Don't Sabotage your Resume!

http://www.careeraddict.com/13917/5-things-that-turn-off-recruiters-before-they-open-your-resume

It's not just what's on your resume that counts. It's the details about how you transmit it electronically that will get you attention--or at least, avoid the kind of attention (hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing) that you don't want.

I love the image that accompanies this blog post: a hiring manager putting his fist through a laptop screen. Yup--I've been there, I've done that. Screwy file names, formats I can't open, typesetting that gives my screen hiccups, inept transmittal emails...

Several years ago, before e-transmission was the default, the English Department was reviewing materials incoming for a faculty position. We got a package -- which, by the way, I opened with my own hands (the package didn't get anonymized through a secretary or anything). And on the outside of the flat mailing envelope, the return address was a sticker with a fuzzy, cute image. So overly sweet I nearly got diabetes just looking at it.

Now, I'm a sucker for fuzzy and cute. But on a professional job application? Really?! We didn't reject that application only on the basis of the return-address sticker. But it helped us put that one out of several hundred applications into the circular file early in the review process.