Transcript – All About Resumes

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00:00 Welcome back to the Deviant Thinking podcast. I’m your host, Jennifer Thompson, and today and always we will explore career advice that breaks the rules. Well folks, today, it is all about resumes. Yep. Resumes, the thing we dread, the thing that we put off. I actually had a client tell me once that she would rather stand at naked in front of a room of people than show someone her resume. Little extreme. And I get that, but that’s truly how she felt about her resume. So today we’re going to jump in and we are going to talk about: why it’s important to pay attention to your resume? What types of resumes are out there? So, what types of formats can you put together to be interesting? And that’s a really important part of the process. But I want to back up and I want to share that before you even start doing a resume, we have to know why.

01:11 So often I get folks who come to me who are, who are desperate, they say, I need a resume. Can you hurry up and help me put a resume together? I promise you, if you put a resume together without intention, without sitting down and figuring out who you are, what you want to do, and what you want to contribute to the world, you will attract a job that doesn’t align with you. So it is really important to find that a resume is the outcome of some great soul searching as opposed to the input into a job search. So that is my deviant thought for today of just how important it is to create resumes for the right reason and targeting the right focus to really help you align and get a job that you will love. So who is today’s episode for? Well obviously it is for job seekers.

02:20 Anyone out there who is interested in throwing their hat in the ring to a new role that they can really flourish in. But I also want to say that today’s episode can also work for folks that are actually self-employed. I actually get a ton of clients who hire me to work with them and create their story so that they can actually be compelling and talk to others about what they do and what services that they provide. Because while these things sound very different, I want to kind of challenge your thinking, um, for both the job seeker and the self employed person that your resume can become your billboard of what services that you provide and proof that you are really a awesome hire. And that’s the ultimate goal is how do we get you hired and earning a great salary in a role that you love to do.

03:24 And it’s definitely about a role that you love. So let’s dig right in today and talk about what a resume should be. Well, a resume should actually be a confidence builder when you get out your resume and hand it to someone. I believe strongly that you should be so excited to share your resume. And as I talk here, I do want to throw in, when I  say resume, I do mean resume, CV. Bio sheet. Kind of, they take on different names for the different roles, but I’m going to use the word resume kind of generically and kind of encompassing all of those things. And back to what I was saying. So I want for you when you take out your resume and hand it to someone else to be so excited and so proud  of the accomplishments that you’ve had in the past and have a good indication and on your resume of where you’re going in the future and what you could provide for an organization that would help you both flourish, that you can’t wait to share this resume with every one that you know.

04:35 And if today you are not there, that’s okay. That’s what we’re going to talk about. And you know, like I said, many of my clients come to me and they are not in that shape. Like I said, the poor one, one client I had literally said she would rather stand naked in front of a room, than share her resume. So where do you start when you want that great resume? Well, part of the reason that I thought this week would be a great week to talk about resumes is because so many people are going through their year-end process and you know, if it’s a formal year-end process within an organization, maybe you’re doing a review and learning about the things that you’ve accomplished, sharing that and then also kind of coming up with that plan for the next year. If you’re not going through that formal process though, I find so many people do that housekeeping at the end of the year and look back at the year and say, Hmm, what is it that I have done this year?

05:41 So it is a great time to kind of collect those thoughts, remember what you’re doing and really start to build a collection of data that you can work from to create your resume. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself with that because I want to back up and talk about why you want to create a resume. So great resumes move your career forward, they really help you flourish. And I love that word flourish. Um, I use it all the time. If you listen to my podcasts, you’re going to hear it over and over again and flourishing to me is that combination of being happy but also being challenged and allowing yourself to grow in many ways. I am a big believer in the growth mindset and I find my clients are most frustrated with their jobs when they’re not allowing themselves to grow. So that future, thinking about your resume is really, really important because you need to use your resume as a billboard to tell people how you want to grow in the future and what’s going to be a challenge to you in the right way.

