It's Time to Put Your Strengths to Work – Page 2

It’s Time to Put Your Strengths to Work: Rejection and the Job Search

You are ready to leave your job.

You are successful in your current role, but you’re ready to take on more responsibilities.

Alternatively, you hate your job and wonder if you can stand one more Zoom meeting with that moron you call your boss located in another city and who keeps calling you Douglas, even though your name is David or Myrtle, when your name is Florence.

Or perhaps your relationship to your current employer is something in-between.

Whatever the case, you want a new job.

Be forewarned, you may be setting yourself up for rejection. This is most likely not your first dance with this fickle but seemingly finite partner. Whether overt or covert, rejection is something no one wants but almost all are forced to face.

You are better prepared for rejection than you may think, because you’ve been dealing with it all your life.

Well, haven’t you?

Didn’t get picked first (or second) for kickball in 3rd grade.

Rejection!

Didn’t get the lead in the junior high musical.

Rejection!

Didn’t get picked for the Varsity Ping Pong team.

Rejection!

Team Captain/lead cheerleader turned down your invite to the prom.

Rejection!

You didn’t get into Harvard, Oxford, West Point, E.I.E.I.O. University.

Rejection

Internship at Microsoft …

Rejection!

Management Trainee opening at Ford . . .

Rejection!

Audition for Jeopardy.

Rejection!

Miss America . . .

Rejection!

Whenever you compete for a singular prize, you are putting yourself forward for rejection. And if you are reading this, then I know, you have been rejected and you have survived.

My senior year in college, back when you received rejections on company letterhead, my class threw a rejection letter party. Every rejection letter was worth a beer. Most classmates passed the limits of sobriety long before their individual piles were winnowed down to the bottom. The walls of the pub were covered top to bottom with colorful corporate logos and similar statements advising how impressive we were, but not impressive enough to hire. Collective rejection.

Today, you are unlikely to receive a formal rejection letter. The communication is far more likely to come in the form of an email or actually. . . in the form of nothing.

Rejection is especially likely in those times when you take initiative. A phone call from you answered with “We’ll get back to you.” or “HR will be in touch with you”. On rare occasions by the honest, “Buzz off!” and more frequently, just by the sound of the phone, Ring… Ring… Ring… Or the unanswered email. Cowardice is frequently on displayed when it comes time to tell job candidates the truth.

So why did you get rejected for a job?

Perhaps there really is a better candidate.

Better? How?

First, they may actually come closer to meeting the job requirement than you do. They may be smarter, stronger, more clever, more diligent, just better.

The chemistry might have been better. Hiring is not an exact science. A company is looking for a person that meets a set of criteria. They tend to consider candidates who match most of those criteria. If several of them do, then the consideration turns to who does the hiring manager want to associate with every day? Who is she going to be able to tolerate in staff meetings, on Zoom calls, at the coffee station? By the way, that get this wrong all of the time. Like I said, it’s not exact.

The reality is you do not know the competition. The competition may be a Sigma Cum Laude from Stanford or someone who was the best pit crew chief in NASCAR or someone who has done the same work somewhere else.

Your competitors may offer some interest, history or experience that wasn’t in the job listing like fluency in Urdu or having owned their own business that impresses the hiring manager.

The competition may be the hiring manager’s next-door neighbor, his niece, last year’s star intern, a fellow alumnus, his chiropractor’s 2nd cousin’s Sunday school student. You have no idea what the competition has that isn’t in the job listing.

Before you get incensed about nepotism and connections, put yourself in the hiring manager’s or HR rep’s shoes. They are taking a chance when they hire someone. Prior knowledge of a candidate, even by a tenuous connection, can give her some greater confidence and serves as a form of vetting. Personal contacts, and a network are the best thing to have to open doors. People help people fill jobs with people. Expertise, competence, and enthusiasm are greatly enhanced by connection and proximity.

Sometimes job listings are fishing expeditions. It seems unlikely in the superheated job market that we have been experiencing but it remains possible that a company posted a job just to see who is out there.

Another alternative explanation is that there never was a job or by the time the interview process was over, there wasn’t a job. Organizations can take massive amounts of time to make decisions. They may believe that there is going to be a need to fill a position and then plans change. There was an article in the WSJ this week about companies rescinding job offers.

I was once rejected by a major corporation in the following fashion. I had a successful phone interview which led to an all-day in person interview. After 3 weeks, a call by me to the hiring manager produced the response “You should hear from HR”. Next day, I received a rejection email which included the statement not to respond to the email because it came from an unmonitored account.

Fast forward four years. I bump into one of the people who had interviewed me. She volunteered how impressed they had been. I thanked her and said that I had wondered about the rejection ever since. She looked at me dumbfounded and said, “Didn’t they tell you? We never filled that job.” Your rejection may not be your failure. It also indicates that some people don’t have the decency to tell you they aren’t going to hire you because it turns out there isn’t a job, because some people suck. Sorry, but true.

Don’t carry rejection around as if it were a death sentence. An HR rep shared with me his hiring process. Using Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) to screen resumes, he looked for at least 6 words he wanted to see out of a list of 8 to make a first cut. He acknowledged he most likely missed a lot of great candidates. However, what he needed was to hire one, not find every potential one. In the work world, at least through the hiring process, it IS all about them.

Rejection is part of a job search. Do not let fear of it become a hindrance to finding work that is rewarding, satisfying, and valued. There are many variables over which you have no control. Concentrate on the things that you can control. Remember to see what your uncle, neighbor, your mechanic’s cousin’s dog walker or alma mater can do to help you and what you can do to help yourself. Best of luck. You will find a better job.

No One Deserves to HATE Their Job! : Your Solution to the “Great Resignation”

Everywhere you look, you are seeing what I’ll call the “Great Employee Search”. Roadside signs that once indicated the special of the week or “kinda” witty sayings, now scream “We are Hiring! All Positions! Signing Bonus!”. Lots of exclamation points – lots and lots of them. Online, companies simultaneously attempt to sell their products and services and induce your interest in helping them sell their products and services. “If you are in the market for widgets, buy our widgets. If not, please come help us sell our widgets. Please! Pretty please!” (Please note the exclamation points?)

When your team is short staffed, the strain on the people who do show up for work, includes taking on more responsibilities including ones that they are neither prepared nor qualified to do, working longer hours, getting less done. You and your people get burned out. Tempers flare. Your people, who didn’t hate their jobs, are beginning to . . .

No one deserves to hate their job!

Not you!

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Not your people!

All the change and all the confusion of the last two years led to people – managers and line workers, bosses and salespeople, front line and back office – to start hating their jobs.

Hate may sound strong, but how else do you describe that feeling that something you spend most of your waking hours doing is unrewarding, undervalued, inconsequential?

Is it any wonder people, maybe your people, are leaving in droves?

Is it any wonder that you want to join them?

4.5 million workers quit their jobs in March 2022. With a full-time U.S. workforce of around 127 million, plus about 26 million part-time employees, 4.5 million is not a huge percentage. However, that monthly figure happened almost every month of last year. According to Society for Human Relations Management (SHRM), there were 47.8 million resignations in 2021. March’s numbers confirm the fact that it has continued into 2022. This has come to be referred to as the “Great Resignation”. The reality is that this trend has been on the rise since the middle of the last decade.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 11.5 million job openings in the U.S. as of March 31, 2022. These figures indicate that there are lots of openings and great willingness for employees to leave jobs

Worker’s willingness to quit jobs is one measure of a healthy economy. Why? Because people tend to be willing to leave jobs when they believe there are alternative opportunities. This also indicates that employees will tolerate less that bothers them than they will in a market with fewer opportunities.

