Sometimes I forget to look at a resume and pretend I am a receptionist.
This morning I talked with a very qualified friend who hasn’t been able to get a job. I took 10 seconds to look at his resume as if I were a receptionist or HR screener. There was a huge error that probably got his resume deleted time after time. This is a 3 minute video on what I saw.
Posted in Resumes, Uncategorized
Experimenting can be your key to success. Here are 13 resumes that were way over the edge…and worked.
The best book ever written on resume writing is available free for a few days.
I have posted it at www.dilts.us/books/
When it goes on Amazon, it won’t be free anymore.
Enjoy!
I turned a food scientist into a Java programmer. It was magic.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. He was proud of his PhD, and that was hurting him. He had to stop emphasizing the $100,000,000 product revenue stream he had generated for his company. Instead he had to emphasize his work in developing computer systems. He had to finish getting his Java programming certifications. He also agreed to a 40% pay cut.
When we finished, he found his own job.
Writers fall in love with their work. Every word is a work of art. When you put together your resume, you are even more in love with your work because it is about you. You can’t possibly leave out how you gave CPR to a chipmunk and saved its life. Leave it out anyway.
Now do something even harder. Stop looking at the things YOU find most interesting. Look in your career for proof that you can do the job you are applying for. Make a list of all the duties of the job you want. Now make a list of all of the times you have done those duties.
That food scientist had helped design computer systems. He had put together a few small applications to help him track data. He passed the Java certification test. We expanded those programming related accomplishments. It took him a year, but he got the job.
Magic is the art of misdirection and illusion. Illusion is achieved by getting people to concentrate on what you want them to perceive. Put a little magic into your resume. Get rid of the things that don’t apply. Emphasize what is important. Just for the exercise, take a job you want to apply for and create a ½ page resume for it. Only leave your greatest accomplishments that apply towards that job. I’ll bet you cut out a lot of fluff. Now cut it to 1/4 page. It will focus your resume wonderfully.
Posted in Accomplishments, Resumes
This is a great article on how to get a job. It summarizes a lot of the ideas I try to get across.
Here’s how a gentleman in the advertising business made it from the mailroom to the head of the company. I call it “Be a fish out of water.” And you’ll shortly see why. This story is advertising industry lore. It is said that… click here to continue
Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Perseverance, Resumes
If you can’t beguile them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls**t. (unknown)
For years the joke has been: “Yesterday I was a truck driver. I passed a test today, so now I am an MCSE network technician. What’s a network?”
If you started out as truck driver and worked your way up to become the COO of a company, that’s great. Don’t mention the truck driver experience, unless you want to be a truck driver again.
Your resume has one purpose: to get you an interview!
Leave out delightful tales unrelated to the job you are applying for. If you really need to show your job progression then start out writing about your most recent triumphs at the top. At the very bottom of the particular job section write: I started as a truck driver.
So, you’ve worked there 15 years and only been a computer security expert for 2 years? I don’t care. Your resume is not a confession of crimes and psychological problems. Put down what you did and let the interviewer find out more. Your resume is only to get you an interview. It is not a warning to potential employers.
If you emphasize what you have accomplished, the person reading the resume will know how “heavy” you are in the job you are applying for. List projects you completed, improvements you made, money you saved, and new clients you helped bring in. If the list is impressive it won’t matter that you spent ¾’s of your time filing reports and ¼ of your time as a sales manager.
Leave out disqualifiers. Emphasize how you have saved money, brought in new revenue streams, increased customer happiness, speeded up processes and helped the company succeed. Your resume is supposed to get you an interview. Leave out all the stuff that doesn’t apply to the job you want.
Something To Do Today
Writing exercise time. Take your resume and first expand it to 4 or more pages by including all the responsibilities and accomplishments you have ever had.
Make a new copy. Cut out every line that is only responsibilities. This second copy should list only the projects completed, customers pleased, money saved and new clients you brought in. There should NOT be any lines that say “supervised”, “responsible for”, or “supported.”
Make a new copy. Cut it down to ½ page. Yes, ½ page. List only the accomplishments that directly apply to a job you want.
Now cut that ½ page to ¼ page. Use those incredibly brief but important accomplishments in your cover letter or email body.
This is an exercise. Apply what you learned to the resume you send out for a job.
A rotting fish does not smell better under the noonday sun.
“You’ve done well on your second interview. I was told to expect a job offer for you in the next couple of days. Congratulations.”
“Wow. Uh, Bryan, are they doing a background check?”
