EditorialsBy Matt Bud, Chairman, The FENG

Any more than someone would write “Please Broadcast Widely” at the top of their resume, putting “Confidential” is just as silly in many ways. I’m sure that this is written up somewhere as the appropriate thing to do, so I am not faulting anyone who does it, but it really is unnecessary. It is just as silly to not show your current employer and to put in something like “Major Manufacturer.” It is unfortunate, but those doing search these days have even less time for mysteries than those who were doing it before the Great Pandemic set in. The volume of email and paperwork that crosses one’s desk today is beyond belief. If you want to get yourself excluded from [ Read more… ]

The development of a resume can be a long and involved process. There are so many ideas that others have to share with you, and each person with whom you speak has their own perspective about what is right and what is wrong. Your resume is also in part an historical document charged with chronicling your career from formal education through most recent work assignment. Some of the nonsense, misapplied these days, centers on the idea that only the most recent 10 years are of interest to the reader. True, but that doesn’t mean leave off everything earlier. The formatting and shaping of a resume is so much easier today than it was back in 1991 when I faced my [ Read more… ]

I know we don’t mean to do it, but as financial types who come to our decisions the hard way (usually the long scenic route), we often react to information being presented to us by others in a dismissive, “oh, I knew that” manner. I suppose there was a time in my life when I actually thought I did know everything. As the Chief Financial Officer of a top 50 Advertising Agency back in the 1980’s, I was expected to know the answers. People looked to me for solutions to problems. There was a constant parade of folks trooping through my office all day long trying to persuade me about this or that. Talk about “analyze this.” As I have [ Read more… ]

Every once in a while I get an assignment for The FECG that draws more than its fair share of attention. I think our all time high a few years ago was an assignment that drew 225 responses. However, even when you get an assignment that draws more than say 40 responses, it can get a little difficult to see the forest for the trees. And, with all that talent to choose from, those who provide the clearest presentation of their credentials are the ones we are most likely to send to our client for consideration. To be very honest, it’s hard to justify forcing our client to “read between the lines” when you have so many better submissions. Here [ Read more… ]

As many of you know, I have a variety of backgrounds. I was not only in the publishing business for 10 years, I was also in the advertising business for 9 years. Communication, or the assumption that it has taken place, is at the core of most of the problems in this world. (Okay, there are probably others, but that would take away from the points I am going to try to make tonight.) Anyway, when an underpaid overworked and groggy screener is placed in front of a pile of 500 resumes and asked to pull out 20 good ones, how much time do you think they actually get to spend on each one? Yes, I am sure they will [ Read more… ]

At one time many years ago I had a lot of time for reading. I picked up an Agatha Christy novel and I was hooked. Over the next several months I believe I read just about everything she had written up to that point. I know that when we moved, I had quite a box of books. Trying to pick up the clues was sure entertaining. There are other fine authors out there that I have indulged in from time to time, but lately the mystery writing on which I spend the most time is confined to the resumes I get from new member applicants. I am not really sure why they feel the need, but they usually begin creating [ Read more… ]

It isn’t often that I get a great resume, but I got one recently. I guess I wasn’t surprised given who sent it to me. Although it was three pages, it was still crisp and concise. Perhaps it could have been shaved down to two pages, but it really didn’t bother me that it was a little longer than the “standard.” Here are a few of the things that made it near perfection: 1. It had a well written summary. There were no fluff words like “dynamic” or “born leader,” only prose that served to highlight the accomplishments that followed. 2. The names of all of the firms at which he worked appeared at the beginning of each section in [ Read more… ]

Let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of job postings in our evening newsletter that really are a fit for your particular background, salary and location preferences. This being the case, you would think that if you saw an opportunity in our newsletter that strongly fit your background, you would take the time to do it right. Let me first suggest to you that there simply is no excuse to having a resume that isn’t well done. With all the books that have been written on the topic of resumes, yours needs to be as close to perfect as it can be. There are several popular approaches that I think are wrong. One is to leave off your home address. [ Read more… ]

Over the course of any given week I have the great honor of reviewing well over 100 resumes. Honestly, no one should be allowed to have this much fun. As I page through the many approaches to presenting one’s credentials, I am frequently dismayed by the way that some of the most important information is presented. Let me start by saying that I hate most abbreviations. The reason is quite simple. I usually have to stop and puzzle through what the abbreviation means in this context. I am sure the author was quite clear, but I am often left scratching my head. I would rank educational credentials of great importance and I hope you do too. I don’t know if [ Read more… ]

It is a truth in this world that we get paid the most for doing something that is at the high end of our skill set. For example, you would be willing to pay big bucks to a skilled surgeon to take out your appendix, but you would probably not be willing to let me take out your appendix at any price. Hence, the price you would be willing to pay me would probably be less than zero. Actually, I couldn’t even get the job. If this is all true, then why is it that in the writing of our resumes we try to present ourselves as the ultimate solution to all problems? We may narrow the niche to finance, [ Read more… ]

There is no more powerful tool than a sharp pencil. (The only exception to this rule is the membership directory of The FENG as accessed by our Member Directory Search feature.) I long ago declared war on unnecessary words. Why? Because they are unnecessary. The normal space allotment for a resume is two pages. Okay, if you have to go to three I might be able to live with it, but generally two is the limit. It is not much space to describe the accomplishments of a lifetime, but you are making a mistake if you think it is necessary to describe each and every thing you have done. If you are as old as the hills (or dirt itself) [ Read more… ]

