让你的简历不再石沉大海

It's hard to believe that people in a position to tell you yea or nay about a job are so insanely busy that they really don't have 30 seconds to dash off an e-mail telling you whether you've got a shot at it or not -- and small comfort to reflect that, if they're this rude to candidates, you wouldn't want to work there anyway.
我们很难相信，人力资源部门的那些人真的就那么忙，甚至都抽不出30秒钟，给你发封电子邮件，告之你是否有戏。不过，退一步想，如果这些人对待求职者如此无礼，你肯定也不会想与他们共事。








But in defense of HR people, consider: They are overwhelmed. For one thing, at many companies, HR departments have suffered cutbacks right along with every other function: The average HR staff now numbers 9.2 employees, down from 13 in 2007, according to a recent poll by the Society for Human Resource Management. Any time headcount takes a 30% hit, you know the survivors are struggling.


不过，我也得为人力资源部说句话，他们也的确招架不住了。首先，在很多公司，与其他部门一样，人力资源部裁员也很严重。人力资源管理协会（Society for Human Resource Management）最近的调查显示， 2007年，人力资源部的平均雇员数是13人，而现在仅为9.2人。而一旦裁员达到30％，剩下的员工肯定是在苦苦挣扎。





Moreover, it's not that HR folks are unsympathetic to your plight. Plenty of them know firsthand what it's like to be unemployed for a painfully long time. SHRM did another survey, this time of HR professionals who'd been out of work (85% due to layoffs) in 2009, and found that of those who recently found a new job, 47% had been job hunting for six to 12 months, and another 27% had been looking for longer than a year. Among those who were still unemployed when SHRM conducted its poll, only 18% expected to find work within six months; 43% thought they'd have to search for a year or more.


而且，并非是人力资源部的职员不同情你的遭遇。他们很多人都尝过很长一段时间没有工作的滋味。人力资源管理协会进行了另一项调查，调查的对象是在2009年失业的人力资源部职员（其中85％是被裁员）。该调查发现，在新近找到工作的受访者中，有47％的人用了6－12个月的时间，另外27％的人则花了一年多的时间，而在那些受访时仍未找到工作的人中，只有18％的人预期将在6个月内找到工作，43％的人认为自己还得再花一年甚至更长的时间。





The really disheartening part: Among those hired in 2009 after a lengthy search, almost half (49%) said they liked their new jobs less than the ones they had lost. The survey didn't ask why, but my guess would be overwork. HR departments are inundated with resumes, sometimes getting hundreds or even thousands for every available opening. Your carefully crafted resumes are buried somewhere in an ever-mounting pile, and HR staffers are hard-pressed to keep up, let alone give each candidate the kind of individual consideration that he or she deserves.


最令人沮丧的是：在那些花了很长时间，终于在2009年找到工作的人中，有近一半（49％）的人表示更喜欢之前的工作。这份调查并没有问及原因，但我猜应该是劳累过度的原因。人力资源部堆满了简历，可能应聘一个职位的简历就多达几百甚至数千份。你精心撰写的简历说不定就被埋在堆积如山的简历中。人力资源部的雇员们好不容易才能看完简历，还哪顾得上体谅每位应聘者的心情。





So how do you get around this? Vicki Barnett, head of a Denver career coaching firm called Make It Happen, says that, instead of sending resumes to HR, you should send them -- either on paper, electronically, or both -- to an executive at the company one or two levels above the hiring manager for the position you want. Granted, that person is likely to be extremely busy too, so he or she will delegate you to the person one or two steps down -- i.e. the one doing the actual hiring.


那么，你应该如何应对这种情况呢？薇姿•巴奈特（Vicki Barnett）是一家位于丹佛的职业指导公司的负责人，该公司名为“梦想成真”（Make It Happen）。巴奈特表示，你不应该将简历发给人力资源部，而是应该把简历的电子版、纸质或是两种版本同时发给公司中比负责你所应聘职位的招聘经理高一两级的主管。当然了，这种人肯定非常繁忙，所以他/她会把你的简历转给比自己低一两级的人，也就是真正负责招聘的人。





"Resumes travel down the food chain more easily than up," Barnett says. If the boss forwards your resume, a hiring manager is likely to give it a more thorough read than the 10 seconds HR may spend on it. After you've sent your resume, wait a few days, then follow up with a phone call to find out who has it and ask if you can schedule a meeting.


巴奈特说：“简历通过这种自上而下的方式，会更容易到达招聘经理手中。”假如是老板转发的你的简历，那么招聘经理在看简历时，肯定会比人力资源部的十秒扫过式仔细认真得多。发送简历之后几天，你就可以打个电话问一下简历目前在谁手中，再问一下是否可以预约一次会面。


Obviously, there are still no guarantees you'll get hired, but bypassing HR gives you one big advantage, Barnett says: "Hiring managers have their 'wish lists,' but HR doesn't know what's on them, because what hiring managers really hope to find is often a combination of ineffable qualities that can be hard to spell out on paper."


显然，这并不能保证你会被录取。但绕过人力资源部会给你带来一个很大的优势。巴奈特说道：“招聘经理都有自己的‘愿望清单’，但是人力资源部的雇员并不了解其想法，因为招聘经理真正希望在应聘者身上看到的，往往是一些只可意会、难以言传的特质。”





HR people are usually just trying to match up keywords between your resume and the job description, Barnett adds -- and if you only have 12 out of the 15 keywords, you won't make it past that hurdle. Hiring managers, on the other hand, can look at a resume and read between the lines: "Even if your keywords don't match up precisely, you may have other experience or qualifications that would catch their eye."


人力资源部的职员通常做的，不过是试着把你简历上和职位描述中的关键词一一对应。巴奈特还说，如果职位描述中有15个关键词，而你的简历里只有其中12个，你很可能就过不了简历关。然而，招聘经理却能看到简历中暗含的信息，巴奈特说道：“就算你简历中的关键词与职位描述不完全吻合，你其它的经验和资质也可能会引起他们的注意。”


Here's hoping.


但愿如此。