The No-Juice Resume

Dear Liz,

My resume is workmanlike. It describes where I've worked, but there's no juice in it. I can't get excited about it, so why should anyone else give it a second glance? I can tell you about the jobs I've held, but I can't give you a succinct explanation of what I do now or how my career fits together into a cohesive -- well, a  cohesive anything. Where do I start?

Thanks,

Jamie


Dear Jamie,


In the past, we used to write a resume cold - just the facts, Ma'am. A resume didn't need any juice or personality. We knew the facts of our own work history, of course, and once we got those committed to paper we were pretty much done with the project. Today, writing a resume and creating a job-search/professional brand are intertwined. Until we know where we're headed, and how the work we've already done (together with our passions and interests) fits into that career direction, we can't write a resume. If we try, we'll end up with a juiceless resume like the one you're describing.


A good resume has a Point on the Arrow - it tells the reader exactly where you're headed, why you've chosen that path, and how your background equips you beautifully for the course you've set for yourself.


Your brand works the same way. Once you understand how your history and your present state impel you in a certain direction, you can speak with power and authority about what you do, in live conversations, in your LinkedIn profile, in interviews and anywhere you interact with other people. If you're in a reactive mode, answering the question "What do you do?" with, "Well, I've done some marketing, and I worked in a real estate office...." then your brand is juiceless, as well as your resume. We don't want you to be in that state!


We are launching two online courses on July 1, "Build Your Personal Brand" and "Put a Human Voice in Your Resume." Each online course contains twenty practical lessons. The lessons are delivered to you (one lesson per weekday throughout the month) via email. Each lesson contains an exercise to move you closer to a vibrant, clear professional brand and a strong Human-Voiced Resume! 


Midway through the program, on July 21, everyone participating in the two courses will gather for a live, virtual coaching session with me. 


Details on our two online courses are here:


TWO ONLINE COURSES LAUNCHING JULY 1:


Questions? Please write to Jackie Marrinan at jackie@asklizryan.com


Hope to see you in the class, Jamie! 


Best,




Liz

Going back to my old career?

Dear Liz,


I have been applying for jobs that I last held 12 years ago. I had 17 years
experience in this field when I stopped.

I stopped working in this field due to the birth of my first child. Then a
second child came and then when I returned to the workforce, I utilized my field
knowledge in the insurance side of things.

I am not getting any calls for these hand delivered resumes and cover letters. I
have gone back and gotten the necessary licenses and certifications for this
field, yet I am sure once the resume is reviewed, the doctor sees that I was in
insurance for the last 10 years and assumes my technical skills necessary for
this healthcare field are rusty, so they don't call.

How can I represent myself as someone who wants to return to the field and show
them I can do it, it is just like riding a bike, I did it for 17 years
previously and that I was darned good at it.

Please advise and thank you

------------------- NOTE FROM LIZ:------------------------

Dear Nan,

You will re-write your resume so that it doesn't just list your job titles and
years of employment, but it creates a philosophical and linguistic frame that
makes it instantly, abundantly clear to the hiring manager that s/he needs to
talk with you. We will take the buyer's (the hiring manager's) perspective and
use the resume to talk about what's most important to him or her. We can start
by finding the relevance of your insurance work to the pain the doctor is
feeling now -- the reason for the current opening, in other words.

Can you take a stab at answering the question "How did those ten years in
insurance make me a better candidate for this job today than someone who lacks
my experience?"

Thanks! Liz

Make the job interview about the pain

Dear Liz,

I don't mind interviewing with an HR screener, it's the hiring manager meetings that spook me. Any tips?

Thanks,

Valerya

LIZ REPLIES:

Dear Valerya,

Congratulations! If you are sailing through screening interviews, you are ahead of the game. For many people, the hiring-manager interview is easier, because you and the hiring manager already have something in common (you both work on the same kinds of problems).

The HR screening interview is hard for a lot of folks because in that situation, you don't typically have business pain to anchor the conversation. It is easy for the discussion to devolve into a "so, do you have skill X? What about a Y and Z?" type of deal.