07:02 What it’s going to excite you to get up every morning and want to work and want to help contribute to society. So there’s some soul searching in a great resume. It’s really determining that forward looking focus of who it is you want to be a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, and what excitement do you want to bring to the table so that you can be engaged in the work that you do. Right now in the United States, the numbers on engagement for employees. The numbers are dismal folks, and I believe a lot of it is our own fault because we’re picking jobs that we don’t love to do. We’re working for companies that don’t align to our values and our voice. If you’re interested in more information about culture fit and company alignment, be sure to check out my podcast on company culture. I will link to that in the show notes as it’s a great episode that shares how do you, how do you know who you are and and who accompany is and how you can fit.

08:14 But today, again, we’re talking about resumes, but your resume has to reflect who you are so you can attract that great company that has the culture that fits with you. A resume really should be the output of the really simple question of how do I show my credentials and where I’m going so that I can really choose who I want to be when I grow up. So how do you do that? Well, let’s start with some of the basics, right? The first thing we have to do is decide how you want to tell your story and story is so important. It’s also something that if you listened to this podcast, I’m always talking about how you tell your story. Because story is how we use human beings communicate. I have a problem with the applicant tracking systems because they really try to take the humanness out of the hiring process and I believe strongly that we hire human beings.

09:20 We hire people that are going to sit next to us. We hire people that we want to be cheerleaders, we want them to be engaged in our organizations. We hire people we want to be friends with. At the end of the day, we want to enjoy their company going to work. So when we take that humanness out of a resume and stick with just the data, I believe strongly it does not attract job offers that are engaging. And again, I’m going to go back to right now in America, people are not engaged in their jobs. So what can we as individuals do to find jobs that we can be engaged in? So there’s a couple different types of resume. There’s two main types. One is a data-driven resume and that’s kind of in my opinion, the old school resume. It’s about facts and figures and kind of nothing but the facts ma’am type thing where it’s really focused on what you did, what were the numbers, what were the results.

10:27 It doesn’t talk a lot about who you are as an individual, what personality you bring to it, and how you go about creating your success. So I want to challenge you to think differently about resumes because what I see emerging is a human voiced resume. So what’s a human voice resume? Well, a human voice resume, is a resume that allows you to tell your story, right? That’s what’s really important. It has spaces and opportunities for you to tell people about your hope, your dream, your wish of what you want to be contributing in the future. It allows you to not just describe your accomplishments, but tell people how you went about accomplishing that. Giving some of that personality to your resume. So there’s big difference between the two. And I think you can tell just by the conversation, which one I am a big advocate for and I’m a big advocate for (a human voiced resume) it because I see my clients get results with this.

11:36 They get jobs that they love and they get jobs that they love because they tell people who they are and how they fit into the organization and what they want to contribute going forward. So I just want to back up and share kind of these two main thoughts right now. So the first thing is right, it’s about creating that resume for the right reason. Doing that soul searching, thinking about who, who do you want to be when you grow up and what do you have to tell people? What story has to come forward? What do you have to highlight in your resume so that you can tell that story so they can say, yeah, I want to hire Mike because I see where Mike is going and that fits into my organization. So it really is about creating that resume for the right reasons. Then the next part is picking that format, deciding to put yourself out there and share a human voiced resume.

12:34 So how do you know what to share on a resume? This is a question I get asked all the time. I’ve done so much in my career. I feel like it’s five pages long. I don’t know how to break it down simply to share who I am. Well, that’s a really fair question and I think it’s always this hard thing of which one of us wants to diminish our accomplishments to one or two pages of a resume, right? We want people to know the whole us. So when I’m working with clients, I always start with their values, what’s important to them. Because when you pick what’s important to you, they are often the things that are most important to others because it’s what you contribute at the highest level. So your values are also your strengths. And I believe strongly in a strengths based resume because I believe strongly we’re all capable of four kazillion things.

13:41 But just because we’re capable of something doesn’t mean it belongs in our resume. We want to narrow down what’s in our resume to the things we love to do. So what we value and what we’re really the best at doing. So that’s one of the first places to look when you start to go to collect the data that you want to put on your resume. And I, as I say that, I want to say clearly that a human voiced resume definitely has data on it. It’s the way that you present the data to tell the story. So all resumes start kind of with collecting some of that data. So what I’m saying here is know what you’re good at, know what you love to do and make sure that you collect data and examples of work that you were doing that is you at your best.

