The Rubric Resume

Here is the best quote from the nearly 600 résumé’s I’ve received for a part-time position at Camino PR: “I have never been particularly interested in working with a PR firm…”

I posted the job on Craig’slist late Friday, and by Saturday my inbox was bursting. We already had a few candidates who responded to our website listing, like a Doula whose positive ch’i leaps off her resume like perfumed stationary. I plan to invite the Doula to interview. There was also a wonderful activist who had taught capoera to homeless children in Africa. But we thought we ought to create a broader candidate pool, particularly of communications professionals. I toyed with the idea of paying for a listing in PR Week, but decided instead to use recession recruitment tools: Craigslist, and the NYU job board.

A small firm simply can’t look at 600 résumé’s. On Saturday afternoon, after I quoted aloud from the first 80 emails while browsing résumé’s at the kitchen counter, Winnie threatened to come in and do the job herself. I’m not sure if she meant that she would sift through applicants or if she would actually be our project assistant. She would be fantastic at organizing our office. She is the kind of chef (and I mean chef, not just cook) who simultaneously finishes preparing an organic and healthy dinner and has all of the dishes clean before I’ve even set the table. In my defense, it is often difficult to find the matches so I can light the candles. I have never once seen her not make the bed the second she leaves it, and more than once she has even made the bed while I am still lounging in it (“So when you get up its already done,” she says). I am a thousand percent certain that we would never have lost the plug to the monitor or knocked the fax machine off its wobbly shelf if Winnie were in charge.

One thing I am quite certain of is that my occasional office junk food junkets would end the minute Winnie joined our staff, so I kept pouring through applicant emails. Soon I found myself looking for tedious reasons to like or dislike an applicant. If their email address name sounded silly, I worried. If they seemed to have a long commute, I wondered if they would last long. I loved the applicants who had checked out my website, I got angry at those who obviously did not.

My son interrupted my résumé surfing with a homework question related to the “rubric” for his book report assignment. It occurred to me then that the rubric résumé approach was the best way to engage the issue, both from the perspective of the job seeker and the employer. For those of you who have been out of middle school a long time, a “rubric” is a chart that details the requirements of the project and grades each category of the rubric. I took a look at the job advertisement, and chose four things that were critical, ranked in priority. Then I made four piles: one, people with no match; two, people matching the top criteria, three, people matching the second criteria, etc. I also created a wildcard pile for people like the Doula – someone that I had a gut reaction to even if their skill set didn’t match up perfectly.

I still had the time consuming task, however, of actually opening each email and glancing at the résumé. Here’s what I learned, from a job seeker perspective:

Number one (and this is huge): Make the subject line count. Almost every subject line was the same, “Project Assistant Position”. Email number 455 wrote “Amazing Project Assistant Position”. I looked at his application out of order. He turns out to be a communications pro, and someone I will definitely call about an interview.

Number two: Tell me what you will do for me based on what I’ve asked for. Don’t lead with what I will do for you.

Number three: Write well. Use full sentences and old-fashioned good grammar.

Number four: Sell me on your candidacy in the first paragraph of your cover letter AND in the first paragraph of your email. Simply writing “Attached is my resume” is a huge wasted opportunity to stand out. If I don’t believe in you by the fourth sentence, I’m not reading further.

Number five: Both attach your resume and copy it in the email. That saves me time.

Number six: Do some research – at minimum, check out the employer’s website.

Here’s what I learned, from an employer perspective:

I should have paid the money for a targeted ad – perhaps a combination of PR Week and Non Profit Times. The price tag seemed high for a small firm, but my time is billable by the hour, and Craigslist turned out to be a very pricey way for me to get the job done. I assume that using PR Week would have limited the candidate pool to those who are serious enough about communications work that they are engaging trade magazines. I might have eliminated the hundreds of people recently laid off from the financial sector.

It is tough to get a job in this marketplace. I have Ivy League graduates, distinguished authors, and seasoned researchers interested in this entry-level position. The hard truth is that everyone needs to figure out how to market him or herself. Public relations isn’t just for celebrities or snack food vendors. Just ask applicant number 455, whose head bobbed above the hundreds of hopeful emails. These days interactive or other forms of advanced resumes, clever outreach, and storytelling are vital for highly successful job searches and school applications.