If you’ve ever wondered who looks at, and what they do with, your precious CV when you apply for a job at one of the big networks, here’s a peek into the Human Resources Managers’ office. radioinfo gets the low down from the HR Bosses at SCA, dmg and ARN as to how to present a CV that will at least help you get past the preliminary reject bin and into the ‘maybe’ pile.

To keep them honest, our U.S. contributor, Valerie Geller speaks with the HR boss of a major American network who, under the cloak of strict anonymity, spills the beans on some of the practices over there. One thing they all agree on is that you should keep your resume brief.

ARN’s Belinda Cole looks for a “Summarised CV – no longer than 3 pages if possible – so many come in and they are 10+ pages long!” Ditto for Southern Cross Austereo’s, Jarrad Nairne (pictured) who puts it this way, “Your career history may be amazing but if you are the 247^th cv being looked at for this position, you may get missed if your cv looks like a novel.” And dmg’s Kirsten Gillespie says, “Being time poor, when I need to cut through a hundred CVs, it’s really about giving a snapshot in the front page of your CV and then expanding upon that.”

  Due to popular demand the rest of this story is now unlocked…

Valerie Geller writes: The first challenge is getting past the Human Resources gatekeepers to get into an interview. Most working in radio know instinctively: The only job security is the ability to secure your next job. Keeping an ear to the wind, and being in touch through the grapevine are always a good idea.

Belinda Cole adds, “Candidates should  look at a range of industry websites – particularly radioinfo, Jocks Journal, Mumbrella and our soon to be Careers Page (launching soon) – we are broader than just “Seek” advertising.” 

Kirsten Gillespie is an advocate for social media, “I’ve had a lot of talented candidates who’ve got marketing and campaign experience who are summarising it in a Facebook or LinkedIn profile these days. So you can actually go to their link on LinkedIn which they’re using as a profile page to attract people to interact with them directly – which saves me a lot of time.” 

Geller says that in The States, if you haven’t looked for work in a while, the hiring landscape has changed. “You may not even get to speak with a person, let alone a hiring manager, until you fill out an online application. In the process, you may find some unsettling surprises. Some companies ask for your Facebook password to better investigate your social life. Many who comply are concerned that if they don’t follow the HR protocol, they could be eliminated as a prospect.”

SCA’s Jarrad Nairne says, “Whilst we do have a look at people’s social media pages (you simply have to these days), we would never ask for someone’s password or anything like that.  We are very much an advocate of social media and try to embrace it as much as we can with our staff but obviously we want to make sure that what is being posted, tweeted etc isn’t going to offend listeners, clients or other staff members etc.”

“If you’ve sent out a lot of resumes and haven’t heard back,” says Geller, “it’s likely that your application went directly to the resume “B” pile. How do you get your resume into the “A” pile so you can get an actual job interview? To find out, I talked with the HR director at one of the major broadcasting corporations in the United States. In return for this insider information, I agreed to respect and maintain their anonymity. If you’re looking for a job, you need every advantage. Here’s the gist of that conversation…”

If you want your resume to get into our ‘A’ pile, make sure you’ve got at least 85% of the skills required for the job. Please don’t plaster us with resumes that aren’t right for this job. I know that people need jobs, but if you desperately send out a resume for everything that’s open, they’ll automatically go into the ‘B’ pile.”

Key Words Count

One tip to make it into our ‘A’ pile: When you fill out an online application, it gets sorted by keywords before the HR person even sees it. Use the same key words on your resume and application that we use in our ad for the job. That way your resume will show up in any keyword-based resume search.

Be clear. Don’t assume that whoever is seeing your resume knows and understands the nuances of your professional experience. We are screeners. It’s likely that the person reviewing your resume has never worked on the radio and may not know the value of skill sets you possess that, in reality, may be very useful to both this job and to the organization.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the average HR person spends about 20 seconds on a resume before making a decision. No one likes to wade through a pile of resumes, so that job is usually given to the least senior member of our staff, who is also the least likely person to understand what the hiring manager is looking for. And since the person going through the resumes probably has not done the job that’s open, he or she may have no idea of what this job really requires.

Sometimes it’s not your fault, it’s ours, or the fault of our hiring manager. If a PD or manager isn’t precisely clear about the required qualifications, a good candidate can easily be passed over. For example, if a PD posting a job for air talent, says, ‘It would be great to have someone with a working knowledge of Selector,’ they need to add, ‘But if you find someone who’s good but doesn’t know Selector, we can teach them our system.’ Because we don’t evaluate priorities, unless the hiring manager is very specific, an HR person could rule you out.

