Advice: It’s not always right, it’s not always good, and it may or may not work for you.

Steve put the finishing touches to his resume last week and boy, was he proud of it. He showed it to Ralph, one of his good buddies and General Manager of Acme Corporation. Steve called Ralph a couple of days later; essentially to network of course—-but he used the resume as his icebreaker. “So, what did he think?”

“It’s pretty good” agreed Ralph, “But… I think you need to include some of those projects you did with Idol Inc., back in the day. They were pretty important and I think having that experience with DOS and Windows for Workgroups is something that would allow employers to know that you have experience that goes back to the early days”.

Steve was disappointed that he didn’t get the glowing praise he felt his resume deserved, but appreciative. He respects Ralph and although his ideas are a little at odds with what Steve has heard about listing outdated technologies and making a resume too long with old information, he knows that Ralph is a General Manager, so he must have insight. Steve fires up the laptop and adds some projects from the early eighties and briefly includes his pioneering work with DOS and Windows 3.1.

Next on Steve’s to do list is to call Sandra. Sandra is a System Administrator and she works for HCM, a leading technology company where Steve is keen to get a foot in the door. Sandra agrees for Steve to send his resume to her, and again Steve calls her a few days later to follow up. Sandra is sorry but she’s checked around with people “in the know” and it doesn’t seem like anything is coming up that would suit Steve’s skills at HCM any time soon. Sandra really wants to help Steve. He’s such a nice guy and she has worked with him before. The conversation is ending a little awkwardly until Steve asks whether she thinks the resume would be well-received at HCM. Well! This is something with which Sandra can help and she takes her time pointing out items that HCM look for in their employees. For instance, she knows that HCM loves employees that are enthusiastic and motivated, so Steve should include that, as well as being well organised, a team player and a good communicator.

Following the call Steve again fires up the laptop and spends some time looking at his resume. He’s reluctant to make Sandra’s recommended changes because he’s read books and articles all over the internet that say how cliche they sound. Plus, he has real examples of those particular skills many times over in his document. He’s always been told that it’s better to show “how” rather than just state a fact without proof. But, he sighs, he does want to work for HCM and it makes sense to follow Sandra’s advice. Steve adds the extra bullet points and saves the resume version 4. He shrugs, he’s getting somewhat tired of all this advice. He just wants a job.

Today is a new day but Steve has failed to shrug off the dark mood that followed Sandra’s call yesterday. He has John, the CIO and friend to call today and Betty a former colleague and now IT Manager. Frustratingly, neither know of any jobs but they too can offer advice. John tells him that those cliches on his resume are dumb. Betty suggests that old information such as AS400 and DOS and information going back to the ’80s is madness as it just makes him sound as old as Methuselah in technology terms.

Now thoroughly confused and dejected, Steve sits head in hands at his laptop resisting the urge to throw it out the window. All he needs is the one perfect document that will make everyone happy and he can get that job! He knows it!

STOP!

The fact is everyone has different opinions on what constitutes “good” or “right” and that doesn’t start and stop at resumes. It can cover works of art, books, religion, freeways, politics, architecture, movies—-in fact ask anyone’s opinion about anything and you’ll receive a multitude of them.

And….they’re not always right and they’re not always good, and they may or may not work for you.

One thing is for certain, listening and actioning them all is the definition of insanity. Changing the resume because Ralph is a General Manager is no more valid than changing it because Val is the tea lady. Sure, he has his own opinions about what he’d like to see if he was viewing the resume. The likelihood though is the HR department will receive it first or the recruiting agency and again, in all likelihood, it is the department head or team leader who will be interviewing and making decisions. Ralph’s opinion (like Sandra, John and Betty) is a personal opinion. It’s not The Great Resume Truth.

Steve needs to do three things.

