A young executive was interviewing with the
company president. The president remarked, "Your resume is quite
impressive." Disarmingly, the young executive answered, "It ought
to be, I wrote it."
A funny response,
maybe. A cocky response, probably. A candid response that deals
directly with an underlying problem with resumes, definitely. No
one writes a resume that states: "Weak manager. Afraid to make
decisions. Afraid to change. Can't get along with people. Canned in
last five jobs." Even though that might be close to the truth for
some managers, people write just the opposite. The resume is always
biased to favor the candidate, and everyone knows it. Consequently,
because it is inherently imbalanced no matter how skillfully
crafted, the resume itself is a barrier that hirer and candidate
must overcome.
Hirers expect resumes
to represent one side of the candidate. Hirers expect
embellishments in resumes. Hirers so expect an incomplete portrait
that the resume is used only as a starting point in the
interviewing and hiring process.
All resumes look
alike. Regardless of the resume style - experience resume,
chronological resume, functional resume - they all ultimately look
the same. Selling yourself depends on getting noticed, standing
apart, being different from everybody else. If at outset you are
represented only by your resume and your resume looks like
everybody else's resume, then you look like everybody else.
The resume - any
resume, all resumes - always acquires a personality of its own,
which is often different from that of the person it glorifies.
Resume-writing rules, resume structure, and the resume development
process work together to produce, in effect, a new shadow persona.
The modest take credit. The spare are verbose. The humble become
egocentric. The literate use arcane jargon. The confident get
cautious. The creative get common.
Resumes are too often
an exercise in self-validation. This is particularly true for the
seasoned manager - someone who has spent most of his or her career
in one place - who now is uncomfortably in search of a new job.
These resumes resonate with associated accomplishments, nearly a
mirror for every success of the former organization for which the
candidate worked. After reading such a resume, one wonders why the
person needs to seek a new job.
Many resumes are too
long. This is a plague on college campuses. Prospective faculty
candidates (for hire or promotion) submite eight-page resumes
(which they pedantically call curricula vitae) listing every paper
they ever wrote, but only two sentences on teaching.
Your resume has two
purposes: 1) to be intruguing enough to get you an interview; and
2) to reaffirm in a tailored way, after your interview, how hiring
you solves the hirer's problem.
During your potential
employer's workday, your resume competes with memos, reports, to-do
lists, luncheon meetings, other resumes. Take a lesson from the
gunfighter. His resume fit on the business card, yet it worked:
"Paladin. Have gun. Will travel."
