Your Dates of Employment Might Be Hiding Your Resume

Your Dates of Employment Might Be Hiding Your ResumeYour Dates of Employment Might Be Hiding Your ResumeImproper dates in your job descriptions could keep recruiters from finding your resume.Youve worked hard to establish a distinguished career. You worked hard to craft a resume to match. But all of the effort could be undone by something as seemingly insignificant as the dates on your resume.Little noticed on the paper document, the dates on your resume - specifically the ones attached to your job descriptions - are vital to the electronic data gathering systems, called Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), that fruchtwein large employers and erreichbar job motherboards use to store and sort your resume. If you dont include dates of employment or render them exactly as the computer expects to find them, it may skip over your jobs altogether, and the recruiters using the software may never see your resume.Fortunately, you dont need to be a technical whiz to avoid these problems. The th ree most common mistakes that could keep your resume hidden from recruiters are also the easiest to fix.I am the principal search architect at Ladders, where we have reviewed thousands of resumes and fixed hundreds of the very issues we describe below. I am sharing some of these simple secrets with you, the job seeker, so that you can ensure your information is out there and available to be searched. Read the three tips and real examples below to be sure your resume is in compliance before you post it anywhere or apply for another job. Remember, you cant be a star if you cant be seen1. Apply dates to every positionFirst, look over each of your jobs at each company. Have you had more than one position at a single company and listed each separately? Then make sure youve associated dates with each. Without dates, the ATS will read them as a single job and wont recognize the progression you made at the company.It will also recognize only the one title attached to the original date. If t he recruiter is asking the ATS to return resumes for applicants who held a specific title and you buried the title without a date, the recruiter will likely never know you exist.For each position, even if you do not repeat the company name, you must add the dates for the job to be seen by the parser.WRONGInternational Corporation, Spain US 1995-1999Director, U.S. geschftsleben Development - Reporting to the V.P. of International Expansion of B-kin Software to drive Business Plan for sales in the Direct Sales (Corporate Accounts online to Home users) and Channel Sales (VARS, Distributors, Retail, System Integrators).Grew from a newcomer in the U.S. market to a 3 Ranking in PC Magazines Product Round-UpClosed Channel Sales Deals with Ingram Micro, DM Distribution, and other partnersFormulated Key Accounts with strategic corporations such as the Boeing CompanyGrew the company from 3 people in the U.S. to 30 (now there are close to 100)Manager, International absatzwirtschaft - Manag ed sales and support for franchises worldwide by providing guidance and driving our business plan with local adaptations. Targeted franchise candidates through grenzberschreitend trade shows and other tactical marketing activities.RIGHTInternational Corporation, Spain US 1995-1999Director, U.S. Business Development - Reporting to the V.P. of International Expansion of B-kin Software to drive Business Plan for sales in the Direct Sales (Corporate Accounts online to Home users) and Channel Sales (VARS, Distributors, Retail, System Integrators).Grew from a newcomer in the U.S. market to a 3 Ranking in PC Magazines Product Round-UpClosed Channel Sales Deals with Ingram Micro, DM Distribution, and other partnersFormulated Key Accounts with strategic corporations such as the Boeing CompanyGrew the company from 3 people in the U.S. to 30 (now there are close to 100)Manager, International Marketing 1994-1995Managed sales and support for franchises worldwide by providing guidance and driv ing our business plan with local adaptations. Targeted franchise candidates through international trade shows and other tactical marketing activities.2. Do not use dates to describe accomplishments or projectsConsultants often add dates to specific projects they note on their resume (Storage system integration, 9/2008), and salespeople love to showcase sales results by date (Increased sales volume 33% from 6/2009 to 11/2009). But doing so tells the ATS its a separate job entirely.It is best never to use dates inside the description of a job. Often you will find those dates are not essential to communicating the achievement you wish to describe. If you feel you must, try to write around the dates or spell them out in text form without using numbers (June two-thousand eight or second Quarter of two-thousand nine ).WRONGWorld-Class Hotel, September 1992 April 1994HR and Training Manager - Reporting to General ManagerFour star hotel, comprising of 102 Bedrooms and 3 Food and Beverage outlets.Outsourced a number of departments of the hotel to a 3rd party supplierHR function manager for a second hotel during 1993-1994Re-structured the management team inline with the operational needs of the businessRIGHTWorld-Class Hotel, September 1992 April 1994HR and Training Manager - Reporting to General ManagerFour star hotel, comprising of 102 Bedrooms and 3 Food and Beverage outlets.Outsourced a number of departments of the hotel to a 3rd party supplierManaged HR function for a second hotelRe-structured the management team inline with the operational needs of the business3. How to render dates like a computerNow that you have dates for every job (and only every job), make sure the dates are written the way a computer wants to read them.Avoid extra material in date ranges. For example, avoid summer, winter, and so on. Express the ranges in terms of months and years, preferably in numbers (such as 6/2009).Make sure that you use current or present to represent your current employer (6/2009 to present) instead of terms like today or now.WRONGWORK EXPERIENCECBS Television AffiliateWinter of 2008-CurrentBroadcast Account ExecutiveNew business development and executive Sales, account executive/management of new business clients and local and national station accounts.RIGHTWORK EXPERIENCECBS Television Affiliate12/2008-CurrentBroadcast Account ExecutiveNew business development and executive Sales, account executive/management of new business clients and local and national station accounts.Congratulations, you are finished These three simple steps go a long way to ensure your resume is among those the recruiter sees when she enters a search into the online job board or the ATS software at her company.Good luck and happy hunting from The Ladders Search Team.