Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

Should you leave dates off your resume?

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Regular readers know I always tell my clients there is no ONE RIGHT way to conduct a job search. Best practices? Yes. Opinions on the best way to do things? Absolutely! The trick is to identify people who provide opinions based on actual information from people involved in hiring. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people advising job seekers based on nothing but their own experience, which may or may not translate effectively to others.

One slightly controversial piece of advice regarding resumes is about using dates. Typically, when I hear arguments about including dates or not on a resume, the focus is on graduation dates, but I’ve recently become aware that some people are advising job seekers to list some of their job experience without dates.

Graduation Dates on Resumes

Some people believe if they graduated from college too long ago, hiring managers will pass over their resume, assuming them to be too old, too inflexible or too expensive to hire (based on the number of years of experience).

Advice to remove graduation dates targets younger and younger people! I had one client tell me he’d been advised to take the years off of his schooling since it had been more than five years ago. That is an extreme piece of advice. Generally, anyone over 50 may be told to make themselves “look younger” by removing graduation dates.

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Should you leave graduation dates (years) off of your resume? I’m not a fan of this practice. Why? Because, if you leave off the date, you allow the reader to assume when you may have graduated. The hiring manager will naturally believe you are “more experienced” — perhaps even much more experienced (read: older) than you actually are! If your goal is to look younger, that’s what we on Twitter would label a major #FAIL.

Are there circumstances where leaving off graduation dates may make sense? Possibly. If you could have retired 10 years ago, you probably can’t hurt yourself leaving off your graduation date!

Dates for Experience

I’m working with a client now who has been advised to list certain jobs she held in the past without dates. Not all of her work experience, just a few older positions. At first, I thought she had misunderstood the previous career advisor’s instructions, but from talking to a few people, it appears as if this advice to omit dates on certain job experiences is typical.

My bias is to always include dates on experience; I thought it was crazy to advise a job seeker to leave dates off of certain work experience. (My preference would be to leave off the jobs altogether if they were not crucial to the candidate’s time line. For example, account for the last 10-15 years of experience and omit older jobs that don’t add anything to your candidacy.)

I’ve spent a lot of time with recruiters who influence some of my advice to job seekers. Granted, most jobs are not filled via recruiters, but I believe their take on resume norms is valuable, since they constantly evaluate candidates. I posed the question of dates on a resume to my Twitter community, saying, “#Recruiters -I have a client who’s been advised to list jobs withOUT dates on resume. Planning to blog about this. Love to quote you!”

These are the replies I received. Read them from the bottom up to follow the conversation.

While @RapidBi, an organizational change consultant, believed there could be a case for a resume without all of the dates, clearly the trend in this unscientific survey points toward including dates or risking attracting suspicion.

If someone is telling you to leave dates off of your resume, only do so after carefully considering the possible ramifications. Have I heard of people who removed certain dates (typically graduation dates) and still landed interviews? Yes, I have. Be sure to make your decision from an informed perspective. Ask you advisor or coach why he or she recommends one way or another; don’t be afraid to inquire why. Anyone who knows what they are doing will welcome the opportunity to explain.

— If you’re looking for a job and could use a boost, be sure to pre-order a copy of my book, Social Networking for Career Success AND consider getting your own, personal website – a social resume!

photo by Caro’s Lines

What one person’s bad luck shows about the power of Twitter

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No doubt getting fired for something said, posted or tweeted often makes the news. This week in Atlanta, Chadd Scott, a radio personality, lost his job for tweeting disparaging things about Delta Airlines, an Atlanta based company that also happened to be a key client for the station where Chadd worked. 11 Alive News, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta, reported Delta threatened to pull their ads from the station. 680 The Fan Radio fired him for tweeting comments such as:

“The bean counter who saved Delta a few bucks in st. lou hoping he wouldn’t need more de-icing fluid this year screwed a lot of people today.”

“Not a big quote tweeter, but #delta should remember ‘when you fail 2 prepare, you prepare 2 fail.'”

“New #delta strategy on de-icing planes in st. louis: wait ’til it melts. well, the company is based in atlanta.”

While it’s unfortunate these tweets landed Chadd in such hot water, the most important lesson job seekers can learn from this story: companies ARE listening! It’s possible to get someone’s attention via Twitter, and to use it to your advantage.

11 Alive reporter Jaye Watson interviewed me about what Chadd did wrong and how people can use Twitter to attract positive attention.

picture by xotoko

Chosen as “Career Mastermind”

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I want to thank Dr. Randall Hansen and Dr. Kathy Hansen of Quintessential Careers for including me in their list of “15 Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds” in honor of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers.

This is a real honor, as I have been using and recommending Quint Careers as a resource for my clients for just about that many years! I remember meeting Randall and Kathy several years ago at a conference — it was a “brush with career fame” for me, which makes this honor even more special.

Their announcement notes:

As part of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers, we are honoring and celebrating some of our favorite career visionaries, gurus, and experts — people who truly want to help job-seekers understand and succeed in the job-search.

We’ve selected these 15 career experts, folks we are honoring with the title of Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds, because of their career and job-hunting know-how — and their passion for sharing that knowledge with job-seekers, career-changers, and the entire career community.

It’s especially nice to be recognized for sharing information and resources with the career community, so thank you very much!

Learn about everyone on the Quint Careers list and stay tuned for our involvement on the site in the coming months!

Simply Hired reports opportunities up for job seekers

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In Simply Hired’s February Jobs Report, there were some silver linings for job seekers.

They reported growth in 17 of 18 industries; only Technology was down a bit (-2.0%). Reported large growth areas: Military (22.7%), Travel (20.9%) and Agriculture (20.0%)

Month-over-month, growth in job openings (based on posted jobs on Simply Hired) were up 3.8% and year-over-year (compared to February 2010), they were up 49.7%.

There are (statistically) 4 people for every 1 job opening nationwide. Top hiring companies nationwide included:

  • Home Depot
  • HCA
  • Securus
  • Starbucks
  • U.S. Air Force

Top hiring sectors based on jobs listed on Simply Hired included: agriculture, automotive, construction, education, financial services, government, health care, hospitality and legal.

Statistically, the most competitive place to land a job was Miami and Fort Lauderdale, where there are 9 candidates for every one opening. Washington D.C. has one job for every one candidate. (Remember, this is a statistical analysis, which doesn’t necessarily mean you will or will not be able to land an opportunity.)

Daniel Greenberg, CMO, SimplyHired.com, explains how they calculate these ratios and what they mean for job seekers:

SimplyHired.com’s unemployment ratio is calculated by taking the average of the total number of currently unemployed persons in the U.S. (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) over the total number of job openings listed on SimplyHired.com each month. In February, the unemployment ratio was 4:1 nationally. This means that on average there were four job seekers for every one job opening. What this means for job seekers varies by location, if you’re looking for a job in an area like Miami, the unemployment ratio is actually 9:1, and in Washington, DC the unemployment ratio is an ideal 1:1.

This ratio also includes every job opening, meaning that part-time and contract work is considered – not just full-time jobs. Everything else being equal, job seekers in highly competitive job markets would be well served to relocate to areas that have more favorable job seeker-to-unemployment ratios.”

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If you’re looking for a job — or thinking you need to start using social media to propel your career, my book: Social Networking for Career Success is available on Amazon (at a great discount). Please order now!

 

photo by Redvers

Newest updates from LinkedIn

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I was delighted to be invited to attend LinkedIn’s latest press conference (via live stream from their headquarters). No question LinkedIn is working hard to compete with other, growing social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

An interesting point made in the early part of the conference: LinkedIn wants to emphasize itself as a network helpful for job seekers, but not JUST for people looking for jobs. They strive to be a place for people to share insights, build relationships  and update profiles to illustrate expertise and offer information all of the time. I’ve been promoting this concept for years, and it was not surprising to know that being a go-to network for every professional is one of LinkedIn’s goals.

The three objectives they outlined:

  1. Be the professional profile of record to help people find and be found, ultimately eliminating the need for the “cold call.”
  2. Be a source of professional insights with a focus on making content relevant to readers.
  3. “Work where our members work,” in other words, create applications to use via smartphones and on the go in addition to on the Web.

Some of their latest – and newly announced features:

LinkedIn’s InMaps – allow you to visualize your LinkedIn social graph (the people you are connected to and how they connect to each other). You can learn where there are pockets in your networks and consider where you may want to expand your connections, and it’s all via a visual tool. (The picture above is a piece of an InMap. Try it out: http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/.

LinkedIn’s Signal – This has been in beta in September 2010, and today is available for everyone. Find this on your LinkedIn home page or via http://www.linkedin.com/signal. (See picture below — the link is in the bottom, right corner – Search Updates.)


See updates from your immediate or expanded network, or information shared by company or industry, location, time, University, or any combination of those search parameters. This gives you access to updates from people who are not in your network.

This search is sort of similar to searching a hashtag on Twitter, which shows you updates from everyone – not just your network – using that search term. LinkedIn aims to share “professional” updates with you via this tool, but this all depends on how your network or the network you are searching uses LinkedIn. Let’s face it, there are plenty of updates that are not exactly “professional.” I found many by searching only by city. However, in theory, this type of search should clue me in to what professionals in a given city are thinking and sharing. (Searches by industry are more focused and will likely produce useful results.)

LinkedIn Today Beta. Find this at http://www.linkedin.com/today. LinkedIn calls it, “A new product that surfaces the top headlines and stories being shared the most across multiple industries by LinkedIn’s trusted network of more than 90 million professionals.”

They explain, “LinkedIn Today gives members a customized and tailored way to consume the top trending news relevant to a particular industry and by what is being shared the most frequently by those industry’s professionals. It lets members access their professional news through three different lenses – by their connections, industry, and the broader global professional network.”

LinkedIn Today integrates with Twitter and StumbleUpon and other news sources, including Bloomberg.com, Wall Street Journal Digital Network, CNNMoney, and many more. They also integrated this into their iPhone app (version 3.6), which has special features allowing users to quickly access the news they need.

Learn more about this new feature by taking the “tour” offered right below the site’s headline. It’s easy to personalize the experience and save stories so you can track the information you want.

Be sure to take advantage of these useful tools, whether you are looking for a job, have a business, or just know you need to keep up-to-date to stay ahead of the game professionally!

Want to learn all about how you can use social networking to propel your career? My new book, Social Networking for Career Success, is available for pre–order (at a great price). I want to invite you to order now!