blueskyresumesblog

The Value-Added Resume

Last week I wrote about my concerns with the idea of "personal branding" - my feeling that it focuses people on the wrong things - having them look inward rather than outward. So this week I wanted to talk a little bit more about my preferred approach - what I call the value-based approach to job search.

The idea is to determine what unique value you have to offer that the market needs. The important concept here is the second part of that statement. You have lots of things to offer - you might make a mean vegan curry and be able to raise one eyebrow but not the other - but if the market doesn't need those particular skills, you won't get a great response when highlighting them on your resume ;-)

This means you have to decide exactly what you want to do before writing an effective resume. You simply can't write a resume that grabs attention if you don't understand the concerns of the person reading your resume. And you can't understand their concerns if you don't know who they are. So targeting a position clearly is step one.

I love it when my clients can tell me exactly which position they want because I know I can push all the right buttons to get them there. But usually, you won't know the exact job - you just have to know what it would look like (for example "I want to be a marketing manager in a company that sells youth-oriented products. It has to be fast-paced and small to medium sized as I don't work well in big corporations.")

This type of targeting helps you address every word of your resume to appeal to the type of hiring managers who work in companies like this.

But it's not enough to throw a bunch of generic buzz words at the wall and hope that will open doors. You have to show how your unique combination of skills, experiences and personality traits mean that you will add value to that type of company.

This means you need to think back over all the times you have added value in the past. (Ask yourself 'what would be different at XYZ if they had never hired me?') Then determine the common theme that runs through those experiences.

In my past life as an HR executive, the theme that ran through my career was aligning HR with business goals. I was always the person who came in and turned HR from a "no" function to a "yes" function - one that supported the business goals and helped move the business forward. This usually meant replacing some people, changing a lot of policies and developing an entire new strategy for the HR function, and it was this that was my value-added.

Knowing your value-add abilities allows you to decide on a resume structure and on what to include (and what to leave out). You've done a lot of different stuff in your career but you don't have to include it all. Just focus on the stuff that communicates your value-added.

Do They Care About Your Personal Brand?

An interesting post at The Buzz Bin touched on some issues I've been thinking about for a while. In "I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand,' Geoff Livingston outlines why he opposes the idea of developing a personal brand. His post is aimed at people working in the online space, but his points apply to anyone. You should read the whole thing, but this is the part that caught my eye:

3) While personal brands are concerned with themselves, the market is also concerned about itself.

4) The market doesn’t care about the persona, only what value the persona contributes to the larger community.

This gets to the core of why I have never jumped on the personal branding bandwagon, despite having flirted with the idea for a while. In the end, I'm much less interested in having my clients focus on their 'brand' than on the value they can add to potential employers. Value-added is simple, direct and focused on the employer. Personal branding is something broader (to be sure value-added is a part of it, but not the only part) and seems to me much more focused on the individual.

In order to pinpoint a client's value proposition (exactly how he or she will help the company succeed) I  use many of the same approaches as a personal branding consultant, but the focus is different - not the self-indulgence of me (the candidate) but the outward focus of they (the employer).

For a long time, I attributed my reluctance to jump on the personal branding train as something related to my background. As a Brit, I'm always a little uncomfortable with anything that smacks of taking oneself too seriously. But after reading Geoff's post, I see that it's not just that.

It's this:

24) A personality oriented brand does not necessarily equate to successful results.

It's the fact that results (and actions) matter. Results and actions tell me what you will do for me. Results and actions tell me whether or not you will add value to my organization. Results and actions show me who you are much more effectively than any carefully crafted public image.

I know that many of my colleagues disagree, but for me, a focus on results will always be more effective than a focus on brand. After all, all products and services have brands, but how many of them deliver what they promise?

My personal favorite is my bank Chase, who tell me that 'the right relationship is everything' and then constantly leave me on hold for hours while they try to figure out why my online banking has gone awry one more time, leaving me yelling "THIS ISN'T THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP!!!" as my blood pressure soars once again.  (But they do send me the occasional Starbucks gift certificate, with a very nice message about how much they value my custom, so I guess that makes it all OK).