TMI – Don’t Overwhelm With Too Much Information

Most people in broadcasting are versatile. Talented communicators can do many things. But if you give too much information, at least in the initial sorting process, we don’t know what to do with you. This goes against basic logic because should you actually get this job, you may very well be called upon to use all of your skills. But to get to first base here, and have your materials considered, if you give too broad a range, you risk being eliminated. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be a jack-of-all-trades, but if we’re asking for candidates with a specific skill, and if you’re all over the map, it makes it harder to place you. So if you’ve programmed, worked on-air, produced talk, done news, sold, written and produced spots, done play-by-play and you’ve been a DJ—the HR department literally doesn’t know what to do with you.

Be specific to the job that’s posted. Although you may be qualified for more than one job in our company and possess many skills, for the purposes of getting the interview, target the opening that’s posted. If a job applicant is so hungry to just get a job, any job, that he or she ends up throwing everything they can do in their pitch, not only does it make them seem desperate, they’re harder to place. Once you’re in the interview with someone you may be working for, that’s where you can show all you’ve got and dazzle them with your full potential, background and experience.

After reading about the American experience, Jarrad Nairne had this response, “I think overall, the HR function in radio is a lot more encouraging and helpful in Australia in comparison to The States. 

“Simply due to the numbers of enquiries and job applications we have on a daily basis we do have an online candidate management system but it does not have a key word search function or anything like what the article says.  It actually is of great use to us in that it gives line managers access to a system where they can review CVs and demo’s very easily and when used properly it enables us to contact every single applicant (whether successful or not) to let them know about their application,” says Mr Nairne.

Here are Belinda Cole’s tips for getting into the A list at ARN…

*        Address Criteria of advert

*        Summarised CV – no longer than 3 pages if possible – so many come in and they are 10+ pages long

*        We always ask for Salary expectations on our adverts and often people ignore this question, we then need to include this     question in preliminary phone interviews, as  with tight budgets there is no point in wasting a candidates time when we may have less $$ approved and cannot meet their expectations

*        For ARN many candidates need to be willing to do a presentation at Second Round interviews particularly for Sales. This often filters out those whom just cannot be bothered to prepare and present.

If it’s a job at dmg you’re after, then it would be wise to follow Kirsten Gillespie’s advice…

“Some organisations ask you to write a cover letter. I don’t always have the time to read a cover letter.

“Ensure that the first page of your CV is a good synopsis of you career and chronology. So, in one page I can see where you’ve worked, what your role’s been, the length of stay and the skills that you possess. And then list the achievements and some exciting projects. From a sales perspective, some of the big wins you’ve had. Or if it’s a campaign, a big coup you’ve had with a client.

“It is the one opportunity to PR yourself on a fairly unsophisticated format.

“Sometimes I’ll only look at that first page. If I can’t find information that I want in that first page, sometimes I won’t scroll down.

“Generally, if it’s a good read, in a good clear format, I’ll read on,” says Ms Gillespie.

If you want a job at SCA and your CV lands on Jarrad Nairne’s desk, here’s some advice on how to impress him…

“The main tips I tell people when they ask me about applying for a job with SCA is in relation to the presentation of their CVs. It’s true that when reviewing CVs we don’t spend more than a minute or so reviewing them so you need to stand out from the get go. 

“Bullet points of what your responsibilities/duties  are in your previous roles is really important – your career history may be amazing but if you are the 247^th cv being looking at for this position, you may get missed if your cv looks like a novel.

“Keep it professional – Yes radio is a less formal industry in some cases but seeing  [email protected] as your main email contact isn’t a great look. 

“I could go on and on about this topic as despite there being a whole heap of info available to jobseekers about this,  it amazes me how many people make the simple mistakes over and over,” says Mr Nairne.

Finally, ARN Melbourne HR Advisor, Jayelene O’Callaghan, says, “While it may be commonly known that radio jobs are hard to find, at ARN we encourage people who have an interest in radio to get in contact with us.

“Whether or not we have a job available, we record their details on our recruitment database after reviewing their resume or if we have had a conversation with them so that way when a role becomes vacant we can contact those perspective candidates for an interview. Our roles are advertised internally and also externally on industry websites so candidates can apply through those avenues.

“Often we will meet with people or have them meet with our managers even if we do not have a role available for them so we can begin to talent bank,” says Ms O’Callaghan.

Of course, if you are looking for a new job in radio, you’ve come to the right place at radioinfo where all the major networks come to advertise their Positions Vacant. Whether it’s ABC, Community or Commercial, 95% of all jobs are listed here. And you don’t have to pay a cent to access our job pages. Viewing our Job Market section is FREE.

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Note: Parts of the Valerie Geller contribution and her discussion with the U.S.network HR manager are edited from an article that first appeared on radio-info.com and has been republished with permission.

Valerie Geller is president of Geller Media International Broadcast Consultants, and is the author of Beyond Powerful Radio – A Communicator’s Guide to the Internet Age. To contact Valerie Geller for a one-on-one coaching or consulting, appointment, or for information on the “Powerful Radio” seminars and workshops, call +1 212 580-3385