While this may indicate a healthy economy, it probably doesn’t feel that way in many companies. Employers are facing numerous issues causing them concern.

If you have an employee opening, it will probably be hard to fill.
If you lose an employee, you will have an opening. Then refer to the statement above.
Up to 44% of your staff are spending some part of their time (and yours) looking for another job.

The list continues including problems for employers and their teams.

The pandemic altered normal work processes, causing many people to shift to at-home work. Some loved it. Some hated it. With few places to go and concerns about unemployment, especially at the beginning, working hours stretched into working days, entire days. Many people found that work began to fill every minute of their lives.
Further examples of radical change played havoc with how people had conducted their lives. Things like lack of in-person contact, indirect leadership, technological hurdles, profoundly different familial environments. All of these have had their effect on everyone in the work force.
Many workers, who have participated in the “Great Resignation”, are having leaver’s remorse. Whether that is due to leaping too quickly, having overly high expectations or miscommunication about the new job, it is leading to additional problems. Employers are stuck with their old opening becoming their new opening. Employees, leaving or staying, are being frustrated and confused. Open positions lead to more work for everyone, tougher decisions, lost business, and a sense of exasperation.
Adding insult to injury, some people accepting job offers aren’t even showing up to start their new jobs. Southwest Airlines told the Wall Street Journal that 15% to 20% of their new hires don’t turn up for their first day. Allied Universal, a security and facility-services provider, says that roughly 15% of new hires disappear before day one, without so much as an email. (WSJ, May 6, 2022).

Is there something which you could do to lessen the effects of the “Great Resignation” on your company, your people and yourself? Is there something you can do to retain and inspire your best people? Can you help your less engaged people feel greater connection and more commitment to the team? Is there a way that your openings might see more and better candidates? Is there a way that you can start to love your job again?

Yes there is!

If people work in their talents, on a regular basis, they are more engaged in their work. That last sentence requires a little unpacking. Being engaged means being productive, collegial, energized, positive and valued. When your team members are engaged. They get along better with each other and your customers. They step up and do more and better work.

Talents are your hows, whys and motivation. Don’t confuse talents and skills. Skills are the stuff you know how to do: fix computers, run meetings, repair cars, style hairdos. Talents are why and how you approach and succeed at the things you do and the motivation that helps you start, continue, and complete what you do.

People who discover and then use their talents, turn them into Strengths. Which means they are more engaged in their work. They accomplish more, contribute more, enjoy more in the process. Not only do they feel more aligned, but they are more likely to think and speak positively about their job. That positivity can lead them to tell people that they work for a great organization, which might point some of those other employers disenchanted “Great Resigners” in your organization’s direction.

If your people could get clearer about their talents and that led to less turnover, more positive than negative interactions, more work done well, new and better solutions, then would you be interested in making that happen? If you could do any of those things for yourself, would you want to know more?

Crews Strengths would love to help. Before you read the next resignation letter, probably from your best employee, consider learning more about how developing talents can make a difference for your team. Before you write your resignation letter, let’s talk about the difference, knowing and developing your talents can have on your career.

It’s time to put your Strengths to work!(!!!!!!!)

Please let me know if you have found this post to be of interest. To make sure others are aware of your thoughts, please go back to this article in LinkedIn and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths.

It’s Time to Put Your Strengths to Work: Strengths and the Reentry Career Alliance Academy

How many mistakes have you made in your life? How long term were their effects? Did those mistakes lead to other mistakes, until you couldn’t find your way out?

“This is the first time anyone has ever told me anything good about myself.”

Work.
Vocation.
Career.
Job.

All these are terms that describe a core element in human life. Usually, they relate to the need for a person to secure an income, to provide for a family’s needs. A large portion of most lives are taken up by the performance of work. Part of the happiness, self-worth, and personal fulfillment a person can hope to have is connected to finding work that is engaging, valuable and satisfying. Those who sought work during the “Great Recession” of the late 2000’s and early 2010s remember the frustration of too few openings for too many people. Talent, expertise, and enthusiasm were frustrated by the lack of opportunities. The boom that has occurred over the last several years has provided opportunities and even led to people daring to leave a job that didn’t meet their needs even when they didn’t know what the next opportunity looked like. Crews Strengths LLC was founded to help people find work that was connected to not only their skill set, but work which would allow their talents to find a place to thrive. That has led me to work with a fascinating variety of people: executives, engineers, accountants, government employees, librarians, parolees, and ex-cons.

In the summer of 2016, I attended the first Gallup Strengths summit. Meeting coaches from around the world, conversations centered around how each coach was using the StrengthsFinder assessment. Of all the stories I heard, the one which I was most struck by, was from a gentleman who worked with young men from an aboriginal population who were criminally “at risk”. He shared that many of these young men, after getting their assessment results, said something like “This is the first time anyone has ever told me anything good about myself.” I was deeply touched by this story. I, however, had no idea how it would resonate in my Strengths’ work.

Career & Reentry

On Thursday, Feb 24^th, the Reentry Career Alliance Academy (RCAA) of Montgomery County, Ohio graduated its first cohort of 2022 in the auditorium of the County Administration building in downtown Dayton. Ten men, dressed in suits and ties, having completed the four-week program, were recognized for successfully taking a major step towards returning to full participation in society. Some of these well-dressed men had been incarcerated as recently as the previous month.

Recognizing the value of legitimate work, much of the Reentry Academy program centers around job search and career skills: resume writing, interviewing, dressing for an interview. There are also sessions on life skills. Some of these resemble workshops that could be part of a high school or college curriculum with titles like Financial Awareness: Goal Setting and Budgeting, Employment Planning, and Networking with Purpose. Other classes speak to the transformation the attendees are committed to with sessions entitled: Violence Prevention & Determined Identity, Social Responsibility and Personal Responsibility. This program is not built around self-pity or coddling. Instead, participants commit to the RCAA’s three A’s: Action, Alliance, and Accountability. The three A’s are taught with compassion, understanding and a strong desire to make the community better, both for the general population and the class participants.

The workshops that make up the RCAA program are presented by an assortment of people including the Reentry Academy staff and community, government and professional leaders who engage the attendees to move forward as full citizens and better people.

CliftonStrengths & Reentry

Starting with the August 2021 cohort, I have had the pleasure of administering the CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) assessment and facilitating my “It’s Time to Put Your Strengths to Work” workshop as part of the Reentry Career Alliance Academy program. The workshop helps the participants understand that they possess unique talents and challenges them to begin to apply those talents, developing them into Strengths to help them succeed.

Based on the work of Donald O. Clifton, PhD, and the Gallup organization, the assessment helps to reveal the participants’ predominant talents or “Strengths”. Understanding these “Strengths”, can help clarify the best way to approach the world and to be successful. Think of talents as the hows, whys and motivation that a person aligns with and helps them thrive. In addition to learning about their own talents, RCAA students are introduced to understanding other’s talents to understand how someone else’s talents can make them approach the world differently than they would.

