Resume “Nots” | Job Search Radio
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
(FROM THE ARCHIVES) I discuss some of the ways you may be using your resume incorrectly.
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This is Job Search Radio, I’m your host Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter and this is Episode 405 of Job Search Radio. This show is the number two show in iTunes on job search. And I have the number one show as well as No BS Job Search Advice Radio. Between the two, I cover a lot of great material designed to help people find work.
And today’s show is a good one. It’s one that deals with things you shouldn’t do in your resume. It is called, “Resume ‘Nots.'” I originally recorded about two years ago as part of a series I was doing and this focuses on a couple things you should specifically not do. I hope you find it helpful. And if we’re not connected on Facebook look from Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter on Facebook. Give me five stars and you’ll be enrolled with a page and get notices whenever I upload new content to the page which happens a lot every day. Now let’s get going.
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In some respects this is a show that’s going to be about mistakes people make with their resume. I call it “Resume ‘Nots’.”because you know I’m looking at this from a bigger perspective. What people tend to do with their resumes it’s just flat out wrong from a big picture of what they do with their resume. Not the little details of languaging in how they express themselves but just the big picture of what people do with there resume.
And the first thing I know people tend to make mistakes with is they treat their resume like a long list of responsibilities and it’s like a job description. So they’ll say things like, “Responsible for.” “Interacted with.” They create this document that’s a rehash of role, responsibilities, accomplishments. And frankly, the document is boring. And part of the reason it doesn’t work is that the resume isn’t giving people a context for what they stepped into.
So for example an individual who’s talking about role, responsibilities and accomplishments and, if they are in IT, the technology that they used, isn’t talking about what they stepped into in order to do all this stuff.
So, for example, if you talk about being, you know, responsible for an overall system (I am going to use an IT example) that was responsible for generating 24 million dollars in savings in the first two years of its operation by. . .And you talk about the things that you did you’re giving people a taste for the environment that you stepped into.
If you talk about money saved or money earned by the system and what it was designed to do, and what your piece of it was, well suddenly it’s a different context. So your resume is not a job description. It’s not a list of responsibilities. It’s a story. Within that idea of a story, “it’s not “War and Peace.”. This is not designed to be a 400 page document that’s talking about every aspect of your life in minute detail. You know, for those of you who don’t know this, I will critique someone’s LinkedIn profile and resume.
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So I got a resume profile that was charging I believe, $150 for profile . . . and this person sent me a nine page resume. And I realized there are people out there who have, what I can only describe as abusive resumes and it caused me to re-price it.
My work there for people with three pages or less and over three. And thank goodness the people with over 3, who really need the most work aren’t taking me up on the different price because of the fact of the matter is if you know how to edit what you done to make it seem manageable, you know, you are just going to waste people’s time. This is not to talk about every aspect of real life for the last 20 years. This is not to go into such minute detail about everything that you have done that you are crecreating this enormous document with you could put a binder on.
A resume is a marketing document. It’s designed to get you in the door. It’s not designed to tell people every last aspect of your life– your photograph, or your personal information, your marital status, your age. Nonsense like that is completely extraneous. Get rid of it. It’s really fact simple .
Again, another thing that people do with their resumes that I think is ludicrous, they use objective areas to talk about their aspirations. Employers just don’t care. That’s the fact of the matter is they don’t care about your hopes and dreams and aspirations. They will be impressed when you show them how you are the right candidate of their hopes and dreams and aspirations.
So instead of using your objective, if you want to use a summary, do so. I’m not that fond of them but I do believe a summary can be focused on how you fit to a role. But better yet, there it is a cover letter that you can use that will do even better where you talk about what you have done and how you went about doing it. How long and how recently you worked with the functionality and the requirements of the position. Those will go a long way toward demonstrating your fit with the role. Again, no one cares what you want at this stage. What they’re looking for is what they want and that’s what you have to be focused on.
Next our resume is not to be designed to be an employment application. Again it’s a marketing document. It’s designed to sell you for a job. It’s designed to overcome some of the objections that they might have about your background and talk about your personality or demonstrate personality in a document.
(And I must apologize to you. I’m off today. I wasn’t aware that this bug that’s been lingering with me for two weeks was knocking me for such a loop. But it is.) I’m just finding the words aren’t flowing as freely so I want to apologize in advance if you’re not finding this the most capable show that I’ve done. Frankly I can see that it isn’t. I want to still go through the details). So y
ur applications would be a simpler form to work with. Again it’s designed to market you to an organization and demonstrate the quality of your work. Lastly it’s not a list of actions focusing on skills focusing on experience and work history as most functional resumes are designed to do sells you short because people don’t have an idea of how recently you’ve done the work.
Instead use a chronological resume to demonstrate your fit. If you have a cover email and have a great resume that tells a wonderful story about what you stepped into, the situation you were involved with, the tasks that you did, the accomplishments you had and the results of the work you did.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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