I can't help wondering how much better they would be if they stopped spending money on branding experts and fancy loyalty programs and instead invested that money in actually adding value to my life.

And in the end, that's my point. Instead of worrying about personal brands, I think people need to think about results and value-added. In some cases, with the right candidate and the right personal branding coach, maybe the two things converge anyway - but if you have delivered great results and made a big impact on prior employers, you really don't need to worry about packaging it in a nice brand message. It will be obvious to everyone.

And if you haven't, well a nice brand message isn't going to help you for very long.

A Lesson From Katie Couric

After years of success on the Today Show, Katie Couric's move to anchor the CBS Nightly News was heralded as an exciting new chapter in her career - but low ratings soon started rumors that she'd be ousted. Now, fresh from her infamous interviews with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Couric's stock is rising again.

Last night I came across an article on Couric, and found this section especially interesting:

Her interviews with Palin ultimately served as a reminder not only to her viewers but also to her bosses of what helped make her such a star when she was on NBC's 'Today'

"For a while I was told really not to do any interviews on the show, which is of course what I love to do," she said, suggesting that the network feared taking precious time from the news of the day. "That wasn't, in my mind, using me to my full advantage."

It's just such a reminder that getting the great job with the great salary isn't the be all and end all. Not if the people who hire you don't understand your value, or have plans that are not in your best interests.

Which really does mean that you have to (a) know who you are and (b) vet potential employers to make sure they plan to use your strengths.

Who knows, maybe Katie Couric would have signed up anyway - the money must have been pretty tempting! But if you're not being offered a multi-million dollar contract, you might want to learn from Katie's mistake.

What Does Google Say About You?

I'm working on a short ebook teaching people how to build a positive online presence, so I was interested to see this post at JobMob ("4 Things to Know and Do Before Employers Google Your Name"). According to a recent survey, these are

Information about alcohol or drug use (41% of managers said this was a top concern)
Inappropriate photos or information posted on a candidate’s page (40%)
Poor communication skills (29%)
Bad-mouthing of former employers or fellow employees (28%)
Inaccurate qualifications (27%)
Unprofessional screen names (22%)
Notes showing links to criminal behavior (21%)
Confidential information about past employers (19%)

The post goes on to explain how you can start to clean up your profile if need be. Read the whole thing.

I am giving similar advice in my eBook because it's amazing how many people don't know what their online profile currently says about them.

Google yourself and see what comes up. Is it all positive? Are there things that your friends would find amusing but an employer less so? Or maybe worse ... is there no mention of you?

It's no longer enough to describe yourself in glowing terms in your resume and make a great impression at the interview. Now employers are able to check for themselves just by typing your name into a search engine. Even a series of great references can't innoculate you from the power of a Google search.

So first, clean up anything that might hurt your chances of an interview. And second, start to build a strong web presence that demonstrates all the good things about you.

(If you'd like to be alerted when my eBook is available, just sign up for my newsletter. I never send spam. Alternately, subscribe to email alerts from this blog by filling in the box on the top right of the page.)

Beating the Computerized Systems

A reader writes:

I recently bought your book and reworked my resume per your excellent suggestions.  I thought all of your advice was spot on.  Here's my question: I submitted my resume thru a design firms web portal for the position of Director - Client Partner. (Known in my parlance as Account Management)  I was shocked to see that my resume didn't match with that position...instead it got a score of 609 as a match to Jr. Creative Director.  I'm quite sure an actual human would see that 90% of my resume matches with the job description in the listing. 

With so many sites running some program before a human being will look at your resume (Itzbig is prime example), I'm flummoxed.  Should I take exact words from the listing so I get higher match scores, or should I just not worry about it too much?  I'm in a smaller market (Austin), but if the computer program is not matching my actual skills and experience, what can I do to get a higher matching score?

This is really a two-part answer. The first is YES! If the company is using a computerized screening system, then that system can only screen resumes in one of two ways. It will either ask you a series of questions which are designed to screen out non-qualified candidates OR it will scan your resume for keywords to see whether you match the position.