“Yes. This is a bank.”
“There’s one more thing you don’t know. I haven’t told anyone because I was afraid it would keep me from getting the job. Three years ago I….”
There are ways to deal with skeletons in your closet. You can make two mistakes. The first is to put everything that might disqualify you on your resume. That keeps you from being considered at all. The second is to hide the information as long as possible. The first is like slapping someone with a dead fish instead of shaking their hand when you first meet them. The second is like taking that dead fish and hiding it in your briefcase. The smell will get stronger and stronger over time. Dead rotting fish don’t smell better after a few days.
First make sure it is a real skeleton. Age, marital status, sex, sexual preference and country of origin are often considered to be a problem by a job applicant when they are not. Don’t bring them up. They are not skeletons.
Problems that disqualify you from a job are another matter. The only way to win with a serious problem is to find a champion. It could be the manager who wants to hire you, the HR (Human Resources) person, or someone you know who overcame a similar problem. You’ll have to take a risk in letting someone know during the interview. Often your champion will be an agency recruiter. As your champion gets to know you, he can break the bad news to the hiring team with a positive recommendation. That may be before or after the first set of interviews. It will never be just before a job offer is made.
Let’s face it, a disqualifying problem disqualifies you! You are asking for an exception to be made. If you can get someone to go to bat for you, you have a chance. Don’t try to hide a major problem in your briefcase, hoping no one notices. A rotting fish never smells better after a few moist days in the sun.
Something To Do Today
Are there problems you bring up in your resume? Do you apologize for something? Do you proudly display your age, sex, sexual preference or country of origin in your resume? Get rid of that stuff. It makes people worry you will be a flaming activist.
Posted in Attitude, Perseverance, Quitting or Fired, Resumes
Tagged fixing problems, hiding problems
Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few. (Pythagoras)
When is your resume being thrown away? Yesterday I gave the 4 major trashing points in your resume’s life.
You have two ways to break through the cycle:
Networking will get your resume directly to the boss with a recommendation. Outstanding networking will get you an interview without a resume.
For the rest:
Do you pass the idiot test and the expert test? Assume an idiot and an expert will each try to find a reason to throw away your resume. Assume they have too many resumes and want to throw away as many as possible. They are proactive trashers.
The secretary has to see an obvious, undeniable fit with the job description. She won’t understand all the acronyms, but she knows they have to be there. She knows how much experience is required. She knows it has to be a manager or a worker. She trashes resumes that don’t shout that they fit the job.
The boss has a lot to do. He wants a great person to work for him, but doesn’t have enough time to talk to everyone. Like the secretary he throws out the obvious problems. The difference is that he understands the resume. He throws out the resumes that just don’t feel right. Time is critical to him. The first person he calls has the accomplishments he needs in his company.
Run a test. Take your resume and the job ad you are responding to. Hand both to someone who doesn’t know the field. Do they think you pass? Do the same with an expert. Do you pass?
Stop wishing and hoping. Either network your way in or find your own screeners. You need other people to help you get your resume out of the trash can.
Something To Do Today
Who do you know that is up front and brutally blunt? Take your resume and the job ad you are responding to. Ask them read the job ad thoroughly. Then give them your resume. Ask them to decide in 10 seconds if it looks like the resume passes. Then ask them to take 45 seconds and look closer.
Do you pass the test?
Posted in Accomplishments, Networking, Resumes
Tagged Accomplishments, hiring manager, Networking, resume, resume screener, resume test
We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. (Gardner)
Hiroshima, WWII: “I sure wish I could find rice for my family. Hey, what is that lone airplane doing above the city? Oh well, I’ve got more important things to worry about.”
Sometimes timing is everything and you are worrying about the wrong problems. For your resume there is a timing pattern you must understand. You have to break through the following pattern to get hired:
Can you see why knowing when your resume is thrown out is critical?
Every time you send out a resume and fail to get an interview you should ask, “Who threw away my resume?”
Ask the question of yourself. Also ask your recruiter and the HR person at the company. Beg, if you have to. You need to find out when and why your resume is not being considered. Also be sensitive to the recruiter and HR. They may lie to you. They don’t want to argue. They want to be powerful and all-knowing. Play on that and ask for advice as you try to find out when your resume was trashed.
Next time we’ll talk about how to get past the screenings and into an interview. For now, try to figure out when your resume is being thrown away.
Something To Do Today
Make some calls. Find out where your resume is being trashed.
Ask some friends, they may be able to give you some ideas too.