It just doesn’t seem so difficult to figure this out, but candidates keep using their personal email addresses that seem to date back to their college days.  Of course, there wasn’t email when I was in college…different story.

Here is one I came across today:

shovelhead@yahoo.com

Unbelievable.  Instead of considering his candidacy, I am left with thoughts of the potentially peculiar shape of his head.

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In first reading this I thought I was reading a line from one of Jeff Foxworthy’s jokes, “You know you are a redneck if you write on your resume, “hobbies include sitting on the levee at night watching alligators.”  Nope, this is one of many odd resume inclusions from an article on CareerBuilder.  If you have ever run a recruiting process you probably can come up with your own list, but CareerBuilder has put together some beauties:

• Candidate included that he spent summers on his family’s yacht in Grand Cayman.
• Candidate attached a letter from her mother.
• Candidate used pale blue paper with teddy bears around the border.
• Candidate explained a gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for three months.
• Candidate specified that his availability was limited because Friday, Saturday and Sunday was “drinkin’ time.”
• Candidate included a picture of herself in a cheerleading uniform.
• Candidate drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said it was the hiring manager’s gift.
• Candidate included the fact that her sister once won a strawberry eating contest.
• Candidate explained that he works well nude.
• Candidate explained an arrest by stating, “We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig.”
• Candidate included family medical history.

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In reviewing the HRGURU newsletter I ran across a good article on finding fibs in resumes.  It gives some sound advice to follow so you are not discovering these lies on the resume after a person starts.  The 5 tips:

• Get an early read about the candidate’s visible profile. Look for a candidate’s public profile by reviewing announcements, articles and other material that often can be found easily online. You do need to gauge how much stock you’ll put into whatever you find—good or bad—because you can’t always believe what you read.
• Confirm academic credentials early.
• Gain consensus on the reference checking process.  Who is going to perform it and what information is important for you to learn.
• Seize the opportunity in the interview. The interview is a good opportunity to ask candidates about their experience and education and how, exactly, they’ve delivered the results they’ve claimed on paper.
• Background check (emphasis is mine).  This is a great time to get academic verification done also.

Too many times I have seen interviews in which the interviewer only verifies the dates, titles and responsibilities of what a candidate writes on their resume.  The interview is a great time for you to dig into the accomplishments and find out more details of how they achieved what they claim they achieved.  It’s amazing what you can learn form just a couple of straight-forward, probing questions.

I once interviewed a candidate who had amazing accomplishments listed on his resume - seemed like a great candidate.  After a couple of simple questions about how he achieved these many successes, he quickly told us that he just happened to answer the phone at the right time.  How is that for sales ability?  You could say he really didn’t sell himself.  The position required the ability to develop a brand new territory so he was ruled out at that point.

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You have probably read many “how to” articles that provide tips for jobseekers.  One tip that almost always makes the list is to have a professional email address.  Unfortunately, I was looking through resumes today and found one person who may not have read any of those articles.

His email address:  rednecktrucker@domain.com

Next.

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Red flags should go up if those words appear in a cover letter.  These sentences are from a recent graduate’s cover letter for a sales position:

Please do not contact me if the position is commission based, or involves cold-calling. Also your company must have a valid website that can help me to identify what your company does.

I will be following his clear orders and not contacting him.

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I had to share this one:

Offshore Employee - No Accent.

Excellent.  Memorable.

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I would not hire a single salesperson without first seeing a writing sample of some sort from them.  The information age has made writing a priority skill in communicating with prospects.

This cover letter sentence makes me lose my faith in proofreading:

I relocated down south due to my wifes job and the maeket for my construction managment was not very good so I ventured in to new firlds.

There are different levels of errors within cover letters and resumes.  This example would fall in the “very bad” error pile.

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I’m all for standing out, but this line at the beginning of a cover letter is a swing and a miss.

If you can get me excited about your business, I’ll bring the magic.

I’d settle for a sales rep who brings the qualifying.

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I’m a fan of the video resume concept for sales positions.  Salespeople have to interact with clients in a manner that best represents your company.  The video resume provides a glimpse into this presentation ability.

Yet, according to RecruitingTrends.com, the majority of companies are not accepting these forms of resumes (emphasis mine):

Indeed, just one in four (24%) senior executives polled claim that their companies accept video resumes from candidates reveals the survey, developed by Robert Half International, a staffing services firm specializing in accounting and finance and conducted by an independent research firm. When asked whether their company accepts video resumes from job seekers, 58% of responding executives state no, 24% say yes, and 18% claim they do not know. Although video resumes have become more common, many employers are still reluctant to accept them for fear of bias claims from applicants.

That is a legitimate concern from employers and on that does not have any easy solutions.  Unfortunately, there are unintended consequences to government legislation.  A solution to this problem would help both sales candidates and employers over the long term, but my suspicion is that video resumes will disappear instead.

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Killian’s Cover Letters from Hell are out again with some highly entertaining fare.  This one does it for me:

I’m looking for work because even though my company was profitable last year, this year they are expecting a large defecate.

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