Why you’re not a resume to a cold audience
“It’s not about who you know, as much as it’s about who you don’t know, that leads us to new insights and discovery.” (Quote unknown)
If you have business experiences unrelated to your regular job, can you include this as something you actually learned — that your regular day job failed to teach you — on your resume? My resume has gaps where I’ve taken the time to watch lynda.com videos, veg out on multiple podcasts, and read and follow countless business leaders.
Most importantly, I believe it’s what we do with the information that counts.
When we get opportunities to intern somewhere, or take a job and have to learn quickly, some of us are sometimes untrainable. We want to learn things on our own because sometimes learning something meaningful takes active thought, patience, and time. Getting “playing time,” with our new learnings’ is where I think the magic happens.
On these projects, I made no money, but I learned more than being a subservient, coffee running intern — testing business ideas, on my own time, with little to no resources.
For example, building and creating content for personas can be a massive waste of time and money. If you’re a start-up you might run the risk of shooting from the hip, failing fast — or you might be too deep in the numbers and delusional. If you’re already an established business you might run the risk of not reflecting or innovating with new ideas.
What’s worse, we are all flooded with all this commonplace marketing advice: “spend half your budget because these testimonials were successful with our product/service, and therefore they will work for you.” Moreover, I get that I probably am not the audience with 100s of thousands of dollars to blow, nor am I the audience for cheaper products/services — because I need to pay for my $30 dollar phone bill and bus pass, and save for the uncertainty of being unemployed for a year.
I know what it’s like to have over a quarter-million dollar budget and little to no budget at all.
Whether you have a college degree or not, Neil Patel recommends that sometimes we need to put down the idea of buying another business book to give ourselves confidence. Why?
Because — It would be a mistake for me as a job seeker to not seem too confident, about my resume, especially if it was in past job roles I didn’t get challenged in per se. I was challenged seeking knowledge and wisdom outside my resume. (Does a wise man admit he’s wise? Lack of better word — you get the point.)
Sometimes I’m over-confident. And sometimes I’m mucho over-confident — that I over promise and under deliver; some of my friends’ under-promise and over-deliver. This is when I break out the Tums bottle, trying to stomach being called out as a fraud; and if you’re the under-promising person you might feel like you didn’t gain as much experience as you feel you need.
Nevertheless, if you’re on the job hunt, I have a soft spot for you. There are many types of scary in this scenario: you are overwhelmed with college debt and overqualified with not enough experience, or you’re trying to avoid going through a divorce; maybe you’re burning through your savings account, and have loads of experience making the same mistakes all the time; or perhaps, maybe, you were let go or jumped ship from a corrosive business environment that wasn’t beneficial to your overall goals, and purpose in life. In a word, you feel stultified — and your health is suffering because of this.
Turning a 360 and putting ourselves in the hiring manager’s shoes can be a challenge. There’s no real constructive feedback on what you can improve on. In other words, they don’t liberally divulge as to why you weren’t the right candidate.
If you were to ask a hiring manager what leadership is, they’ll likely say something generic, such as: “A leader is hardworking, smart, committed, resilient, great with our customers, empowers the team, manages conflict well, a great communicator.” But why do candidates that display this on their resumes fall short of getting the job? How is someone trying to rise through your company supposed to identify risks and opportunities, when a company is stuck in its ways of doing business?
Why doesn’t the leadership in some organizations and cults LISTEN?
We want to make strategic recommendations — and not merely give out our cute opinions.
What does a productive interview look like?
The candidate thinks, “I’m hiding that I’m desperate for this job.”
The hiring manager thinks, “I’m exhausted — I really need to fill this job.”
The likely outcome: the candidate says what he/she thinks will get them hired. They’re not actively listening — nor telling the truth. Job candidates know that they need to turn-up the strategic bullshit to get the job. We might lie to ourselves about what we’re seeking, and to the interviewer to get the job.
In reality, the hiring manager stops listening. They don’t care that you went out of your way to learn new things, as an act of passion. They’re clueing into unstated hints about what we’re really like.
They shift focus and stop caring about your marketing abilities. They want to envision results. They want to envision sales.
This is the where I feel like I have to make a serious decision: do I cobble together little wins that in reality won’t move the needle for their business, because I’m coming from B to B wins — not B to C success on social media. Or do I tell them the truth: I’ve been failing for 10 years! And each failure has only brought me closer to skepticism and cynicism.
