If you are prepared to obtain a superior position in your career course, it may come to you as shock that your curriculum vitae is not the only thing that top staffing agencies would be judging you upon. You need to have some knowledge about the other important elements that might make you stand out and be preferred over the other candidates applying for the same job.
Most financial recruitment companies today prefer to put their candidates through a series of tests and interviews to judge whether they seem fit for the job or not. In such circumstances, you will find that the resume was just a small part of the whole process; there are various other criteria involved in assessing your capabilities.
In order to make your executive portfolio more credible and worthy, there are four basic documents that you need to have, along with your recommendation letters, in order to make the recruiters consider you for the respective post and added benefits.
1. Executive Biography
This is a document containing a brief narration about yourself, highlighting your skills, experience and your accomplishments. This comes in handy when your employers may not be interested in going through the details presented in your resume. An executive biography is shorter and more interesting for the recruiters and the directors. This might prove to be impressive for your network contacts, as well as the board of directors, when they interview you in the final stages and assess whether or not to hire you.
2. LinkedIn Profile
Although this social network is not exactly utilized properly, it may serve to be a critical part of your executive portfolio. Many people simply create a profile here and then fail to update it from time to time. It should be kept in mind that this might be the first glimpse that your recruiter captures of you. It needs to be regularly updated, rechecked and polished to reflect a good portfolio. You should also carefully choose the appropriate keywords so that, it is easy to find you on the network.
3. Cover Letter
It is a commonly held myth that cover letters are largely ignored and disregarded by the hiring agencies and the board of directors in the companies. The truth, however, is that the cover letter does in fact hold a lot of importance. A candidate might not even be considered until and unless his cover letter has carefully been examined and read by the recruitment staff. There are some key aspects that the hiring authorities look for through the cover letter. Therefore, neglecting this particular document might result in decreasing your chances for getting the job you applied for.
4. Detailed Resume
The need for a detailed, fully updated resume will always serve to be an integral part of a job application. Regardless of your career field, position, experience and qualifications, resumes are still going to be the highlight of your executive profile. A resume should be shaped to reflect your capabilities and prove you worthy of consideration for the job. A resume depicts your leadership qualities, your style of work and your past reputation as well.
The job search will be more fruitful, effective and worthwhile if these documents are complete and according to the requirements.
Erik,
I am a recruiter in the food manufacturing industry. Loved your blog article. As far as a Resume goes, I tell my applicants that they should two resumes. One resume is a two page resume and the second resume is a longer 3, 4, 5 or more page resume. The two page resume is to get “your foot in the door”; the longer resume is for later in the process. People just don’t want to read long resumes. It is like a newspaper; the reason they put headlines into newspapers is because even intelligent people are intimidated by a lot of text. I tell them to keep the cover letter brief as well. Then once there is an interest in the applicant we can send a longer more detailed resume. Basically the first resume is for HR and top level hiring managers; the second resume is for the managers that will directory supervise this new hire. I specialize in only a few closely related industries: food manufacturing recruiting, food science headhunting, flavor recruiting, and CPG recruiting (consumer packaged goods). Thanks for this great article I will bookmark it and return to it.