10 RESUME MOJO BOOSTER
Even if you and I haven't met, I know a few things about you.
You're smart and creative. You're interested in lots of different things. You make people laugh; you make yourself laugh, and you think about things going on around you. You're curious about the world and why things work the way they do.
I know all that about you, and that's why it kills me to think about the way we've all been brainwashed to believe we can't bring our spark and power across in a resume. We're not allowed to do that, supposedly.
I read resumes and LinkedIn profiles all day, and they all look alike. They're boring, and they don't sound remotely like the interesting, sparky, wickedly funny people behind them.
Long before we were born, somebody came up with a bunch of rules for writing resumes, and we're still living under those awful rules today.
Who made up the rules? Do we know the person's name? If not, why are we still following his or her guidance?
You know the rules I mean: don't use "I" in your resume. Don't use full sentences. Stick to the standard zombie jargon like "Results-oriented professional" and "Meets or exceeds expectations."
The best bit of standard resume jargon -- by which I mean the throw-uppiest bit - is the abominable "proven track record of success."
Is there such a thing as an UNproven track record of success? Or a proven track record of failure? That's not how people speak! I hate to see you describe yourself that way. You don't have to!
It's a new day. Whether you get your resumes in the hands of hiring managers directly in the manner we teach, or send them through Black Hole recruiting portals, you can use a human voice in your resume. If you do, it can only help you.
You're thinking "But those keyword-searching algorithms don't want to see a human voice in my resume."
Keyword-searching algorithms couldn't care less what voice you use in your resume. They're just looking for keywords.
If you've got the appropriate keywords sprinkled in among the regular words in your resume, the keyword-searching algorithm will find them. You can put all your keywords together in a keyword corral at the end of your resume, too - the keyword searchbot will find the wherever they are.
If your target employer uses keyword-searching tools to pull resumes for further review, a pair of human eyes (or more than one) is going to see your resume eventually, before anyone asks you to come for an interview. That's a good thing!
Humans are the key to the Whole Person Job Search approach we teach, and of course to the Human Workplace. You want a human to see your resume. That's why you've bothered putting a human voice into it!
A human is either going to like your Human-Voiced Resume or dislike it. A human would like or dislike your resume whether it were written in zombie style, with a human voice or in musical notes.
There's no 'safe' approach to writing a resume, so why not be yourself?
Wouldn't you rather work for people who appreciate a job-seeker who dares to sound like him- or herself?
I was an HR chief for ages. The piles of nearly identical resumes depressed me like crazy, until I realized there was no need to prolong the insanity.
We can sound like ourselves in our resumes now.
I developed the Human-Voiced Resume and started teaching people how to write them. Those people started to get great jobs!
It wasn't just the great jobs that made me excited about the human approach to job search. People told us "When the hiring manager called, he wasn't calling to tell me I have an interview at four p.m. on Thursday. He was calling to invite me to coffee!"
Who can blame a hiring manager for wanting to learn more about a person who knows the hiring manager's movie well as you do, from your careful research? The traditional recruiting process doesn't require a job seeker to understand the employer's situation at all.
Every manager wants to know that his or her next new hire can come in and make a difference right away. Someone who shows up via a Pain Letter and Human-Voiced Resume is going to shift the hiring manager's brain out of "one more applicant" mode into "maybe this person can help me."
If you want to jazz up your resume with a human voice, here are ten ways to shift out of Zombie Land into This is Really Me on the Page Land. Pick the Resume Mojo Boosters you like best from our list below!
Put a human voice in your Summary
Start by writing a two-to-three-sentence Summary to go just under your name and contact information on your Human-Voiced Resume.
Go ahead and use the word "I." Your Summary will frame the rest of your resume for the benefit of your reader -- your next boss - so tell him or her where you've been and where you're going.
I'm an HR Generalist who thrives in a mix of recruiting, employee relations and training. My goal is to help people succeed at work whether that means re-inventing processes, coaching employees and leaders or writing a friendlier Employee Handbook. I'm looking for an organization that's talent-aware and planning to grow.
Three sentences and we get the picture. You're not looking to sit in a cube and perform sales-comp-plan analysis all day long. Better they should know up front what you're looking for, right?
Choose your brand
You get to choose your brand, on your Human-Voiced Resume (hereafter HVR) and your LinkedIn profile. Choose your headline wisely - it represents you to the world!
You can put a branding statement at the top of your HVR Summary, whether you've held that job title before or not. If you've done it in some way and you know you can do it, why not claim it?
The HR job-seeker we just met has the brand HR Generalist at the top of his HVR Summary. He hasn't held that title before -- that's the job he's looking for.