The climax of the interview ends with both of us being skeptical — anticipating lunch.
In the words of Seth Godin, in a situation like this:
“No one is acting badly here. Cognitive dissonance is real, and the hope is that once in the new role, the hired person will grow to love it. And no job is static, and the hope is that with the earnest and generous work of the hired person, the role will get better.
But…
We could all save a lot of time and energy if we could figure out a way to find an actual fit.
One person thinks, “I have room in my career for just a dozen jobs. Is this one worthy?”
And the other realizes, “We could outsource this work, but we’re going to keep it in-house if we find the right match.”
How do we know when we’re the Right Match?
Is having a great career a matter of luck? If you work hard will you have at the very least a good career? What if your purpose and passion changes? What if you desire to help people only to find out later that they don’t want to be helped — or help themselves? How do you find out what is actually going to suit you?
These are all questions I know hiring managers are skeptical about when hiring the right person.
I believe it’s all about what motivates us and makes a meaningful impact on our employer. It’s a two-way street when it comes to being the right fit. Some of us are motivated by money, so we can enjoy our social life; and others are motivated by the job itself — or if you’re lucky, a combination of the two.
In my past experiences, there were one of 4 things that frustrated me: the job role, the organization, the sector, or the team. Let’s be honest, there’s no such thing as the perfect company — that ignites our passions, pays us appropriately, challenges us in meaningful ways, with no rotten Apple-employees waiting for the weekend, or that next “greener on the other side” job. After all, work makes up the majority of our lives — why not enjoy aspects that will keep us coming back for more?
Here is a list of things I ask myself about whether or not a job is suitable for me:
— Have I witnessed others truly enjoying what they’re doing, at a job? People and your friends lie: they won’t admit that they do like their job, only because it was better than the last. For example, I know people that answer that “things are good” or “all is well” when in reality they are suffering from a micro-manager on them 8 hours a day. And, I have friends that truly love what they do: they obsess about researching a competitor to help the team they work with grow.
— Across all the subjects in school or experiences with previous jobs, what aspects contributed to the business, and didn’t feel like work? At the current job I have now, I enjoy joking around with the team, and genuinely helping people navigate the unsure waters that insurance companies put them in.
— What topics or subjects do you most like to talk about when you’re not at work? (e.g. society, fashion, sports, education, cars, etc..)
— If money wasn’t the issue: what would you pursue? What aspects would you weave as enjoyable into a future workplace scenario? What are those “great things” besides money or a spouse, that will keep you motivated?
I know already what I want to do, but how do I weave a meaningful network — like, right now!?
I’ll admit this is a hard question for me to answer because I’m in the same boat with most of you. Giving you the right answer would only make me look like a preachy, hypocritical, snake-oil salesman with courses you can buy, through a call-to-action below.
Relationships take time — they can catalyze in a minute, or take years through constant nourishment and rapport.
Moreover, many of us are seeking new challenges. If you’re fortunate to have an understanding boss at the moment, count it as luck that they understand you want to do bigger things with the skills you have. It’s super hard to change careers or transition into new jobs.I get it.
That said, my future career has been the most stressful thing on my mind, for at least a decade. I constantly ask questions like: “how do I know if I should move away from my family to pursue a better paying job?” Or “how do I know if the next job I choose is going to be smoke and mirrors, and I’m going to be left on the street singing Bob Seger songs?”
A Networking Thought Leader I Discovered on Linkedin
Saying that David Burkus provides a lot of value is an understatement. There’s a lot of great advice out there, but Burkus is generous — enough to give a lot of it away for free! (He’s not paying me to recommend theses resources)
— 8 Questions to Ask Someone Other Than “What Do You Do?”
— Friend Of A Friend Workbook
— The Wrong Way to Introduce People Over Email
— Best Networking Tools
— Work Friends Make Us More Productive (Except When They Stress Us Out)
— Former Colleagues Are More Valuable than You Think
Lastly, if you’ve skimmed through this article and nothing resonated with you, please read: “Getting What You Want Won’t Change Your Life” by Ayodeji Awosika His blog is full of great wisdom! (He’s not paying me to recommend him)
Thanks for reading! And if you want to connect, please visit my website and click on your favorite channel you connect on: Twitter, Linkedin, Medium — or send me a good ‘ole fashion email.