Required Job Positioning, At Your Peril

I see a fair number of Resumes because many people submit them to me to be critiqued, and I also see a good number of Cover letters because I help clients to write them.

In addition, I look at job listings from sites like www.dice.com and www.hotjobs.com and www.monster.com as well as local newspaper listings and specialized job boards. And, in my work, I often am successful in helping clients to begin getting interviews. I say this because I have had a good deal of experience working with these materials and that experience has led to techniques that seem to work.

But recently, because a job, a real job paying in the $65,000 - $80,000 range came across my desk, I sent out e-mails to a wide group of people, readers like you included, announcing the availability of this job.

What I got back, when people did respond to this job, accompanied by a description that I considered very adequate detail, shocked me in terms of how inept the response was and how many of them, the majority, failed to conform to what I knew worked. I’d like to share my observations with you about these responses.

First I got back many resumes, with no cover letter, only an occasional informal e-mail that stated how well qualified the submitter was for this particular job. Yet when I looked at these resumes, I could see, very obviously, that they for the most part didn’t have the qualifications that the Job Description called for. For example, the job asked for IT project management experience. I got back a number of engineering resumes with no – yes, no -- IT project management experience, none.

How these people expected anyone to consider them for this job was beyond my capacity to imagine. These were a waste of time for the sender and for the recipient.

I got the impression that these resumes were “thrown” at the job listing with no thought or care, in the hope that something would “stick.”

(I believe that such experience, if one wants to “cross-over”, say, from engineering project management, to IT project management, need to be “re-positioned”; I work with some clients on how to make this kind of transition. But it has to be carefully thought through, I believe, not just “assumed” and superb supporting materials need to be developed for this or it won’t work.)

Then I got back other resumes, with formal Cover Letters. Many of these told me how great the writer was in terms of what he or she had accomplished, but those cover letters bore little or no relationship to the resume that had been submitted.

These puzzled me because there was a disconnect between the two. The cover letter bore no resemblance, or little resemblance, to the resume. I wondered how in the world anyone thought they would be selected for the job in question.

Only two of the responses had a cover letter that bore a close relationship to the job listing, one of which was a perfect example of how well written such a letter could be. The resumes accompanying both of these had plenty of experience that was right on the mark. I could see, from the better written one, that the employer would be tempted to call this particular individual in for an interview, because she clearly explained what she had done that bore directly on what the job called for. It was a classic. Also it had a congenial, helpful tone that made it a pleasure to read. Her resume backed up the cover letter in detail.

What I am saying here, as the title of this article states, is that positioning is all-important.

This all begins with a careful reading of the job description. Not only must the job description be read carefully, it must be understood: what, exactly is it that this employer is looking for? Not doing this starts the respondent off on the wrong track.

Or, worse yet, it leads to having a blind spot that causes you to miss what they’re really after.

Then, I always believe, a cover letter has to be written. I believe a cover letter is always required (even if, sometimes, the HR Department strips it off.) I’ve conducted two sessions on cover letters and shown how these can be written with a minimum of effort. The “positioning” must be paid attention, however, or else you’ll find yourself writing some beautiful letter without the support of the accompanying resume.

Finally the resume has to be a “Killer” resume, I believe, that paints you as being exceptional and is equally, concurrently, congruently “positioned”.

If this is done, I believe there is a heightened chance that the respondent will be invited in for an interview. That is the first hurdle. Next of course comes the interview itself, the second hurdle, which is another subject.

It all starts, I believe, with “positioning.” If you don’t understand it, or pay enough attention to it, you do so at your peril.