Effectively Increasing the Level of Your
Experience
How Much Experience Do You Really
Have?
When a person says they have ten years
experience, do they mean they have ten years experience,
or do they have one year of experience repeated ten
times? Many
times the company is trying to hire for a position
requiring at least three years of experience in a
particular skill set. The question is, do they need
someone with three years experience or will some one with
one-year experience repeated three-times
suffice?
The only way for the hiring person to determine
this, assisted down with you during an interview in
asking questions that relate to seller with extensive
experience.
A few of the ways a company might try to figure
out your true level of experience, is to ask you a few
questions like the following:
1.
Your previous salary history
2.
A detailed job description.
3.
What kind of qualifications you had before
experience.
For example if you're saying that you had
experience as a Java programmer, don't write that you
have 8 years experience programming Java when Java of has
only been around for five years.
Most human resources personnel, know the salary
rates for all skill levels that their hiring
for. That
means if you are giving them a salary history that is
either way above are way below what they're expecting,
you will raise their suspicions.
Human resources personnel will check your
experience in several ways.
1.
They will give you a written
test asking questions pertaining to your particular skill set
experience level that you should have. So be ready for
it.
2.
Many times a company will have a technical
interview on the phone with you, to determine if you actually
have the knowledge of the skill sets
necessary.
3.
Very often human resources people will speak to
people in the same profession who how the skill set that are
interviewing for.
If you're interviewing for a manager position,
you’ll probably the ask questions about the projects and
responsibility that you held as well as your previous
accomplishments. This is not the time to
brag about how awesome you are. Now is a time for you
to build more credibility and show how you would add
value to the company based on your previous
successes.
If write in your resume that you were part of
particular project for a division, make sure that you
have your details straight. You'll need to know
in-depth knowledge of the project, how many people were
on the team, what the budget for your project was, what
division as well as whether or not it was a success and
why.
If you are vague, and lack any details in your
management experience, suspicions will arise.
Make sure you have knowledge of why the project
was successful did save money did save turnover did
improve procedure is anything like that. The more details you
how the more convincing you'll sound. Make sure that if you
are taking credit for something that they can't look at
out in any public records press releases or any other
documentation available to public. Sometimes companies
will call your previous employer and ask them and details
about your responsibilities and your successful
project.
Need More Job
Experience?
If you have put in some years in your field but
find that employers want even more experience, you may
want to try this little ploy. Say you worked for your
last employer for two years and the employers are looking
for three to five years here is a way to add some years
to your resume in an untraceable manner. Leave the
employment dates of your last employer unaltered. (you'll
have to as they can be easily verified with a simple
phone call) Insert employers before your last one and
show that you worked for them for the additional years
you need. Of course, your work there was in the same
field so you now have a total between the two employers
of as many years as you like in your chosen field. If you
can, try to add a reference from a firm in another state
that went out of business as this would render that
reference entirely untraceable. Chances are excellent
that if your last employer provides a positive reference,
a prospective employer will be satisfied.
How not to arouse
suspicion
Hiring managers will sometimes be suspicious if
your job description or titles are an almost perfect
match to the one that they described in at or job board
posting.
Most people know that if it's too good to be true it
probably is.
Therefore, if the job description has some keywords which
you know for sure are hot buttons for the hiring manager,
than make sure to pepper in those keywords in your
resume, so long as it isn't too blatantly
obvious.
When a prospective employee calls a previous
employer, they will most likely ask your previous
employer the job title that you held. Sometimes they'll ask
what other titles you might have held at the
company.
Again, if your resume matches word for
word the job description from the job board posting, you
will raise their suspicions. Sometimes they will look
for a consistent writing style. Since many people just cut
and paste the job description and put it in their resume,
Human Resources people are used to busting people that are
too lazy to make the key words blend in
smoothly.
Make sure that you take a time to reword as well as you
keep the keywords were the hot button where it's in your
resume.
Hard-core hiring managers may ask references of
your references. Sometimes this can
choke up your friend trying to be a favor. It's not likely to this
might happen, but beware of it.
There are
many ways to customize your previous experience to sound as
if you’re the perfect candidate for the job.
Determine the vulnerability of your
prospective employer
Even a lousy liar might be able to outsmart on a tiny company.
However more and more large companies are using professional
pre-employment checkers, such as Research Associates, Inc
(RAI)., in Cleveland. RAI exposed 17 percent of the 13,000 job
applicants it screened last year, finding that they had lied
about college degrees, credit problems, criminal records, or
why they left their last jobs. Smoke out the employers that use
checkers by saying, "I’d like to tell my references who will be
calling. Will you call, or will you use a service?" If it’s a
service, you should back off. If not, it’s full speed
ahead.
Customizing Your
Experience
Ninety-two percent of all employers contact potential
employee’s former supervisors, according to a recent survey by
the Society for Human Resource Management. So, suppose the
position you’re applying for requires experience in management.
Some résumé cheats create false references that are difficult
to check. Dan Jensen a former high tech professional found a
way to do this when a computer company he worked for went belly
up. "About a half-dozen of us stood around the parking lot and
agreed to act as supervisors to give references for each
other," he recalls. Jensen always gave a fellow conspirator a
ring before a recruiter was going to call, to make sure they
had their story straight ("Dan was a model manager, although he
tends to put in too many hours…").
Filling in the Holes
Say you spent two years "trying to find yourself" (in other
words, mooching off your parents): Jensen says you can mend the
gap by claiming to have worked for a small company that is out
of business or for a now shuttered division of an existing
firm. On the other hand, he suggests, look in business and
trade magazines for obituaries of executives, one of whom you
can claim to have had as a boss. If your employment gap is only
about six months, resist the urge to tack three months onto the
end of the previous job and three onto the beginning of the
next, because past employers gladly dole out exact years,
months, and days of employment. Rather, the best cheaters
concoct a good lie. "If you take time out for family reasons,
most companies are understanding," says Patrick Boyle, a résumé
writer in Costa Mesa, California, who in no way advocates
lying. So you can tell potential employers, "I left work for
six months in 1996—family reasons. My grandfather, God bless
his soul." They’ll back off.
Adjusting the
length of time on the job
Most jobs are of a repetitive
nature.
After the first three to six months, you're doing the
same thing repeatedly. So in essence, it may
take you those three to six months to get a feel for a
job. Again,
were not talking here about a job as an engineer a
surgeon, or a 747 pilot. Obviously, those jobs
require specialized and intensive training.
Therefore, length of time on the job is a good
place for you to stretch the truth.
Part-time
experience
If you worked 15 to 20 hours a week as opposed
to 40 hours a week, you still have to have proficiency on
the job. So
any part-time work you had, put down that you had been
working their full-time.
Merging job
experience
Sometimes you worked in the same industry but
held different jobs. Let's say you are three
months on one job and three months on another job, doing
the same kind of work. Since employers hate
people who job hop, you should merge those two jobs, so
that it shows that you spent six months at the same
company.
Which company should you choose to write that you were
there for six months? Choose the one where if
your prospective employer calls for a reference you have
a good inside person to lie for you.
Sometimes you should do the same thing if you
held a job that was not in the same industry as the one
you are applying for now. Let's say you had
several jobs in the required area but somewhere along the
line, you had a job that had nothing to do with the one
you are applying for now. Change the job that is
not appropriate and tack on the time to one of the other
jobs.
Old job
experience
Let's say you've been in the job force over 20
years, and you have got experience your prospective
employer needs but it was ten years ago or
more. What
do you do?
Easy. Put
down experience that they're looking for as being more
recent than it is. A prospective employer
will immediately rule you out if you’re relevant
experience is to
dated or old.
Go to next
page....
|