As a part of my frequent “joys of sailing” ideas, I thought I would talk about docks around Long Island Sound. Although one can drag anchor, one rarely drags dock. (A little sailing joke for you.) Sure, it is a rather arcane topic, but hopefully it is one that you can use to amaze and astound your friends. You would think that docking arrangements everywhere would be pretty much the same. After all, you have a boat, you have water, and you need to tie it up for the night. Well, you would be very wrong. The truth is that just about every place you go is a little different. Some marinas have pilings you have to snag on your [ Read more… ]

I always find it interesting what people say about themselves. Those who deal in hiring decisions have so many hidden tools in their arsenal. I suppose the obvious manifestations of who you are come across in the body of your resume and, of course, in your 90-second announcement. What those who know how to read between the lines do next is to listen and/or read every single other word or words you say about yourself to determine who you are and how you might fit into their organization. There is a section at the bottom of many resumes that I will focus on tonight where folks really “go to heck” with themselves because they are not thinking about the context [ Read more… ]

I am always amazed and astounded how frequently the resumes I see are missing vital information. What I am not clear about is WHY the individual in question thinks that leaving off important data will benefit him or her. Let me start at the top of the list and mention missing home addresses. Yes, hard to believe, but some job seekers are apparently living in their cars. And to add to the impression that they are homeless, some of these resumes don’t even have a phone number or email address. (I’m not sure how you are supposed to reach them.) I suppose the theory is that if you don’t tell them where you live and you are applying for a [ Read more… ]

The resume format is sure constraining. If only the world was willing to listen to us rattle on. Unfortunately, they aren’t. The “standard” acceptable resume format is either two or three pages. Anything more tells the reader that you don’t know how to communicate. Perhaps I should also mention that narrow margins and smaller fonts are not the solution. If you want anyone to be able to absorb that opus of yours in the 15 seconds they allot to reading it, I would suggest that you take out a very sharp electronic pencil and have at it. As the sign in the restaurant says: Good food takes time. Yours will be ready in a minute. Good writing and good communication [ Read more… ]

One of my favorite “sayings from the Chairman” is: I try to make things so easy that anyone can do it. That way if I try hard, I can too! KISS or “keep it simple stupid” is one of the most often violated principles of job search and part of the reason that we fail to communicate our true value. Yes, I know that many of us have arcane skills. But you need to keep in mind that the burden of communication is on you. How often have I heard “but it was all right there in my resume.” Oh, if that simple statement were REALLY true. Sure, it was there all right, but it was buried in a less [ Read more… ]

Some time ago a member wrote to me lamenting that although he was responding to a great number of opportunities, no one was contacting him about his credentials. It is a sad fact of life that the way job search works with regard to posted jobs is that it is atypical if anyone even acknowledges the receipt of your resume. Unfortunately, with the number of responses, and the lack of clerical help at most firms, even that simple courtesy is much too time consuming. The approach most firms use is to try to hide who they are. They don’t mention the name of their search firm or if they are a corporation, the name of the company. The Internet allows [ Read more… ]

Since 1997 when I first became Chairman of The FENG, I have probably reviewed well over 200,000 resumes. (Gosh, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.) I would tell you that the biggest problem I see in resumes is the incredible clutter. Although some of the resumes I get are 3 or 4 pages, most of the time the author has squeezed all they would like to say on 2 pages. The “tricks” they generally use are narrow margins and VERY tiny fonts. (I would swear some of them are less than 8 point type.) While I am a big fan of writing to your heart’s content to create enough material to edit, your best friend is a sharp pencil. The [ Read more… ]

I often hear members complain about people not reading their resume carefully enough. The subject usually comes up when members have been rejected for a job or haven’t gotten a response for a job they were convinced represented a fit. Alas, the sad truth is that WE bear the burden of properly communicating our credentials to the world at large. No one on the receiving end of your opus is OBLIGATED to read between the lines and figure out why you are a fit. A recruiter I spoke to quite some time ago, knowing our reputation for only responding when qualified, took the time once to call each individual who sent in a resume for a particular posting. (No, I [ Read more… ]

Those of you who know me (and in particular our Administrative Assistants) know that I hate almost all abbreviations. It’s not that I don’t typically know what they mean. It is primarily that the longer version honestly doesn’t take up that much more space and looks a lot more important. In any case, it creates a consistency to our membership directories that I have always believed was important. As with so many things in life, it isn’t what you say, it is how you say it. Let me give you a few examples and see what you think. (Please don’t disagree with me. I am in one of my sensitive periods right now.) EVP & CFO or Executive Vice President [ Read more… ]

My dear friend Norm Weinstock passed away a little over 10 years ago. Norm agreed to Co-Chair of The FENG when I began my Chairmanship back in 1996 and he also acted as our Treasurer and raised money for us to buy our first computers and to hire our first Administrative Assistant, Ann Marie Hobbs. Back in the day when we thought job boards posted worthwhile job leads, he also ran a committee of “Web Watchers.” But by far the best thing he ever did was to start our Resume Review Committee. Friendship and service to fellow members is the foundation upon which the Financial Executives Networking Group is built. One of the great features of membership in The FENG [ Read more… ]