Therefore, it's critical to include the keywords from the job description in your resume. Don't just add a section for keywords - this will annoy the humans who eventually see your resume. Instead, scatter them throughout the document as part of the resume text.

One important caveat: Do not say anything that's not true. If you don't match the qualifications, the job isn't for you.

The second part of my answer is that, wherever possible, you must do more than simply submit your resume to the computer system and wait to hear back. These systems are just not a reliable way of finding the best candidate. (What they are is a time saver for harried HR departments.)

So, submit your keyword-filled resume, and the start doing some research to find out how you can reach a real person at that company. Try to find managers in the department you're applying to. Start with a site like LinkedIn. you'll have to be a member to contact people, but the site allows you to search by company name and then use your own network to make contact with the employees you find there.

You can also check the company's website and Google to find the names of staff members in the department you want to work in. They key is to find the name and email/mailing address of a real person and then submit your resume to that person with an enthusiastic cover letter explaining that you are so excited about the opportunity, you didn't want to leave anything to chance.

By employing both these strategies, you will greatly increase your chances of success.

To Thine Own Self Be True

We’ve all heard that phrase a thousand times and we know all that it’s good life advice, and yet, when it comes to marketing ourselves, it’s often a lesson that we forget.

I can’t tell you how many senior executive resumes sound exactly alike. Filled with words like ‘results-focused leader’ and “high-energy executive” - everyone is “dynamic” and ‘proven’ and ‘experienced.’  After reading the same thing 30 times, everyone starts to blur together.

Which is really crazy! Because you are totally unique. You have something that no other candidate has. You will add value in a different way. And yet I am willing to bet that your resume doesn’t express  that unique value.

I speak from experience, because for years, I didn’t know how to express my value either. When I first started my resume writing business, I wasn’t sure who my target audience was and why they should choose my company. As the business grew, I started to figure out my unique value (I have prior HR and recruiting experience, which means I know how to get the attention of HR and recruiters). As I figured this out, my marketing messages became clearer. But I still knew I wasn’t getting to the bottom of what made my business different. And very recently, I was hit over the head with the realization that we have a very obvious selling point – we’ve had it all along but I just took it for granted.

It happened this way. One day, I received a request for proposal from a person in the UK. We don’t write resumes for the UK because frankly I have no idea what works there, so I wrote back to the person and politely declined the project. The same day, I also declined a project from a teacher because no one on my staff has expertise in writing resumes for teachers. The next morning, I had emails from both potential clients thanking me for my honesty and for not just taking their money regardless of whether I could provide excellent results.

And it hit me that we do that all the time – we only take on clients I know we can help. On the rare occasions that we misjudge and don’t get results, we refund money.  Our whole business is built around trust – trust that our resumes get results, and trust that we will treat people fairly. And our resume writing process is also base on honesty – we don’t ‘sell’ what people are not – we help them communicate their authentic unique value.  And yet our branding has never reflected that – at least not as a conscious effort. It should!

If you’re like me, you see other people much more clearly than you see yourself. So when it comes to marketing yourself, you probably fall back on platitudes, or standard ideas of what a good executive does. And the resulting resume is probably flat and boring and not at all reflective of what makes you YOU.

Here are a couple of ways you can fix that right now.

1. Think back to compliments you’ve received from bosses, co-workers or clients. What do they say abut you? What words do they choose? Don’t get stuck on what YOU think ... in fact, forget that for now. Just focus on what other people say.

2. Looking back over your career, what themes keep re-emerging? Are you always the person brought in to tackle the most challenging problems? Or have you always found new ways to cut costs?

3. What is your management philosophy? Write it down – don’t worry about spelling or grammar or finding the perfect words – just write whatever comes into your head.

Reviewing all this information will help you determine the answer to the most important question of all: “what make you unique?”

Once you have that answer, you can rewrite your resume, you can prepare for interviews and you can create your ‘elevator pitch.’ All based not on what executives are ‘supposed to be like’ but on who you really are.

Half Right ... Half Wrong

Seth Godin is one of my favorite bloggers and but in this post about resumes, he's only 50% right.

