Some Resume' Advice for you guys...

ERJ-135 said:
I'm in total agreement with TwilightFan91 when it comes to the e-mail address. Those with Yahoo, Gmail are not worth the effort to read. Professionals do not resort to free e-mail service that might just be spam to begin with. I cannot tell you how many kids, past their bedtime, have sent in requests for information from my company that turn out just that; bogus. Out of respect we do reply but the freebie types go into a "reserved for later" folder and are not given any attention. I have been on both sides of the hiring process and it always was noted that those who prepared properly got the most attention. There are sources out there that will help in resume' writing, interviewing practice etc. If you are looking for that dream job, prepare for it like you did for the written testing and check rides.
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You must be joking. Let me understand correctly, you are turning away potentially good candidates because of what it says behind the @ on their email? Tell us who you work for so that people actually have a chance of being looked at. About 99% use free email. Yours is the most ridiculous thing I've heard when it comes to hiring practices.
 
Heh... this is an interesting chasm I had no idea existed.

Pretty much the only influence an individual's email provider might have on me would be a momentary pause that goes something like this (in the context of hiring someone for a job that requires impromptu technical skills):

  • @aol.com: Hrmm... we better spend a little more time on technical in the interview.
  • @comcast.net or @sbcglobal.net, etc.: This guy must be a pilot and/or travels a lot.
  • @hotmail.com: Wow, people still use that?! I mean, I know my parents and grandparents do... maybe this applicant was an early adopter. We can ask about it in the interview.
  • @gmail.com: Nothing wrong with that.
  • @<their own domain name>.com: Huh, I'll have to check out their site. The applicant apparently has enough of an idea about what's going on to set this up himself, or knows enough people to make it happen. We can find out in the interview.
  • @beer.com: This person is the real deal. We will have to ask them for an account in the interview. :) (do those addresses still even exist anymore?)

The vast majority pilots I know do their airline business with their personal email accounts (usually the one from their broadband provider)... sometimes to the point that it is necessary to remind 'em to use their union or company email when the contents requires it.

So I say "shenanigans" to the hard-and-fast rule that your email provider will squash your chances at that shiny jet; people are just used to seeing a wide variety of common providers. Moreover, why should a pilot (especially) have to run his own domain name to be legit?
 
I still have not heard where I can get my super-duper professional email address from.

TwilightFan, ERJ135, where can I get an email address that I can both spend my money on and also impress people/computers with?

Seriously, where?
 
I've been applying to a few jobs recently and have used my lastname11@gmail.com on my resume'... Didn't think it was a huge deal.. Haven't gotten a call back though either...

Separate but topic related question. Are cover letters necessary if the description say they are optional or if the job doesn't require a resume at all?
 
Another reason not to use yahoo email addresses. My friend's yahoo account is now spamming everyone in his contact list and he can't get it to stop.

If you are going to use gmail or yahoo at least set up a separate account for your business dealings.
 
No wonder why the economy blows and no one can find a job....the people in charge of interviewing and hiring are a bunch of anal db's.
 
Minuteman said:
Heh... this is an interesting chasm I had no idea existed.

Pretty much the only influence an individual's email provider might have on me would be a momentary pause that goes something like this (in the context of hiring someone for a job that requires impromptu technical skills):

  • @aol.com: Hrmm... we better spend a little more time on technical in the interview.
  • @comcast.net or @sbcglobal.net, etc.: This guy must be a pilot and/or travels a lot.
  • @hotmail.com: Wow, people still use that?! I mean, I know my parents and grandparents do... maybe this applicant was an early adopter. We can ask about it in the interview.
  • @gmail.com: Nothing wrong with that.
  • @<their own domain name>.com: Huh, I'll have to check out their site. The applicant apparently has enough of an idea about what's going on to set this up himself, or knows enough people to make it happen. We can find out in the interview.
  • @beer.com: This person is the real deal. We will have to ask them for an account in the interview. :) (do those addresses still even exist anymore?)
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I feel similarly. The domain usually tells me a little bit.

When guys I work with have @aol, I wonder what technological rock they're been living under.

@yahoo registrations are usually spammers on the forum. yahoo.co.in and yahoo.co.uk's are also notorious for "World of Warcraft Gold CHEEPZ"

@mail.com and anything .ru just means that he's probably part of a syndicate of "Greetings of the season, please send your needful regards and bankinformati0n to take your part of the 15000000USD from the deposed king"
 
So I sent a note to a friend of mine who does recruiting in the aviation & tech worlds. Here's what he had to say about email addresses:

The domain name has zero affect on a recruiter looking at a candidate's resume. Hotmail, gmail, yahoo, ymail, or whatever is not important. What is important is the prefix. For example, I have received a resume from someone and her email address is ThugGurl@xxx.com. For this resume, I simply deleted it, because if one does not take the time to have a professional email address, then I will not take the time to review it.

Also, some people send their resume in the version of a .txt or in a zip file and recruiters are highly discouraged to took at these. Reason being, a .txt format is very hard to read and a zip file contains many viruses.
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So there's one recruiter's thoughts on the subject. The email prefix matters, the domain does not. So I guess I shouldn't send out apps with the hottiegurl6969@hotmail.com* address. :D

*hottiegurl6969@hotmail.com address is not an actual email address.
 
TwilightFan91 said:
Because anything else is completely unprofessional and just looks tacky. Back when I was doing hiring, my rule was if the first part of the email was not derived from the name on the resume, it went in the trash. "cmiller@..." was accepted if the person's name was "Chris Miller" or something like that. "pilotman45" or even "pilotchris" not so much.

If the domain on the email was gmail, yahoo, etc, it went in the trash. Take the extra effort to register a more presentable domain. Also, if you're using a university email it was accepted if the first part was your real name, but only if you were actually still at that university. If you listed on your resume that you graduated in 2006 and you were still using your university email, it went in the trash.

My line of thinking is that this is a professional organization that is only interested in hiring professionals, and having a professional email address is part of being professional.
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AMEN! There are companies out there that will give you a professional email address the isn't a gmail, hotmail, yahoo. I agree that superstudpilot@gmail is a bad move.

I saw a lot of these "File 13 one-way tickets" just searching for a SIC. I got one cover letter and resume' that had two different "Objectives" and neither one had anything to do with the position. Qualifications that didn't meet the position offered, and resume' formats from who knows where.

My "File 13" criteria starts at the Objective; it's NOT a essay, it's a goal!. AND you're goal doesn't have to meet the position; AIM Higher! (NO that's not an AF reference). The next is mispelled (or misspelled - Ha) words, poor grammar, Experience that isn't, Education that "hangs", Awards that aren't, and Reference's that don't really "know [the person] that well".

This isn't a tool to use as your introduction to others, it IS your introduction (your first impression); make it count!

ALSO, if you're applying for a job, answer your phone like professional EVERY time. You never know when a potential employer will call.
 
the other thing I've been realizing is if you use a word processing program to write your resume use Microsoft Word! I was using Open Office for a time which is wonderful because it is free and can be saved as a MS Word document, BUT I have been realizing that when I open said document with an actual MS Word program the formatting is a little bit off. While you may have taken the time to format everything correctly on your program, a potential employer may not realize this and think you were lazy putting together a resume.

Which sucks, I'm all about the free, but I really like being able to get a job too :)

*If anyone knows a way around this Open Office issue please post it here
 
GlenA said:
the other thing I've been realizing is if you use a word processing program to write your resume use Microsoft Word! I was using Open Office for a time which is wonderful because it is free and can be saved as a MS Word document, BUT I have been realizing that when I open said document with an actual MS Word program the formatting is a little bit off. While you may have taken the time to format everything correctly on your program, a potential employer may not realize this and think you were lazy putting together a resume.

Which sucks, I'm all about the free, but I really like being able to get a job too :)

*If anyone knows a way around this Open Office issue please post it here
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I had a friend run into a similar problem, but I think his issue was saving from .doc to .docx or whatever the Word 97-Word2003 format was. His resume was a nice and neat 1 page, but when the interviewer walked into the room, she was carrying one full page plus a second that just had 1 line of information on it. Doh! Luckily it was never mentioned, as most reasonable people can reasonably assume it is some sort of conversion/technical error. He got the job.
 
N826AW said:
I just had the hardest time hiring my replacement. If my HR guy admitted to trashing resumes because they said @gmail.com instead of @firstnamelastname.com he'd be out on the street. A CareerBuilder ad costs $750. Good, solid talent is hard to find. As evidenced by this thread.

To throw resumes out over an email address domain name is a waste of time and money. To then back up the argument by saying it is the same as a candidate showing up to an interview in jeans instead of a suit is even more so. It's more like a guy interviewing with a striped tie when he should have had on a solid.
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Straight from the horses mouth people.

ERJ-135 said:
I'm in total agreement with TwilightFan91 when it comes to the e-mail address. Those with Yahoo, Gmail are not worth the effort to read. Professionals do not resort to free e-mail service that might just be spam to begin with. I cannot tell you how many kids, past their bedtime, have sent in requests for information from my company that turn out just that; bogus. Out of respect we do reply but the freebie types go into a "reserved for later" folder and are not given any attention. I have been on both sides of the hiring process and it always was noted that those who prepared properly got the most attention. There are sources out there that will help in resume' writing, interviewing practice etc. If you are looking for that dream job, prepare for it like you did for the written testing and check rides.
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Like I said before, if you are going to 'circular file' my resume because it is firstinitiallastname@yahoo.com (which I have used since 1998) then I really don;t want to work for you or your company.

Here's a thought. How about hiring managers actually do their job. That means reading peoples resumes and discounting them based on that, not on some arbitrary binary code that is used as a route to a virtual mailbox.
 
I always send out my resume by telegram, include my beeper number and tell them to put 911 in if it's real important.
 
Just ignore the @gmail.com / yahoo.com anti-user bandwagon.

Especially the tool with TwilightFan91 moaning about e-mail addresses.

Give me a break.
 
surreal1221 said:
Just ignore the @gmail.com / yahoo.com anti-user bandwagon.

Especially the tool with TwilightFan91 moaning about e-mail addresses.

Give me a break.
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I have to agree. I've been a professional software developer for 17 years, and I've never encountered an HR person that had a problem with an applicant's email domain.

I use gmail, and here is why:

In the last 15 years or so, my ISP email address has changed no fewer than 5 times.

Example: Back before broadband, I used a local internet provider called "Neosoft". My email address was @neosoft.com. Internet America (@airmail.net) bought them out, and my email address changed to (@airmail.net, which, while is in fact an actual ISP, because it has the word "mail" in the name, it sounds like some of these guys would immediately trash it). It's possible that the neosoft.com address gets forwarded to the airmail.net address.

Unable to get cable internet in my area, I upgraded to DSL, with another local provider (SBC did not provide service my area), and my new address became "@mylinuxisp.com".

Later, Time warner cable started to offer cable internet service for about half of what I was paying for DSL, so I upgraded to that. My new email address: "@roadrunner.net".

A few years ago, Comcast took over time warner's presence in my area, and now my ISP-based email address is "@comcast.net" (I think, I stopped using my ISP-based email address years ago, because it was such a pain to propagate the change to everyone I knew, or paid bills with, etc...)

I got my google mail account pretty early on, back when it was invite-only, and the domain name (gmail.com) is very unlikely to ever change. This means that no matter where I live, or which internet provider I decide to go with, my email address need not change. If google charged me a small fee, I would gladly pay it, for the convenience of not having to deal with changing my email address.

Perhaps now that "anyone" can register for a gmail account, there is a negative connotation developing around it, but this is the first I've heard of it.

I tend to agree with Killbilly and the others. You guys that filter based on 'free' email service are likely throwing away perfectly good candidates, possibly with perfectly good reasons as to why they have chosen a particular email provider (free or not).
 
TXTBOOK said:
OK "TwilightFan91".
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Brilliant. :rotfl:

dustoff17 said:
AMEN! There are companies out there that will give you a professional email address the isn't a gmail, hotmail, yahoo. I agree that superstudpilot@gmail is a bad move.
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Yeah, it definitely would be. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with jsmith@gmail.com.

I would much rather interview jsmith@gmail.com than superstudpilot@verizon.net. Superstudpilot may well be a super stud pilot, but only in MSFS.
 
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