Not unlike your 90-second announcement, the space at the top of your resume is vitally important to getting folks to “listen” to the rest of your story. Try to visualize if you will, 200 resumes piled up on some poor screener’s desk. With any luck, they have been printed and collated correctly with the resume on top and email cover letter stapled behind. (Reference is usually made to cover letters only when there is interest in the candidate and there is an unanswered question on the resume.) With a strong cup of coffee (black, of course), the goal is to eliminate as many resumes as possible with what I call the “at a glance” test. Simply stated, if you don’t [ Read more… ]

The story I hear more often than not is how perfect someone was for a particular posting and their amazement that they didn’t get a call. Of course, there are a lot of possible reasons why someone doesn’t get a response. It could be they were in too late. It could be that there were requirements for the job that only became obvious once responses rolled in. Criteria that didn’t seem attainable are suddenly appearing on so many of the credentials of candidates received that those without it aren’t even considered. My only concern tonight is to address the possibility that you don’t communicate your areas of expertise in an easily absorbed manner. Let’s put ourselves on the other side [ Read more… ]

It is important to understand that all job leads are not created equal. In fact, the very idea of a job lead is that something very specific is being sought. Often times the primary issues are repeated in a lead in paragraph and referred to as “must haves.” The question is often how seriously to take them? From a job seekers perspective (the one I always try to take) a specific job lead can attract your interest for reasons of location, industry, skill set or compensation. The fact that a job lead has caught your attention, however, doesn’t mean that your background as presented in your resume will be viewed as a reasonable fit. To use a legal analogy, this [ Read more… ]

As many of you know, one of my weekly occupations is reviewing new member applications. I try to keep in mind that for the most part I am seeing resumes that have just been completed out of whole cloth. In effect, these are the first result of days of writing and rewriting. Unfortunately, most are not even close to being finished, or as polished as they need to be. With my backgrounds in educational publishing, information publishing and advertising, I have a personal preference for standard formats. Although the information between the top of page one and the end of page two can be very creative, the structure really shouldn’t be. The rationale I would suggest to you is that [ Read more… ]

I’m not sure if any of us really want to adapt to changing world conditions in true Darwinian fashion. That would require that only those of us with appropriate features survive to create the next generation. As human beings, we have the unique ability to adapt who we are and what we are to appear to be more suitable to current market needs. The problem is that most of us don’t take advantage of this characteristic. To begin with, your resume should have a traditional structure in order to be most easily absorbed. Our work history from most recent to least recent is how we must begin in presenting our credentials. And, rightly so. The details under each “work opportunity” [ Read more… ]

One of the most challenging aspects of looking for a new “work opportunity” is having enough introspection to know what your special value is to a potential employer. I’m afraid that in most cases, we’re the last ones to know. When we do our 90-second announcements at our chapter meeting in Westport, I usually have the appropriate resume in front of me. I am always checking to see if the 90-second announcement matches the resume. Interestingly, sometimes there is more on the resume than in the 90-second announcement, and sometimes the reverse is true. More meat and delightful factoids are in the 90-second announcement, but nowhere to be found on the resume. Although it has been said that many of [ Read more… ]

Based on the resumes I see on a daily basis, I am not sure there is full appreciation for the amount of time any reviewer gives to your carefully crafted opus. The sad truth is that unless the information presented has a clarity greater than the other documents in that stack of 100-500, it can easily be passed over even though you MAY be the most qualified person in the pile. Think long and hard about any of the speed reading that you do starting with the morning newspaper. I sometimes feel sorry for the reporters who have slaved over the stories I skip because I have been unable to find even one word of interest to jump up and [ Read more… ]

I have often been heard to say that your 90-second announcement is a STORY about you. It isn’t a history book. And, it doesn’t have to be detailed. In much the same way, your resume is a story about you. However, being in print, you need to keep in mind that you aren’t there to present it with meaningful gestures, shined shoes and properly fitting clothes. No, I’m afraid that your opus is standing there all by itself. A frightening thought, isn’t it? No one is there to explain what you “meant by that remark.” I hope all of you have gotten into the habit of picking up resumes at networking meetings. If you have, have you taken the time [ Read more… ]

There is no more important space on your resume than that first section after your name. Alas, I rarely see it used to good effect. Although cover letters allow you to “cover” matters perhaps not easily “covered” in your resume, more often than not your cover letter isn’t sent to the decision maker. In a very real sense, your resume stands alone and needs to be done in such a way that it gets the job done. If you agree that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, that first section sets the stage for what follows. By taking the time to really focus on your value added, the summary section can allow you to [ Read more… ]

I have often wondered how actors polish their performances before the first show. With only the director and the producer in the audience it just can’t be the same. Sure you are up there on stage and perhaps even in full costume, but there is no audience clapping or talking to each other to let you know how your delivery is going. Once you have a full audience, tuning up your performance has got to be a lot easier. Changes in gestures at key moments, raising your voice, lowering your voice, all seem to get a reaction. When I am speaking to chapter meetings I sort of experience the same thing. I may have thought through what I am going [ Read more… ]