Seth's looking for an intern and he doesn't like the resumes he's seeing. They're bland and boring and they don't tell him why these candidates are remarkable. Well, that means they're like 99.9% of all resumes out there (which is why people like me get paid to write the other 0.1%).

Seth goes on to say that he wants evidence of what makes a person remarkable.

If you don't have a resume, what do you have?

How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?

Some say, "well, that's fine, but I don't have those."

Yeah, that's my point. If you don't have those, why do you think you are  remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular? It sounds to me like if you don't have those, you've been brainwashed into acting like you're sort of ordinary.

I absolutely agree that those things are important - that's why I often include glowing LinkedIn testimonials when I write resumes. It's why I advocate for those clients who are good writers to start blogging. It's why I create only portfolios where people can show off their extraordinary work.

That's the 50% that's right.

But it's wrong to advocate for people to scrap the whole idea of a resume, just because the resumes they are writing are ineffective.  For better or worse, almost all hiring managers want to see a resume. Seth might not, but he's unusual and most people won't thank you for mailing in 3 reference letters and a blog URL when they asked for a resume. It'll just make you look like you're too stupid to follow instructions!

Instead, you should look for ways to communicate all those great things that make you special via your resume. You should include quotes from former managers (or peers or employees or clients). You should post the link to your blog and/or Squidoo page and/or web portfolio. You should focus the entire resume on showing how you have made an impact at former employers, how you've shaken things up, what you've contributed ... above all, how each company is different because you worked there.

It's not the resume that's the problem - it's what's on the resume that Seth doesn't like.

The Right Way to Use the Web

I often talk about the ways in which the Web is changing job search, but I don't think I've ever seen a better example than Tijs Vrolix, a Belgian web developer who is currently looking for work.

Tijs is asking site visitors to help him find a job by letting him know of any vacancies that might suit him. In exchange, he's awarding an iPod Shuffle to the person who ultimately helps him find a new job.

So instead of just relying on his own contacts, and on the jobs he finds himself, he now has hundreds of people searching on his behalf. And because his site is elegantly designed, he's also showcasing his web design skills at the same time.

This really is personal marketing at its very best and I hope it's inspiring to anyone who's frustrated with applying to online ads and rarely receiving a response. Take some time to brainstorm ways you could use the web for more than just posting a resume.

Don't Stand in the Doorways Don't Block up the Halls

Morgan Stanley's contest to choose an Intern (part of the "Ultimate Internship Contest") brings home just how much Youtube and sites like it have the potential to change job search.

Let's face it, a resume is a highly imperfect way for a company to choose whether you are the right candidate. A resume tells the employer more about your writing skills and ability to sell yourself than it does about your ability to do the job. So it's not surprising that companies and job seekers would explore other means of making a match.

Now Morgan Stanley, along with other major companies such as The Gap, Yahoo! and NBC, is running a contest to select an intern based on videos they submit. You can watch the videos here.

Now, I hate being filmed. I hate the way I look. I hate the way my voice sounds. I avoid cameras like the plague, sometimes trampling women and children to avoid having my picture taken, so my initial reaction to the idea of using videos for job applications goes something like this:

"It'll never work because video resumes will favor people who look and sound good on video, not necessarily people who are best for the job."

Sound familiar?

The Internet is changing everything (my mantra these days!) and video resumes are just an example of that. And there's never any point of standing in the way of change - it's inevitable that people will start to use video to communicate with potential employers.

That said, I think the question for you as a job seeker is whether video will work for you. Are you comfortable on camera? Can you be engaging or funny or thought-provoking? Can you impress other people with your presence? If so, why not incorporate video into your job search now? Sites like Youtube and Gofish make it possible for anyone to create a video message for potential employers.

If you're like me, and you're pretty sure that a video would be hurtful to your job search, don't go there! But take the video idea and run with it. How else can you leverage the new web 2.0 sites to improve your job search? Perhaps you could do something with Squidoo? Or MySpace? Perhaps you could use a photo site like Fickr to create an impressive slideshow that tells a story of your career.

The times they are definitely a' changin' and you can win if you figure out a way to capitalize on that change.

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.