Job Reconnaissance

Chapter 3

Résumés and Cover Letters

Why the Common Approach Only Works against You

Résumés Close Doors

The traditional approach of creating a résumé and blasting it to all available job openings is one that is doomed to failure. Why? Think about it from the perspective of hiring managers. Even in a relatively small city, over one hundred résumés can quickly inundate them as the résumés keep coming and coming. In large cities, a job posting could garner well over a thousand responses.

No one is actually going to read that many résumés.

So what happens instead? If there is no hiring software in use, someone is going to sit down with the stack and do a rapid sort. Most managers will first filter out everyone who lacks a college degree. This is, of ...