Having coached and presented for business, government, and not-for-profits, it is remarkable how similar participant’s reactions and insights are whether in the boardroom or in the Reentry Academy classroom.

“How did you figure out so much about me?”

“Have you been eavesdropping on my text?”,

“You mean this is a good thing?”

“Wow. This is a perfect description of me!”

The insights people get in a very short time is uncanny. Immediately after completing the assessment, people begin reading the descriptions and begin to have the first inkling of insight. Playing even a small role in the process of people seeing the value they can offer the world and themselves, is very rewarding.

The RCAA’s value to Montgomery County and the state of Ohio is extraordinary. The recidivism rate during the first three years after an inmate is released, in the state of Ohio, is over 30%. That is the revolving door frequently referenced in discussion of the prison system. The RCAA has found a formula that breaks that rotation. Since its inception in 2015, more that 600 men and woman have successfully completed the program with a recidivism rate of 5%. Imagine the lives redeemed, purposes discovered, and communities improved. The value however is practical as well as societal. Every released inmate, who does not return to prison saves the citizens of the state over $30,000; the cost to incarcerate one prisoner for one year.

RCAA breaks the revolving door of recidivism. Only 5% for RCAA grads verses a dismal 30% for others.

I am honored to say that I have had a small part in these unique individuals’ road to progress.

This experience has served me at least as much as the attendees. Insights, revelations and even redemption are not unheard of experiences when serving those in the Reentry Academy. For instance, a recent participant, when thinking about how and when he had applied a particular Strength asked, did I mean back in his former (criminal) life. I admitted, he might have used it previously in any aspect of his life, but that we were going to concentrate on the future. He confirmed that is how he wanted to think of it as well.

The Strengths philosophy is to lean into your strengths and work around your weaknesses. No one will be good at everything and trying leads to frustration and failure. Some people are thinkers, some are doers, some lead with their hearts and others with their heads. This is true for everyone in every capacity. Knowing what you bring can allow you to bring it with abundance.

Fredrick Douglas said “You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.”. If men and women who have spent time behind bars can rise out of their pasts and apply their Strengths and use them as building blocks for new lives, imagine what you can accomplish by learning and applying your Strengths.

Please let me know if you have found this post to be of interest. To make sure others are aware of your thoughts, please go back to t his article in LinkedIn and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths.

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Part 11. An Inventory of Your Career: Resume as Assessment

Your resume is a record of your career accomplishments. It lists positions held, skills developed, and assignments completed.

Could your resume be used for another purpose?

How about using your resume as a career assessment?

When you hear the term assessment, you probably think about Myers-Briggs or DiSC or my favorite the CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder). These are tools designed to reveal insights about personality, talents, or inclination to succeed. A resume, or the tools used to create one, can do the same thing. The process of reviewing your work history can help you decide your career future.

A resume’s primary use is outward looking. You provide information to a potential employer, to show them what you have done.

Your resume used as an assessment, becomes inward looking. Think of it as a self-review. If you received your resume, what would you hire yourself to do? What do you still need to add to be a prime candidate for your dream job?

The maxim that a resume is a response to a particular job listing has been repeated often in the It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work blog series. (If you have been reading my blog, thank you very much. If not, please consider following me on LinkedIn and checking out my past posts). For assessment purposes, you are going to look at your career as a whole.

In my blog post of March 2021, the a la carte resume was explained in detail. Here is the abridged version. An a la carte resume is a two-part tool: 1.) An all-inclusive career menu and 2.) The a la carte (pick and choose) resume itself. Using your resume as an assessment tool, puts the first part in the forefront.

The Career Menu

The career menu is a collection of statements covering everything of note about your career.

The career menu can be created as follows:

Gather all your past resumes.
Create experience statements about your accomplishments since you created your last resume.
Create a list of skills and expertise in your career. These are the big topics. Think things like Presenting, Management, Sales, whatever. These will be the “course” headings (like for a meal) for your career menu.
Deconstruct your past resumes. Take each statement from the experience section and list it under the “course” that covers the skill or expertise described.
Your LinkedIn profile is another source for statements .

For example, you take a statement from a past resume and determine whether it falls under the Management, Sales or Manufacturing “Course”.

If you want to make sure you don’t forget any “courses”, find several job listings that sound like your ideal job and see what expertise or “courses” they indicate are in demand. Add any additional “courses” discovered in these listings.

If you were creating an a la carte resume to respond to a job listing, you would review the listing, deconstruct it into the expertise required and respond by selecting the statements in your menu that reflect how great a fit you are. For detailed instructions about how to do a la carte resume , go to this blog post.

For assessment purposes, the all-inclusive career menu is the tool that we are using.

Here is an example to clarify the process.

You are an engineer with a Mechanical Engineering degree
Plus, half the credits towards a MBA.
20 years of experience gained at three companies.
Work experiences in manufacturing, design, sales, and supervision. with expertise in CAD programs.
You keep your eyes on job openings in your field.
You don’t hate your job, but you don’t love it either.

The a la Carte Resume / Assessment Process

Create an a la carte resume menu template with “courses” (section headings) including:

Manufacturing
Sales
Supervision
Technology

You deconstruct the experience statements in your old resumes. Determine what expertise each statement exhibits. For instance, “Led a team of four evaluating acquisition of a new CAD package.” This could be included in Supervision (“led a team”) and Technology (“new CAD package”).

Next, take the job listings you’ve found for your ideal work. Determine the expertise for those jobs. Compare that to your “courses” list. Add those additional “courses” to your “courses” list.

Now assess how strongly (or weakly) your skills and expertise compare to what is needed to take that next career step.

Using the a la carte resume as an assessment causes you to review your career and see what it tells you about your desirability as a candidate. The all-inclusive career menu is a record of what you have done and what you have not done. It helps reveal what is needed to move forward.

You might want a manager’s job with requirements for experience you don’t currently possess like 10 direct reports, long term planning, and budgeting. Reviewing your all-inclusive menu, you might “discover” that you do actually have that experience but it is listed under a different “course”.

Alternatively, there may be something lacking in your experience, which could lead to several alternative courses of action.

You might seek opportunities to augment your experience, like asking to lead a group project.
You may seek more education to gain knowledge about budgets, personnel management, team dynamics.
You may realize that the additional effort will not lead to work that you are wired to do well. Everyone is not cut out to do every job. (For some perspective on this, see my blog post about Strengths in job search).
Decide that it’s time to change careers. Set different goals. Go into another line of work. Start a business.

In each of these cases, your plans and decisions will be based on research, leading to a future that is best aligned with your desires, experience, and expectations.

While the process of making a career menu may seem arduous, remember that you will also be creating a tool that you can use to give responses to real opportunities in the form of the a la carte resume. Using this information as a resume creating tool and as a career assessment will make it an actual time saver.

There is an old military adage, “Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted”. Consider this as reconnaissance on your work life.

It’s Time to Put Your Strengths to Work!

The advice given in this article provides a lot of information to help you to find work you can love. Please let me know if you have found it helpful. To make sure others have access to this valuable information, please go back to this article in LinkedIn and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Job Search:

Job Seeking Success for the Holidays

When is the best time to look for job?