I have always had great interest in how others do their work, and more importantly how others utilized my work product. To deliver a report in person and actually observe it being used I always found to be a real learning experience. I think you will agree that most financial reports are hard to read. So many columns of small type with typically additional columns of percentages out to spurious accuracy — it is no wonder that most folks think we are nuts or worse, not good at the art of communication. If I assigned point values for readability, not many resumes I see would get a passing grade. At times it would seem that the sender is challenging me [ Read more… ]

One of my favorite “sayings from the Chairman” is: I try to make things so easy that anyone can do it. That way if I try hard, I can too! KISS or “keep it simple stupid” is one of the most often violated principles of job search and part of the reason that we fail to communicate our true value. Yes, I know that many of us have arcane skills. But, you need to keep in mind that the burden of communication is on you. How often have I heard “but it was all right there in my resume.” Oh, if that simple statement were REALLY true. Sure, it was there all right, but it was buried in a less [ Read more… ]

When we review candidates for assignments being handled by The FECG, we try to do our dead level best to “push the envelope” on your behalf and try to find some way to visualize your credentials as fitting the assignment currently in hand. After all, you responded. It could be you are right. There is a long joke I heard once about a guy who prayed to the “big guy above” to help him win the lottery. After several drawings where he didn’t win with appropriate pleadings in between, he was just about to give up hope when a booming voice thundered: “Help me out – buy a ticket.” In much the same way, we suggest in our postings that [ Read more… ]

Tonight’s editorial will be somewhat of a repeat for our more senior members as it is on resumes. Yes, those terribly difficult to construct documents that make the critical difference between being pulled from a pile of 500 resumes, or not. You should all accept the fact that writing your resume is somewhat analogous to taking out your own appendix. Only you know that you are sick, but doing the whole operation yourself can be dicey at best. It doesn’t hurt from time to time to seek out some professional or semi-professional help like a member of The FENG’s Resume Review Committee to help you put the finishing touches on this marketing document. (Contact [email protected] for this kind of help.) [ Read more… ]

Job leads can be a tremendous resource for you, even if you aren’t interested in them. I know it sounds silly, but although most job leads aren’t going to interest you for one reason or another, it can still pay to read them. The most obvious problem with specific job leads is that they aren’t in what you define as an acceptable geographic region. That said, job leads are targets. By taking each and every job lead that you find of interest, geography aside, printing it out and studying it, you can easily advance your job search. In the “bad old days” of 1991 and 1992 when I was unemployed, it was still traditional to take your finished resume down [ Read more… ]

When it comes to writing, there is no more powerful tool than a sharp pencil. I long ago declared war on unnecessary words. Why? Because they are unnecessary. The normal space allotment for a resume is two pages. Okay, if you have to go to three I might be able to live with it, but generally two is the limit. If you make it three, make it three full pages, not 2 ½. It is not much space to describe the accomplishments of a lifetime, but you are making a mistake if you think it is necessary to describe each and every thing you have ever done. If you are as old as the hills like most of us, there [ Read more… ]

Many years ago I had to buy my son a car to get to school. So, we went down to the local used car lot and I spotted a Ford Escort. It was kind of cute. If memory serves, it was black and it was a stick shift. Having grown up poor, I wasn’t new to buying a used car. I opened up the hood and the engine was spotless. I was kind of surprised given the number of miles on the car and when I asked about it, the dealer told me he had steam cleaned the engine. Among the many things he told me he fixed was that he had replaced the windshield. Hard to sell a car [ Read more… ]

Sad to say, a lie is a lie is a lie. Some would also argue that the withholding of important information is also a lie. I believe this to be the truth and you probably do too. One would have to wonder then why those of us of the accounting profession who pride ourselves on “no surprises” and never telling a lie, feel the need not to show college graduation dates, and if we are really old, some of our first jobs. I would have to ask those who do these things if they would ever hire someone they thought was hiding something about their background. I tend to think not. If you are telling a little white lie or [ Read more… ]

In today’s job market, everyone is trying to create a little edge for themselves so they can beat the competition. I know that none of you are actually the source of these ideas. However, there are a lot of “so called” career counselors out there who try to create perceived value by introducing you to what I call “cheap tricks” that in my opinion just don’t work. My assumption is that if you weren’t so stressed by this whole job search thing, you would agree that these approaches are just not smart. For our very well experienced senior level audience, the primary one appears to be leaving off your early work history. The theory is that by doing so, you [ Read more… ]

Between reviewing new member applications and going over candidates for assignments with The FECG, I spend a lot of time reviewing resumes. What continues to amaze and astound me is how difficult most folks make determining the key elements of their background. Basic stuff, like where they have worked and for how long, where they got their degrees, what industries they have worked in, and from time to time, even where they live – all require reading between the lines. Unlike most resume reviewers, I wasn’t born yesterday. (I also am not as old as the hills, but I have been around the block a few times.) Having “wasted” my life reading The Wall Street Journal and earlier in my [ Read more… ]

The development of a resume can be a long and involved process. There are so many ideas that others have to share with you, and each person with whom you speak has their own perspective about what is right and what is wrong. Your resume is also in part an historical document charged with chronicling your career from formal education through most recent work assignment. Some of the nonsense, misapplied these days, centers on the idea that only the most recent 10 years are of interest to the reader. True, but that doesn’t mean leave it off all together. The formatting and shaping of a resume is so much easier today than it was back in 1991 when I faced [ Read more… ]

