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?

Don’t forget to register your in the PC Worldwide Talent Bank at: http://peacecorpsworldwide.cambridgedata.com/apply

Starting off:

As for most writing that doesn’t start with ‘Dear Diary’, remember that you are writing for your audience, not for yourself.  Try to figure out what the initial reader of your resume is looking for.  If the job announcement is with a larger organization, there is a good chance the position description was (1) put together by a committee, (2) contains a good deal of boilerplate (teamplayer, shows initiative, passionate about service, not recently indicted for a felony), and (3) wasn’t put together by the person who will do the first cut on your resume.  Yes, read the announcement carefully; Yes, craft your cover letter (especially) and your resume (as much as possible) to fit the listed requirements, but remember that not all requirements are equal.

Put yourself in the place of the poor person reading the resumes that come in, trying to whittle the 100+ responses - most from reasonable candidates - to the top 20 or so to pass up the ladder.  What is he or she looking for in making the decision?  To help figure that out, look again at the job announcement and try to figure out NOT what you are good at that is in there (that would be too easy), but what are the one or two aspects that are key to the job, that the hiring manager may have told the reviewer are absolute requirements, and (ideally) that you are qualified for.  If you are a passionate, unindicted, team-player but don’t meet those requirements, it probably isn’t worth the effort to apply (more on that in later posts), but if you can pick out the key skills/experience the initial reviewer may be basing his/her decisions on and can reasonably say you are qualified, make sure that information is clearly stated in your cover letter and backed up by your resume.  Once you get to an interview you can play up your ‘I enjoy working on a team to accomplish organizational goals while also taking a leadership position and thinking outside the box to shift the paradigm for strategic advantage’ skills, but initially just try to figure out what the frist reviewer wants/needs and hit that on the head clearly and concisely.

Next post: Resumes for consulting assignments versus resumes for permanent positions

Upcoming posts:

• Applying for positions you aren’t likely to get - how to make it worth it?
• How to deal with age (yours, that is)?;
• Can you be overqualified?;
• Targeting your resume - can there be too much of a good thing?

Be sure to join the Peace Corps Worldwide Talent Bank at http://pcworldwide.cambridgedata.com/apply