He's been an HR Coordinator, a Recruiting Assistant and an HRIS Analyst. Now he knows what he wants: an HR Generalist job. That's the title of his Summary and by extension his resume. Good! We have to brand ourselves for the job we want.
Frame each employer and each job
Your reader a/k/a hiring manager won't understand who each of your employers is unless you spell it out. Without knowing the size of the organization and its general situation, how could your hiring manager evaluate your role or impact? Frame each employer and each role you held, like this:
Acme Explosives, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona
Inventory Analyst - Operations Manager, 2005 - 2009
Acme Explosives is the largest stick dynamite maker for the coyote market, a $10M privately-owned firm. I joined Acme after approaching its CEO when he spoke on campus at State U, and over four years grew with the company to run all its Operations functions: materials, production and repair.
Share context in colorful Dragon-Slaying Stories
In each Dragon-Slaying Story in your HVR (up to three Dragon-Slaying Story bullets per past job) tell us what was wrong (the reason for your action), what you did about it and why that was a good thing to do.
Here's a Dragon-Slaying Story example:
- When we upgraded to a new software system, I integrated the data entry forms and processes for 12 regions and trained the local Finance reps to migrate with zero customer billing errors.
If you did it, claim it
Your old boss is not looking over your shoulder as you write your HVR right now. If you did it, claim it! If you did something that wasn't in your job description, claim it.
If you did it in a volunteer assignment, claim it. If you can answer the question "How did you do it?" then it's your accomplishment to keep forever.
Tell us about the corners
Corners are very important in an HVR. Corners are junctures where you changed jobs, moved to a new city or made other big changes. We need to know what was happening. We need those changes explained so we see your path. If the reader can't follow the story or it doesn't make sense, s/he'll stop reading.
You can use bullets under one job description to explain why you left the job, like this:- (awesome Dragon-Slaying Story here)
- (second amazing Dragon-Slaying Story here)
- As the company was preparing to be sold, I switched to a consulting role and helped Acme through a successful integration into Toontown Industries.
Now the reader knows why you're not working there anymore: they were sold. The more questions you can answer in your resume, the better, especially questions that would cause your next manager to wonder "Now why would a person make that change?"
Show us your everyday genius
You're not going to tell us the tasks and duties in each role you've held. No one cares, and we can extrapolate the tasks and duties from the job title.
Tell us what YOU left in your wake! Tell us in the form of short Dragon-Slaying Stories, one story per bullet, like this:
- In my boss's absence, I led Customer Support and helped the team reduce wait time from 3.5 minutes to under one minute, raising customer satisfaction to its highest point ever
Everyone has Dragon-Slaying Stories. Sometimes they're project-type stories like the Customer Support story above, and sometimes they're stories about your everyday genius, the things you did without even thinking because you're brilliant that way:
- When my boss was away, I talked a major customer through a thorny billing mistake (ours) and saved his account, worth $500K/year
You didn't know how big a customer that guy was at the time, but so what? You found out later. Claim that everyday genius event now!
Tell us the years, not the months
Skip the starting and ending months for each job you've held; just give us the years.
Consolidate
If you worked in several jobs at one employer, you can dramatically increase the readability of your resume by consolidating those various jobs into one entry under your Experience or Career History.
Smash all the jobs and their dates into one, and when you frame the role, say "I joined Acme in the mailroom and grew with them to become Customer Service Supervisor."
Clean up past titles
You may have held jobs with titles so obscure that no one outside the organization would understand them. Go ahead and clean up those titles in retrospect, shifting Accounts Payable Operator II to Accounts Payable Coordinator or a similar title you like.
Worried about background checks? Those are conducted based on an application form, not your resume, and you'll have to time to provide the background-check-friendly version of your history if things heat up.
It's a new day. Zombie resumes are a job-seeker's worst enemy! Put a human voice in your resume and let your hiring manager in on your amazing story.
Here is an example of a Pain Letter.
Here is an example of a Human-Voiced Resume.
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Is Your Company Doing Training Wrong?
Is Your Company Doing Training Wrong?
- The goal of training should be new skills or behavior modification; if it's about information it's called teaching.
- Typically, the most effective training is also fun.
- The credibility, demeanor, and presence of a trainer matters. A lot.
- Great training provides behaviors and skills and confirms that people can translate those things into action.
- Training, by itself--without reinforcement and follow-up--is nearly worthless.
- Most companies don't understand #5.
Training is not an event, it is a process. The training session is the beginning of that process. Here's why.
