What do you think?
Rate this book
Confessions of a Recruiting Director: The Insider's Guide to Landing Your First Job
A college grad has specific questions when trying to land the first job after school. How are just a few candidates chosen from a stack of hundreds of resumes? What exactly do recruiters want to hear in an interview? What are the common job-hunting mistakes students make time and time again? Confessions of a Recruiting Director gives the inside scoop on the entire hiring process- from a top recruiting director who's seen and heard it all-and delivers a specific, step-by-step approach to beating the odds. Real-life before-and-after resumes, cover letters, thank-you notes and the answers to ten necessary interview questions.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 2006
14 people are currently reading
575 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 30, 2014
When looking at so many resumes, one tends to be cynical. If there’s no GPA, then it must be bad. If she sold tickets, I’m assuming it’s two tickets. If the point is vague, it must be worthless.
Here’s what to include in the education section: • School name and location • Graduation month and year • Degree • Major/Minor/Concentration/Emphasis • Dean’s list/Academic honors, awards, or scholarships • GPA • Foreign study
Education
University of Central Michigan - Mt. Pleasant, MI, May 2006
Bachelor of Arts in History, Journalism Minor
Major GPA 3.8/4.0, Overall GPA 3.4/4.0
Dean’s List six of eight semesters
College of Humanities Research Paper Honorable Mention Award, 2005
Recruiting directors may care what your major is, and they may care what your minor is, but for the most part they care very little about what specific courses you took within your major.The only time you want to list relevant course work is when your major does not match up to the field you want to pursue.
Employers read a resume like you read an ad, top to bottom. As we’ve learned, they scan through resumes extremely quickly looking for candidates with relevant and compelling skills. If they don’t find a match right away, they toss the resume. Thinking about it that way, you want to make sure you’re listing your experiences from most to least important.
There is no benefit in simply explaining what ANY waitress has EVER done in the history of the restaurant business! The same goes for sales associate, bank teller, construction worker, intern, club president, and so on. In fact, the recruiting director probably knows the general job description for any job, internship, or extracurricular activity on your resume. What a typical recruiting director is dying to find out is: • What YOU specifically accomplished • What made YOUR experience unique • What YOU AND ONLY YOU can put on the resume. If not, don’t list anything as a description for the job, but keep the job on your resume, without bullet points, to show that you did work (e.g. Waitress, Olive Garden, Pittsburgh, PA, Summer 2005)
Your activities and interests section can sometimes be a great conversation starter. I’ve seen entries like “Cosby Show reruns,” “intensely spicy foods,” and “James Bond fan” written in the interests section of a resume. In fact, I once interviewed a person who had listed “llama trainer” under this section!
Keep thinking about your reader. Make sure the reader is familiar with what’s listed on your resume, or he or she will assume it has no value. Remember, not every recruiter went to your school! Here’s how you should write about scholarships and awards. If it is a prominent honor, write it as: Skeeter McGee Honorary Scholarship, full four-year tuition scholarship granted to one student out of 10,000 based on academics, leadership, and community service Alternatively, if the Skeeter McGee is just some random scholarship that anyone on campus gets just because they have a 3.0 GPA, write it as: Skeeter McGee Honorary Scholarship, awarded based on superior academics
I equate cover letters, the way they are currently being written, to a pharmaceutical ad you’d see in a magazine. Have you ever read the full page of legal text accompanying an ad for a drug? I doubt it. Yet every pharmaceutical advertisement must include that copy. Sadly, recruiting directors look at most cover letters and assume they are equally as boring. Yet most companies insist that you include a cover letter. So why do companies ask for a cover letter? There are two reasons. One, they want to insure that you put in some extra effort to apply for their jobs. Simply sending your resume is far too easy, so some companies use it as a screen against people who apply to every job opening they ever see. Secondly, they are offering students a chance to show something more than just what’s written on the resume. You should write a cover letter that’s ten sentences long (give or take). Your paragraphs should be short, and your sentences should be short. Again, it’s not a college paper, which you must stretch out. Be direct. Get right to the point. And make the first line a killer! Try to talk about how you became interested in the field, or in the company, and tell a story about why you’d make a great candidate.
