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February 25, 2006

Do You Stand Out?

I just received an email from a potential client asking me to evaluate her resume. She worries that no one is responding to her resume because "I'm a woman trying to enter a man's field." While this software engineer may indeed be experiencing some bias because of her gender, one look at her resume told me that's not the only reason no one is calling her back.

There is absolutely nothing about her resume that stands out. The wording is generic, the layout is poor (too much stuff crammed into too small a space) and there is no information on how she has added value to her prior employers.

We've all heard the cliche that women have to work twice as hard as men just to get noticed. I don't know if that's true anymore, but it's certainly true that you can't overcome biases by just resenting them. Instead, you have to make it impossible for managers or recruiters to overlook you. You have to show them why you are absolutely the best candidate for the position. You have to do that in your resume, you have to do it in your job search strategy and you have to do it when you go on interviews.

It won't work every time, but being proactive about your personal marketing will definitely get better results than just doing what everyone else is doing.

Posted by Louise at February 25, 2006 12:01 PM