When you’re applying for title jobs, for escrow jobs, or for any real estate jobs, a hiring manager at the company you’re dying to get into may judge your qualifications in a minute or two with a quick scan of your resume.

Hiring managers are looking for title, mortgage or escrow experience, yes and they are looking for accuracy, attention to detail, professionalism – basic skills that are essential for success in our detail-oriented industry.

Today’s A Team success story doubles as  cautionary tale about ensuring that your real estate resume works for you and not against you.

Patrick was a recent college graduate with a year of transaction coordinator experience from  a top SoCal brokerage.  He submitted his resume to A Team through  in response to a job board ad. 

Viewing Patrick’s resume, we were intrigued, and confused. The resume was jumbled and seemed to lose its formatting half-way through. While the experience was relevant, the timeline laid out on the resume didn’t make chronological sense. We were sure we were looking at typos, and at a resume that conveyed nothing that Patrick intended.

When Tania from A Team called Patrick, her suspicions were confirmed. Patrick took a quick look at his resume while speaking to A Team, and immediately apologized. The culprit? The job board’s phone app.

Patrick had (unwisely) updated his resume on his phone, and in doing so, had  saved a garbled, mis-formatted, error-filled  advertisement of his skills. Now that negative ad was making its way to real estate employers posting openings on the job board. 

 As she asked questions, Tania discovered that Patrick was smart and customer service-oriented, with a good working knowledge of real estate transactions, Excel and marketing. He was far more qualified than his messy resume suggested.

Patrick immediately updated his word document resume, and sent a formatted, perfectly proofed resume over to A Team.  Later that day, Tania submitted the resume to an A Team client. Two days later, Patrick passed a client interview with flying colors. He was hired in a temp to hire position by a long term A Team client.

Patrick was thankful that Tania took the extra time to call, screen and coach him. All of us at A Team were thankful she did so,  too – as we were reminded of our role in helping real estate professionals present their best selves to employers.

 We’re proud to call  A Team employee Patrick an A Team success story!