Free Example of Good Resume

Hire The Person, Not The Resume

"... [get] the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats (and the wrong people off the bus) and then [figure] out where to drive it." - Jim Collins – Good To Great

"Hire the best staff you can find, develop them as much as you can, and hand off everything you possibly can to them." - John C. Maxwell – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

____________________________________________

Here's a simple tip - hire the person, not the resume.

Confronting negative behaviors is an important skill for leaders to develop. But there's a step beyond that for building a high performance team. You hire the right person.

The subject of hiring the right person comes up frequently in my work with various clients. It comes up when they need to fill a position. It comes up when they realize they have the wrong person in a position. Sometimes it comes up as a question in a training session. Sometimes it comes up in a private conversation. But it almost always comes up.

The most common mistake that I see people make - one that I have made myself - is ranking the person's technical skills ahead of their "soft" skills. I agree that technical skills are important. I don't want to hire a CPA who knows nothing about accounting, and I don't want to hire a nurse who knows nothing about nursing. So, I am not suggesting that you ignore a person's resume. I am suggesting that their experience and training (i.e. - their resume) serves primarily to qualify them for your time investment to interview them. It gets them in the door, but it shouldn't give them the job.

Consider this situation.

You hire a person with outstanding technical skills. They know everything about the industry, the legal environment, and many other technical aspects of their position – but the rest of your staff cannot stand to work with them. This "technical expert" demands special attention, resists every change, speaks negatively about management and other team members, pushes the limit on workplace rules, etc.

Are they worth the trouble? Does the positive contribution from their "technical expert" status justify the damage they do to overall team performance? In most of the situations I've been involved in, the answer is no.

In the above scenario, I created a situation where the person under consideration is truly a "technical expert". Among the best, technically, in their field. But, what about the more common situation? The situation where the person is good technically, but they're not necessarily among the best in the industry. Now, how does their behavior with other people balance against their technical skills? It only gets worse.

I assume that you will only consider hiring people with at least the basic technical skills to do the job. So, faced with a choice between two candidates:

1) Great "attitude" and acceptable technical skills (for this article, my definition of attitude includes work ethic, drive, initiative, ability to work with others, and other "soft" or difficult to measure skills), and

2) Outstanding technical skills and a poor attitude

I choose number one. I find it easier to help people strengthen their technical skills than to improve their attitude.

What if you have difficulty finding a person with the right attitude? I suggest you keep looking until you find them. It is better to work short-handed for a short time than to work with a problem employee for a long time. As Jim Collins states in his landmark study Good To Great – "When in doubt, don't hire – keep looking."

Copyright 2005, Guy Harris

You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media.

About the Author:

Guy Harris is the Chief Relationship Officer with Principle Driven Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders build trust, reduce conflict, and improve team performance. Learn more at http://www.principledriven.com

Guy co-authored "The Behavior Bucks System TM" to help parents reduce stress and conflict with their children. Learn more about this book at http://www.behaviorbucks.com

MORE ARTICLES:

Free Resume Templates Available Online
Service provides users with three different resume formats and can place their information in the resume format of their choosing.

Three Myths About Resume Writing
Your perspective on resumes – what they are and how they function – will doubtless influence how well you can write your own. To create an outstanding resume, begin by questioning and replacing some of the commonly held assumptions about resume writing.

Resume? Or Resume NOT? With Screening Software Becoming More Prevalent, Your Cover Letter Is Key To Getting Job Interviews
Don?t forget to appeal to the human reader, suggests WallStJobs.com as "robo-resume-readers" make the first cuts.

Talent Technology, Providers of Industry Leading HR Conceptual Search Technology, Launches Resume Mirror? Search Enterprise Product
Resume Mirror Search Enterprise allows advanced searching with "zero training" to quickly pinpoint and rank qualified applicants.

The Perfect Resume
The perfect resume presents hiring managers with a four-fold vision of who you are and what you bring to the table: The perfect resume offers Logical Proofs:     Facts Quantifiable data Logical conclusions Achievement and success statements Relevant professional goals/accomplishments Limits the use of jargon Maximizes use of occupation/industry-specific key words Your capabilities and skills Clear, specific, measurable, and quantifiable words and phrases Sells you based on your achievements to date The perfect resume offers Your Vision & Creativity: Balanced white space Visually easy to read A resume style and paper consistent with your self-marketing vision Clear big picture of who you are Sells you based ...

It's from Texas, and itzbig: Austin Start-Up Challenges the Resume "Black Hole" with New Online Web 2.0 Application
Allowing for anonymous real-time evaluation of the market demand for your job skills, the career experts at itzbig think they've created the perfect Plan B for "quiet working professionals."

Increase Freelance Sales With an Online Resume!
Freelancing is a competitive business, especially in today's fast-paced, e-focused world.Often there are hundreds of writers competing for the same, limited number of assignments, and the writer who can best showcase his or her abilities is the one who lands the job.

Ten Resume Writing Tips You Can't Live Without
For some job opening, employers receive hundreds and even thousands of resumes. When you are looking for a job, how can you best promote yourself? How can you convince a prospective employer to pick-up the phone and call you for an interview?Sought-after career coach and author of the critically-acclaimed book, The Dark Before the Dawn: 70 Secrets to Self-discovery, Theresa Castro states that you should take into consideration that your resume is the first exposure a potential employer will have of you.

5 Resume Mistakes Telecommuters Often Make
Finding a legit telecommute job can be difficult. Telecommute jobs are in high demand and hundreds if not thousands of other people are competing for the same position.

President of Shimmering Resumes Offers Executive Resume to Hillary Clinton
President of Shimmering Resumes Volunteers to Write Executive resume for Hillary Clinton, to Help her Gain Nomination, or a Job in an Obama Administration

Finally, a Solution to Resume Writing Stress That Will Eliminate Hassle and Have You Writing Winning Resumes With Ease
Resume writing is a skill that often stumps even the smartest of people. While people may have a knowledge of what resume writing is, it is an art that is used by every person in the workforce but isn't really taught at school. Finally there is a solution to make it stress free.

Telecom Careers Joins VisualCV Resume Revolution
Leader in telecom, media and technology careers online empowers jobseekers with rich media resumes. TelecomCareers members seeking to distinguish themselves, or to secure a new position, will be able to use the VisualCV platform to create a comprehensive, media-rich resume that stands out professionally.

Building a Strong Resume with the Right Accountancy Jobs
A professional who wants to build a career as a successful accountant needs to know where to find good accountancy jobs. The growing number of accountancy graduates hitting the job market each year makes it difficult for qualified accountants to find well-paid positions. Your ability to hunt down accountancy jobs in the right industries at the right time will help you find work that is fulfilling over the long term.

AspireHR?s TalentScout Resume Parsing Achieves SAP® Certified Integration Status
AspireHR, an SAP® services partner and a leading implementer of the SAP E-Recruiting application, announced today that its TalentScout Resume Parsing 6.0 has achieved SAP Certified Integration status for use with the SAP E-Recruiting Resume Parsing 603 application.