For this week’s final post in the Ask the Recruiter series, I interviewed Winnie Corton. She has held several human resource roles in the financial services, retail, pharmaceutical, and not for profit sectors and most recently she was a recruiter for Citigroup.

1. What is your biggest interview pet peeve and why? “Job seekers must be prepared for the interview. They must arrive on time (and not 30 minutes before), an have copies of their resume. Job seekers should be prepared to fill out employment applications. I suggest they prepare a list of prior positions with dates of employment, full address, supervisor’s name, telephone number, and starting/ending salary and carry it with them.”
2. What is your biggest resume pet peeve and why? “I have a couple of peeves, but if I had to choose one, it would be a resume attachment that can’t be opened. Job seekers should save their resumes as Word documents. They should send the document to a good friend and ask them to open the attachment and review the resume for appearance and content.”
3. Do you read cover letters? Why or why not? “A recruiter typically takes 15 seconds to review each resume.  We don’t have the time to read every cover letter. I only read cover letters when I am interested in the job seeker’s resume. However, a cover letter must be no more than 3 crisp paragraphs-anymore and I won’t read it.”
4. If someone has a gap in their chronology how do you recommend they deal with that issue on their resume? “Yes, it is important to address gaps in employment. I suggest they include an explanation in the resume. For example, large corporate downsizing, reference available; left due to relocation to (city/state); left to take care of ill family member, etc.”