Once you get to the hiring manager, you can use the pain-spotting approach to zero in on what's most pressing about the job opening the manager is looking to fill. What isn't working? What are the stakes, in other words?

Here's how that could go:

HIM: So Valerie - uh, Valya - um, how do you pronounce your name exactly?
YOU: It's Val-LEE-ree-ya; it gets easier once you say it a couple of times.

HIM: Thanks, okay, Valerya, can you tell me about yourself?

YOU: For sure! I've been in the field for about ten years, and... gee, I don't
want to keep you here 'til midnight; can I ask you a couple of quick questions
in order to tailor my comments?

HIM: Shoot.

Read the full story here.

Online Courses Launching!

Dear folks,

We've just launched our first two online courses, "Put a Human

Voice in Your Resume" and "Build Your Personal Brand." 

Both online courses begin on July 1,
2010 (but if you can't wait to begin the course(s) with the

group on July 1, we can get you the course materials now!).

In each course, participants will receive a daily 

(five days per week - you get
the weekends off) lesson that will include a how-to article 

plus an assignment.
You'll work at your own pace, completing the lessons as they

arrive each day or
tackling a bunch of them at a time. Midway through the program, 

on Wednesday,
July 21, 2010, we'll hold a live group coaching session for

course participants.
I will lead that session, and share tips and answer questions about both
Human-Voiced Resume-Writing and Building Your Personal Brand.

I hope you can join us! Whether you're job-hunting or not, 

I predict you'll have
fun and get clearer about your professional brand working 

through these courses
with us.

The cost for each course is $129; both courses purchased 

at the same time cost
$199. We are excited about getting lots more of our members 

on board with their
Human-Voiced Resumes and their Personal Brands via these

two online courses.

If you sign up for either course or both of them before 

June 1, you'll also
receive my Super-E-book, "Ask Liz Ryan Job Search Essentials," 

for free. (The
E-book is sold for $49.99 on my website.)

Questions? Please write to me.

To Register for our Career Altitude Online courses 

"Put a Human Voice in Your
Resume" and/or "Build Your Personal Brand," 

please jump here.


Best -- Liz

I Wonder How She Dresses Herself?

LIZ RYAN: I wonder how she dresses herself?

I've worked around women forever, and nearly every one of the working women I've
met has seemed competent on the surface. These gals go to meetings, write
reports, and make and sell stuff all day long. They seem to know what they're
doing.

That's why it's surprising to pop into any bookstore and scan the shelf of books
devoted to helping women fix themselves. They have to fix themselves, you see,
in order to succeed at work.

It's astonishing to scan these books and realize how messed-up women actually
are. I had no idea women were so incompetent, until I visited the bookstore.

Here is a book that tells women how to negotiate, because their moms never
taught them that. Here is another book that teaches women how to communicate, to
act like a man, or to overcome their fear.

It's fascinating that men are so naturally equipped to excel in the working
world, where women are so obviously lacking. Women have babies and raise them
and grow crops and tend animals and run businesses all over the world. I don't
know how they do it.

Defects and all, they try! They get up every morning and dress themselves too,
and remember to brush their teeth. They get driver's licenses, despite their
natural handicaps. We have to give women credit for working so hard to overcome
the lousy hand that nature has dealt them.

I have yet to see a book that seeks to teach men how to get through the workday.
Men have the right stuff, I guess. That's a lucky break for them. Women need a
slew of books just to survive, much less thrive, in the office. That's the
impression I got visiting the bookstore, anyway.

I was thinking about this problem the other day, and I had a notion. I may be
crazy or just really badly informed, but I wonder: Is it possible that the
reason men are so perfectly suited to the business world is that it was built in
their image?

I mean, the stereotypical guy has one of those hierarchical, logical brains, and
from what I can see the business world loves brains like that. Some women -- and
a lot of men, too -- have brains that don't fit that linear/analytical mold.

