What’s Wrong with “Here’s My Resume. Help?”
May 3rd, 2012I get a lot of people asking me for help in their job search and oh by the way here’s my resume.
The problem is, I don’t like to read resumes. I think they are long and too detailed for my mind. My mind shuts down, so I can’t get the message and know how to help you.
If you were to NOT send me your resume, but help me know how I could help you, that would be better. Much better.
I recently wrote an email to a buddy who sent me his resume. I know a bit about him, professionally, but I still thought this advice would be helpful. If you’ve sent your resume to friends/family for them to “check out,” please take this to heart:
Can you identify 3 – 4 ideal companies/roles? If you can, in short paragraphs, paint that picture for me, with those 3 or 4 ideal companies, I can get a much better idea of how to help you, who to introduce you to, etc.
Instead of saying: “here, read this long, detailed document with jargon and buzzwords,” you could say “I would work best in a company like ______ doing ___________. The title might be ___ or ____. My typical day might consist of _____ or _____ or ______.”
Do that a few times, help me understand you better, and then let me digest that.
What do you think?
What do I think?
I think that is great. I have an evolving set of short statements that I mail to people that tell them the type of company where I want to work, example titles, preferred geography, preferred salary, etc. Headlines and brief clauses of text. I’ve been told the outline is very helpful. Then, if they want my resume, they can ask for it.
Thanks Ari. As a networker, even in the job search space, I typically don’t really ever want anyone’s resume. Even if I’m going to intro the person to someone else, I’m not going to do it with a resume…