What if I told you it was Christmastime? (Or whatever end of the year holiday suits you).

The holidays tend to be child-centric, so let’s approach this with a little of the wonder and naiveté of a child.

When you were little, adults would frequently ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Depending on your age and your exposure to different careers, you might have responded with what your parents did. “Oh, I want to be construction worker, like my dad.” Or “I’m going to be a veterinarian just like mom”. When you were very young and imaginative, you might have thought that you a great potential as a triceratops. My nephew at about five, informed the family that he was considering a career as one of Santa’s elves. It was Christmastime and he had just seen the movie, Polar Express. His parents voiced concern about how far away the North Pole was from their home and the likelihood of him having to work during the holidays. He ultimately made alternative career plans.

Another frequent question from adults to children, specifically at this time of year, is “What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”. The answer to this can range widely with age, media influence, and experience. Request can include bicycles, rockets, a triceratops (if you can’t be one then try to get one) or a baby sister. When Santa is no longer considered the principal provider, selections usually change to computers, game consoles, and cars.

Now that you are grown up, the two topics could be combined. So, what job do you want for Christmas.

What if you could ask Kris Kringle for that perfect job? What if you plopped down on his lap and in your best Eartha Kitt voice said “Santa baby, just slip a career under the tree. For me.”

But who goes looking for a job at Christmas or New Year’s? Isn’t it better to wait until the second week of January?

If that’s what you believe, you may be getting your career advice from the surviving partner of Scrooge and Marley or from a green hued fellow who lives above Whoville.

The holiday season – from Thanksgiving through New Year’s – offers unique opportunities to land work worthy of celebration. Here are a few of the reasons that Christmastime may be the best time to hunt for a job.

The fact is many other jobseekers are taking a vacation from their search. While they are on holiday, it is your opportunity to shine, without as much distraction. When the pool of candidates is thinner, hiring managers are more likely to overlook shortcomings in your qualifications.

The holidays are times of good cheer. The tinsel and wreaths, the menorahs (this isn’t sectarian) and outdoor skating rinks, can have very positive effects on people. Charities see increases in donations at years end in part because of these good feelings. Why not put yourself in line for some of that goodwill.

People are looking to do good deeds at Christmas (Hanukkah, New Year’s, etc.). They may be particularly open to helping someone who is looking for job. They are also likely to be in contact with more people as the end of the year approaches. Why not give them something to talk about? Something like how they know this bright person who could be just who Uncle Mortimer’s money factory needs.

“Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” ~Washington Irving

Holidays are times for gathering and communicating. They present great opportunities to share your search and your dreams. When your cousin, who you haven’t seen in a year, asks what you have been up to, share that you are looking to move on from your current job. Everyone who knows that you are looking can become agents for you and your search.

Try to give these helpers clear ideas of what you are looking for. People will provide more help if they have some direction. If you are looking for work as an accountant, share that information. For all you know his neighbor may be a partner in an accounting firm. If possible, try to be even more specific. Let them know what it is about accounting that makes you want to get up in the morning. Help them connect the dots. If you just say you’re looking for a job but don’t inform them what you want, it is hard for them to provide much help. Make it easy for them to help you. If you know of a specific way that a person can help you, then say so. If you know their neighbor is a partner in an accounting firm, then ask for an introduction.

List making is a common occurrence at Christmastime. You make list of the things you want, of gifts you need to get for every person, of ingredients you need for making a feast. To improve your odds of job search success, here is a list of holiday job search ideas.

Prepare a universal resume to have available to share with anyone who offers help. The concept of universal resume is covered in Post Five of my “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series.

Have your à la carte resume menu ready to quickly customize a response to an available position. Find out all about a la carte resumes in Post Three of my “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series. Holidays are busy times. Be prepared. Don’t wait to get around to responding to these positions until after the holidays.

Tell everyone that you are looking. Do this in a positive light. No Bah humbug about how you work for Mr. Scrooge. Point up your desire to find work that lets you do more selling, more writing, more speaking, more whatever-ING. Generic requests get generic assistance. Your neighbor may not know what you do, much less what you are passionate about.

Use your Christmas communications to connect with people who have been of help in the past because they could be in the future. A well-crafted Christmas card or even an email can reestablish a contact to be an ally. Besides aren’t holidays about connecting with people who have been part of your journey?

Volunteering can be a great way to network. When people who tend to volunteer see you dedicating yourself to acts of generosity, they see you in a positive light. It also expands your circle of influence. Don’t be a mercenary, but don’t miss this great opportunity. Also remember volunteering can give you an outlet for skills and stuff you want to do.

Help someone else who’s looking for a new career opportunity. Goodwill fosters goodwill. Doing good for someone else can often be of service to you. Whether it’s karma or holiday cheer or something to fill your time helping somebody else can be one of the most valuable things you can do for holiday job search success.

Use any downtime during the holidays to get a grip on what you want and what it takes to get it. Figure out what additional skills can make a difference in your life. Sign up for a class now or in the new year to add something to your resume. Do a little soul-searching. Invest in a quality assessment, like CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) and perhaps some coaching to better understand what makes you tick. I’d love to help.

Jobs are everywhere. Help wanted signs are as ubiquitous as Salvation Army kettles. Finding a job now is probably easier under the current economic conditions that has been the case for many a Christmastime. Businesses are looking to fill positions from stock clerks to vice presidents. However, the most important question for you this holiday season, is what do you really want. Finding those opportunities, finding your grown-up Christmas wish, still takes effort, planning, being nice not naughty and believing.

When is the best time to look for job? Make it this holiday season!

Crews Strengths hopes that you have yourself a merry little job search. Every success to you and yours for a wonderful holiday and for a new year filled with success, prosperity, happiness, and fulfillment.

The suggestions and advice given in this article provides a lot of information to help you to find work you can love. Please let me know if you have found it helpful. To make sure others have access to this valuable information, please go back to this article in LinkedIn and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths.

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Part 10.

Talents, Strengths and Your Resume

Why do you include any particular bit of information on your resume?

Why do you include information about your education?
Why do you mention a particular work success versus some other one?
Why would you include your involvement in a volunteer activity?

You include them to:

Show you meet educational requirements.
Help the hiring manager imagine you thriving at their empty workstation.
Highlight your successes, especially stuff not covered elsewhere.

Generally, you include and highlight things which make it easier for the hiring manager to see you in the position that needs to be filled. Thinking about what will pique the interest of the hiring manager, what could you add to your resume or cover letter?

With that in mind, should you include your CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) results on your resume? Why? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please read on. It is something you need to become aware of.

The StrengthsFinder, or CliftonStrengths assessment, has been taken by more than 26 million people worldwide. Based on Donald O. Clifton’s research on success and human potential it is best understood in light of Clifton’s query “What will happen when we think about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong with them?”.

StrengthsFinder Explained (super simple version)

The StrengthsFinder assessment helps people clarify their most important talents out of a list of 34 of them. While many only receive their top five results, people actually strongly apply 8 to 12 of them. Since the top five Strengths reveal important information, people frequently refer to their unique profile by the names of their top 5 Strengths in order. For instance, I am Ideation – Strategic – Input – Context – Learner. This combination in this order is unique to me, just like yours are to you. How unique? The possibility of any 2 people having the same top five Strengths in the same order is one in 33,000,000. Pretty unique, eh?