I know that all of us take great pride in being “out of the box” thinkers, but there are situations that taking an innovative approach is the same as shooting yourself in the foot. One of those situations is in being innovative with the standard resume format. The traditional resume begins with your contact information: name, address (including email address) and your phone numbers. A summary, much like your 90-second announcement should follow. Next is your work history in reverse chronological order with a short definition of what each company’s business is all about, your titles and the years you held them and for your more recent jobs going back say 15 years, some accomplishments. You end with your educational [ Read more… ]

Personally, I am not a big fan of art museums. Sure, there are particular “objects of art” that I find to be of interest, but I guess I find the walking around part a little tiring. For amusement during these art museum tours I try to overhear what the tour guides are saying. The at length descriptions of what was in the artist’s mind never fail to bring a smile to my face. I often wonder how they know. Is it possible the artist was thinking one thing, but told his supporters something else? Is it possible that he wasn’t thinking anything at all, but just started painting and worked backwards into his logic once it was done? I know [ Read more… ]

I can see from the resumes that cross my desk, that more than a few of our members don’t take to heart some of the editorial material presented in this newsletter, or are taking advice from lightweights in matters related to job search. I hope this will stop! (For our loyal readers and followers, please ignore my previous harsh comment. It is all the “other” members I am speaking to tonight.) More and more I am seeing resumes with early work histories left off and/or year ranges left off jobs early in your careers. Friends, I have a fertile imagination. Were you in prison for some period of time so that if you provided the years there would be gaps? [ Read more… ]

There is a lot of poor thinking going on out in the world about how to be considered for jobs that are a step or two back in your career. The thinking seems to be that you have to dumb down your resume. I agree. I just don’t agree that deleting work history from earlier in your career or leaving off dates is the suggested approach. The constant challenge for most members of this august body is that we are over qualified (or should I say well qualified) for most jobs. After 20+ years of work experience, how could you not be? The approach to appearing “dumber than dirt” or “as dumb as a box of rocks” isn’t to make [ Read more… ]

Based on the resumes I see on a daily basis, I am not sure there is full appreciation for the amount of time any reviewer gives to your carefully crafted opus. The sad truth is that unless the information presented has a clarity greater than the other documents in that stack of 100-500, it can easily be passed over even though you MAY be the most qualified person in the pile. Think long and hard about any of the speed reading that you do starting with the morning newspaper. I sometimes feel sorry for the reporters who have slaved over the stories I skip because I have been unable to find even one word of interest to jump up and [ Read more… ]

I’m not sure why people go their own way, but the standard resume framework is very much the “gold” standard. If you accept the idea that most resumes only get 10 seconds, I think you can begin to appreciate why straying from the traditional structure can get you into trouble. Of course your contact information needs to be at the top. This includes a home address, telephone numbers where you can be reached and your email address. If you are going to worry about being called at the office, I would only suggest that you should be so lucky. When someone wants to reach you, you want to be reachable. I believe the old saw is that opportunity only knocks [ Read more… ]

The resume has a long and established history in our country, and while from time to time I see “variations on the theme,” the standard resume format is the one I always recommend. I would hope that all of us have lamented as Chief Financial Officers about our crazy vendors. Why can’t everyone who billed our firms, at least those from the same industry, take the time to come up with a standard format so our staff would know where to look for invoice numbers and balances due? If only they did. Alas, they don’t. Much the same story is true about the resumes I see on a daily basis. For the most part they revolve around a few themes, [ Read more… ]

While from time to time I silently wish to myself that many of our members would take the time to read a good book about how to write a resume, I find that other members have read a book or an article, but they have either read the wrong book or have misunderstood what the author was trying to communicate. It is certainly true that the primary focus in your resume should be your most recent 10 years of experience. It is not true that there is NO interest in what you were doing before 2008, or for that matter during the last century. (Makes you sound a lot older, doesn’t it?) I see resumes all the time now where [ Read more… ]

When I was growing up, my father was a plumbing contractor and I had the great experience of working with him weekends and summers from my early teens until I graduated from college. The test we used to determine whether or not we had correctly completed a complicated installation was whether or not we had any left over parts. (We usually read the instructions as we were driving away from the job.) Please know that a lot of mechanics use the same technique when they work on your car. Left over parts are a type of profit if you can use them for something else. (Hopefully, none of them are critical to the functioning of whatever they were left over [ Read more… ]

I hope that over the past few days everyone has gotten a few ideas for the framework of their resume. In order to “get into the game,” you need to have a clean looking resume with the major points discussed in the past few days “looking good.” Now that your resume has been selected for further examination, what you write in your accomplishments or bullet points can make the difference between your being picked or discarded in this final round. The issues you develop for this section can take a lot of forms, and I don’t have a strong preference. All I can say for sure is that they all need to be well written with no typographical errors. While [ Read more… ]

I have always been a keen observer of managers. One of my favorites was a gentleman who worked at the Thomson Corporation in a senior financial role. He was one of those tall wiry types who always seemed to be in motion even when he was standing still. Sort of like your favorite basketball coach. (He also talked loud most of the time like he was trying to be heard over a crowd. But, I digress.) Anyway, one of my favorite discussions he held was at a meeting shortly after I met him when he discoursed at length on the good old 80/20 rule. (He also talked about giving him a 20,000 foot review of your areas of responsibility, but [ Read more… ]

