The Inside Scoop on Hiring Managers

“Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.” — Sun Tzu (The Art of War) I am not suggesting the hiring manager is your enemy. I am saying that if you understand some of the pressures and concerns of the people in the hiring chain of the company you are applying for a job, you will have a better chance of success. In large and mid-sized companies, you will have a Human Resources (HR) department. That is where you will send your résumé. If it is a large company, there may a person (or more) who does mainly recruiting for the company. That is good for you. They are practiced at seeing the people who will be successful at their companies. They have lots of experience reading résumés and interpreting what makes for a successful employee. They can read the résumé and cover letter faster and separate out those who will go on for interviews and who won’t. If it is a smaller HR department, the HR professional may do recruiting as part of other duties. Some of these other duties are sexual harassment claims investigation, salary surveys, new employee orientations, payroll, benefits, employee relations issues, and on and on. Not every person likes to do recruiting. Some people thrive on it. You won’t know whom you will get at HR. At least in HR, there has been some training in recruiting, reading résumés and doing interviews. That is good for you. From HR, your résumé will go to a hiring manager. Alternatively, HR might also do a first “screening” interview, before passing you on to the hiring manager. In some companies, your résumé will go straight to the hiring manager. Depending on how long they have been a manager, there may be no experience to lots of experience doing hiring. In either case, this is just one more thing that is keeping them from doing their job. They will probably have to work more hours to get it all done. While they are looking at your résumé (do they know what to look for?) the work is piling up around them. In today’s economy, it is an employers’ market. That means there are many more applicants than there are jobs. Therefore, for one job, a hundred applications (or more) may come in. That means whoever is looking at the résumés, only has 15 – 30 seconds to spend on each résumé before making the decision: “Keep or toss?”

• How do you stand out?
• How do you get the person looking at your application materials to spend more than 15 seconds looking at your résumé?

YOU have to make it very easy for them to decide to keep you. How? Tell them you are the right candidate. Be passionate about the company or the job (or both) you chose to send your résumé. Use sentences in your cover letter like, “I am passionate about helping people become healthy and that is the business of Healthy Company.” Similarly, be passionate about the job with statements that demonstrate that passion. “I enjoy being a geologist because it exercises my educational skills and it’s an ever-changing environment as I manage projects out in the field or in the office.” Do some research about the company and let them know it with, “I have always admired the way ABC gives back to the community and I want to be part of that.” It is up to you to demonstrate that you are the right candidate in your application materials. HR or the hiring manager does not have the time to research you. That is your job. You have to set it out plainly, obviously for them. Do that, and you are more likely to get the job. If you aren’t getting any calls for an interview, it may be that your cover letter or résumé is not connecting you to the hiring manager. Need help? Email me and we can put together a relevant résumé and a cover letter that will demonstrate you are the right candidate for the job. Don’t wait, contact me now. A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream. Warmly, Elisabeth Elisabeth Adler-Lund Executive And Life Coaching Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com