Deep-Six Your Jurassic Rsum!

deep-six: transitive verb: slang: to discard or throw overboard

One of the common requests I have during the early stages of my client engagements is their need for a compelling rsum and a LinkedIn Profile to match. From fresh graduates to CEOs the common refrain is that they do not know how to present their sizzling, forward-looking message in a light that differentiates them from others. Although I am not a rsum writer I work with my clients to help them with it by first shifting their mindset about their work.

Mindset Shift

This mindset shift is about moving away from merely listing what they have done to embracing who they are by articulating it with a powerful verbal brand. Most write their rsums with bullets that read more like they are cut and pasted from the respective job descriptions with their tense changed from present to past. This approach inevitably results in a tired, fusty rsum message, rather than one that is soulful, fresh, and forward-looking.

So, if one item in the job description for a project manager reads: Must know how to prepare consolidated schedule and show milestones, the corresponding prosaic rsum bullet will read: Prepared consolidated schedule showing milestones. I call a message thus compiled a Jurassic rsum; dry as dust and devoid of any soul! More creative writers often sprinkle some numbers to make these statements more impressive and personal: Prepared consolidated schedules for 12 different projects, each with 10 or more milestones.

Instead, there is a different rsum writing approach that is worth considering: without creating a laundry list of each task or assignment in their job as a bullet, write it as a concise story to showcase their leadership and why they did what they did. Ergo, each bullet must be a story that speaks to the soul of their leadership in how they completed their task. Over the years, I have developed a structure and a template to make this easy for my clients. To bring sizzle to this story another requirement is that each story thus presented must have an Aha! and intrigue to it, otherwise it is not a story worth telling!

Accomplishments NOT Experience!

Presenting your rsum this way allows you to showcase your accomplishments, not just your experience. It also allows the reader to see beyond what you have done; it provides them a glimpse of who you are! Since my specialty is client re-invention this approach to rsum writing helps clients position themselves to pursue new vistas because employers now see them in a different light. This re-invention approach works not just for changing jobs, but even for shifting careers.

Some might say, Oh, but that is just listing your transferable skills. At its heart, this approach captures how you deal with critical problems and not just document how your skills can transfer into another job. That is why I call this an Inductive rsum. Much like Inductive logic, it persuades the reader to make a leap of faith about what the candidate can do for them, even though they may not have done that exact job before. In my own case I have used this approach throughout to get to my fifth career as a career coach. So, storytelling can be central to creating a compelling message!

This storytelling idea immediately results in my clients recoiling at the thought of the effort involved and at their own inability to come up with enough Aha! stories needed to make their rsum shine. Others complain that such stories can take too much space to fit into two pages. So, regardless of the obvious, ostensible objections, depending on the job they are after and the level they are seeking, each story must present a different leadership thread with the import of that story reflecting the level at which they exercised their leadership to accomplish that task.

Therein lies the rub!

Engaging Your Genius

Most approach their task or challenge at hand as a transactional assignment, rather than as something that they can conquer through their ingenuity, grit, and resourcefulness. If you truly engage your geniusand we all have thatin a task, you are bound to create that needed Aha! in what you accomplish. Others do engage these factors in what they do, but are unable to tap into themselves to flesh out the full story that makes for a good read. Either way, each type struggles to figure out what they really did in their jobs and how to tell it in a way that puts them in a good light! Thus, they are unable to move the reader from what they have done to who they are.

Now, why is that?

I think that there are two reasons why this happens: For one, some professionals are engaged in their jobs as order-takers, looking up to their boss to tell them what they need to do to stay out of trouble; and second, which is even more pervasive and troubling, most cannot write a good story if their life depended on it, even when they do have a great story to tell! In a way, it is writing paralysis.

So, here are my suggestions for anyone attempting to present themselves through a compelling rsum message: First, dig through your Aha! stories from the past and learn how to tell those in a written narrative that is concise and compelling. Regardless of how many clients told me at the outset that they have NO Aha! stories to tell, we were able to round up enough of them to make them realize what they had truly accomplished, even though they did not look at them that way at the outset.

Second, good writing skill is a sine qua non in any professional activity. This is a learned skill and no one is exempt from it, not even software programmers! And, thirdand the most importantif you did not attend to your job or assignments as something about which a story needs to be told, then from now on, every task or job you do must be looked at from the vantage point of this story-telling perspective. When you take this view of your ongoing tasks under your charge you will work on them differently, and when completed, youll have one heck of a story to tell for many of your tasks.

An inescapable bonus of this approach is that it allows you to extract your genius from these Aha! stories and to present it in your rsum as your powerful verbal brand. This is now a unique differentiator.

Illustrative Example

As I end this blog let me illustrate my point with an actual client story in the Before/After format:

Before:As Western Regional Sales Manager improved sales productivity 30% and increased sales 50%.

After:After taking charge as Western RSM recognized that star players produced twice as much as the resteven more during downturnsand with increased account penetration, while competitors were losing ground. Quickly met with the stars and uncovered their secret, codifying the learning for new success guidelines. Laggards responded to mentoring after working out the diehards. Within a year productivity soared 30%, and sales 50%.

The intrigue in this story: What was the secret? The reader can only find out by calling you after reading your rsum!

I hope that you are able to learn how to tell a story in your next rsum and see its power for yourself!

Good luck!

Photo courtesy: Compfight

About Author

Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader.

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