You would think that with all the books and materials written about how to write a resume, that each and every one that came across my desk would be close to perfect. Well, you would be wrong if you thought so. Under the heading of “explaining the meaning and purpose of life,” I thought I would write about the how’s and why’s of resume writing to perhaps explain the unexplainable to those who have, through no fault of their own, “strayed from the path.” Let me start with a few simple ideas. Although a resume appears to be a reverse chronological recital of your work history, it is actually a selling document. One point of particular importance is that it [ Read more… ]

There is a rumor out in the world that the attention span of your “average American” is getting shorter. Sad to say, but most likely very true. We see it all around us. So many things are screaming for our attention on a given day. Before the advent of computers it was quite a bit harder to respond to job postings. The gold standard was a personally written letter, and how many could a person crank out in a single day? I type 90 words a minute, and when I was in the Army I was fortunate to be in a clerical position where I had my very own typewriter. Still, I couldn’t write very many letters in a single [ Read more… ]

Time goes by fast when you’re having fun, doesn’t it? And what greater fun is there than conducting a job search? Okay, it may not be as much fun as it appears to be to those looking in from the outside. But still, you can’t beat those lunches and phone calls with old friends, not to mention all the strangers who are strangers no longer. Unfortunately as the weeks and months go by that old standby on your resume of “2010 to present” rings less and less true, and “2010 to 2016” looks even worse. There are many issues to consider in solving this time problem on your resume. The first is that financial folks generally speaking have great difficulty [ Read more… ]

I suppose I could be wrong about all of this, but I find the use of “, MBA” as part of your name to be a bad idea. Yes, I know that not everyone has an MBA, but in my opinion unless you are a CPA or a Ph.D., you need to exercise a little caution in the initials you place after your name. My sister sells commercial insurance and as I understand it, every time you take a test of some sort you get another set of initials you can use after your name. At meetings where you might be introduced, they read your name and ALL of your initials which everyone at these gatherings of fellow insurance folks [ Read more… ]

Any more than someone would write “Please Broadcast Widely” at the top of their resume, putting “Confidential” is just as silly in many ways. I’m sure that this is written up somewhere as the appropriate thing to do, so I am not faulting anyone who does it, but it really is unnecessary. It is just as silly to not show your current employer and to put in something like “Major Manufacturer.” It is unfortunate, but those doing search these days have even less time for mysteries than those who were doing it before the Great Recession set in. The volume of email and paperwork that crosses one’s desk today is beyond belief. If you want to get yourself excluded from [ Read more… ]

The development of a resume can be a long and involved process. There are so many ideas that others have to share with you, and each person with whom you speak has their own perspective about what is right and what is wrong. Your resume is also in part an historical document charged with chronicling your career from formal education through most recent work assignment. Some of the nonsense, misapplied these days, centers on the idea that only the most recent 10 years are of interest to the reader. True, but that doesn’t mean leave off everything earlier. The formatting and shaping of a resume is so much easier today than it was back in 1991 when I faced my [ Read more… ]

Every once in a while I get an assignment for The FECG that draws more than its fair share of attention. I think our all time high a few years ago was an assignment that drew 225 responses. However, even when you get an assignment that draws more than say 40 responses, it can get a little difficult to see the forest for the trees. And, with all that talent to choose from, those who provide the clearest presentation of their credentials are the ones we are most likely to send to our client for consideration. To be very honest, it’s hard to justify forcing our client to “read between the lines” when you have so many better submissions. Here [ Read more… ]

As many of you know, I have a variety of backgrounds. I was not only in the publishing business for 10 years, I was also in the advertising business for 9 years. Communication, or the assumption that it has taken place, is at the core of most of the problems in this world. (Okay, there are probably others, but that would take away from the points I am going to try to make tonight.) Anyway, when an underpaid overworked and groggy screener is placed in front of a pile of 500 resumes and asked to pull out 20 good ones, how much time do you think they actually get to spend on each one? Yes, I am sure they will [ Read more… ]

At one time many years ago I had a lot of time for reading. I picked up an Agatha Christy novel and I was hooked. Over the next several months I believe I read just about everything she had written up to that point. I know that when we moved, I had quite a box of books. Trying to pick up the clues was sure entertaining. There are other fine authors out there that I have indulged in from time to time, but lately the mystery writing on which I spend the most time is confined to the resumes I get from new member applicants. I am not really sure why they feel the need, but they usually begin creating [ Read more… ]

It isn’t often that I get a great resume, but I got one today. I guess I wasn’t surprised given who sent it to me. Although it was three pages, it was still crisp and concise. Perhaps it could have been shaved down to two pages, but it really didn’t bother me that it was a little longer than the “standard.” Here are a few of the things that made it near perfection: 1. It had a well written summary. There were no fluff words like “dynamic” or “born leader,” only prose that served to highlight the accomplishments that followed. 2. The names of all of the firms at which he worked appeared at the beginning of each section in [ Read more… ]

Back in 1991-1992 I was unemployed. Yes, two full years. Honestly, cash was starting to get a little tight. But more importantly, although I had a lot of free time, it was hard to enjoy it. Money, and the prospect of more, tends to focus the “let’s have some fun” part of our brains, whereas the “I don’t know if I will survive this” mindset prevents us from really enjoying our “time off” to any great degree. However, as one of my friends once said, “No one is out of work forever, it just seems that way.” Chances are those last few months in that Heck Hole you refer to as your most recent job were more than a little [ Read more… ]

