You will find a job a lot quicker if you simplify your career objective and your resume. Simplicity will get you a phone call.
How a simple plan leads to success in business
Fedex has a very simple business plan. They get packages anywhere the next day. Google is incredibly simple. They help people find stuff on the internet. Microsoft started out with a simple concept. Make personal computers work for people.
Just like business plans, first you have to simplify your career plans. What do you want to do, achieve or become?
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. (Albert Einstein)
Make your career objective a 6 word sentence.
I rarely read more than 6 words of the “objective” portion of a resume. I don’t have time to read that you want to work in a team, grow, contribute, and add to the bottom line. Who doesn’t want those things?
Can you write your career objective in 6 words? Would you dare put that on your resume?
Most resume screeners and managers decide whether to read career objectives based on the first 6 words. Why not put your real objective there? 6 words.
Do you want your resume read?
I read The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, the abridged Reader’s Digest version. It was fantastic. I liked it so much I started reading the original by Victor Hugo. It was torture. Every building in Paris was carefully described. A walk down a street was worth a chapter. I couldn’t finish it.
Like Reader’s Digest did, you have to simplify your resume according to your simple plan. Your resume plan should simply be – GET A PHONE CALL.
GET A PHONE CALL
Make getting a phone call the point of your resume. Now remove the stuff from your resume that won’t get you a phone call. You need to entice people to call you by giving them exciting information, and NOT fully explaining it. Then they have to call you.
If you set out to simplify your resume without a simple plan, you will fail. You have to cut out the things that don’t apply to the plan you are pursuing. You may end up with three simple objectives and three simple resumes. That’s fine. But each resume should be simplified so that it applies to one single objective and the single plan to GET A PHONE CALL.
For someone living before photographs, a description of Paris was thrilling. For someone who has been there and can see pictures of it on the internet, descriptions of Paris are chloroform in print. Victor Hugo decided on a simple plan: have a good plot, and double sales by having great descriptions. He knew his audience. He sold a lot of books to his target audience.
The same thing goes for the person who wants to be a manager. He’d better have manager’s resume. If the same person applies for a job as a technician he needs to leave out all the manager stuff. Complexity gets confusing and discouraging to the reader¼and therefore gets your resume deleted. If you want to be a hands-on manager, then show how you have done that in the past. That is actually a simple plan like Victor Hugo with plot and descriptions.
Simplify your plan, simplify your career objective, then simplify your resume. You will get a phone call.
Something to do today
Are you applying for several different kinds of jobs?
Split your resume into several distinct resumes. One simple resume for each job.
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Later: Get 10% more at your next job, 3 parts