• Trust himself (or the professional who wrote his resume) that his presentation is the best it can be.
• Heed only the advice of career professionals such as recruiters who can advance his candidacy to the next level for a real job currently in motion if he tweaks his resume as a “once only” document to match the client requirements.
• Develop a new “icebreaker” in networking conversations! Instead of asking for an opinion on his resume (which we have now learned are in abundance, usually contradictory and overall not that helpful), Steve would be better placed developing a list of questions such as “Have you heard anything on the grapevine?”, or “How is that project going with Brown Corp? I heard it was in trouble” and a range of questions to elicit information with which that he can move forward—instead of constantly revamping his resume on the theoretical personal whims of people for jobs that don’t exist.

Sometimes too much advice, is just too much.

Twenty years is just a blip in the grand scheme of time, but in terms of job seeking methods and resumes, it is almost an eternity!

Back in 1990, resumes in Australia were multi-page presentations. An entire page could be devoted to three lines of education placed strategically in the middle of the page. Personal details extended across all of page one and were strategically listed:

Name:

Address:

Telephone Number:

Place of Birth:

Date of Birth:

Marital Status:

Interests:

In those days we called it “white space”.

Today we call it a wasted opportunity.

In 2010, a vastly different methodology is in play. The talk is about personal branding, the resume is referred to as a career-marketing document and colour has revolutionised what used to be “plain Jane” formats with graphs, text boxes dividers and more. Documents are a sixth of the size of their 1990 counterparts; they are more concise and the emphasis on results and achievements have replaced responsibilities and duties almost completely.

Social media has captured the imagination of jobseekers, employers and recruiting firms alike and this is evident in the way people show knowledge of and interest in having a Linkedin profile created, and how jobseekers are routinely sourced by human resources departments, job search consultants and employers.

The service Twitter, barely heard of two or three years ago, has strengthened into a global phenomenon swept along by celebrities, politicians and even the British Monarchy. As a interesting by-product Twitter has changed the way people communicate. It has enriched the way we get our point across without embellishment and this has cascaded into different forms of writing such as emails, cover letters and resumes. People now have little patience for flowery descriptions, lengthy paragraphs, and dull writing—opting instead to make “every word a winner”, with content that is both concise and compelling.

The term “personal branding”—–essentially unknown to all but trailblazers keen to promote the concept just two or three years ago, has now penetrated the broader community. Today, most people know that communicating their personal brand is important to maintain an edge over the competition (even if they don’t exactly know what a personal brand is!)

With public demand for the next big thing continually growing, a revolution has occurred in the job search arena. Resumes now feature branding statements, personal philosophies and testimonials that distinguish candidates as unique “products” about to be launched on the market. This new form of consumerism allows the purchaser (employers and job search consultants) an opportunity to assess whether this individual would be a good match with existing team dynamics.

Standing still is no longer an option in the job search world of today. Professional resume writers are always on the lookout for new methods to distinguish candidates from others in a highly competitive arena. A couple of years ago I noticed an emerging trend in newspapers where the key points were placed strategically in one-line bullet points that provided the summary of the story, followed by the article or report.

I saw this as a strategy that could be transferred beautifully to resume development: a three bullet point summary, with each point no longer than one line, bolded and setting the scene for the narrative of employment experiences following. You’ll see in the example above what an impact this “Key Outcomes” section can make. Even if the reader just scans the document, these three bullet points are going to provide the reader with all they need to know in fewer than 20 seconds.

As a pioneer in placing “Snapshot” text boxes on resumes a few years ago, I notice now that many other resume writers have adopted this way of highlighting important information.

That’s the beauty of this industry where there are the rules, but at the same time innovative ideas can be developed and interpreted within the parameter of these rules to pitch a compelling business case for candidates.

One thing is for sure. The traditional ways that ruled jobseeking when I first started in the nineties (and even a good part of the last decade) have evolved to embrace change through the rapid march in technology and networking.

Experimentation in career marketing when used in a risk-averse environment and within the frameworks of contemporary job search can allow jobseekers to present themselves in ways that are both edgy and sophisticated, yet that play by the rules.

The question is, do your career marketing documents look more like 1990 or 2010?