I wonder if stereotypical men fit so well into the working world because they
made it? Now, I may be all wet here. For starters, I'm a woman, so my ideas are
naturally suspect. I'm just sayin'.

Could it be that the time-honored, hierarchical, rule-bound workplace is
actually the problem? Could it be past its prime, ready for an overhaul, or just
plain played out? And could those pesky not-naturally-equipped women actually be
canaries in the coal mine? Could it be that the working world itself is broken?

I'm just thinking out loud here. Maybe people weren't meant to work this way,
and maybe people of both genders aren't willing or intended to squash themselves
into tiny boxes just to keep a job or please a fear-based manager. Are all those
'woman, fix thyself' books perhaps a fearful reaction to the power that women
begin to show (and men, too) at work when they act like themselves?

Sounds crazy, I know.

Don't Suck the Juice out of Your Career

Liz Ryan: Don`t suck the juice out of your career

I dreamed about Albert Einstein the other night. I dreamed I was reading dear
Albert`s resume, and it said ...
"Results-oriented scientist, researcher and author with a broad range of
experience in cosmology, astrophysics and related areas. Extensive background in
laboratory research, mathematical computation, writing and lecturing."

In my nightmare, one of the most exciting people ever to grace our planet was
reduced to a boring, lifeless shell on paper. If it could happen to Albert
Einstein, it could happen to you!

We pick up bad habits over time, but we can break them. Our moms got us to stop
biting our nails (most of us, anyway). We can stop describing ourselves in
soporific terms, and bring a little color and spark back into our resumes.

The weirdest thing about prevailing resume dogma is that it encourages us to
tell the reader everything he or she needs to know about what we`ve done so far
in our careers - everything except the punchline! A typical resume, for
instance, will include a bullet like this one:

"Answered calls for salespeople, created sales reports, and resolved sales order
discrepancies."

This resume bullet and the 10 million resume bullets like it leave me feeling
like a character on "Seinfeld" during the famous "Yada Yada" episode, where the
most important details of every story are glossed over with an airy "Yada yada"
in place of the deets.

We want the story! Why were those salespeople calling you? What did you tell
them? What good did it do, when you shared that information? What bad thing
would have happened if you hadn`t answered the phone? Who read those sales
reports, and what did s/he do with the information?

You get the idea.

Keep the blood and guts in your resume. Tell us not only what you did in each
job you held, but why. Tell us who cared, and tell us why that person cared
enough to put you on Task A or Project X rather than something else entirely.
Tell us why your work mattered to your employer, and why it mattered to you.

Give us a reason to care, too.

Read the full story here.

Put Your Accomplishments in Context

Dear Liz,

I like how you are teaching us to view our career histories differently and more creatively. I never liked saying on my resume that I have seven years of progressively more responsible blah blah blah. But I am stuck when it comes to listing exciting accomplishments. I have done mostly staff assignments in HR and Benefits where I pretty much did the same thing all day. I resolved Benefits issues for employees and created reports and sat in meetings and worked on projects related to cost allocation and vendor quality. How would I make these tasks more exciting in an accomplishment-focused resume?

Thanks,

Tamara

__________________________________________

Dear Tamara,

We have picked up a lot of useless ideas (I call them barnacles) during our years as corporate Joes and Sallies. One of the worst, most hard-to-shake barnacles is the notion of describing our work histories sideways. What do I mean by that? Let’s think about it this way.

Employers want to know that when we encounter a problem or a hill to be climbed, we’ll have the will and the skill to surmount the challenge. They want to know that when we’re confronted with a vexing and unfamiliar puzzle, we’ll jump into action, gather the information we need, and go to work. They want to know that we understand the impact of our work, that we make thoughtful decisions as we devise an attack plan, and that we understand the consequences of our actions.

These are reasonable expectations on an employer’s part.

So why is it that when we’re taught how to write a resume, we’re advised to leave out the most important information, namely, the context for our actions in the past?

Read the full story and leave a comment here