Every day I open up piles of resumes and the first thought I have is, are they serious? Is this really what they want a hiring manager or recruiter to see? Do they really believe this is going to impress them and help sell themselves to quality employers? Is this really the message they want to send? It truly never ceases to amaze me that seemingly intelligent people continually go this route with their resume. There is obviously a serious disconnect somewhere in the resume / new job mental process. There must be. Something has to explain people's distorted present level of awareness on the subject of resumes.
Let this sink in... A resume needs to open up and hit the hiring manager, HR person, or recruiter between the eyes as exuding polish and success. It is a written advertisement, marketing brochure, and press release. An advertisement must be exceptional to be effective. It represents people and the service they provide in a competitive marketplace. Somehow people out there have convinced themselves that what they have is either good enough or it really does not matter that much. If that is you, you need to seriously rethink some things because you are making a colossal mistake.
Think about it this way. Ask yourself if you could ever imagine a world-class company that is offering a product or service sending to potential customers the document you are sending to companies. Be honest with yourself. Could you ever see IBM sending out what you are sending to perspective customers? No chance. Well, there is a difference some may think. How is that? Name one more valuable and useful product in the market today than a person who has something to offer a company. You can't do it. People need to treat themselves and market themselves like the leading product and service they are. There is an old saying, perception is reality? It does not matter if you actually are one of the best whatever on the planet. If the perception from your resume is that you are not, then you are not. There are no second chances to explain.
Well I used a resume sample I saw. Employers, your potential customers who you want to pay you money for your services, do not want some refurbished resume template or free resume example you stumbled across on the Internet. They do not want some cheap resume builder that you plowed all of your stuff into. Think about it this way. Does IBM or any other professional organization go scraping the Internet for free marketing brochures and free literature to send to potential customers? Not a chance. These companies know the importance of this area and they have entire marketing departments, or they outsource it to marketing agencies, because they know just how critically important marketing and sales collateral is. People need to think bigger. They need to upgrade their thinking and act like a professional business, because that is what they are.
I am aware that 99% of people will not take this advice, because they are utilizing man's greatest downfall, which is the ability to rationalize, or they are too cheap to invest in themselves. Whatever the situation, it is a huge mistake. People need to change their awareness level and realize that what they see and what others see is not the same with regard to resumes. After the tens of thousands of resumes I have seen, I can confidently make the statement that people do not know how to assess what is great in terms of a resume. If they could, they would not be sending out these resumes. For the droves of unaware people that just toss it together, get sick of looking at, and start sending it out, they are reaping exactly what they have sown.
This is not a game. This is reality. People are inexplicably gambling with their livelihood. Realities may differ with people on many topics, but the reality for hiring managers and employers is that they want to be sold. They want sharp. They want the best. They want polish. They want professional. They want organization. They want creativity. The resumes people are using clearly do not say any of these things.
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