Job Talk

by Susan K. Maciak, Lead Consultant, www.cameocareer.com

Employers now often require job candidates to fill out online applications, even online resumes. Does that mean you should ditch your old one?

Please don’t! Job candidates still need a one-page, paper resume, revealing their job history, educational achievements, work experience, skills, strengths and special abilities.

Anyone who can’t provide the same information online is at a serious disadvantage today. Employers often require online applications and resumes “in addition” to paper ones.

You may still need to mail or fax your resume to show off your major work achievements. Employers only ask what they need to know. Online resumes don’t give you a chance to reveal assets.

Often a candidate sends a resume and is then invited to go online to fill out the employer’s version. Employers have several reasons for asking you to do that: 1) to test your computer skills.  2) to compare what you sent in to what you put in your online resume. They’re looking for inconsistencies.

Their software may also be able to scan for key words that illustrate that separate the candidates that qualify for  a job from those who don’t. They may simply want to level the playing field by having all job-seekers answer the same question.

If you get an interview, you can still bring a copy of your paper resume to handout to interviewers. That way, you can sell yourself again at the table.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 7:42 am and is filed under Job-Seeking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.