Imagine visiting a new city. You need to find a restaurant where you and a friend will reconnect. You ask the hotel clerk for directions and he tells you how to get there, turn by turn. You understood everything he said, and could visualize each step. But could you actually get to the restaurant?
Now imagine that the desk clerk asked you to write each step down. Would that help? Now imagine that, after you wrote everything down, the clerk asked you to repeat it all back. How’s your confidence level now?
All this stuff is covered in detail in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Levels, which recognizes that there are differences between understanding something, being able to apply it, and then being able to act on it.
When companies ask for “training,” what they often mean is, “Get everyone in a room and tell them what they need to know.” That’s unfortunate because this only sets people up to fail. It’s giving them directions, once
and quickly, asking them if they have any questions about a process they have yet to walk through, and then setting them free.
and quickly, asking them if they have any questions about a process they have yet to walk through, and then setting them free.
Effective training, on the other hand, recognizes that that classroom time is just the beginning. It can serve as a foundation, and it allows you to say things like, “Remember when we talked about . . .” but it really is just the start.
The entire process should include these five steps:
- Explanation and/or exhibition
- Confirmation through questions
- Demonstration of ability
- Lather, rinse, repeat (as necessary)
- Follow-through
That last step, Follow-through, could include objective measurements (KPIs) that prove ability or compliance, or it could be old fashioned observation. Either way, it shouldn’t be skipped because new behaviors typically require old behaviors to change, and that doesn’t happen quickly, easily, or automatically.
I applaud any company for recognizing the value of training, but all involved must also understand that it’s is a multi-step process. I don’t recommend training without a commitment to all five steps for the same reason I don’t recommend merely telling someone how to perform an appendectomy. First you learn, then you practice, then you get it.
-Doug
We Miss you Momma
It has been over a year since you left. I continue to struggle knowing you can never come back. Everyday I wake up thinking you are already on your way home, perhaps you just went to the market. Waiting is a game of agony; to try and sleep but sleep not, to wait for one who comes not, and to try and please and please not.
Yes I continue to deny you are dead and still refuses to accept you are gone forever. Perhaps if God would give me an audience today I would ask Him why does He have to take you away from me, from us your children. In losing you I lost the balance of my life. Your death, to my life is the most incomprehensible of events because it crushes and scatters to the four winds the little bits of meaning that has been laboriously accumulated in life. God became so distant and my prayers seemed to die in the voice and in time I found it difficult to even voice my concerns.
 |
| Joseph Eugene |
The past year was terrible. I longed for your presence. I missed your voice. And I crave for the warmth of your presence. How I wish you can hear me now as I tell you about out children.
Your eldest Joseph Eugene is now 18 years old. Our first child and whom we both dotted on as our only child in our first five years is still struggling to face his life I know he too misses you so much and from this circumstance he is forced to grow up up taking care of his siblings Do watch over him, lovingly as you did in your mortal life. He plans to enter SK politics as he works with the barangay.
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| Ma Angelica |
Maria Angelica, our second child, is fast growing to be a lady. She is now on her third year in high school. Young as she is she is now mommy to EJ and Edgar IV. She remains sweet as she was when she was still a toddler.
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| EJ |
EJ our third child and second girl, you would be happy to note, is fast looking more and more like you - beautiful. She cried a lot when you died and when you were buried. She always go with me visiting your grave and would silently watch your grave. I know she misses you so much.
 |
| Edgar IV |
Our beloved bunso Edgar IV remains makulit as you know him. He is more handsome now and he started his elementary grades this June. Together with EJ, he too always go with me visiting your grave. He misses you too. He does not want me to tell you his crush in school.
It sounds absurd but I continue to wait for your return, morbid to look forward to the day I would lie down once more beside you
Goodbye and goodnight my wife
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| Ma. Lourdes Lacson Basares June 1, 1966 May 25, 2013 |
I wipe my tears with the thought that the pain will no longer bother you. I kissed your forehead with the thought that hopelessness of your case has ended. I embraced your body with the thought that you left in ease having left me with four wonderful kids.
I will miss you mama. I will miss your warm smile. I will miss your voice. And I will miss your presence.
God has taken you away from us because He knows it is time for you to rest. He gave you deliverance from the pain and loneliness of staying in bed the past five months. I and our children are consoled that somehow your death painful as it is to us is also a form of your liberation.
I know you will still be there. You have been a good mother to my children that is why I know they love you much. You love them so dearly that you will be there for them.
By Saturday would have been your 47th bday. As I told you we will celebrate in our own little way. We still will, me and the kids will mark your birthday as we always do.
Goodbye and good night my dear wife.
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