Let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of job postings in our evening newsletter that really are a fit for your particular background, salary and location preferences. This being the case, you would think that if you saw an opportunity in our newsletter that strongly fit your background, you would take the time to do it right. Let me first suggest to you that there simply is no excuse to having a resume that isn’t well done. With all the books that have been written on the topic of resumes, yours needs to be as close to perfect as it can be. There are several popular approaches that I think are wrong. One is to leave off your home address. [ Read more… ]

Over the course of any given week I have the great honor of reviewing well over 100 resumes. Honestly, no one should be allowed to have this much fun. As I page through the many approaches to presenting one’s credentials, I am frequently dismayed by the way that some of the most important information is presented. Let me start by saying that I hate most abbreviations. The reason is quite simple. I usually have to stop and puzzle through what the abbreviation means in this context. I am sure the author was quite clear, but I am often left scratching my head. I would rank educational credentials of great importance and I hope you do too. I don’t know if [ Read more… ]

During June I was preparing our sailboat for our annual two week trip. I take pretty good care of my boats, but still, there is always a maintenance list. This year, as is my practice, I went through each and every locker, removed everything and went through it item by item to see if I really needed it. It was a big job, but I am always amazed and astounded with the stuff I find. (Why did I buy that?) It is easy to be lazy about things in your life. Since The FENG is about job search, I’ll focus for a minute on your resume. I figure most people practice their 90-second announcement a lot and since it is [ Read more… ]

There is no more powerful tool than a sharp pencil. (The only exception to this rule is the membership directory of The FENG as accessed by our Member Directory Search feature.) I long ago declared war on unnecessary words. Why? Because they are unnecessary. The normal space allotment for a resume is two pages. Okay, if you have to go to three I might be able to live with it, but generally two is the limit. It is not much space to describe the accomplishments of a lifetime, but you are making a mistake if you think it is necessary to describe each and every thing you have done. If you are as old as the hills (or dirt itself) [ Read more… ]

As a part of my frequent “joys of sailing” ideas, I thought I would talk about docks around Long Island Sound. Although one can drag anchor, one rarely drags dock. (A little sailing joke for you.) Sure, it is a rather arcane topic, but hopefully it is one that you can use to amaze and astound your friends. You would think that docking arrangements everywhere would be pretty much the same. After all, you have a boat, you have water, and you need to tie it up for the night. Well, you would be very wrong. The truth is that just about every place you go is a little different. Some marinas have pilings you have to snag on your [ Read more… ]

I am at all times amazed and astounded at the lack of attention to detail by the many members who write to me. There are so many things that are easy to do, that no one seems to do. Let me start with my primary concern (and one I write about constantly), the lack of outgoing signatures. Incredibly, some emails I get aren’t even signed. A proper outgoing signature contains your name, address, phone numbers and email address. Adding one is so simple that it doesn’t bear explaining. If you aren’t using one, just click “Help” and search for outgoing signature. If you are wondering why no one is writing back, that’s why. Is your name Pat, or Leslie? You [ Read more… ]

We are fortunate in the financial professions to be blessed with a very high degree of transferable skills. Still, the next job for most of us isn’t going to be all that much different from our last one. While it is certainly possible that we will change industries, it is less likely that we will change the skill sets needed in our day to day work. What typically happens in any recession is that certain industries take a downward turn and many of the folks in those industries lose their jobs. It used to be that this was limited to old line industries, but as we have seen in recent years, it can even affect the stars of just last [ Read more… ]

  I have written on many occasions about how to structure your resume. I have also written about bringing your resume through stages of development. Like any selling document it is essential that you keep it growing and fresh. Going through the birth pangs of building your resume can often feel like you are taking out your own appendix without the benefit of anesthetic. (Actually, it is a little more painful.) Still, without this important document looking its best you are going to be hard pressed to be selected out of a batch of 200+ resumes. After you have the framework easy to read (there are model resumes out on our website), and you have polished the prose, the next [ Read more… ]

I often get the feeling listening to members of The FENG that they feel like they are selling from an empty wagon. Friends, it just isn’t true. What triggered tonight’s editorial was a few comments I got from one of our members about the issue of dates for your college degrees. The “product” you need to always be selling is your wealth of experience. Everyone doesn’t want the product, but those that do are willing to pay for it. In classic marketing terms, if you try to sell a product based on attributes it doesn’t have, it is considered an over promise. You are a lot better off presenting a realistic picture. We have all seen ads for the airlines [ Read more… ]

Several years ago, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks starred in a movie about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. The basic story is that over the course of several years, Carl Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks tracks down Frank Abagnale played by Leonardo DiCaprio. I often feel like Carl Hanratty, only in my case, I am trying to track down members of The FENG. As Chairman of The FENG, I often feel that I could easily become a detective at this point in my life given the skills I have acquired. I can’t believe how frequently during the day I get [ Read more… ]