For comparison, there is about a one in 2,000,000 chance of being hit by lightning.

Preparing your resume, you tend to think of your skills. Don’t confuse talents with skills. Skills are the stuff you know how to do. Talents are your natural hows, whys, and motivation. When you work to develop talents, they become Strengths.

Strengths on Your Resume?

Can your hows, whys, and motivation be valuable and usable in your resume?

In your resume, you include, your experience performing tasks that highlight your skills, from creating websites to operating a forklift or juggling chainsaws, if they apply to the open position. So, shouldn’t you include information that highlights your natural inclination to learn, lead or solve problems?

Remember, the point of a resume is to interest the hiring manager to interview you. If your talents make you a strong candidate, then they improve your likelihood of getting some one-on-one time with the hiring manager.

If you haven’t already taken the assessment, drop me an email, to acquire a code to take it.

Show Your Strengths. Don’t Tell Your Strengths.

Do not just list the names of your top 5 strengths on a resume. Here are some of the reasons.

First, not everyone is familiar with the CliftonStrengths. Including “My top five StrengthsFinder strengths: Responsibility – WOO – Learner – Competition – Positivity”, isn’t likely to help the hiring manager visualize you sitting at that desk on the 37^th floor. It is about as elucidating as, “I am a highly motivated, positive team player, with a strong work ethic” (or “I love my mom and puppies and ice cream, and I got straight A’s in junior high”). Good for you, but what is in it for the hiring manager.

A hiring manager with some Strengths’ knowledge may have a vague idea what those 5 Strengths mean. What he won’t know, is what you do with them.

As the table of all 34 Strengths shows, common words are used to identify particular patterns of thought, feeling or action. A Strength’s name may not correspond to its dictionary definition. For instance, Empathy is a Strength which implies great emotional understanding, including, reading people’s emotional status. Not what most of us think of when someone says she is empathetic.

The uninformed hiring manager may misread what the Strength is describing. The slightly familiar hiring manager may mistakenly reach a conclusion equating your version of the Strengths with the version of another employee who shares none of your other talents. Confusion can occur. Confusion seldom leads to an interview.

The only case where you might introduce your Strengths with just their names is if you know that you are applying to a company well versed in the Strengths. However, you should never stop there.

Just like you describe your skills by including them as part of a powerful action verb driven bullet points, describe your Strengths the same way.

As has been stated in most of the posts in this series, never include anything in your resume that the hiring manager has to figure out. Address their needs directly. If the job listing states “Five years of experience working with XYZ accounting software.”, you could respond by stating: “Expert in all elements of XYZ software starting in 2012, including implementation of update modules 10.1 through 14.7.”

The Strengths equivalent might serve if your research indicates dysfunction in the potential employer’s office. Example: “Elevated department status from on probation to President’s Award in less than two years, by leading managers and staff to more effectively communicate and resolve problems.” In an interview you can unpack your “Restorative” Strength, which you intend to apply to help with similar situations.

The fact that you won the spelling bee in fourth grade is an admirable achievement with little bearing on your likely future success. The same is true with your Relator Strength if building close personal relationships is not one of the hiring manager’s needs. You can and will apply that Strength in your next position, but it may not be germane to getting an interview.

A resume serves one purpose. That is to get an interview. It does this by helping the hiring manager imagine the person described in your resume (you) in the slot she has available.

The StrengthsFinder assessment reveals your unique talent profile. It provides a description of yours hows, whys and motivation, helping to identify the innate way you successfully interact with the world.

Using Your StrengthsFinder Results on Your Resume

If you have taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, get your results out. If you still need to take the assessment, reach out and then when you have your results, get them out.

You receive two reports when you complete the assessment. They are titled Your Signature Theme Report and Strengths Insight Guide.

The Signature Theme Report provides textbook descriptions of your top 5 Strengths. Every person who has a particular Strength gets the same description. Your description of, say, Strategic, is the same as mine in the Signature Theme Report.

The Strengths Insight Guide is personalized. When you take the assessment, it knows your full 34 Strengths. A simplified explanation of the algorithm, for the Insight Guide, is it generates statements, from 5000+ possibilities. For a particular Strengths, say your #3, the statements generated are based on a combination of your other predominant Strengths (#1-10) modified by the non-influential ones (#29-34). It’s a lot more complex than that, but you get the idea.

Preparing a Strengths’ Bullet Point

Both reports provide valuable information. The best way to understand what Strengths looks like in your life, read through both reports. Then highlight/underline any sentences, phrases or even just words that resonate to you.

Next, take the highlighted/underlined phrases and think of examples which illustrate successful situations that illuminate that statement. For example, in the Insight Guide, under the Connectedness Strength, you might highlight the following: “. . . you create peace within groups or between people by pointing out links between them.” This is your Connectedness, (recognizing interconnection) mixing with Restorative (solving differences between people).

Show the hiring manager your abilities “creating peace between people”. Example: “Successfully brought union, non-union, management and vendors to the table, aligned by loyalty to the company, to negotiate a three-year contract.” That bullet point illustrates the success your Strengths generate whether the recipient is an expert in StrengthsFinder or has never heard of it. If the position you are applying for requires negotiating union contracts, this is likely to make you a prime interview candidate.

Strengths have great potential in your life, and they can have great potential to indicate your future success in a job. Your Strengths reveal themselves in the way you interact with the world. Telling those stories of how you succeed by being you can improve your odds of getting an interview.

If you need help discovering your Strengths and then applying them in your job search, please contact Crews Strengths. Remember, “It’s Time to Put Your Strengths to Work”.

NOTE: Gallup, the company that owns the assessment, uses the official name, CliftonStrengths, to honor Don Clifton’s legacy. Because so many people are familiar with the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, the names, StrengthsFinder and CliftonStrengths, continue to be used synchronously.

The suggestions and advice given in the articles about resumes provides a lot of information to help you put your resume to work. Please let me know if you have found it helpful. To make sure others have access to this valuable information, please go back to this article in LinkedIn and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

There is still more to come on resumes and Strengths and the whole job search experience.

If you need to catch up on the earlier posts in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, here is the way to get to that valuable content:

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Part 9 – Avoiding the Trash

With all the great suggestions, tips, advice, and wisdom in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, you should have no problem getting the attention of the hiring manager and being invited to an interview.

Right?

How about a strong maybe?

No doubt you will be far better armed to get noticed. You have discovered ways to match the language of a job listing. You know how to avoid the useless, mundane, and superfluous so that you fill your resume with valuable and engaging information. You have put your best foot forward. But will that be enough to get you an interview?

Remember, your resume only needs to be one of a lucky group of resumes that induces an invitation to interview. The interview decides the big prize. You just want to be in the final heat.

Sadly, most resumes don’t survive to the final stage. They die on the vine and are swept away to the wastepaper basket. You want your resume to be a survivor.

What is it that determines if your resume rises to the top of the pile or ends up in the trash? Any of the following can make or break your resume.

1. You meet enough of the important requirements for the job to give the hiring manager comfort that you could do the work. You can illuminate your qualifications with a well-constructed cover letter and resume. While you shouldn’t apply for an engineering position requiring 10 years’ experience, if you are a sophomore in college majoring in German Polka History. However, eight years’ experience with the exact type of engineering work the job requires, is well within reach.

