QUESTION: Hey, Harry -- A company in Chicago was nice enough to reply to my resume submission, but wrote back, "We're looking for someone who has taken ideas from conception to finished product." I politely replied that I'd done that at a previous employer. My guess is that they only looked at my current job experience and not at my prior work history. Is there any way, either in the cover letter or by rearranging the resume, to get employers to focus on my best time between 1999 and 2004?
ANSWER: Not really. The issue is not how relevant you were four years ago, but how relevant you are today. Ideally, companies want candidates who can plug-and-play into their current business, based on current industry best practices. They want to see what you have done in the most recent chapter of your career -- and four years ago is a very long time, especially in "internet years."
PS - About the ATS ...
Understand that when internal and third-party recruiters (like me) receive your resume, the document is often automatically inhaled into an Applicant Tracking System. The ATS allows us to quickly scan a resume with the keywords from the relevant job posting highlighted. If your resume lights up like a Christmas tree when viewed in an ATS, then you are "qualified" for the position for which you have applied and we will likely follow up with a phone call. If it doesn't, then we're on to the next resume. And this stuff about your blog being your resume is just wishful thinking.
Remember Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink?" Same deal.
Your best bet is to customize a keyword-specific version of your resume for each job application. Make sure it's honest, though, because secondary reference checks will expose a sham -- even if the recruiter doesn't.
Secondary references, btw, are those that arise when the reference checker asks the candidate's reference "Who else has worked with this candidate in a similar capacity? Do you have their number so I can call them?" Since the candidate has no idea whom their primary reference will identify, they have no way of controlling the spin on their work experience. Result: Busted.
Customizing your resume takes effort, but there's simply no use applying for a job unless your resume is properly mapped to the current position. One-size-fits-all resumes rarely cut it, unless your recruiter specializes in the type of position that happens to match what's already on it. Or knows you personally.
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