Electronic. Employers time is valuable and those candidates that are efficient and technologically savvy take precedence. Much like having a short resume. You have to have your information easily viewable within 30-45 seconds, which is the time it takes for a potential employer to skim your resume. If it takes any longer than that, you're already down toward the bottom of the pile.
I'm a big believer in the 1-page resume, whenever possible, for this very reason.
I know 2 pages is acceptable now, but I think it is the exception that a 2nd page is required. Like you say, the ability to scan quickly.
E-mail...for the same reason I put my frozen pizza in the microwave instead of the oven.
This made me laugh. I do both. Microwave when time is an issue, but the longer oven method always tastes better, and is often worth the wait.
Another good tactic is to find out who the hiring manager of the department is. this can usually be found by asking the right questions to the receptionist. I am looking for the manager of x department. If they are c-level, they can usually be found on an internet search or lexus-nexus.
send it to them directly. A good few of my friends got jobs by bypassing the whole HR firewall.
I presently do independent contract work (and am looking to move back into traditional employment). I have had good luck simply calling the company and asking the receptionist who the best person would be to send employment information to. I always get a cheerful answer. I get a specific person sometimes, and an HR name sometimes. It's about 50/50.
I prefer a specific department person, but no longer seek deeper if given an HR contact. I now presume that that is simply that company's particular culture.
A 1 office engineering firm probably has time to review a resume. I like to have a physical resume in hand when I interview someone. This does not sound like a generic corporate job listing to me.
Correct. Not a bloated corporate structure.
Is the email some generic email address or is it to a specific person? That makes all the difference.
In this case, both e-mail and snail mail are to the same specific person. I believe the company President.
For me it would depend on the nature of the business in question. The more tech oriented or larger the company the more likely I would go the electronic route.
Civil engineering. Contrary to what one would presume, older civil engineers are still generally relatively technically not savvy.
That is my reasoning behind sending an actual resume via snail mail. I want to stand out in the crowd, if I'm looking for a job in a competitive market. I don't want to be one of hundreds of email responders. It's probably my age that has something to do with it as well, but when I was a director for a home health agency, and responsible for viritually all hiring, back in the mid-90's, I was looking for the people who caught my attention with their individuality, and not for a nameless, faceless email responder, whose resume looked like the other 99 email applicants I had in the inbox.
This is my first leaning as well.
Every time I've interviewed for a job that I've sent a resume to electronically, they'd had a hard copy in hand. It means that they're capable of opening a Word file and clicking "print".
Agreed, and this has been my experience as well. But, I'm asking more from a presentation aspect, not a simple ability to push a 'print' button.
