Connect with us

Jobs

This popular resume advice is ‘a waste of time’, says former head of talent acquisition at Nike

Published

6 months ago

on

This popular resume advice is ‘a waste of time’, says former head of talent acquisition at Nike

When you’re applying for a job, many career experts will tell you to tailor your resume to the job description. They recommend sifting through its requirements to see what’s most relevant for the role and tweaking your resume accordingly.

Longtime HR executive James Hudson, who’s led talent acquisition at companies like Nike and Levi Strauss & Co., disagrees with this approach. “It’s bad advice to customize your resume” for every role, he says. In fact, as far as a jobseeker is concerned, it’s “a waste of time.”

Here’s why he thinks so.

Descriptions are often ‘managed by the compensation team’

There can be a slight disconnect between what a job description asks for and what a hiring manager might be looking for in any given role. That gap stems from how an organization creates its job descriptions.

Internally and especially in large companies, “job descriptions are typically owned and managed by the compensation team because they’re directly linked to pay bands within the organization,” says Hudson. A pay band is an internal salary range for each role. That means the person writing the job description will not necessarily be the person doing the hiring, and therefore may not know exactly what a hiring manager or recruiter is looking for on the ground.

“The basic qualifications are always going to be exactly right,” says Hudson, such as degree and experience requirements, “but there’s so much more in a job description than the basic qualifications.”

You’ll have a chance to better suss those out during the interview process and if you speak to someone at the company before you apply. But the job description itself might not give a 100% sense of where the emphasis will be on day-to-day job duties.

‘You just have to hope’ you’re a fit

That’s why Hudson advocates for having just one stellar resume that tells your career story. “The most powerful thing your resume can be is encapsulating your authentic and unique career journey,” says Huduson.

Any experience that happened more than 10 years ago, summarize it with the company, job title and date. Anything that happened in the last 10 years, “think about four-to-six bullet points per role,” he says. “And then of those four-to-six bullet points per role, think about a 50/50 split between responsibilities and result.”

Responsibilities are the daily activities you took on, like managing a team of five, for example. Results are examples of your positive impact. He recommends using the following formula to write them: “Accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z.”

Beyond that, “you just have to hope that the things that you’ve done and the skills that you have are what the employer is looking for,” says Hudson. No need to edit your resume every time.

Want to land your dream job? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Ace Your Job Interview to learn what hiring managers really look for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay. Use discount code NEWGRAD to get 50% off from 5/1/24 to 6/30/24. 

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading