Resume Mistakes that Sabotage Getting Interviews – Pharmacist Jobs

Posted by on October 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Resume Mistake #1:
Being lazy and writing a generic resume to send out to every position

Being lazy is tempting, because it makes you feel productive by blasting off your resume to many places. Let me guess. After you hit the send button, you feel a sense of relief as if your problem is solved. Even if it’s just for a moment, you feel a sense of accomplishment. You’ve done something about the pain of not being satisfied in your current position, or not having another job lined up. You hope that the pharmacy hiring managers will be impressed by you because they can just tell from your resume you’d be perfect for the position.

The hard truth: Pharmacy hiring managers and pharmacy directors are busy people. When they are looking at potential candidates, they sift through resumes to see who seems to have the most relevant experience. If you didn’t spend the time to tailor your resume to the position, you will be set aside.

There is more competition for pharmacist jobs than in the past, so it matters more now than ever.  Even in a job market that is less saturated with pharmacists, there is (and always will be) competition for the jobs with the best schedule, salary, and work environment.

Resume Mistake #2:
Resume looks like it was just something you “had to do”, rather than your best foot forward

Appearance counts. Period.

Not only does content matter, but the format, layout, and having a clear strategy that conveys your sizzle matters in the presentation of the resume.  Some resumes I’ve seen have no spacing in between lines.  Others are not consistent in the layout.  Some just list responsibilities in a way that looks the same as every other pharmacist’s resumes.

You may be one who cares about the appearance of your resume, but you don’t actually realize that your resume looks like you don’t care.  Many pharmacists fall under this category. As with any situation, we cannot see ourselves. That’s why even the best tennis players, golfers, and even business owners have coaches/teachers. We are not any different as pharmacists. You write a resume and are proud of what you’ve written, but do you really know for sure how it measures up to your competition?

How would you know?  Listen to my free teleseminar “How to Write a Kick Ass Resume That Stops Getting Tossed”. You are invited to it, if you are someone who wants to get ahead of your competition in this tough pharmacist job market.

Resume Mistake #3:
Qualified, but doesn’t make it to the top of the resume pile

Some pharmacists have told me that because they are qualified for a position, the “(hiring manager) should see from my resume that I have the experience.”  But why should a pharmacy hiring manager choose you?

The hard truth: It isn’t only about how qualified you are, but how well you convey that in an eye-catching way regarding why you are “the one” for the position. Your resume needs to be concise, easy-to-understand, and market yourself well so that stand out from the crowd of competition.

I had an experienced pediatric pharmacist interested in having me represent him for a pediatric pharmacist job in another state.  His resume at first glance looked ok…it had descriptive words under responsibilities (but I will tell you about it later what was lacking).  After talking to him, I felt that he would be a strong candidate for the position. My team told the pharmacy hiring manager about him and they wanted to see his resume. They saw his resume and the answer was they were not interested in interviewing him.  His resume confused the hiring manager because of the way he had written it .  The responsibilities also did not convey his peds experience in a way that gave the “wow” factor.  He was also written off because the hiring manager was confused about the timeline of his work history.  Now, we were able to do damage control in this situation, and the hiring manager is open to seeing his updated resume that shows off his actual Sizzle, but there have been many other times when I’ve seen pharmacists miss out on opportunities and not get a 2nd chance.  Keep in mind that HR does not always know pharmacy well, but they often involved in the screening process.

Stop sabotaging your job search results because you don’t recognize your own limitations.  If you’re ready to learn what to do to transform your resume to get more interviews for the jobs you deserve, join us in the next “Kick Ass Resume” Bootcamp, where I will be teaching pharmacists how to create their “Sizzle”, write their ‘Kick Ass Resume” Blueprint, and reverse-engineer their resume to write a Kick Ass Resume that rises to the top.

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The Bachelorette or You – Who Has the Last Laugh?

Posted by on July 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

The all-important rose ceremony, where the path of love (or lust?) is being determined…and your all-important job search, where you next career move is being carved out…

In a job search where you are not getting the results you want  (just like men & women on The Bachelorette or The Bachelor not hearing what they want to hear), you experience some level of rejection.  People deal with rejection in different ways.   I have seen some pharmacists recognize that the job was not a good fit for some reason;  others look at it as a way to learn from it, and still others sabotage themselves because they become angry and start blaming others for it.

If someone pushes your hot buttons because they rejected you and your self-esteem has taken a punch, look at why you are reacting the way you are. Is the rejection reminding you of a time in the past when something important to you was lost because you were rejected?  Are you experiencing the rejection in a way that doesn’t allow you to see the unchanged beauty and competency in you, regardless of any rejection?

The reality of it is that you will not be a fit for every place you apply for.  It may not be a match for you, nor may it be a match for the pharmacy.  Look at the gift of the rejection and the discovery process it takes you through.  As in dating, your initial reaction can be a downer, especially if you really wanted the job, however, it opens you up to get closer to the  job you want.

Assess the situation and see if you can gather more information about why you were rejected.  Learn from feedback, and then focus on what can move you forward to the next step of what you want.  If your energy is focused on bashing and justifying why the pharmacy/company that rejected you is sub-par, blind, or discriminating, the person you hurt the most is yourself.  The quicker you are able to move from a negative emotional energy state to move forward with what feels good, you will pave the way for clarity.  You will then tap into the intelligence and right resources to get the job you want.  Read more to find out what The Bachelorette did.

Read more

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Leaving Out Employment Dates From Your Resume

Posted by on June 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment 

Q:  Should I leave out employment dates from my resume?

A:  I have seen different advice given on this, including those given by resume writers who suggest that a candidate leave dates of employment off a resume if there is a lot of job hopping, or when showcasing the depth of experience in a particular area.  This type of resume is called a “functional” resume, listing responsibilities and achievements under some of your main areas of qualifications.  It is not necessarily chronological.

My advice to you as a pharmacist job market expert who has seen thousands of resumes (not from just writing resumes that work for my private resume makeover pharmacist clients, but from seeing actual resumes that impress hiring managers) is this:  put employment dates on your resume under your Experience section.

Why?  If you leave out dates of employment, it can be a red flag to a pharmacy hiring manager right away.  Even if it does not come across as a red flag, it leaves them to wonder about when you actually worked at a particular place.  And it takes additional time for a hiring manager to find this out from you.  Remember, you have 10 seconds for a hiring manager to glance at your resume and be impressed with it.  If there are 30 other pharmacist job applications, and yours is the only one that requires additional detective work to find the information they are looking for, chances are that the hiring manager will look at the other ones first.

You may incorporate a “functional” resume format into your resume, but when you do so, include the dates of employment so that following the chronological flow of your career path is easy.

The dates of employment may be expressed by the year, or month and year.

Does this mean you should include all dates of employment? The answer to this is situational based.  In general, it is not necessary on a resume, but is recommended on a CV.  Your resume is a place for someone to look for your direct relevant experience to a particular position and does not need to include all of your work history.  Including your most recent experience is also important.

If you are concerned that a pharmacy hiring manager may think you’ve been job hopping recently, there are other ways to get over that objection.  This and other ways to overcome objections about you are taught in my programs for pharmacists wanting to get noticed in this competitive job market, so you get interviews and offers faster.

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How Should I Apply for 2 Job Openings at the Same Pharmacy?

Posted by on March 4, 2010 · 2 Comments 

Q:  Chen, I want to apply for 2 jobs at a hospital–one is an inpatient position & the other is an outpatient position.  What should I do with the application?

A:  My advice to you is to decide on one job to apply for & put your full effort there. I know, you may have extreme resistance to my answer because you (…fill in the blank with your reasoning…).  Let me ask you this–why do you want to apply for 2 positions with the same pharmacy/hospital?  I have seen pharmacists come to me with this dilemma, and usually they tell me they want to apply for both jobs because they want to make sure that if they don’t get one job, they get the other.

Here’s the truth you don’t want to hear:  You dilute the strength of your application by coming across that 1) you don’t really know what you want, 2) even if you truly know what you want, it’s harder to point out everything about you that aligns with the position are applying for, when you have to do it for two separate pharmacist positions.  You don’t want to hear this, because you want to believe the illusion that more is better.  Two applications for two separate positions equals two chances at a job, right?  Wrong.  1+1 doesn’t equal 2 here.

If you don’t wish to listen to my advice & want to apply for 2 jobs anyway, I suggest you apply for one job first, then if you don’t get a response or get rejected for it, apply for the second job.  And in that second job application, re-write your resume and definitely include a cover letter that explains why you also have an interest in this other role, along with why you would be good for that particular role, citing specific highlights that support it.

If you want some help with this, there are 3 options you can choose from:
1) Find out how to do stand out from your competition by doing it yourself, with access to secrets of what works & what doesn’t,
2) Get your resume done professionally by a marketing expert so that it gets noticed in this competitive job market
3) Do it yourself without having the edge over your competition.

The pharmacist job market is saturated with competition for the desired positions right now. I am seeing perfectly qualified pharmacists being headstrong about doing what they’ve always done before with applying for jobs.  They apply on their own without getting advice or access to the inside secrets of what hiring managers are looking for, and then they come to me when the damage is already done.  When they don’t hear back from the employer, or they hear “sorry, we filled the position already”, it’s too late.  They blew it.  Don’t be the one who blows it.  You have one chance to stand out–all you have to do is do it right the first time.

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