blueskyresumesblog

What's Your Story?

I am re-reading Seth godin's excellent book, "All Marketers are Liars" which is all about the way good  marketers tell 'stories' to compel us to spend money.

Seth's title is misleading (which is the point). He isn't saying good marketers are untruthful - he's saying that they clarify the key value of their product into a compelling story that makes us want to buy.

I think this is as true of people as it is of products. Recruiters and HR people are busy. They don't have time to wade through your resume trying to figure out who you are - you have to make it crystal clear. You have to tell your story.

Do you know what your story is? If you get the call for that big interview tomorrow, can you tell the interviewer who you are and what you have to offer ... clearly, quickly, concisely and in a way that makes sense to him/her?

And if you're employed, have you established your story in the minds of people you work with. Does your boss know who you are and how much you have to offer? Do your co-workers? Do your employees?

Telling your story effectively is the way to convince people to pick up the phone and call you for interviews. And once you've got the job, building a consistent, easily understood and impressive story is the way to get promoted or 'head-hunted' away. (If the story's good enough, you won't need another resume.)

So, what's your story?

Great Example of Blogging for a Job

Kent Blumberg gets it.

Over on Career Hub I posted about the importance of blogging as a way of building a personal brand. Like all good bloggers, Kent knows the value of comments. He left one on my post and I went and checked out his blog.

Now just imagine that you are a recruiter or a senior company executive and you come upon Kent's page. What is your impression?  Mine was one of expertise. In what? In the areas of "leadership, strategy and performance." It says so right under his name!

The impression made by this blog is completely different from the impression made by a resume. One says I am an expert sharing my knowledge. The other says "I need a job."

Kent wrote this on Career Hub:

I've been blogging on leadership, strategy and performance since late May. Before I began, Google turned up only a few, relatively old references to me. Now, the great majority of results on the first couple of pages are links to one of my blog posts, or to comments I have made on other posts.

Better yet, my blog came up in a recent interview. One of the interviewers had googled me, and then read my blog and my comments on others' blogs. About half her questions were related to those links. Since I blog about areas that I believe are my strengths, it gave me a great chance to reinforce what makes me different.

Blogging also helps show that I am up-to-speed on the latest technology and not stuck in the old economy.

I don't know if Kent is actively job searching right now, but I do know that he's building a personal brand online that will ensure he is seen as a leader in his field. What better way to make sure you never have to send another resume again?

While I'm on this subject, on the Simply Hired blog, CM Russell lists 7 suggestions for blogger job seekers. They're all excellent, so check out his post.

New Blog for 20-somethings

I came across a cool new blog today. I really like the focus and the tone, although this made me gulp:

all these career blogs I read daily have lacked something, and if I'm good at anything, it's finding a niche and filling it. They all seemed to promote change, or were otherwise aimed at a middle-aged crowd with more means to change than I have. I am currently 25. I've been at my first job out of college for three-and-a-half years. For my company's size, which is about 300 people locally and 500 worldwide, I would qualify as middle management. I have a lot of bills to pay, a tiny savings account and a husband in school. So for now, money buys security, which for me is happiness.

She's right and I'm glad she's started blogging, but do I now I have to face up to the fact that I truly am one of the middle-aged crowd?

NO!

40 is the new 20. I know because I saw it on Oprah.

Put Some Personality Into Your Resume - Please!

Today I'm writing a resume for a young man who's applying for a job within his existing company. I have his old resume in front of me and I'm reviewing the worksheets he completed. The difference between the two is unbelievable.

His existing resume is stiff, stilted and boring. He used one of Microsoft's Word templates and he simply listed his positions and responsibilities, as most people do.

But his self-assessment worksheets tell another story. Let me show you what I mean with a couple of excerpts:

"I wanted to be a production assistant when I joined the company, but got stuck in clerical work. When the opportunity came to apprentice without pay, I jumped at it. I did my real job and this at the same time. I came in 3 hours early every day to work at the production job, then went to my normal job at 9 am and worked until 6. When I got home, I'd read up on production to learn more. I was obsessed!"

Wow. He worked for free just to get experience in his desired field -- and then did extra reading at night? Who wouldn't want to hire someone like that? Of course that information is nowhere to be found on the resume he's currently using. Here's another quote:

"I came into this position as a new supervisor launching our biggest product to date. The launch was very problematic due to poor planning, and required massive amounts of hours to get it off the ground. I came in early and worked late for 6 months straight, 7 days a week. I was still trying to find my way and learn the ins and outs, but I knew we had to get it done. It was crazy and I loved every minute of it! The day we shipped the product was the proudest of my career."

I want to hire this guy now! (But that information isn't on his resume either.)

My job is to instill that personality into his resume, so that readers have the same reaction you had when you read those quotes. Your job is to look at the resume you're using, and ask yourself if it really communicates what makes you unique and valuable. If not, inject some personality!

(If you need help, sign up for the resume writing course on the left-hand side of the page.)

Free Job Search Help

As regular readers may know, in addition to this blog, I also manage and edit Career Hub, a group blog that brings together some of the best minds in job search, recruitment and career marketing.

