As a member of a new community of resume writers and career coaches called the Career Collective, this post is one of many responses to the question, “Are you a cookie cutter job seeker?” I encourage you to visit other members’ responses, which will be linked at the end of my reply by 9th October! Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

Imagine you are in front of an interviewer right now.

Your interviewer leans back comfortably in his chair, smiles and encourages you to break the ice. “In less than a minute” he grins, “I want you to tell me about yourself”.

Ah ha! You’re ready for this question.

“Well” you venture brightly, “I’m very team oriented. I have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and I’m definitely well organised and reliable. I feel that I am very good at solving problems and I am a very hard worker”.

You stop and smile pleased with yourself. You have said all the right things and easily beat the one-minute deadline. You’ve done well.

Haven’t you?

Not by the look on the face of the interviewer who clearly is undergoing an attitudinal shift. Still polite of course, but the smile has wilted somewhat and the warmth that greeted your arrival has been replaced with what appears to be disappointment.

What went wrong?

You took the “cookie cutter” way–using the same stock standard phrases that you have heard from a thousand different sources starting with your high school careers class. These phrases have become entrenched in your way of thinking under the category of: “Things You Must Say To Employers”

The key issue with mimicking friends and taking job search advice from non-experts, is that the employer or recruiter or HR person has heard it all before too. Over and over and over again in fact. On every resume, and by every enthusiastic jobseeker who ever attempts to impress at a job interview.

This so-called tried-and-true approach has a number of problems:

• It indicates a lack of originality or creativity; as far as the interviewer is concerned when pressed to come up with an original thought, you resort to clichés.
• It makes you look as if you truly believe that being organised, articulate and likeable is the panacea to company problems which is unrealistic at best. (Arranging pens nicely on the desk and having a team focus is unlikely to resolve a difficult union negotiation or bring in the big dollars on a complex sales deal. Or cut costs, or boost productivity or fix quality problems in manufacturing for that matter).
• By resorting to clichés and doing what everyone else does you have proven yourself in the interviewer’s eyes as being unoriginal, a follower, unable to impress or present information in a stressful situation, and that you are far from a risk taker.

Is that the “you” you know?

Is that the way you want people who don’t know you to perceive you?

Let’s rewind (I’ll give you an opportunity that none of get in real life!).

Your interviewer leans back comfortably in his chair, smiles and encourages you to break the ice. “In less than a minute” he grins, “I want you to tell me about yourself”.

“Well” you say, “I am an Executive Assistant to C-level executives. I started my career in administration as a word processing operator and in just a few years I’ve been privileged to work with some of the top executives in the tourism sector. I think that if you asked my current boss, the CEO of X company, he’d call me his lifeline! [pause to smile]. My role is to relieve him of any administrative burdens so he can do what he does best. As a result of that, I’ve had to learn some really complex work in finance and operations so I can speak confidently with other executives and get things done. If you asked me to summarise, I see myself as a management proxy and solution provider”.

Just 33 seconds.

In 33 seconds you have painted a word picture of who you are and what you do.

• You have shown yourself as articulate (you didn’t have to say you had “excellent communication skills”—you proved it!)
• You have provided background indicating that you have worked hard at self-improvement and that your efforts have paid off as you are now chosen to support C-Level executives.
• You have indicated that you’re not afraid to learn and you have the capacity to understand complex material.
• You have shown you are modest by citing your employer as saying that you are his “lifeline” (it is not boasting as you are citing a source!).
• You have indicated that you understand how important your role is in allowing the company to prosper (you free the executive to do what he does best).

And to wrap it up you place yourself in the position where you are able to competently act as a proxy for your manager, and solve problems.

Yes in just 33 seconds.

It sure beats clichés and doing what everyone else is doing doesn’t it?

So here’s your homework; stop sabotaging your efforts by resorting to the cookie-cutter style. Rid yourself of clichés and discard the advice of well-meaning people outside the careers industry. Think about yourself in terms of how you make a difference, who you are and what you do that sets you apart from others. Take what you know to interview and replace the fluff on your resume.

(Best to do it now)

Don’t you deserve to be seen as the person you really are?

Other posts from the Career Collective on the same topic can be found here:

The Emerging Professional: On the “Cookie Cutter” Approach to Job Search: Do You Need a Recipe?

Sterling Career Concepts: Job seekers: Break out of the mold!

Dawn Bugni The Write Solution: Dawn’s Blog Is your job search “cookie-cutter” or “hand-dropped”?

Rosa Vargas, Creating Prints Resume-Writing Blog: Being a Cookie-Cutter Job Seeker is a Misfortune

Heather Mundell, life@work: How Not to Be a Cookie Cutter Job Seeker

CAREEREALISM: Cookie Cutters are for Baking…Not Job Searching!

Sweet Careers Passive Job Seeker = Cookie Cutter Job Seeker

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, Career Trend Blog: Eating Bananas Doesn’t Make You an Ape

Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers: How Can a Job Seeker Stand Out?

Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips Blog:Avoiding Being a Cookie-Cutter Job-seeker In Your Resume and Throughout Your Job Search:

Heather R. Huhman, HeatherHuhman.com: Break the Mold: Don’t Be a Cookie Cutter

Rosalind Joffe, WorkingWithChronicIllness.com Forget the cookies! Start with vision

Career Sherpa, Hannah Morgan

Career By Choice’s Expat Success Tips: Ongoing Career Management is No Longer Optional for the Expat in Today’s New World of Work