There is no greater challenge in this world than summing yourself up in 90 seconds or writing a proper summary for your resume. As many of you know, I was CFO of an advertising agency in the 1980’s. Initially, I used to wonder why the creative folks got paid so well. As I got more and more into who we were and what we did, it became a little more obvious how difficult it was to create the essence of a product or service in a 30 second commercial or in a print ad. Here you are a product and/or service with 20+ years of work experience. There are so many delightful aspects to who you are and what you [ Read more… ]

I always find it interesting what people say about themselves. Those who deal in hiring decisions have so many hidden tools in their arsenal. I suppose the obvious manifestations of who you are come across in the body of your resume and, of course, in your 90-second announcement. What those who know how to read between the lines do next is to listen and/or read every single other word or words you say about yourself to determine who you are and how you might fit into their organization. There is a section at the bottom of many resumes that I will focus on tonight where folks really “go to heck” with themselves because they are not thinking about the context [ Read more… ]

In our male dominated society called The FENG, one of the biggest challenges I face on a daily basis is getting members to ask for and accept help. I am sure we all know that traditionally guys don’t ask for directions at the gas station. It is much better to drive around and around totally lost. (Thank goodness for GPS, we don’t have that issue to face anymore. Although, since most GPS units have a female voice, we seem to be more comfortable taking directions from women these days, but I digress.) We have a lot of very fine traditions in The FENG. While all of us would prefer to be on the giving end of favors (kind of a [ Read more… ]

Some of the notes that I get from our many learned members fill me with dismay. I often wonder, do they send notes with spelling and grammatical errors just to me, or do they provide this special service to everyone in the world? I do get a chuckle over some of them, but by and large I get concerned that the bad habits inherent in not checking their work creep over into all of the correspondence that they turn out. Some of it might even be for jobs they would give their right arms to have. It is all very easy to think that when you are writing to friends you don’t “need to be on your game.” I respectfully [ Read more… ]

Of course it would be an understatement to tell you that I believe in the value of a FULL outgoing signature. In much the same way that I am a Fanantic FENG’er, I am also a fanatic when it comes to the substance and format of outgoing signatures. (Persnickety is another word.) I try not to beat the drum about what is or is not a FULL outgoing signature more than once or twice a week in our evening newsletter, but that’s just an honorable mention. Tonight, the ENTIRE editorial is on this important topic. Part of my “evil” plan to have all members of The FENG use an outgoing signature is that I check ALL of them against our [ Read more… ]

I’m sure tonight’s topic will generate a lot of comments. Those of you who would like to join in on this discussion are invited to send your comments to [email protected]. The short answer to the question of the moment is: I hope so! If you weren’t, I’m not really sure how you were added to our membership. Our entire organization is filled with well qualified individuals who can do just about any job they would like to take. That said the primary focus of tonight’s editorial is for our members who are much older. Let’s say 55-60 plus. When you are interviewed for a possible work opportunity, please understand that the comments made by the interviewer are often a sincere [ Read more… ]

Life is made up of a lot of endless details. And, as financial people, the endless details are where we shine. I have said from time to time that eating an elephant is best done one bite at a time. (Mustard would probably also be a good idea.) Most tasks, no matter how enormous they may seem at the time, are actually finite in nature. By finite, I mean to say that if we work on them in our usual diligent manner, at some point they are finished. The approach I take to planning is based on the recognition that there are 1 day plans, 1 week plans, 1 month plans, 3 month plans and 1 year plans. There are [ Read more… ]

I am always amazed and astounded how frequently the resumes I see are missing vital information. What I am not clear about is WHY the individual in question thinks that leaving off important data will benefit him or her. Let me start at the top of the list and mention missing home addresses. Yes, hard to believe, but some job seekers are apparently living in their cars. And to add to the impression that they are homeless, some of these resumes don’t even have a phone number or email address. (I’m not sure how you are supposed to reach them.) I suppose the theory is that if you don’t tell them where you live and you are applying for a [ Read more… ]

The resume format is sure constraining. If only the world was willing to listen to us rattle on. Unfortunately, they aren’t. The “standard” acceptable resume format is either two or three pages. Anything more tells the reader that you don’t know how to communicate. Perhaps I should also mention that narrow margins and smaller fonts are not the solution. If you want anyone to be able to absorb that opus of yours in the 15 seconds they allot to reading it, I would suggest that you take out a very sharp electronic pencil and have at it. As the sign in the restaurant says: Good food takes time. Yours will be ready in a minute. Good writing and good communication [ Read more… ]

The changes that have taken place in the past 15 years in our ability to communicate are truly remarkable. What with personal computers, email, cell phones, voice mail, iPads and iPhones you can use just about from anywhere, you would think that those of us engaged in business pursuits would make the effort to master all of these many technologies, or in true managerial fashion, find someone who could set them up for us. But, you would be wrong. Hard to know where to start, but let me begin with email, my own personal favorite communication tool. Do you think it is possible that there are people out there who don’t know that there is a shift key? It must [ Read more… ]

One of the themes that I like to present from time to time is the idea that each of us can make a difference. For those of us who live in these United States, it is all very easy to fall into the accepted American concept that everything in this world is actually someone else’s fault. Hence we have the tendency in this country to sue anyone and everyone who might have wronged us. It has created a nice living for the contingency lawyers in this country, but has done little for the American sense of pride and individual responsibility for ourselves and others. Here in our little society we call The FENG we have a unique opportunity to do [ Read more… ]