Today, I'm excited to announce the release of our very first eBook .. and it's completely free.

"The Insider's Guide to Job Search" features in-depth job search advice from 17 career marketing experts, and you can download it here.

Please feel free to share the book with others. And tell us what you think, either by email or in the comments. We plan to issue more free eBooks and your feedback will help us make them as useful as possible.

Research Potential Employers

David Schepp interviewed me last week for his Journal News column, Job Seekers Know Thy Interviewer. This is one of my favorite subjects because knowing the companies you are targeting is one of the surest ways to ensure success in your search.

As I discussed the other day, understanding your target employers allows you to focus your resume and get results. But as David's column shows, it also allows you to impress interviewers with your knowledge of the company.

And I'll go one step further - it allows you to rule out companies that are just not right for you. Job search should not be about getting a job so much as about finding the right job. We've all had jobs we wish we hadn't taken and I don't know about you, but if I look back, I can see that I should have known before I took the job. There were clear warning signs, but I chose to ignore them because I was focused on getting the job.

For example, there was the time I went to interview for an HR Director position and the CEO interviewing me said "tell me about ... well, whatever it is you HR types do all day."

You're probably thinking I must have been a fool to take that job - maybe so. But the job was in a beautiful building, with a company that paid really well and gave great employee benefits, in an up and coming industry that was lots of fun. Once I saw the beautiful office I would be moving into, it was easy to rationalize the CEO's lack of interest in HR by telling myself that I wouldn't be reporting to him anyway, and that I'd be able to show him the value of my work once I started.

That mistake cost me three very unhappy years. If I had done some research into the company before my interview, I would have known that the salaries were so high because they had trouble keeping people. I would have known that they were not respected in the industry, that they didn't pay their bills on time, that managers routinely screamed at their employees because the CEO routinely screamed at them. I would have known that the beautiful furniture and expensive italian tiled floors reflected bad priorities on the part of management. And I would never have taken that job.

So researching potential employers is not only a way to make a good impression, it's a way to ensure you find the job that's right for you.

Focus, Focus, Focus!

This week brought evidence of the value of a clear resume focus.

I worked with a client who wanted to leave one industry and move into a very different one. The work would be the same and the two industries actually have a lot in common once you understand how they work, but you wouldn't know that on the surface.

Luckily for me, this client knew not only the field he wanted to work in, but also the specific company he was targeting. He gave me the website URL and links to to some of their media coverage.

Once I understood their strategy and their organizational values, it was easy to position my client effectively, and show them why they should pay attention to him.

Yesterday, he dropped me a note to let me know that the President of the company contacted him within 2 hours of receiving his resume, and he has a series of interviews scheduled for next week.

Of course, it's not always possible to focus quite this intently on just one company, but the lesson is clear - if you understand your target audience, you have a very good shot at crafting a message that resonates with them. And if you're applying for a specific position, there's no reason not to adjust your resume to appeal to that company.

The End of Resume Spin

The Internet has changed everything about marketing because it gives power to the consumer. The cable company can advertise their great service all day long, but one customer can ruin it all by posting a video on Youtube. Sites like Youtube, Flickr and MySpace, along with blogs and forums allow consumers to find the truth, so that it's no longer enough for Chase Manhattan to claim "the right relationship is everything" - they actually have to do the work of building the right relationship. (So far all evidence is that they don't mean what they say. It just sounded good in a marketing meeting.)

The same is happening in job search. You can say what you want on your beautifully presented, well-written resume - if a Web search of your name brings up damaging information, then you can kiss that great job goodbye. And what happens if you don't appear in a Web search? At all. Do you exist?

People are looking for you online - recruiters, HR Managers, potential business partners, new friends, new bosses, colleagues, clients, even people who don't like you very much! And the number of people using Web search to research other people is rapidly increasing every day.

The good news is that this shift helps the good guys. It rewards those who really are out there making a difference. If you take a leadership role in your industry or field, you will leave a trail on the Web. And this doesn't just apply to senior-level executives. I recently wrote a resume for a young guy who was looking to get into video game programming at the entry level. Although he didn't have direct work experience, he had lots of evidence of his passion in the form of articles he had written for web publications and volunteer work he was doing as an Internet forum moderator. Because of this, the Internet helped him to tell his story.

When I started my resume writing business, life was much easier. I knew that the resume I wrote would be the only information employers had about my client before the interviewed him. And after the interview they would call the references provided by the client, who of course would validate his story. Now, the resume and the references are just one piece of the puzzle, and as more and more recruiters move to online research, their importance will shrink.

If you are serious about your career - whether or not you are looking for work right now - this means that you MUST start building a positive Internet presence. Not by "spinning" (see: Manhattan, Chase), but by actually taking an active role in your field or industry. By writing a blog about your area of expertise. Or by joining an internet forum centered on your profession and then helping others who have questions. Or by writing articles for publication on industry websites. Or by maximizing your LinkedIn presence. Or by any number of other ways available to you because of the Internet.

Use any of them, use all of them, just don't let the opportunity pass you by.