14:35 To put it simply right, I’m a small business owner, I do my own accounting. I am perfectly capable of running QuickBooks. I’m perfectly capable of paying my bills. I do it actually quite quite well. Well, at least think I do it quite well. I don’t know if my husband agrees with me. I think he’d like me to have my expense reports completed since may, but I’m definitely capable of being my own bookkeeper. But I will say it is something that never needs to go on a resume for me. It is not something I ever want to find myself doing for someone else. Maybe I want to share that I understand a profit and loss statement that might be important if I’m moving into an organization where I’ll be responsible for budgeting, but do I need to tell them that I’m interested in running the books?

15:30 No, absolutely not. So that’s what I mean when I say look at not just what you’re capable of, but really what it is that you love to do and focus on those things to figure out what to put on your resume. Every bullet that’s on your resume, you should be super proud of. You should smile when you read what you’ve accomplished and you should just be jazzed about it. So that’s where I think the differences is. Again, going from that resume that you don’t want to share with anyone to a resume that’s you’re like, Holy cow, I love to do all of this stuff that I’ve put on here. That’s what brings a resume to a place where you can hand it out to everyone that you know well. What else belongs on a resume? Well, I believe, again, I’m going with some of the data points here.

16:25 I believe that sharing the scope of the work that you do and the complexities of it help people to understand who you are and the things that you juggle in your life. And I think it’s really important, especially for those of us who work in smaller organizations. If you work at a local dentist office and you are the office manager, a title like office manager can be really generic. We really don’t know what that means. So it’s really important to share what someone for you for what you’ve been doing, What does that mean? For some office managers, it may mean I’m managing a practice of, you know, eight uh, professionals with over 3000 individual clients where you manage social media, new client intake, bill paying and handle the HR procedures. Right? Complicated at that point. There’s a lot of hats that you’re wearing for other office managers though it might mean strictly that you handled the accounting and the record keeping.

17:34 So you want to definitely, especially if you’re someone who is wearing a lot of hats within an organization, people to really share that scope of what you’re doing and the complexity. If you’re someone who works, with a corporation that has multiple locations and different parts of the country or different parts of the world, it’s another great place to share that scope and complexity. Whatever it is that makes your job hard to do, that’s what you want to make sure it goes in your resume. Cause then people can understand your brain and what it is that you juggle on a daily basis to help get things done. So that’s the first area. As you look at the job part of your resumes, talking about that scope. Then once you get that scope in, then you want to talk about the accomplishments that you’ve had that support that scope.

18:31 And when I’m looking for accomplishments, there’s a couple places that I look. One I’ve always got that filter on of is it something my client loves to do? Okay, so let’s just put that out there. That’s always on. But once we get past that, then it’s what categories do I look for of accomplishments? Well, I am a big fan of Marcus Limonus and his TV show, The Profit, if any of you have never seen that, definitely check it out. I think it’s currently airing on CNBC. And Marcus goes in and works with businesses all over the country and he helps them be profitable and helps them be successful. And Marcus is when he goes in, he always focuses on three different categories, people, product, and process and he believes, and I believe strongly those are the three critical areas that you need really good foundation in to run a profitable business.

19:33 Now, while I want all of us to have a job that we flourish at, the ultimate goal is profitability and it is allowing a corporation or an organization to move forward. So while I’d love to say, you know, put down the things that are out there that you like doing. You also need though to put down things that help organizations move forward and be successful. So those categories of people, product and process help frame up what is it that you’ve contributed to that organization that’s helped move them forward in those three areas. As you think about these areas, kind of one hint I have is you’re thinking about these, these, these data points that you have, right? Is how do you pick them? Well, I always like to ask the question, what’s different within this organization? Because you were there, what did you contribute? What did you change?

