Come Recommended: A few weeks ago, Olivia wrote about tips for applying for jobs from your mobile device. These tips include paying attention to detail, utilizing job alerts, applying with LinkedIn, and having a mobile resume and cover letter.
But, what exactly goes into creating a mobile resume and cover letter?
8 comments:
I would have liked this article to talk a little about how mobile resumes are used by recruiters. I don't know enough about the modern head-hunter to know in what context a mobile resume would be used over a hard copy. I think the first steps in all communication is to know the audience and the format, and I think it's important to distinguish between the different uses of a mobile-ready resume and a hard copy resume. I can see why having a mobile-ready copy of your resume on your website would be important, and maybe having a "bump"-able file ready at a job fair would be handy. All of the situations I can think of where a mobile resume would be preferable to me are situations where either I or the recruiter are simply trolling for jobs/applicants. This is not the way I look for jobs, and maybe that needs to change. But if I'm applying for a real job which I have thoroughly researched and for which I believe I am qualified, I am probably not going to send anything less than my full resume and cover letter. If the recruiter isn't interested in reading it on a sheet of paper or normal sized screen, I doubt I'm really interested in the gig.
As a side query about this website that is regularly re-posted on this blog, I have to wonder how pertinent job hunting advice from college students can be. I understand the site is designed for graduating college students, and for accessibility the articles are written by members of that cohort, but that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. We all tend to see things from our own frame of reference, and since everyone under 30 now does absolutely everything on their phones, so must everyone else. I'm not sure how many recruiters in our business are under thirty, all I know is I've never gotten a job from anyone that wasn't at least 20 years older than me. Just a thought to keep in mind when deciding how to format a resume: your audience isn't you and might not see things the way you see them and might not like what you like. It's all about them, not about you.
I completely agree with Andrew. A first I was thinking that maybe we need to make a shift towards making our resumes smart phone accessible because that's how people are looking at it, but then I realized that it is a bunch if crap. This article does not share with us about why we are making descent into mobile phone resumes. I also would like to again point out that they make suggestions about fonts and formats etc without also mentioning the lovely tool of a PDF, which ensures (most of the time) that people are viewing your document the way that you want it to be seen. And that is a habits people need to be getting into regardless, unless your specifically sending something that is going to be manipulated by the receiver.
I've never actually thought about the formatting of an online resume being different from a typical resume, but after reading this article and realizing that mobile viewers also have to look at the resumes it makes complete sense to reformat it for each viewer. It's very much a matter of advertising and knowing your audience and what they prefer and want to see. It seems like now is a good time to begin working on my online resume and online image.
After reading the article, I am still unsure of what they deem to be a mobile-friendly resume or cover letter. While I understand what was mentioned in the article, most of the points apply to creating any resume or cover letter which will be viewed on a computer screen. It is generally impossible to view anything on a smartphone without zooming in and it differs in appearance with every phone. Maybe I am over the age of thinking about how my resume will look on a phone, because I only consider people actually paying full attention to it when they view it on the computer screen. Here is where then I would have to agree with Andrew's latter statements.
I wouldnt have thought that you would need to focus too much on having a mobile friendly resume/website/cover letter for getting a job. Andrew's point about explaining how recruiters or employers would use mobile technology would be much more helpful. I think using a PDF is the best way you can make all of this achievable. Making a mobile website is much more complicated and if you have a current website is something you can slowly work on. Using a PDF resume/cover letter can make it easy for people to pinch and scroll. Unless your employer or recruiter really has no time for you or is in that much of a pinch, I probably would want to work for them either.
As far as resumes go, I’m not sure that I would want to hire somebody who applied for a position on their smartphone. If a candidate doesn’t have the time or respect to sit down at a computer, why would I hire them?
While I don’t necessarily agree with the reason, I think this article has a few good points about mobile documents. Every single stage manager that has ever sent out a report should read this article. The same guidelines that apply to a mobile friendly resume should apply to a report. Most of us primarily check email with our phones, some of us even use our watches. It’s time that document formatting for mobile devices becomes something we think about every time we publish or distribute information.
First, if we're talking about "mobile-friendly" cover letters, wouldn't those predominantly be emails? Attaching a separate cover letter seems redundant and then what would you have to say in the original email?
Secondly, A lot of this advice is not very specific to mobile resumes. Keeping your formatting clear and making sure your file is easy to download is good practice for any kind of electronic document, resume or know. In fact, making sure your resume is sent as a PDF would go a long way to mitigating those issues without creating a "mobile specific" resume
I have to agree with Lindsay, this article doesn't really give any helpful advice to actually creating a "Mobile-Friendly" resume, it just gives you the standard advice on creating resumes though it does give you links to some potentially helpful apps and programs that are designed to create mobile friendly programs.
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