The remaining five percent of the students answered the weakness question properly. They actually took a real weakness and talked about it in a compelling and insightful way. That’s exactly how you want to handle the weakness question. Think about the following: • What your weakness is • How you discovered it • Why it’s important to fix it • How you’re trying to improve upon it So, when someone asks what your weakness is, you can say something like: “One of the things I’m working on right now is my tendency to procrastinate. I know once I start working full-time I won’t have the luxury of putting things off until the last minute. Right now when I procrastinate, it really only affects me. I might get a lower grade than I wanted on a paper or test. But in the “real world” I’ll be working in teams and I know I won’t be able to let the rest of the group down. I realized that now, when I do a project, I tend to wait until the last minute to do the things I don’t really like doing. So, every day, I write down a to-do list and make sure the first things I do are the ones I don’t want to. I even made a bet with my roommate that I’d get those done first. If I don’t, I have to buy him lunch, and trust me, I don’t want to do that! I’m not perfect at it yet, but I’m getting a lot better.” That sounds better than “You know what, I’m a perfectionist. I’m too good at what I do.” It works for pretty much any weakness you have, unless it’s something like “I just don’t like to be around people. I tend to get violent.” But seriously, avoid what we call “red flag” weaknesses like “I don’t like numbers” for a finance job, or “I hate details” for an administrative job. But in most cases, a well-thought-out weakness can make you sound quite impressive.
The “whats” are what got you the interview. Those are the listings on your resume like your school, your grades, your jobs, and your activities. Now recruiters want to know what drives your behavior and why you did the things you did.
In general, here’s what you want to think about for everything on your resume: • Why did you get involved? • What did you learn? • What did you contribute? • How did your experience differ from others around you? • What would your boss/manager say about you? • What would your coworkers/other students say about you? • How would you do it differently if you had to do it all over again?
Here’s what to include in the education section: • School name and location • Graduation month and year • Degree • Major/Minor/Concentration/Emphasis • Dean’s list/Academic honors, awards, or scholarships • GPA • Foreign study
Education
University of Central Michigan - Mt. Pleasant, MI, May 2006
Bachelor of Arts in History, Journalism Minor
Major GPA 3.8/4.0, Overall GPA 3.4/4.0
Dean’s List six of eight semesters
College of Humanities Research Paper Honorable Mention Award, 2005
Recruiting directors may care what your major is, and they may care what your minor is, but for the most part they care very little about what specific courses you took within your major.The only time you want to list relevant course work is when your major does not match up to the field you want to pursue.
Employers read a resume like you read an ad, top to bottom. As we’ve learned, they scan through resumes extremely quickly looking for candidates with relevant and compelling skills. If they don’t find a match right away, they toss the resume. Thinking about it that way, you want to make sure you’re listing your experiences from most to least important.
There is no benefit in simply explaining what ANY waitress has EVER done in the history of the restaurant business! The same goes for sales associate, bank teller, construction worker, intern, club president, and so on. In fact, the recruiting director probably knows the general job description for any job, internship, or extracurricular activity on your resume. What a typical recruiting director is dying to find out is: • What YOU specifically accomplished • What made YOUR experience unique • What YOU AND ONLY YOU can put on the resume. If not, don’t list anything as a description for the job, but keep the job on your resume, without bullet points, to show that you did work (e.g. Waitress, Olive Garden, Pittsburgh, PA, Summer 2005)
Your activities and interests section can sometimes be a great conversation starter. I’ve seen entries like “Cosby Show reruns,” “intensely spicy foods,” and “James Bond fan” written in the interests section of a resume. In fact, I once interviewed a person who had listed “llama trainer” under this section!
Keep thinking about your reader. Make sure the reader is familiar with what’s listed on your resume, or he or she will assume it has no value. Remember, not every recruiter went to your school! Here’s how you should write about scholarships and awards. If it is a prominent honor, write it as: Skeeter McGee Honorary Scholarship, full four-year tuition scholarship granted to one student out of 10,000 based on academics, leadership, and community service Alternatively, if the Skeeter McGee is just some random scholarship that anyone on campus gets just because they have a 3.0 GPA, write it as: Skeeter McGee Honorary Scholarship, awarded based on superior academics
I equate cover letters, the way they are currently being written, to a pharmaceutical ad you’d see in a magazine. Have you ever read the full page of legal text accompanying an ad for a drug? I doubt it. Yet every pharmaceutical advertisement must include that copy. Sadly, recruiting directors look at most cover letters and assume they are equally as boring. Yet most companies insist that you include a cover letter. So why do companies ask for a cover letter? There are two reasons. One, they want to insure that you put in some extra effort to apply for their jobs. Simply sending your resume is far too easy, so some companies use it as a screen against people who apply to every job opening they ever see. Secondly, they are offering students a chance to show something more than just what’s written on the resume. You should write a cover letter that’s ten sentences long (give or take). Your paragraphs should be short, and your sentences should be short. Again, it’s not a college paper, which you must stretch out. Be direct. Get right to the point. And make the first line a killer! Try to talk about how you became interested in the field, or in the company, and tell a story about why you’d make a great candidate.