20:33 What did you update around people, product and process. Then start to capture some of those bullet points. Those are going to be your juiciest best bullet points and those bullet points. It should be the combination of what did you do? And hint, don’t tell me you managed something. Managed is the most generic word on a resume. So just get rid of it right now. And if you’re thinking about replacing it with responsible for, you can throw that out the window as well. So I want you to think about what you actually did to accomplish something. So if you worked with people, maybe it’s partnered with stakeholders and brought together diverse ideas and priorities to build a new product. Okay. Do you see the difference there? You’re talking about how you went about doing it, not just manage the new product development, right? That’s boring. It’s how did you put it together?

21:35 Who did you work with? What were the details of what she did? If you worked on a new process, did you design a new process? Did you forward something? Did you spearhead a, an initiative for the organization and bring again, bring together diverse stakeholders and move a project forward. So really think about what it is that you did very specifically. One hint. There is often I find that if I’ll write out the bullet point and kind of let myself go and put more data down than necessary around it, I often find that about halfway through my statement, actually I find the words I really want, right? It’s, I might start with responsible for $3 million worth of business, executed a new product development plan, implemented 1300 new skews. Oh, got it. In the middle, they’re executed, right? New development product development plan, right, tells you where you need to go.

22:43 So sometimes it’s worth it. Just kind of allowing yourself to ramble. You know, when my daughter was little, uh, her teacher always used to describe it as a sloppy copy. So be free, get out there, make the sloppy copy, then come in and really refine it. So that gives you some really good ideas of how to start to capture that data, which is an important part of your resume. But again, I want to go back to the very beginning of this conversation and why are you building this resume? Once you get the data captured, makes sure that that data still supports that. Why? If you’re trying to move from a project management role to a leadership role, make sure you’re talking about your leadership and where you were able to show leadership within your past roles. If you want to move from project management into let’s say, I don’t know, a restaurant business, maybe you’re talking about in project management, you were able to watch multiple screens at the same time and when I say screens, like multiple entities within the organization and that you dealt with things that were fast paced, what would be the values that you would need in that new role that someone else would appreciate?

24:03 So you’re always wanting to come back and look at your resume through that filter. Okay. All right folks, so kind of as a wrap up for today, and I’ve just touch just a little bit about resumes, right? Learning about a human voice resume, learning about what it is that allows you to share the scope of what you do. What is it that allows you to use the supporting data and making sure that you’re always looking at your resume through that lens of future forward? What is it that you want to do in the future to make sure that those statements really support that? So looking at your values and your strengths. Leave this stuff off your resume that you don’t love because I want you to jump up and down and share your resume with everyone, whether you’re looking for a job or not because you’re just so proud of the things that you have done and as we hit your end, remember that this is a great time of the year to capture that data and make sure that you’re catching all those little things about what you did in the past year or the past few years.

25:14 For you folks who haven’t written a resume in 30 years, this is the time to start capturing it. Take your time, go slow, go back over the jobs that you’ve had for the past 30 years. Even if you’ve been at the same company, you’ve probably held multiple roles or your scope and responsibility has changed over the years. Start to capture that and create yourself a notebook of those ideas, looking at people and product and process so that when you are ready to move to a new role, you’re ready to see something new for yourself. You’ve got great data captured.

25:54 And that leads to a super exciting announcement that I’d love to make today. So starting in January I will be offering a new course that’s called career you and it is going to be a future focused course really focused on how do we gain that alignment, how do we do that deep soul searching and that work on the background and then move it forward.

26:23 So it’s for anyone that’s frustrated in the current role that they have and looking to be flourishing in their next role. So stay tuned for more details. But I am excited to offer this cause I’ve really want for my clients that forward looking approach to a job search. And I’m so excited to share those step-by-step processes to get you there and to take you from frustrated to flourishing.

26:51 Thank you so much for hanging out with me today at the Deviant Thinking Podcast. If you loved this podcast, it would mean the world to me. If you’d head on over to iTunes and give us a quick review, let others know what you loved about this podcast and also feel free to drop me a line and give me suggestions of what you’d like to hear here on the podcast. Have a great week.