There’s a lot of competition out there when you are looking for a job. Sometimes you might think you need a gimmick, something to get the attention of the employer and make you stand out from the crowd. A recent WSJ article, “In Tough Job Market, Applicants Try Resume Gimmicks” has some doozies. After all, if the average number of applicants for one job opening is well over three hundred, you have to try something to get their attention, right?
One guy tried taping his resume to a pillow. It didn’t ship well, but they were able to figure out his contact information and he made it to the interview, but he did not get the job with the company. Another did impress people with the pizza he sent along with his thank you letter after the interview, but that only lasted three months because that was the only time he really delivered on the job (see what I did there? Rimshot)
Bobby Gormsen is the senior recruiting manager at Etsy, a very creative place to work. He’s seen potholder resumes, embroidered cover letters, and applications in corked bottles.
“I’m sort of immune to this stuff,” said Mr. Gormsen. The candidates “get points for creativity, but it only tells one side of the story. We have a set of hard skills an applicant has to meet”—ranging from years of experience to relevant software languages—in order to be considered. No amount of creativity can compensate if those are missing, he said.
It seems obvious that a gimmick is recognized as an attention-getter that doesn’t promise quality. A well-written resume would. The hard skills and experience history that employers look for are clearly shown on a good resume. Expertly written resumes have skillful use of keywords that get you past the robot search engines and on the desk to be read by a person. They don’t need gimmicks, but they do need to be clear and professional.
Professional Resume Services include a number of A La Carte Services in our offerings. This gives you the flexibility to select the service you need without paying for the service you don’t want. You can be creative in putting together the package that gets you the best resume possible and forget about the gimmicks.