Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome, or welcome back. Today on the podcast, I’m answering a question that has come in from a longtime listener of this podcast, and also a listener of my radio shows. And the question is, “I have been looking for a job for a long time now. And I think my resume doesn’t represent who I am. I’ve heard you talk about this multiple times on your radio shows. I’ve also gotten some emails from you. I could not attend your career webinar. But is there any way you can help me put together a good resume so that I can get myself hired?” Incredible question. And the reason why I’m making this question, like a podcast episode, is because I think all of us, at some point, have struggled with this. Or we may end up struggling with this.
Now, how can we put together a resume? I can do that very, very quickly, how can it be done. So hopefully, this is going to be of value to you, even though you’re not looking for a job. Now, there are three to four things we address, when it comes down to putting together a good resume a perfect resume, I call it a perfect resume. The first one is you got to decide whether you want a functional resume, a chronological resume, or a combination resume. All these three things have their own relevance, and they are applicable to that individual. For example, let’s say you are very good in something, you are excellent in something, and it’s better for you to put together a functional resume. You don’t have a lot of experience, you don’t have long tenure and doing something, that means you don’t have a long duration. But then you’re very good at doing one thing, then that one thing, which is a function that has to be highlighted. So you should create or you could create a functional resume.
Now, let’s say you have 20, 15, or 10 years of experience, you have been constantly employed, and you have a track record that you can speak to, then you can put together a chronological resume. Now, sometimes you can combine these two, also, a combination resume shows your functional expertise, and also shows that you have worked across 10, 15, 20 years, across multiple companies, all that so you have two Knology, you have a function. And that’s the combination resume. So three options to go with, let’s say you took a sabbatical. If you’re coming into the job market after maybe five or six years, and you don’t have in duration to show on your resume, then it’s better to go with a functional resume. So now that we have that out of our way, let’s talk about what should a resume have. Now, every role that you played should show that you were hired, because there was a problem going on. You came in, you produced the outcome. So the problem was there. It was intense. Nobody could solve it. You are hired, you came in. After 5, 6, and 7 months, the problem is gone. So question is, what did you do to eliminate the problem or three as the problem? That’s the question, every role, or every claim you make in the resume needs to address. What’s the problem? What’s the outcome? How did you get to the outcome? What did you do? Problem outcome, how now, that’s the second part in putting together a perfect resume.
The third part is, that every resume should show 80% performance, and 20% of your persona, 80% performance. If you use words in the resume that amplify big words, abstract words, a lot of hype in the resume. I’ve seen that. And I’ve seen, in fact, many of my coaching clients initially looking at the resume as all hype, you don’t need that much hype, all you need to do is make sure that you have 80% of performance and 20% of your personality, your persona, your character in the resume, that’s it. You don’t need to hype it up with any other words, any other things. So the 80/20 rule applies here also. And then the last one of putting together a perfect resume is that your resume has to be skills and action-oriented. It has to be visually focused.
It shouldn’t be scannable, maybe a page or two long. And it should be conveying significance and relevance, significance to you. And the relevance to others’ significance means that when you look at your resume, and when you read it, you should feel good about your resume, you need to feel wow, okay, this makes sense. This is what I want to say this reflects me my character, my thoughts, my intent, and my experience in words. You need to feel good about your resume. That’s the point. So significance is for you. Relevancy is to the reader. Whoever reads your resume. They should feel, “Yeah, make sense. This makes sense. These are the components that I need to have in a resume. And this is what I drive when I’m working with people.” Now the question was, how can I put a resume very, very quickly.
Now, here’s the secret to putting together a resume. literally overnight, all you have to do is go pull 10 resumes, of people who you think are the best, who you think you should have had their career, pull their resumes, and look at every word that is common across all those 10 resumes. So print them out, put them on a table next to each other, and start rounding the words that are consistent across all the term resumes. If a single word is there, in every resume, let’s say five words are common, or six words are common, that word has to be in your resume, somehow, this doesn’t fix the underlying problem. But this will definitely help you to compete, or at least get you to a level where you feel good about yourself, you don’t want to be in situations where you think that you’re putting a resume out of nowhere out of a blank sheet. And you don’t know people in your industry, how they’re going to accept your resume or your position, or the way you are trying to convey. So it’s better to get the words, put them all together, and make sure that all the words are in your resume.
Now, there was also another question identical to this, where I responded to that question saying, yes, you can hire resume writers. But the problem with resume writers is that they do not reflect your values and beliefs. They just cannot bring you to the forefront. If I do not know you. There is no way I can represent you. You can send me your resume. I can rewrite your resume, but I cannot represent you. That’s my wording. That’s my language. It’s like ghostwriting a book. A ghostwriter has to still take your ideas, your concepts, and they can amplify them. But they cannot create the absolute branding around you. It’s hard. Yes, you can use writers to write your resume, but then they need to know you well. And I don’t think by simply asking questions, you can get to know people, they should have spent some time with you. So it’s hard to have writers write your resume, even though Resume Writing is a huge industry, big industry. I’ve seen people succeed in it. But for some reason I have not been able to get my resume written I tried in the past. I don’t know if any of my clients have succeeded in getting resumes written that truly represent who they are. So my suggestion is you write your resume, and all these techniques will help you kind of guide you so that you become good at it. Will you become good at it overnight now? Will it take some time? Yes.
So I hope I answered your question. I hope this is helpful in general, to everyone who is either listening or watching this. This podcast episode is available on all the podcasting platforms. And as of yesterday, this is available on my YouTube channel. So you can look me up on YouTube with the same name which is Success with Srini and you should be able to watch this podcast episode as a video. That’s all for now. Have a wonderful, wonderful day and I will catch you sooner than you can think which is as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned. Thank you.