2. Your resume is constructed to make the case that you are a person who could successfully perform the role the client company needs to fill, and you are therefore worth the time to interview. Address shortcomings in your cover letter. Example: “I have accomplished a great deal in my eight years at WYZ Construction, including all professional engineering work on the Interstate 666 bridge in Amityville.” If the job listing is for a civil engineer with 10 years of experience building bridges, you could be the best candidate. Addressing issues or possible concerns in a professional, confident, and honest manner can help soothe many concerns.

3. You use the right key words. The language of the job listing holds the key words for that job. If you can align with that language, you can help the hiring manager connect the dots that lead from their job opening to you. This is discussed very thoroughly in post 4 of the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series.

4. You use correct spelling and grammar. This isn’t Twitter or a text. Have someone look over your resume. Have several people look over your resume. Most people are less than adequate editors of their own work. As an author, you knew what they meant to say and see the words you meant to use, even if the the weirds ( 😉 ) are actually wrong. While word processing programs continue to improve, for the most part, they only confirm that the word you typed is a word, not necessarily the word you meant to use.

5. You are able to get around the standard application process. A good word from someone on the inside of the hiring organization can go a long way. A trusted employee who champions a candidate can provide the hiring manager a lot of reassurance. Every hiring manager has a nagging concern in the back of her head that you, whoever you are, might secretly be an axe murderer or a lunch stealer or a resume exaggerator. She doesn’t want to have to explain why she brought in the wrong person.

Techniques for finding a champion go beyond the scope of this article. However, if you can find someone in the target company, who could help expedite your resume, she can get you closer to an interview and farther from the circular file. Endorsements from people who know both the company and candidate can provide comfort to HR about taking the risk of interviewing you.

Conversely, do not decide not to submit your resume because you can’t find someone to help you get past the gatekeeper. A champion can help but is not a necessity.

6. The competition is always a factor which influences who the hiring manager invites to an interview. If the pool of applicants is large, each applicant has less of a chance of being chosen. If the number of applicants is smaller, then any one resume is more likely to be chosen. More importantly, within any group of applicants, there may be candidates who meet more of the specific requirements of the job listing.

You have no idea who else is applying for the job or how closely other applicants meet the requirements. Many variables can come into play here: location, salary requirement, personal relationships, etc. Also, be forewarned, the competition may have been reading the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series too and therefore also has this valuable knowledge.

7. Fate and all the stuff you have absolutely no control over also influences who gets to interview and who does not. This can include the mood of the person at the time he is reviewing your resume, glitches in the computer analyzing it, snags in mail processing, or an interruption in the office at the exact moment that the hiring manager has your resume up on his computer screen.

Do not waste your energy worrying about numbers 6 and 7. You cannot influence them. Invoke the Serenity prayer, recite the Desiderata and the story of the Tortoise and the Hare and hit send.

See how your resume survives an ATS

A resume tool worth knowing about is resumeworded.com/resume-scanner. It is an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) tool that can analyze your resume online. Upload your resume to this site and get an idea if you are on the right track. There is a paid version, but the free one can give you an idea of how well your resume would fare being run through a potential employer’s ATS. It is just one tool, but it can give you some meaningful insight.

We will keep your resume on file . . .

The HR rep said that he would keep your resume on file in case another position became available. So, if you see another job at the same company, do you need to apply again?

Here’s a sad fact. When an HR person informs you that they will keep your information on file in case an opportunity arises, please do not pin your hopes on it happening. The fact is that the HR person may place it in a file, but she is never going to look at it again until it is shredded (probably digitally) later when they realize they haven’t looked at it for five years. Even if they do somehow decide to look at your resume for another position, an a la carte resume as described in post 3 of this series is created for a particular position and may not address job listings for a different job.

A new job listing always warrants the creation of a new resume, even if you have previously sent a resume or even interviewed at the company. Even if the opening is for the same role (possibly the same job), send a resume. Do not expect the hiring manager to connect you to the opportunity.

Let not your heart be troubled

Do not be disheartened by anything stated above. Using the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” techniques will absolutely improve your chances of being noticed by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and hiring managers.

Remember, some things are not meant to be. Missing out on one opportunity may allow another door to open for a better one.

With all those things in mind, if you are interested in a job, then go ahead and apply. Be assured, you are extremely unlikely to be considered for a position for which you do not apply.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths at https://www.crewsstrengths.com/pages/contact.html .

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There is still more to come on resumes and Strengths and the whole job search experience.

If you need to catch up on the earlier posts in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, here is the way to get to that valuable content:

It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work: Post 8. How Dressed Up Does Your Resume Need to Be?

So now you are ready to produce your resume. It’s time to put ink to paper or dark digital bits to screen. You’ve followed all of the suggestions in this series. You have amazing, powerful, spot on bullet points. The words you are using align with the language from the job listing. You have responded to every requirement. Now it is time to create the physical (or virtual) resume document.

Good Order

The first consideration when producing the resume document is determining what information to place in what order. First comes your name, address and contact information. Next is a summary. The order of education, experience, professional organizations, publications, etc. has been dissected and debated ad infinitum by others. The best rule is to lead with the information that is most important to the recipient of the resume. In most cases that will be your experience. You may find that some fields of endeavor have their own rules concerning the order of the various sections. There may also be some reasons to change the order based on your experience. If you have 20 years of experience, you may wish to express things in a different order than someone who has just completed an apprentice program or gotten a degree.

Pretty or Plain

The next consideration seems to be visual but is actually about clarity. Should you follow a “traditional” text-centric format, with the majority of text aligned down the left side of the page. For example:

Alternatively, is this the time to show your clever and creative side by doing something different. Perhaps you are thinking something like this:

In a world where we are surrounded by graphics, we sort of seem drawn to the resume with the colors, images, multiple fonts, etc. Give that a second thought. There are reasons why most resumes are of the first and not the second type.

First, the standard black letters on light colored piece of paper resume is simple to create. It follows certain conventions that are recognized by the creator and the recipient. It is relatively easy to type, tab, correct, and align.

The negatives on the more colorful one is the lack of being what is listed above as well as the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you think is cutting edge and attractive may be nausea inducing for the hiring manager and created using her least favorite colors.

Finally, the best reason to stick to the simpler and more traditional form is that it will be able to be read by the ATS (Applicant Tracking System software) that it is likely to be subjected to. The odds are very high that you will submit a resume online. Some of these systems will only be able to receive and process the simpler formats. Some of them may say they are fine with anything including multimedia. However, please be cautious. You have no idea exactly what is going to come out on the other side. Most systems either want a simple .txt file or a PDF. Do not assume that the use of a PDF means that anything goes or that everything will be received.

If you are dying to be creative, you can submit a portfolio of your work. That is true for the arts, coding, drafting, etc. Another place to include things which show off your creativity is attaching them to your LinkedIn profile or on a personal job search website. Your resume can be ultra-traditional and you can let your freak flag fly with things you direct the hiring manager to, if you believe they will help you get an interview.

