Updating Your Resume

I often ask groups in transition, “What is the first thing you do when you are laid off?” The majority say, “Update my resume.’  I usually take a three inch stack of paper and throw it up into the air saying, “You should not need a resume!”

A little presumptuous? Yes, you do need a resume – but not until you go through the process of knowing who you are, what you want to do, where you want to do it, identify targeted companies, develop you value proposition, develop your brand, and much, much more.

Does that sound different than what everyone else is telling you? Good! Because if you do what everyone else is telling you then you are doing what everyone else is doing!

What are they doing? Going through the HR job application path which is where 80% of the people go to find 20% of the jobs. So, if all you want is your resume updated, please don’t call me. I don’t have the time to waste. We focus on helping people where it really counts. We first focus people to where 20% of the people go for 80% of the jobs. Then we help them compete with those 20%. A resume is one of the last steps that we discuss. It should be one of your last steps too.

Believe it or not, I received such a request today. Last night, a CFO in a global company and I talked briefly before I facilitated a CFO group of 30 on how to network.  This morning, I received a very nice note from him which ended in his requesting me to review his resume.  I refused – in a nice way.

For those of you who insist on starting with the resume, it does not bother me. You will not be competition for my clients. So, good for you!

So, I thought that I would take a few blogs to discuss resumes.

Let’s begin by my asking you, what is the purpose of a resume?