Practice Management Member Conversations

As someone who has been in the profession for nearly 30 years but is new to looking for a position, I would like to know if any of the HR experts out there would be kind enough to share some meaningful examples of the current format of, along with the do's and don'ts for a professional resume as well as the important items to be included or excluded in the cover letter.

What are seeing today that knocks your socks off or causes you to immediately hit the delete button?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Bill


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William Sell AIA
Corona CA
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Bill,

As someone who has been reviewing a lot of resumes lately, I can tell you that what is jumping out at me is evidence that the person has done some research into what our firm does. With so many people needing to send so many resumes out, either to comply with unemployment requirements or just because they really need to find a job, there are a lot of "form letter" applications that come in, even when we have listed a specific position on our website, with clear requirements for skills and experience.

If a cover letter indicates that the person has been to our website and is interested in the types of projects we do (even if their experience is in other types), and shows that they have a sense of what we are asking for in the posted position description, the resume is MUCH more likely to get past the first glance pile into the second glance pile, and beyond.

After that, I recommend clarity of font and formatting as a big plus. And be very clear about what kinds of software you can use effectively, whether it is related to CAD or Adobe, or SpecLink or Deltek.

I also have this suggestion, especially to entry level and young applicants who really want to send out their entire academic portfolio via email: if you are responding electronically to a job posting, submit a resume, cover letter, and one PDF file that is formatted to 8.5x11 paper and no more that 5 mgs. Let the reviewer know that you can provide a more extensive portfolio of work on request. You can bring fancy graphics to an interview, if it comes to that. I find it very frustrating to receive giant files with odd sized pages that require time and energy to process and print, or CDs with multiple files on them. Those are likely to get lost in the shuffle. You want your stuff to get to the reviewer as cleanly and easily as possible, and you want to make it simple for the reviewer to see how great you are!

Best of luck with your search, Bill! I know there are a lot of people with a lot of great experience out there looking for work. I hope we can reabsorb all of that talent and skill back into our profession - we'll be much poorer for it if we cannot.



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Alissa Rupp AIA, LEED BD+C
Principal
The Portico Group
Seattle WA
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Alissa hit the nail on the head.  The ability to communicate your understanding of the firm's work and your connection to it is invaluable.  For someone with 30 years of experience, that will mean plenty of self-editing.  I recently accepted a senior technical coordinator position at SOM and my resume was three pages.  The first outlined my education and experience, detailing my roles at each firm.  The next two had four selected projects each with a small but descriptive and legible photo and a medium-length blurb describing the scope of work, my role on the project and whether it had won and award or was published.  I staggered the photos left and right because I was able to get two larger photos on each side of the page and align the text with the photo for clarity.  I found that this was very well received because it wasn't too long, the first page gave the traditional background info they were looking for and the last two gave the details they were more interested in.  Good luck!

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Brian Kaplan AIA
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
New York NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-11-2011 10:39
From: Alissa Rupp
Subject: Help with formatting a Professional Resume

Bill,

As someone who has been reviewing a lot of resumes lately, I can tell you that what is jumping out at me is evidence that the person has done some research into what our firm does. With so many people needing to send so many resumes out, either to comply with unemployment requirements or just because they really need to find a job, there are a lot of "form letter" applications that come in, even when we have listed a specific position on our website, with clear requirements for skills and experience.

If a cover letter indicates that the person has been to our website and is interested in the types of projects we do (even if their experience is in other types), and shows that they have a sense of what we are asking for in the posted position description, the resume is MUCH more likely to get past the first glance pile into the second glance pile, and beyond.

After that, I recommend clarity of font and formatting as a big plus. And be very clear about what kinds of software you can use effectively, whether it is related to CAD or Adobe, or SpecLink or Deltek.

I also have this suggestion, especially to entry level and young applicants who really want to send out their entire academic portfolio via email: if you are responding electronically to a job posting, submit a resume, cover letter, and one PDF file that is formatted to 8.5x11 paper and no more that 5 mgs. Let the reviewer know that you can provide a more extensive portfolio of work on request. You can bring fancy graphics to an interview, if it comes to that. I find it very frustrating to receive giant files with odd sized pages that require time and energy to process and print, or CDs with multiple files on them. Those are likely to get lost in the shuffle. You want your stuff to get to the reviewer as cleanly and easily as possible, and you want to make it simple for the reviewer to see how great you are!

Best of luck with your search, Bill! I know there are a lot of people with a lot of great experience out there looking for work. I hope we can reabsorb all of that talent and skill back into our profession - we'll be much poorer for it if we cannot.



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Alissa Rupp AIA, LEED BD+C
Principal
The Portico Group
Seattle WA
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