The remaining five percent of the students answered the weakness question properly. They actually took a real weakness and talked about it in a compelling and insightful way. That’s exactly how you want to handle the weakness question. Think about the following: • What your weakness is • How you discovered it • Why it’s important to fix it • How you’re trying to improve upon it So, when someone asks what your weakness is, you can say something like: “One of the things I’m working on right now is my tendency to procrastinate. I know once I start working full-time I won’t have the luxury of putting things off until the last minute. Right now when I procrastinate, it really only affects me. I might get a lower grade than I wanted on a paper or test. But in the “real world” I’ll be working in teams and I know I won’t be able to let the rest of the group down. I realized that now, when I do a project, I tend to wait until the last minute to do the things I don’t really like doing. So, every day, I write down a to-do list and make sure the first things I do are the ones I don’t want to. I even made a bet with my roommate that I’d get those done first. If I don’t, I have to buy him lunch, and trust me, I don’t want to do that! I’m not perfect at it yet, but I’m getting a lot better.” That sounds better than “You know what, I’m a perfectionist. I’m too good at what I do.” It works for pretty much any weakness you have, unless it’s something like “I just don’t like to be around people. I tend to get violent.” But seriously, avoid what we call “red flag” weaknesses like “I don’t like numbers” for a finance job, or “I hate details” for an administrative job. But in most cases, a well-thought-out weakness can make you sound quite impressive.
The “whats” are what got you the interview. Those are the listings on your resume like your school, your grades, your jobs, and your activities. Now recruiters want to know what drives your behavior and why you did the things you did.
In general, here’s what you want to think about for everything on your resume: • Why did you get involved? • What did you learn? • What did you contribute? • How did your experience differ from others around you? • What would your boss/manager say about you? • What would your coworkers/other students say about you? • How would you do it differently if you had to do it all over again?
June 14, 2017
Excellent advice, very insightful for a student close to graduation. I will see how what I have learned can really be applied to today's application procedures and update my rating, but for now, the sheer number of "...why did I not think of that"-moments has left a very positive impression
Can highly recommend!
Can highly recommend!
August 31, 2018
"Getting a job is obviously much more difficult, and conceivably much more important, than any final or paper, yet students take it far too lightly."
There was lots of useful information on cover letters. But other things are common ones that you find on any quick Google search on resumes, cover letters and interviews.
However, the confirmation from a recruiting director and the sample resumes and cover letters was definitely the best take-away from this book.
For those looking to get a job, this is a good reminder and reality check.
There was lots of useful information on cover letters. But other things are common ones that you find on any quick Google search on resumes, cover letters and interviews.
However, the confirmation from a recruiting director and the sample resumes and cover letters was definitely the best take-away from this book.
For those looking to get a job, this is a good reminder and reality check.
March 17, 2024
5 Oh my goodness. I rarely give 5 stars to fiction books, let alone nonfiction, but this book deserves. It is single handedly the best guide of how to get a job. I will most definitely be rereading this when looking and/or applying for a job.
July 10, 2018
Advice that every newbie to resume writing and self marketing should read. It also provides excellent examples at the end of the book.
May 9, 2015
This was super helpful and I'm looking at buying a copy myself just for reference. Great info from a professional that lays down the truth on resumes and interviewing. Put a few post its on most important sections, looking forward to updating my resume with this info.
September 11, 2016
Narrow in scope, because heavily targeted at college students. But within that scope, this deals with all the basics very quickly, and with a sense of humor. The ridiculously long list of sample resumes at the end is a terrific resource.
January 29, 2008
This might be the best book for university students contemplating their career directions. Brad is also an excellent speaker for college audiences.
July 8, 2010
Amazing advice on resumes, interviewing, and job hunting.
February 21, 2011
One of the best job hunting books I have ever read. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews