where hospitality people meet
A recruiter's dream part III: Making the first contact
Paul feels really calm today, which is admirable considering that he is going for a job interview for no less than his dream job, the one he has been preparing for his whole career. Paul knows the job inside out already. He is also pretty familiar with the organisation, having visited its premises on many an occasion and spoken to staff (both current and former). He knows this is the real deal and he is thoroughly prepared.
what would it be like going to a job interview feeling like Paul? It is within your reach too. Not difficult at all although it will require a bit more work than the job hunting technique (or lack thereof) used by the vast majority of candidates I come across. Herein lies your competitive advantage: the majority of candidates who apply for a job, will not have given careful thought to what they really want (you can read more about this here) nor have they researched the organisation they plan to work for in any detail (more on this here. When you do, you will be ahead of the competition and increase your chances of getting the job.
I have been recruiting for various organisations over the last seven years. As Human Resources Manager, it is my job to find the best available candidate for each position. One of the challenges I face (even more so in a recession) is that for each job I advertise, I am likely to get in excess of 100 candidates. This makes the shortlisting of candidates a somehow lengthy and sometimes painful process.
Candidates don't seem to consider that their CV is not the only one I receive: it usually comes in a bunch of one hundred (and this is just for one job). On average, I advertise five roles at any given time. You do the sums!
Now, let’s assume that you are me (the recruiter). You arrive to work to be welcome by a pile of 500 CVs. You know that you have to go through them, you know that you are going to open them all and decide which ones to shortlist. And you know that while this is happening, another pile of 200 is building up. As you venture into your first candidate’s CV, it downs on you (like a bucket of cold water) that candidates are not going to make the process any easier for you or for themselves:
- CV “packs” that include a five-page-cv and cover letter, 3 certificates, 4 letters of recommendation and a set of pictures including the candidate’s baby shower, graduation and a set of pictures from their first placement… OH NO!
- The above again, but not in paper copy but on an email containing 18 attachments likely to freeze your average computer
- Green paper, red paper, pink paper, a little verse as an opening statement, a picture of the candidate in A4 format, the CV written in a cut out of a butterfly. You name it: I am sure it is in there!
So, you know that this is going to be a tall order you roll up your sleeves, put all your calls on hold and prepare your shortlisting strategy. At the end of the day, just because candidates do not have an strategy, does not mean that you should do the same and let’s face it, you say to yourself, if candidates cannot make an effort they are likely to loose against those who have and whose CVs are also in that pile sitting on your desk.
Your strategy, as a recruiter, probably includes dismissing CVs that:
- Cover letter opens with: “Dear Mr Ruiz, I have always wanted to work for Marriott”, when your organisation is clearly not Marriott. Perfect example of mass CV-ing.
- The CV or application looks like it has been run over by a truck and/or has gone on a round the world tour (walking). In this case, it possibly will include the following too: coffee stains, a bit of dodgy hair, smudges of marker pen, tipex, something that looks suspiciously like blood.
- Include anything other that a CV and a one page (A4) cover letter. (Yes, I have received cover letters in A5, A3 and almost every other size).
- Comes on an email with unsolicited or useless (at this point) information attached.
- The cover letter or email or (if an ad via caterer) screening questions contain spelling or grammar that would give your average English teacher a heart attack (what does this say about candidate’s attention to detail)
This strategy will help you screen over 80% of your candidates in a relatively short time.
OK, that’s it. You are not the recruiter anymore. You are you, probably a candidate searching for a job. You are now armed with the knowledge of where your CV is going to end up if it does not meet certain standards: the "we will keep your CV on file..." drawer.
The above does not even cover the topic on how your CV should look like, it merely discusses what it should NOT look like for it to remain within that elusive 20%. AMAZING! I told you it would not be that difficult. All it takes is a bit of planning, common sense and strategy.
REMEMBER THAT AS A RECRUITER:
- I am not interested (at this point) in every qualification or reference you ever received. It is unlikely to impress me and I can always ask (if interested) later on in the recruitment process. Keep it short, clean and to the point.
- I want to feel that candidates know about my organisation, they have done enough research to drop a couple of ACCURATE sentences on their cover letter.
- I want to see the candidate’s attention to detail in their CV and cover letter: no spelling / grammatical mistakes, CV looks clean, neat and new (no photocopies please)
- If CV is sent by email, do not use “Dear Sir/Madam”. Instead find out who is likely to read your CV and address it to that person. (Attention to detail and proof of research in action).
- Again, if by email, it is fine to write the cover letter as the main body of the mail. Then you only need to attach one document (CV) instead of two, or twenty (as is often the case)
Would you agree that your chances are increased by following some of the above advice?
Do you think that, as a recruiter, I am being unreasonable?
Have you got any experience, as a recruiter or candidate, that relates to any of the above?
Do you have any other tips for candidates?
TO BE CONTINUED…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marcus Weedon on -
Spot on Jose, as usual!!!
I can totally relate to all of the above and dont envy the amount of CVs that you have to go through.
Couldn't agree with you more that the majority of people applying for jobs do not put the effort that they should do and if they did, how much it would improve the opportunity of gaining the job that they are looking for, not just any job either.
I have also experienced receiving CV's with no contant, or someone elses CV possibly their partners....lol
Also a classic recently is someone that has been out of work for the last 3 months who has sent their CV 50 times, whats the point of this, send it once as it wont make any more of an impact, bet i will get to work on Monday and it will be staring me in the face again.
Some of our advert will read at the end, please only apply if you have previous experience within a particular role for instance a Restaurant Manager, so low and behold, we receive CVs for Library Assistants, Shop Manager, etc
I would suggest that when people look forwork and apply for positions being advertised that they actually read the advert carefully, there are a lot of clues there to what the employer is looking for and whether the applicants match the clients profile and job spec.
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Permalink Reply by Viaceslavas Palkevicius on -
Dear all,
I find Jose's topic really interesting and actual, so I‘d like to discuss some of his thoughts and try to express my opinion, both as the candidate and sales and marketing professional, opposing some of his claims and answering some of his questions.
First of all let me introduce myself. My name is Slava. The country of my origin is Lithuania, the country of residency is Sweden and the country of my future residency is UK (hopefully). Being "international" and having 9 years sales & marketing career experience in different sectors such as IT, hospitality, F&B, MICE and NGO and working for such organisations as UNESCO and Starwood helped me to get varied experience in debating and understanding the differences between the cultures.
So, as you already understood I am the person who came to UK from another country and trying to settle down in UK. Shortly - immigrant.
I‘ve started to look for a job in UK last year, when my wife Gintare gave a birth to my son Patrick. My wife is the music producer and the best place to realise her ideas and dreams in music production in Europe is UK. So we decided to relocate to UK and thought that it will be not difficult for me, as sales and marketing professional, to find a job in this country.
I‘ve started to send the applications to the desirable positions as the head of sales and marketing departments. With no responses from the employers and lots of thinking what’s wrong, I‘ve decided to try to apply for something smaller, as I knew which kind of person I am and that in a short time I will get the possibility to be promoted. After the second stage of my attempts I have no answers too, but later I‘ve got some responses that as not being located in UK it‘s difficult to deal with a candidate like me.
The problem of location is really understandable so I relocated to UK and started from zero. It was difficult when day after day I’ve been gotten negative answers as „Unfortunately you are not ...“.
And one day one of the recruitment company’s manager called me and told that they are interested in me but it is important to change my CV as it‘s to long. For sure my CV was long – 4 pages, but this CV helped me to find a job in Sweden, Ireland and UNESCO (France). More interesting thing is that the CV I’ve been sending for months were created by the form of Europass.
For those who don’t know what Europass CV means – Europass CV is the form of CV which is accepted in all EU countries and this form helps the employers to understand which kind of person is applying for a job. Europass has been established by the Decision No 2241/2004/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 15 December 2004 on a single transparency framework for qualifications and competences.
Link to Europass CV - http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/europass/home/hornav/Introduction...
So what happened next? In just two days after the new “2-page release” of my CV and changing it into UK’s “standard” I’ve started to get calls and invitations for interviews. For two weeks I’ve got 13 interviews in different sectors for the position of sales or marketing manager. I’ve asked myself what changed in such a short period of time. Did I get a new qualification? Did I get another degree? Did I supplement my CV with a new experience? I’ve just made my CV shorter, even excluded my experience in UNESCO.
From one point of view I can agree with Jose that it is difficult to read and evaluate all the 500 resumes of 4-5 pages and other attachments. But from the other hand how many people who came from the other cultural background or a country and being the extraordinary brains in their fields not getting a job just because of lack of a time of human resource representatives? How many Shareholders and GM’s losing the professionals they would like to see in their company? And sometimes it’s because the person just sent the official EU standard CV.
But don’t forget the other party - HR representatives, who really getting tired of those long documents, moreover this part of a job is just one of his/her hundreds. Of course HR should make the short list in a short period of time but I think that sometimes evaluating the applications they are just forgetting that beneath the pile of papers something big and important is hiding.
Whilst I’ve changed my CV in to UK’s style, there are hundreds of those who are trying to create a CV by the standard presented by EU or the other international organisation and we, as the part of the global society, should react more internationally even it takes so much of ours working time. I think that we do not need to forget that every application is the personality and sometimes this personality have been educated not in a “proper way”.
So dear Jose, as you can see I am just giving you my subjective opinion which can’t give you the best solution, but I definitely can support the idea that not all the long applications are the result of non-competency of the candidates.
Philosopher Karl Popper said - „Maybe you are right and I am wrong but joining our strengths and thoughts we will find the best solution“.
Kind regards,
Slava (Viaceslavas)
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Permalink Reply by Jose Ruiz on -
Dear Slava,
Thank you for sharing with us your experience and for following the discussion.
I am glad you finally secured that elusive job and I guess that your experience supports my argument to a great extend. I definitely agree with you in that not all long applications are the result of non-competency of the candidates. In fact, most candidates are extremely competent but fail to maximise their chances by not putting themselves in the shoes of the recruiter.
A bit of pre-application work may not get you the job, but it will bring you a lot close than your average applicant.
Jose
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Permalink Reply by Tom Shorney on -
Jose - fantastic article!
I think that this is very important especially when freshly graduating.....from talking to friends at other universities their first idea once graduated is to get a job...any job! I think that if students were to have clear guidance to information such as this it would be fantastic and may assist them in where and what sector they really want to work in.
Would you every consider doing lectures or workshops on topics such as this?
Tom
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Permalink Reply by Jose Ruiz on
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HI Tom,
I doubt that anyone would be that interested in listening to what I have to say, but would be happy to if you have anyone who may be interested in me talking to a group of students.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Shorney on
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Leave it with me.........
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Permalink Reply by Sara Doutch on -
As a recruiter I have also been through most if not all of what Jose has said above and it is very frustrating and it also appears to affect all levels, from junior roles to very senior roles.
Another tip I would give potential employees is to try and keep your CV as short as possible but without missing our all your great experience and to list your main and I mean main achievements in bullet form because as a recruiter you are looking at lots of CV's bullet points will catch the eye of the recruiter rather than a four page essay on your life history!
I personally don't like having my photo so would not dream of sending mine with any application but I know it can be helpful to employers, so if you do send a photo of yourself please ensure that is an appropriate one, not one of you in Ibiza with a cocktail in your hand, yes it does show that you are a social person but not maybe in the right context.
As a recruiter I do like people to know a bit about us as a company, I don't expect you to know every detail of our history
(as I will nod in agreement not really knowing if what you are telling me is correct or not as my history knowledge is a bit rusty!) but I get alot of people saying I really want to work in your Hotel, when although we operate similar to a hotel we are a Club (and there is a difference) and it shows me that you did not take the time to google us, with technology as it is today there is really no excuse no to do any research.
I think that as a recruiter these are reasonable things to expect, as a lot of the time we are paying an agency fee so we have to justify this to our Senior Managers before second interviews are booked.
Finally I would like to add that if people have been out of work for a period of time whether it be months or weeks to put this down on their CV, as some peoples CV's end in September 2008 for example and its now June 2009, and you ask the person what they have been doing in 9 months and they say "working at so and so.... but I didn't put it on my CV" Why not?... very frustrating
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Permalink Reply by Katie Konstanz on -
I can't believe this is actually true!!! I'm applying for placements at the moment and I am shocked!!!! It does give me a little bit more confidence that I am actually sending out quite a good CV!
This is really useful though Jose, thanks!!
Marcus Weedon said:Spot on Jose, as usual!!!
I can totally relate to all of the above and dont envy the amount of CVs that you have to go through.
Couldn't agree with you more that the majority of people applying for jobs do not put the effort that they should do and if they did, how much it would improve the opportunity of gaining the job that they are looking for, not just any job either.
I have also experienced receiving CV's with no contant, or someone elses CV possibly their partners....lol
Also a classic recently is someone that has been out of work for the last 3 months who has sent their CV 50 times, whats the point of this, send it once as it wont make any more of an impact, bet i will get to work on Monday and it will be staring me in the face again.
Some of our advert will read at the end, please only apply if you have previous experience within a particular role for instance a Restaurant Manager, so low and behold, we receive CVs for Library Assistants, Shop Manager, etc
I would suggest that when people look forwork and apply for positions being advertised that they actually read the advert carefully, there are a lot of clues there to what the employer is looking for and whether the applicants match the clients profile and job spec.
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Permalink Reply by Jose Ruiz on
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New Year, New Job!?
With a large student community here on hotcatUK, many of who will be looking for their first employment or a placement within the first few months of the new year, we though that retrieving the "recruiter's dream series" may be helpful. Share your ideas.
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Hi Tom,
Wow, that is some thought provoking discussion, but i have to strongly disagree with your points.
No way is hospitality a dead end job, yes it has had bad press but so has many a job in many different industries, they all come with differe…
Janet
Sounds interesting will have a look at the link
Marcus
Hi Alexander - great first blog thanks for sharing your experiences - look forward to hearing more if you can make it to one of our Live events and future blogs!
Best wishes - Ben
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