If you are in a highly creative field or just can not contain yourself when it comes to creativity, consider creating two versions of your resume. Produce a creative one, at least giving consideration for standard grouping and using all of the other stuff about aligning with language, and bullet point, etc. Then create a good old fashion words on blank sheet version. If you are submitting the resume electronically then use the simpler, plainer, easily searchable version. If you are submitting a physical (on paper) resume in person or via the mail, you could use the more colorful version.

White, ivory, light beige, gray mist

If you are sending a physical resume, what kind of paper should you use? Please do not sweat this one. At one time, off-white would have been the standard. White seems to be preferable now.

You can see the wide range of bland that you can choose from and see why white wins out. Or maybe not. Remember, the most interesting thing about your resume is supposed to be you.

White or ivory or whatever, use a high quality paper at least one grade nicer than cheap copier paper. Really nice watermarked paper designed for resumes is not a bad idea. Why? Because it shows you made some additional effort to make something nicer.

Watermarked paper has an image in the fiber of the paper, which is visible when the paper is held up to the light. Because there are frequently words, like the name of the paper manufacturer, in the watermark, make sure you print out the resume so that the watermark is readable, right side up and in the same direction as your printed text. Also use the same paper for your cover letter.

Consider using envelopes that are large enough to hold your resume without folding it. In the U.S. that would be a 9 X 12 inch envelope. Why not just fold it and stick it in a standard #10 envelope? Laid out flat, your resume look more professional.

To Serif or not to serif

While we are thinking about details, how about the font you should choose for your resume.

Whatever you do, absolutely, positively use only one font for the entire document. Do not make your resume look like a ransom note.

When selecting a font, choose a common one. Let your exceptional skills and talent be the thing that catches the attention of the hiring manager. Should you use a serif font or a sans serif font? Serif fonts are the ones with the little flat or horizontal lines at the base and top of most letter’s vertical lines. Sans-serif fonts are missing the little lines. Either one is acceptable. It is a matter of personal choice. Consider Times New Roman if you are going with a serif font and consider Verdana or Arial if you want to go with sans-serif. I lean to serif, but it is a personal choice. I am hard pressed to believe that your consideration for a position is likely to be affected one way or the other by whether there are little horizontal lines under each letter or not.

If you physically print out a resume, print it one sided. Also, only print your cover letter on one side of the paper. This lessens the readers distraction. Do not hand address the envelope. Print out the address using a label printer.

The major consideration with the suggestions in this post is to avoid letting superfluous negative things, like the wrong colors, serifs, folds, or handwriting, get between you and the interview. You never know what the hiring manager’s pet peeve might be, especially if he is having a bad day. Don’t let little things get in the way of that terrific resume you have spent so much effort getting right.

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If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths at https://www.crewsstrengths.com/pages/contact.html .

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There is still more to come on resumes and Strengths and the whole job search experience.

If you need to catch up on the earlier posts in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, here is the way to get to that valuable content:

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” : Part 7: What to Do When You Don’t Meet All the Requirements

Ok. You’ve reviewed all the good stuff in the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series. If not, you really should.

You’ve used the a la carte resume process to match the job listing. Your ready to send that resume to get that interview, to start the next chapter of your career. But there are a couple of requirements on the job listing that you don’t exactly meet.

What if You Don’t Meet All of the Requirements in a Job listing.

Should you apply for a job, if you do not meet all the requirements in a job listing?

Without equivocation, the answer is YES!

Ok, maybe not all the time. For instance, if the listing is for a neurosurgeon and you’re your highest degree is a bachelor’s in finance, please do not apply. But if a particular degree is required, and you do not have that degree, but have worked in that area for several years and successfully performed most of the other tasks in the job description, you could be the best candidate.

Here is where the connect the dots comes into play. If you do not meet a particular requirement, then address the issues in your cover letter. “While I am not a graduate of the Clown College, I have the heart, squirting flower and shoes of a clown. I have been juggling since I was 10 years old. My makeup is registered with Clowns International.” Here is a real life story about a client of mine: A job “required” a chemical engineering degree and the candidate applying had a mechanical engineering degree. The candidate literally met every other requirement but had to get around the degree issue. He ultimately did get the job and has thrived in it ever since.

So, why does the job listing have a requirement that isn’t that important? First, from the outside, you have little idea how important any requirement actually is to doing the job. Job listings are sometimes created by people who have no idea what the job requires. Job listings may be created using earlier job listings. Then, more requirements are added, but earlier ones are seldom removed even if no longer germane. Sometimes HR staff are given less than complete information and may be flying blind when they throw together a job listing. Sometimes everything they would like to get is not possible to find in a single human being. Rule of thumb, apply if you think you can love doing what the job is, not necessarily what the job listing says.

You do not know how your skills compare to those of the other people applying for the job. You just might be impressive enough that they will take a chance on being able to teach you to do whatever it is that you don’t have experience doing.

Addressing what you lack head-on can work wonders. It can be very helpful in the resume or the cover letter to show them how quickly or effectively you learned some other skill in a previous position. Use statements like, “While I do not have experience in making felt hats, I am recognized for my skill and fashion sense creating silk purses from sows’ ears. I am confident that the similarities between the two will mean I am able to master hat making in a matter of weeks rather than months”. This can help them connect the dots to think of you succeeding in this position.

As I’ve expressed repeatedly in this series, your resume is only a ticket to an interview. If you can get the interview, then your personality, work ethic, humor, etc. can contribute to the potential employer being able to “take a chance” on you.

Should I be using a Cover Letter?

Cover letters initially existed to personalize generic resumes. Back in the Stone Age, before computers became ubiquitous, you created a single resume which you would submit for a variety of jobs. You typed it on a typewriter (early analog publishing tool). Editing was limited and arduous. You took a master document to a print shop who printed it on beautiful, watermarked, heavy bond paper and submitted it to every potential employer. You submitted it with a cover letter which allowed you to spin your generic resume to make it, as closely as possible, respond to the relevant job listing.

If you’ve read the previous installments of “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”, you’re aware that I only recommend the “universal” resume as a tool for situations like job fairs. Using the a la carte resume system, explained in part 3 of the series, means you should have a customized resume to respond to each job listing directly.

With that in mind, do you still use a cover letter? The answer is yes, if you have the opportunity. When you mail or hand deliver a resume, always have a cover letter. Some online systems may not call it a cover letter, but frequently have a place for submitting additional documents.

The cover letter allows you to do several things that your resume alone will not.

Show that you have decent manners by thanking the recipient for taking a look at your resume. That is an opportunity for creating a personal connection.
As described above, you can address any issues like requirements you don’t quite meet and spin them into positives about how you will still be awesome.
Express and explain your interest in the position. “Since I sailed to Europe on the HMS Neversail as a ten-year-old, I have dreamed of working for ZYX Maritime. That desire remains to this day and is increased when I consider the opportunity this position as an engineer represents”. It is hard to express that sort of enthusiasm in a resume alone.
Mention your connection to one or more star employees of the company. “Joe Bloggs, lead auditor in your accounting department, is very familiar with my work having supervised and mentored me from 2016 to 2019.” Obviously, discuss this with Mr. Bloggs before referring to him in your cover letter.
Highlight how well you do meet some of the requirements. This can be an additional way to get that information front and center.
You must tell them you are very interested in the job. Be enthusiastic from the beginning. Tell them why you are so interested whether it is because of the company’s great reputation or the nature of the work they are noted for doing or because of their latest product. All of those things also indicate familiarity with the organization.

With most organizations using digital submission of resumes, it is easy to think that a human being is never looking at your information. Remember, a vast majority of companies in the U.S., at least, have fewer than 20 employees and still look at what potential employees send them. Always act as if a person is seeing your resume and cover letter and treat them with respect and courtesy. Expend the energy to win them over, to get that interview.

Keep a cover letter short, sweet and to the point. It is a part of your resume package therefore it’s purpose is to get you an interview. Three to four paragraphs should be enough.

Here is a format to consider:

Paragraph 1. Introduce yourself. Advise the title of the position you are applying for and state a good reason you should be considered.
Paragraph 2. Highlight the two or three items in your resume which best align you with the job listing. This is also the right place to include, if necessary, your admission of something you lack with a clear explanation of how you will deal with it. “While I do not read Sanskrit fluently, during my tenure at the Metropolitan Museum, I was able to learn to translate hieroglyphics at a Class II level in approximately 18 months.” Admit the problem and solve it within a sentence. Magic.
Paragraph 3. Reiterate your interest in the job with a reason why it is the work you were put here to do. Close with something like, “I look forward to having the opportunity to discuss my qualifications and vision for this position with you at your first convenience”.

There is no guarantee that you will get an interview, but this approach improves the possibility that you will be considered as a potential candidate.

It’s Time to Put Your Cover Letter to Work!

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If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths at https://www.crewsstrengths.com/pages/contact.html .

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There is still more to come on resumes and Strengths and the whole job search experience.

If you need to catch up on the earlier posts in this series, here is the way to get to that valuable content:

“It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work”: Part 6. Avoiding the Mundane, Boring, and Useless

A Revelation

Your resume is not about you.

What?

No, it isn’t.

Then what is it about?

Your resume is about how prepared you are to solve a potential employer’s problems and make her life easier.

Organizations hire people to solve their problems or satisfy their needs. That problem or need may be to sell more widgets, balance the accounts, cook five course meals, facilitate corporate training or captain the corporate submarine. Your resume is the first step in making the hiring manager aware that you can do the thing he needs done.

Your resume, and ultimately you, become interesting to an employer, by helping him imagine you in the job. Earlier posts of the “It’s Time to Put Your Resume to Work” series, have discussed ways to help do just that. These earlier posts can be found on the blog section of the Crews Strengths’ website.

In earlier articles, you learned ways to gather information from job listings to improve getting your resume noticed. This article is about sparking the imagination of the hiring manager and keeping your resume from looking like a help wanted ad.

The Mundane, Boring and Useless

Mundane, boring, and useless sounds like a product liability law firm. It isn’t, but filling your resume with them, can be a liability to getting an interview.

In your resume, advertise your zebras and keep your horses in the barn.

If you went through a random collection of resumes, you would find out that people feel duty bound to expound on what the company they currently work for does. They do it whether the company is ABC Glue Factory or XYZ Insurance Agency or Company Inc..

Do not waste space talking about the organization you work for. Most people know what a bank, an automobile plant or an accounting department is.

If it is absolutely necessary to tell something about your particular company, try to include it as part of a line about how amazing you have been there. Example: “Invented iterative plasma transport device at medium size, photo-nucleic eco-yak powered, governmental development organization.” I have no idea what any of that means, but any company that is more obvious than this, probably does not need to be described.

Not getting too bogged down in what your previous employer does, also allows you to not be type-cast in an industry or field rather than being recognized for your skills and talents. Pigeonholing easily happens if you appear to them as a whatever at an insurance company rather than as a manager or accountant or admin.

Remember, you are trying to make it easy for the hiring manager by connecting the dots. However, you must make sure you connect the right dots. If you are changing industries, concentrate on your transferable skills as much as possible. If you see yourself as industry-specific, then show that by exhibiting your industry expertise rather than leaving it for them to figure it out.

Do not waste precious resume space about the mundane work you do. If you are a lawyer, you probably craft contracts, or appear in court or meet with clients. What you need to tell potential employers about is your success with the complicated negotiations and the depth of knowledge you drew on to a defend your client’s intellectual property.

Don’t tell people you build buildings. Tell them how many, how quickly, how efficiently, how amazing your contribution has been, so they can imagine you being amazing for them. The same applies if you are a librarian, an HR professional or a truck driver. Most people have an idea what those jobs entail. What they need to know is the amazing way you do your job.

Competence in fundamental skills for your job are best confirmed by crafting statements that show your expertise. For instance, a basic knowledge of Microsoft Office is now mandatory in most office jobs. If you need to describe your proficiency, point out that you can create Pivot Tables in in your sleep and macros ought to be your middle name. Cover the mundane by publicizing the amazing.

If you are a surveyor, it is expected that you can use a transit. Chemists know proper lab procedure. Librarians know how to read. Dentist can drill teeth. There is a saying, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras”, meaning don’t assume the unusual when the likelihood is the usual. Show how you are unusual. Advertise your zebras and keep your horses in the barn.

Quantify

Numbers resonate and immediately give credibility. Even people who have math anxiety, find dollar signs and percentage symbols naturally believable. People believe numbers are real. When possible, substitute “15.4%” and “a three-fold increase”, etc. in place of “substantial” or “large” or “significant”.

Do not round numbers for supposed clarity. Decimal points are believed to be more real than whole numbers. Really! It’s psychology. 24.9% for some reason seems more real than 25%. Don’t lie, but don’t think you have to round up to avoid a decimal.

Bullet Points and Active Verbs

Bullet Points and Active Verbs sounds like the title of a mystery thriller. For your purposes, it is the best format to use to describe your expertise on a resume. Paragraphs can easily hide important words and phrases (which you worked so hard to discover in article 4 and article 5 of this series). Bullet points break up your list of amazing accomplishments and help the reader check them off in their brain.

People get hired to do things. Create a resume that emphasizes what you have done. As much as possible, follow each bullet with an action verb, even if this seems to be creating sentence fragments. Running down the column of bullet points should be words like led, developed, created, facilitated, and synthesized.

Example:

Led teams of 3 to 7 people in successful covert missions over 5 years.
Discovered cure for hiccups while acting as interim head of department after only 6 months with the firm.
Developed training modules for five different corporate groups covering operating units in seven state region.
Architectural lead on construction of 17 story multi-use building project leading to an on-time and 7.3% below budget completion.

The fourth example breaks the rule, but architectural lead seems more important and impressive than contributing, since the person was the lead who was part of the successful team.

Update Your A La Carte Resume Menu with Bullet Points

This is a good time to look at your a la carte Resume Menu described in Article 3 and rewrite them in the bullet point and action verb format. This will assure that you have statements ready when you need to create a customized resume on short notice.

The suggestions and advice given in the articles about resumes provides a lot of information to help you put your resume to work. Please let me know if you have found it helpful. To make sure others have access to this valuable information, please go back to this article in LinkedI n and like and comment on the actual post where the most people are likely to see it. Thanks for your kindness.

If you need help with your resume, your job search or in putting your Strengths to work, please contact Crews Strengths at https://www.crewsstrengths.com/pages/contact.html .

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There is still more to come on resumes and Strengths and the whole job search experience.

If you need to catch up on the earlier posts in this series, here is the way to get to that valuable content: