With a stack of hundreds of resumes on his desk, Kirby Glad quickly skims each one, sorting them into one of three piles. “Probably can do job,” “maybe can do job,” and simply “no” are the stacks where the resumes hastily go.

Glad, who currently works as chief information officer for Western Wats marketing research company in Orem, has hired more than 200 applicants throughout the course of his career and has used this sorting technique before. “The goal of your resume is to get into the right pile,” Glad said.

To help business students get sorted into the right pile, 10 business executives and almost 60 students met in the Marriott School of Business on Friday morning to have local professionals personally look over resumes and offer guidance. The Resume Review Workshop, hosted three times a year by the Business Career Center in the Tanner Building, helps students get their resumes to stand out from others in today’s competitive job market.

“We are finding that students — especially undergrads — need assistance in promoting themselves on paper and highlighting their strengths,” said Terri Hagler, director of the Business Career Center. “These mentors come to help students do this.”

The mentors included professionals from the Utah County area, many of whom are Marriott School alumni. Glad is one of them. He said following up is key to getting an interview.

“Sometimes, interviewers will take a stack of resumes and file them away and only look at the ones who have follow-up letters written,” Glad said.

Many students who signed up for the event did so in conjunction with their Business Management 320 course, which requires students to have three people peer-review their resumes.

“I wanted a professional look at my resume,” said Ben Fletcher, a junior from Salt Lake City studying finance. “[My mentor] also gave me a lot of tips about surviving in the business world and to set me apart from others.”

The corporate executives, business professionals and enterprising entrepreneurs who came to guide students looked over their resumes and cover letters, marking them up and making recommendations in the process.

“Take bullet points and don’t just mention what you did, but what you accomplished as you did them,” Glad said.

Other tips for resumes include bolding key words, keeping the objectives statement to one line, and using an “economy of words,” or short statements, for the entire document.

“Format your resume to stand out in a way that makes the reader notice it as he skims,” Glad said.

For returned missionaries, Marketing Success Institute founder Bryan Waldon Pope said that mentioning a mission is important initially but might not be 10 years down the road. Using wording such as “volunteer representative” or “service volunteer” might clue-in non-LDS employers on the importance of an applicant’s mission experience.

“People who are LDS already know what that will mean, and people who aren’t will be impressed and see the value of your service,” he said.

Kathryn Allan, a sophomore studying pre-accounting, works for the Business Career Center and helped coordinate the event.

“We all want to get jobs, especially in this economy,” she said. “Having a pristine resume is important.”

The center’s next workshop will be hosted in mid-September, with other workshops being hosted during winter semester and each spring.

Visit marriottschool.byu.edu/career or jobseeker.byu.edu for more information. For non-business majors, the Career Placement Center on campus also offers guidance on resumes and job placements as well.



Copyright Brigham Young University 17 May 2009