When tailoring your résumé can reduce the success of your job search

(image from pixabay)

I am currently on the job market and am in the process completing applications at a number of organizations. As I have been going through that process, the old adage to “always tailor your résumé to the job” has been on my mind. In most job hunting contexts, that adage makes sense. By tailoring your résumé, you are best able to highlight your strengths and experience that directly relate to the job in question. Therefore, by taking the time tweak your résumé, you are increasing the likelihood of making a favorable impression and moving forward in the selection process.

However, I propose that there are some circumstance where tailoring your résumé may not positively impact your prospects, and could even lessen your chance of finding a job.

1. When you are applying to nearly identical jobs: The main reason to make changes to a résumé is that different KSAOs are more relevant in some contexts than others. If the positions to which you are applying are essentially the same, reactions to résumé changes are likely to be trivial.
2. When time constraints are prohibitive: In a situation where you have limited time to apply to a high volume of positions, or when other duties - such as a current job - prohibit you from spending a lot of time completing job applications, you could do yourself more harm than good by making résumé changes. Think of it in terms of opportunity costs: Does the increased quality that results from tailoring résumés outweigh the quantity of applications that could be submitted if you didn’t tailor? While the answer will often be “yes,” there may be times when quantity trumps quality. 
3. When the jobs in question are not among your top choices: Imagine that you are applying for jobs, and have found a handful that you are very interested in, along with a larger group of jobs that would be okay, but not ideal. In this case, you should spend the majority of your time on that small handful of jobs - tailoring your résumé as closely as possible to the job description - and then send general, untailored résumés to the larger group. In a liberal generalization of Pareto’s Principle (aka the 80/20 Rule), you should spend 80% of your time on the 20% of jobs you really want, and 20% of your time on the other 80% of jobs.
4. When your résumé is already good enough: There is often a fear when applying for jobs that a résumé is imperfect or that you are not perfect for the position, or there is a fear of rejection that comes from putting yourself out there and letting someone else judge you. This fear can be paralyzing enough that the résumé is never submitted, because you never feel like it is just right. In effect, you are being your own judge and telling yourself that you aren’t good enough for the job. DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN! Any submitted résumé has a better chance of being viewed favorably than no résumé at all. Don’t get me wrong - I highly recommend making the best résumé you can, including seeking feedback from friends and colleagues in order to make sure that the impressions you intend to portray are being interpreted correctly. BUT, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky once said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Put yourself out there and let the decision makers tasked with reviewing résumés make a decision about your suitability and employment potential. Don’t let them off the hook by making the decision for them. And if you don’t get the job, try asking for feedback on what you could do to be a better candidate. In that way, even the negatives can provide valuable information that helps to improve your résumé for next time.

The Bottom Line

Tailoring your résumé to match the KSAOs laid out in the job description is often the best course of action, but only when it increases your likelihood of obtaining the ultimate goals of securing a job. Be mindful of the situations where résumé tailoring can do more harm than good.

Deconstructing Structured Job Interviews

 (image obtained from flickr.com)

I co-authored a recently-published study using a variety of methods to examine over twenty years of research on structured employment interviews. The full article runs over 40 pages long (not including 10 pages of references), but I'll save you the trouble of reading through the article in its entirety by highlighting some of the major conclusions:

• What is meant by a "structured interview" is inconsistent. There is general agreement that structuring an interview includes asking applicants the same questions and rating them on common rating scales, but there is less consensus on other characteristics that could be included in structured interviews, such as limiting follow-up questions from interviewers, limiting questions from job candidates, or taking notes.
• The most common techniques for structuring interviews are conducting a job analysis as a basis for the interview questions, using the same interview questions for all applicants, using better types of questions (such as situational and past-behavioral questions), using anchored rating scales, rating each question individually (as opposed to only making general ratings at the end of the interview), using multiple interviewers (i.e. panel interviews), and providing interviewer training.
• Smaller rating differences for legally-protected groups. Race, gender, and disability impact interviewers' ratings and decisions less in structured interviews, as compared to unstructured interviews.
• Applicants' ability to influence interviewers' rating is reduced. While impression management by applicants (e.g. self-promotion and ingratiation) is still a common occurrence in structured interviews, the effects of such behaviors impact interviewers' judgment less in structured interviews than they do in unstructured interviews.
• Personality may be more difficult to measure in a structured interview than in an unstructured interview, but little research has directly examined the topic of the validity of personality assessments in structured interviews.
• Situational and past-behavioral questions should be used together to attain maximum utility from the structured interview. Situational questions tend to measure job knowledge, while past-behavioral questions measure job experience, and they both are good predictors of future performance.

The article also presents over 30 research questions and propositions that can be used to guide future research and practice, but I will not summarize the details here. You can read through the article if you are interested in that specific information. But hopefully the bullet points highlighted above provide some interesting and useful information for those who currently use structured interviews in their selection process, those considering the use of structured interviews in the future, and those interested in researching the topic.

-------------------------------------
Reference:
Levashina, J., Hartwell, C. J., Morgeson, F. P., and Campion, M. A. (2014). The structured employment interview: Narrative and quantitative review of the recent literature. Personnel Psychology, 67, 241-293. doi: 10.1111/peps.12052.