Meet Erica. Erica has been a team manager in customer service for years. Her leadership role grew from being a call centre operator and over time she has moved into management roles. Six months ago Erica was sent on a training course by the company to learn more about safety awareness. The aim was to cascade the information she had acquired to her team so they understood about the importance of safety. To most people, a training course is just another workplace obligation, but for Erica, this one was a revelation. The more she heard about safety, its impact on morale and staff wellbeing and how to identify workplace hazards, the more her interest soared. For the first time in years, Erica was excited about going to work as each day held the promise of something new.

Such was her passion and success over those six months, the spark of an idea began to form. Could a change of career as a Safety Advisor or Consultant become a possibility? Erica was excited but concerned. With a background in customer service and team leadership and just six months in safety, how could she convince people she was a viable candidate?

Meet John. John is a senior manager in training and development. Last year he accepted a redundancy from a multinational vehicle manufacturer and struggled through the multitude of emotions that unexpected change can trigger. John emerged from the experience bruised, but ready to fight another day. He scored another role and settled in well until last week when the company announced more than 300 staff would be made redundant nationwide. John was one them.

Two redundancies in two years and John is reeling. He spends the week analysing his talents and thinking about his future. The emotional strain of another big company and another potential redundancy is something he can’t even contemplate.

An idea pops into his head. Real Estate! He’s personable and friendly and every weekend he scours the real estate pages in the newspaper to keep an eye on the prices in his suburb, what sells and recent auctions. The more he thinks about it, he sees how a change of career could be a blessing and his enthusiasm grows as he researches the training and licences he needs to achieve his goal. A nagging voice within makes him doubt how success will be possible. He’s never sold anything, let alone a house! How does he convince others he has what it takes?

Erica and John have the same problem. Convincing decision makers of why they should be chosen in favour of other candidates who most likely have a great deal more experience is tricky. Ultimate success requires perseverance, an abundance of conviction and self-belief, outside-the-box thinking, an agile mindset, and the ability to focus on the future with barely a glance to the past.

First the resume. The resume is the logical place to start as it will be the document that most employers will ask for in response to job applications or networking. Writing a resume for a career changer means the jobseeker has to be utterly ruthless about culling information from his or her past and be prepared to erase job descriptions and some achievements entirely if they hold no relevance to the future goal. It means to analyse tasks and skills from a career lifetime and capitalise on the skills shared by both.

At the end of the process, the resume must look as if it is written for and by a candidate who is qualified solely for the desired position. Obscuring the vision with irrelevant information is to make your presentation confusing to the person who is reading it.

Make no mistake. This can be a gruelling task and it can be surprisingly upsetting to let go of achievements or information that you hold close to your heart. Many people choose professional resume writers and branding strategists as objective experts who know the process inside-out. If this is not an option due to financial, personal or time constraints, then start by listing your transferable skills and under each skill compose an achievement from your past that aligns with your future. This is how you begin to create a new story for yourself.

Next, who do you know? Who can help you get noticed? Career changers who apply for jobs by traditional means such as newspaper classifieds or on job boards such as Seek.com are often doomed due to the sheer numbers of qualified, experienced candidates in their fields who use these channels. Networking is the single most effective strategy for career changers to get seen by a company through recommendation of an existing employee who can vouch for your fit with the organisation.

Who can you have a coffee with, find out about the industry, get insights into the way things are done, and who can get you before decision makers? You can try sites such as Linked-in or even Facebook to reconnect with people who can give you a leg up.

Social Networking. Social networking such as Twitter and Facebook may be something new to you and you may feel a little uncomfortable in embracing these tools. However changing your career is all about stepping outside your comfort zone so take the plunge wholeheartedly. There are professionals, particularly on Twitter right now who work in the job you want, are in the industry you want to enter, or who place candidates into your desired field. Learn the ropes of how to do it, the etiquette of participating in public forums, search for the right people to follow, initiate contact, make friends and once you have done that, ask questions. People are always there to help and provide guidance. Never, ever forget who you are, the image you are building and what you are trying to achieve. Statements that are rude, off-colour jokes and more will all combine to build a picture of who you are and how you will be assessed. Think to yourself “Would this affect my relationship with my new employer?” before you act.

Social networking isn’t just microblogging on Twitter, adding connections on Linkedin or joining friends on Facebook. It is all about building a network and getting known. Try searching for blogs and articles on your area of interest. If you have a constructive or interesting comment to make or information to add, comment at the conclusion of the article. Anyone searching for your name will find a consistent pattern of an individual passionate about your new field.

Create your own blog or resume website. Many sites are free such as Blogger or you can look at VisualCV. Your blog will provide you with a forum to talk about what you know and establish your credentials as an expert. Place your blog address on your resume too. When recruiters or employers search for your name, your blog will add to your personal brand. Again, make this a professional blog. No bad language, no pictures of your cat or your cute baby (no matter how proud you are!)

Changing careers can be an exciting, roller coaster ride of triumphs and disappointments. But if you look at it, not just as a change of career but as an opportunity to do and try many things you have never tried before, then it can be a whole new world of experiences, opportunities and lifestyle.

Question is: are you up for it?

Some people are reluctant to be frank about what they do well; they feel squeamish about recounting tales of how they distinguished themselves against their peers and consider it bragging (and we all know that nobody likes an show-off!)

As a result, people tend to talk in generalities to take the focus off themselves. They pepper their responses with words like “we”,”our” and “the team”. They think that by communicating in this manner that they will appear modest and a team player.

In fact what they have done is obfuscate the truth and make communications unclear. This can hurt a jobseeker’s candidacy for a job where clear communications not self-effacing statements rate highly on most employer’s wish lists.

The jobseeker, in trying to give credit to everyone from the receptionist to the CEO, actually gives nothing away about himself and in doing so, has raised a red flag about his candidacy. Is he camouflaging his true involvement because he actually let “the team” do everything? It wouldn’t be the first job search consultant who would mistrust the “we” defence for apathy!

I’m not advocating jobseekers claim ownership of something that isn’t theirs. For instance, asserting that you “Successfully built the world’s tallest building which was delivered on time and on budget” is quite a stretch if you were the receptionist who photocopied plans for the architect!

In fact, using this same scenario, thousands of people who would be involved in the design and construction of this building could claim the success as their own.

So this is what I’m saying: claiming success for something that isn’t yours to claim will make you sound like you are big noting yourself and it won’t be true.

Instead talk about your part in the team or project. You won’t sound immodest, you won’t be bragging about saving the world, and you will allow the people evaluating your skills and abilities to gain insight into you and what you do well.

Here is an example:

“I was fortunate enough to work on the design team that created the world’s tallest building. My role in the team was to research engineering that has been done in the past and see whether we could use any of these methods to achieve optimum building stability. I was given six weeks to complete this research and during this time I uncovered a new, yet little known technology that would be perfect for the type of building materials and geological layout that we needed to observe. I delivered my contribution to the team ahead of the six week deadline and I was pleased to see that my recommendations were adopted by the Chief Architect.”

Clearly this is not bragging, this is not claiming a world achievement and it is truthful. It communicates the role, the expectations of the task and what was delivered. This example would speak volumes to a decision maker who is looking for clear insights into a potential candidate’s work performance.

When a person is hiring you, it doesn’t matter what the team did or how successful the team was. What matters is what part you played in that team and what you contributed that made a difference.

It is right to claim what is yours.

Let “the team” take care of themselves.

There’s the good way: This is the resume that is perfectly formatted in a contemporary, sharp, sophisticated design that showcases your skills and experience as an unbeatable candidate who blitzes the competition and begs to be snapped up.

Then there’s the bad way. There are many ways you can fail to impress but today we’ll look at the personal photograph. You see, including your image in your resume can be bad. Very bad.

It’s a painful fact. Very few of us look like George Clooney or Angelina Jolie (much to our collective regret I’m sure). And frankly while I can’t speak for George and Angie, I’d imagine that they’d probably prefer to think of themselves as talented and hard working rather than just good looking.

But I digress. Let’s explore the top three reasons you should remove your photograph from your resume. (Excuse me… please? Drag your eyes away from the pretty folk for a moment!)

1. It’s not important. If you have read my book or my previous articles on resume development, you would know that the most important information you want to convey to your reader is situated on the first page. Your best pitch, your greatest achievements, your most compelling value propositions are placed on that page. Does this then mean that one of the most important things you want to convey to your employer is your face? That’s it? That’s what you’re offering? Don’t you think that sounds just a little ego-trippy?

2. You failed to go the extra mile and do it properly and you’re instead conveying a slapdash, it’s-good-enough attitude. Most candidates don’t have their pictures taken professionally so if you’re not going to do it properly, just don’t do it at all. You know the type of photo I mean. The type where the executive dons his high-quality suit with the suave, sophisticated air of the entitled, a slight smile hovering on his lips indicating the untold secrets he holds for making an indecent profit. The type of photo where his hands rest lightly on the rich wood of the oak desk, cufflinks catching the light and gleaming with self-satisfied approval. Instead, what we usually are faced with is a poorly lit digital pic snapped in the kitchen just before a wedding; a dubious vision in an ill-fitting suit, gardenia in lapel, sweat on brow, and a box of Rice Crispies adorning the laminated countertop behind. A picture like this is not going to create recruiter excitement, that’s for sure. Or maybe you’re using the picture taken last summer where you are lounging by the pool, beer in hand. You sure look relaxed; like you never want to work another day in your life. Wait…is that a good thing to sell?

3. Plain old human prejudice. Your photo on your resume invites people to show prejudice against you. Why give the resume reviewer the ammunition to reject your candidacy before he or she even gets to see and speak to you? What if your eyebrows are too thick and bushy and the perceived “perfect” candidate doesn’t look that way? What if you look like the interviewer’s Uncle Jack or Aunty Mary who made Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters look like good samaritans? As much as we don’t like it and it’s not fair, people do have strong reactions to photos and it is an act of self sabotage (or sheer egocentricity) to invite critical scrutiny of the way you look before you ever get a chance to demonstrate your talents and expect a happy ending. Your candidacy could be rejected due to looks, age, religion, nationality or skin type and you’ll never even know it because you didn’t even get an interview. How is that fair to you?

You want to be selected on the skills and experience you offer and not allow people to objectify you in any way. A resume is not a social networking tool and you’re not building relationships here.

It’s a marketing document that sells the very best you have to offer.

Surely you are selling more than just a pretty face?

Her ability to overcome adversity was impressive and I told her so; and that was when she said those jaw-dropping words “I’d like you to include that in my resume”.

“In your resume” I repeated, not sure I’d heard her correctly.

“Yes” she nodded enthusiastically, “I think it will show my ability to rise above problems, find solutions and organise”.

Fast forward a few years later. I was developing a resume for a woman who had a distinguished 15-year marketing career prior to her extended absence for maternity leave and later, caring for the infant.

“It’s very important to me that you include my maternity leave in my career history” she said. “It will show people that I can triumph over pain, that I have responsibility and I’m stable, and that I’m creative. I want to include quite a bit of time marketing that aspect of my life”.

Then there was the young twenty-something job seeker who wanted to me to include her lawsuit against her last employer for sexual harassment. “It’s important” she advised sagely, “That people reading my resume know that I left because of the harassment, not because I’d done anything wrong”.

Well, you’d think after twenty years in this business nothing could surprise me but in each of these instances, I was gobsmacked.

Why would these professionals who had so much to offer, want to invite strangers into their personal lives? Why did they think that that employers would be less impressed by their professional competencies and achievements and instead, choose to be exposed to recounts of daily beatings, the pain of childbirth, and sleazy workplace behaviours?

Granted these are extreme cases; but in each of these situations the jobseeker failed to understand what the employer was looking for in an employee. They were too invested in what they wanted to say, than what the employer wanted to hear and they had painted a mind picture of how to communicate these parts of their lives in a way that they believed provided a positive “spin”. The only problem was that they never needed to mention any of these things at all, let alone try to sell the lessons learned!

Before attempting to develop a tenuous link between your life experiences and your professional life, delve into what you have achieved in the workplace first.

There are many ways to showcase your true talents that are more appropriate for an employer to assess without revealing your private life to the scrutiny of a stranger! It’s a strategy that can precipitate future discrimination, fast track dismissal of your candidacy for a job, and provide ample evidence that you cannot distinguish what is appropriate and what is not!

Letting it all hang out? Forget it!

Sales may be declining in a key territory, or the manager could be bogged down by routine administration; staff may be leaving in droves, productivity and morale is plummeting and costs are skyrocketing. Whatever the circumstances, the employer is looking for a problem solver.

How then, do you position yourself as the person who can solve these issues? (Especially if you’re one of those people who say: “I never do anything special; I just come in every day and do my job!”

Following, are three roles not typically associated with accomplishment. I’ll show you how problem solving talents can equal achievement!

Production Worker who never achieves anything (or so she thinks!)

People in production like to solve problems with safety (keeping incidents to a minimum), quality (keeping happy customers) and speed (meeting production targets) so they don’t have to pay costly penalty rates for overtime—another problem! Three bullet points that would show a Production Worker’s problem-solving abilities could be:

• Met all productivity targets without fail. Processed 100-high quality widgets hourly while exceeding quality control standards for scrap minimisation.
• Saved company hundreds-of-dollars weekly by preventing need for costly overtime payments.
• Commended for safety record—achieved 12 months daily activity with no safety breaches.

Administrative Team Member who never achieves anything (or so he thinks)

Many administrative professionals are gatekeepers for more senior staff; they talk to customers or disgruntled staff to save managers from the burden of dealing with routine matters. Essentially though, administrative professionals are experts in organisation. They restore order from chaos. Sometimes just reordering the filing cabinet can be the catalyst for improving efficiency by ending frustrating information searches. Let’s look at how problem solving can be presented to sell the talents of an administrative professional for the two instances mentioned:

• Liberated senior manager from the burden of routine tasks by acting as a personal gatekeeper. Resolved escalated customer and staff complaints to ensure manager remained on task and focused on business decision-making and revenue growth.
• Transformed haphazard filing system into a model of contemporary office practice. Colour-coded all files providing at-a-glance retrieval for all staff. Missing files and lack of accountability became of thing of the past as staff immediately embraced the newly devised “sign in/sign out” process.

Customer Service Operator who never achieves anything (or so she thinks)

According to many customer service operators, their job is to “answer the phones”. They have more influence than they realise. The role of a customer service officer is to retain customers, generate leads, exude goodwill and reflect the company’s reputation for professionalism! Customer service staff are problem solvers with the power to restore your faith in a company through their courtesy, speed/efficiency and professionalism.

• Surpassed personal and team targets for numbers of calls handled. Against a daily target of 100 calls, broke team records for averaging 125 a day for six consecutive weeks.
• Saved thousands of dollars in lost business by persuading 10 disgruntled clients to stay with the company in favour of taking business to a competing organisation.
• Won kudos from management for generating 50 “hot” leads to the sales department in 60 days outpacing peer efforts by almost 35%.

It’s not hard! Think of a problem and how you’ve solved it, and how by doing so, you’ve helped the company.

Achievements like these make business tick over every day. Never under-estimate your contribution! (Even when you don’t think you have done anything significant or been in a position to drive change).

And for companies, mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow. You’re the person they want, you just have to let them know it!

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” Oscar Wilde

“Thanks so much!” said Jim as he prepared to leave my office with his new resume. “Oh there’s just one thing”, he whispered conspiratorially. “I guess I had better get a wife and three kids before my interview! Ha!”

Stunned, I stood there processing the fact that I’d been lied to as Jim took off down the road with a spring in his step, a cheery wave and a wink.

Thinking back, I had known in my heart something was wrong. I remembered that growing sense of disquiet I felt as Jim rattled off his widely diverse set of skills, credentials and career history.

It seemed as if Jim was one of those “been there, done that” kind of guys.

Drive a forklift? You bet!

Create a departmental budget? Sure!

Build? Present to executives? Lead teams? Tick Tick Tick!

It was the wink and the “wife and three kids” chuckle that prompted the penny to drop. Jim had been lying on his resume.

About everything? Some things? Who knew? Who ever knows the extent to which a person willing to deceive you once, will keep on going?

What I did know, was that I had been lied to and so had Jim’s next potential employer.

Jim had allowed himself to be tricked into a common job search blunder—modelling and shaping his resume and experience in a way that he thought people wanted to hear.

Instead of being truthful, he clearly believed that the truth wasn’t compelling enough for him to get a job; so he simply made up a new “truth”!

I suspect that Jim’s research had indicated that employers found family men, or a certain skillset or knowledge base the most attractive and so, he believed his best chance of employment was simply to claim those skills and attributes. Unfortunately for Jim as he would have no doubt found out eventually, the way to position himself as a valued employee, is through training and experience so that he could offer far more than just words.

One can only imagine the employer’s anger and sense of betrayal when hiring a forklift driver who couldn’t operate a forklift, a manager who struggled overseeing a budget, or a salesman who failed to invoke interest in a product.

Yes, Jim sure would have been in for a world of disappointment, and if he had been interviewed by a “pro” then his carefully constructed imaginary world would have come tumbling down in no time with just a few well thought-out behavioural-based questions.

The incident with Jim has rankled for years and comes to mind every time I have a client make grandiose claims. Having learned a lesson from this rookie mistake early in my career, my client job seekers are now questioned in-depth to find actual examples of their experience.

I smile now when I hear “Hmm… now that you mention it, I think you should leave this out, as I don’t really think that I did [personally bring in the largest account in company history / build the Sydney Harbour Bridge singlehandedly / change the world as we know it / or was instrumental in a multinational company expanding into China ]

The moral of this story is never fall into the trap of telling people what you think they want to hear, especially if your experience does not support it. What may follow your “little white lie” may end up being one of the worst and costly career and life mistakes you’ll make, if not through exposure at interview leading to your candidacy dismissed, then perhaps much, much later when you’re established in your career.

You don’t need April 1 to fall for an April Fools trick. You’re fooling yourself if you think that little white lie won’t return spectacularly to ruin your future and reputation.

I am a member of the Career Collective. A group of experienced career professionals who blog on specific topics every month. Look for our posts on Twitter #careercollective. Meantime, check out other member articles on this topic–links at the bottom of this article.

Please see other discussions on common job search blunders and possible solutions from Career Collective members below.

10 Ways to Tell if Your Job Search is a Joke, @careerealism

April Fool’s Day – Who’s Fooling Who?, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes

Don’t Kid Yourself! (The Person You See in the Mirror is a Good Hire), @chandlee

Avoiding the Most Common Blunder, @jobhuntorg

Are you fooling yourself? Bored at work? Is it your own fault?, @keppie_careers

Hey, Job Seeker — Don’t Be a Fool!, @resumeservice

Job Search Is No Joking Matter,  @careersherpa

Is Your #Career in Recovery or Retreat? (All Joking Aside), @KCCareerCoach

9 Ways You Might Be Fooling Yourself About Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman

Don’t get tricked by these 3 job search blunders, @LaurieBerenson

Trying to hard to be nobody’s fool?,  @WorkWithIllness

It’s not all about you, @DawnBugni

Mirror ‘their’ needs, not ‘your’ wants in #jobsearch, @ValueIntoWords

Stop Fooling Yourself about your Job Hunt: Things you may be doing to sabotage yourself – @erinkennedycprw

Same as it ever was – @walterakana

Don’t be fooled. Avoid these – @kat_hansen

Job Seekers: You Are Fooling Yourself If...@barbarasafani

Did I say “gap”? The more you look at it you see a great yawning chasm with nothing to link the dates before “the event” and after.

“The Event” of which I speak can be any extended leave of absence that you feel uncomfortable in explaining and of which you would prefer, if you were less ethical, to fudge with a made-up job or a reference to the delightfully vague: Working Holiday. (An idea you dismiss reluctantly knowing that you’ll be found out one way or another).

There are many reasons for an extended absence from the world of work and frankly most of these reasons are for a pretty noble cause of which you should be justifiably proud: the birth and rearing of young children or the care of elderly or infirm parents (being just a couple).

So how do you explain “The Event” so that your resume isn’t filled with soppy personal information, nor does it look like you’ve been a couch potato staring at Days of Our Lives every day losing your entire skill base while Stefano DiMera single-handedly destroys Salem?

For stay-at-home mums and dads, there are a lot of opportunities to position your skills through your involvement in committees, parent/teacher associations, new mother’s groups, event planning, charity fundraising and the like.

What to do:

First, change the experience section heading of your resume from “Career Summary” or “Professional Experience” and instead call it: Experience, Initiatives and Results.

On top of the last job you held to cover the gap, place a heading (like a company name) that provides an overview of the type of job you are going to describe:

Here are two ideas:

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

or

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Type your dates to cover the date of your absence from the workforce. For example, 2005 to Present

Next comes your position title. Consider terms such as: Fundraiser, Club Treasurer, Teacher’s Assistant, or Event Planner.

Then you could provide a brief description underneath the title:

• Joined fundraising club and volunteered to assume Events Planner role. Gained distinction for innovative ideas, powerful advertising on a shoestring budget and uniting a team of 20 volunteer fundraisers to scout and source locations for the best collection tin points. Four events held annually were considered an outstanding success raising $10,000 to purchase play equipment for the local school.

You could even place a few bullet points underneath that to highlight different skills such as financial management, team leadership and more.

This approach could also apply if you have been advocating for elderly or sick parents; frequently people acquire a lot of knowledge about government services, care centres, finances, pensions and healthcare—probably more than they ever wanted to know, but skills and knowledge are a gift, and not always a gift we can pick and choose. Many people find themselves wanting a change of career after such experiences, as they have found new skills by gaining exposure to a whole new world.

In times of sadness, being an executor of a family member’s Will provides you with a wealth of knowledge—from financial management, through disbursement of an estate, real-estate sales, government services, genealogy research and more. Again, these experiences can provide a very compelling case for the breadth and depth of your experience when positioned strategically and confidently on your resume.

It just needs thought. Everything we embark upon, in some way or another, provides us with knowledge.

How can you turn that knowledge around to build your case for employment?

The key problem with job descriptions (apart from the fact they are mind-numbingly boring to read and full of fluffy, nonsensical business-speak) is that they were written long before you moved into the role. They give no indication of what you achieved. (And as you should know by now, achievements are key to articulating your value and getting noticed by decision-makers).

Realistically, how could the following phrases, a typical one seen in a job description, ever begin to sell you?

Reference:  Sales Career Online.

• Demonstrates ability to meet or exceed sales quota.
• Complete understanding of pricing and proposal models.
• Demonstrates the ability to carry on a business conversation with business owners and decision makers.
• Maximises all opportunities in the process of closing a sale resulting in the taking of market share from larger competitors.
• Sells solutions and makes recommendations to prospects and clients of the various products/services the company offers to their business issues.
• Develops a database of qualified leads through referrals, telephone canvassing, face to face cold calling on business owners, direct mail, email, and networking.
• Assists in the implementation of company marketing plans as needed.

Boring? Yes definitely! It says nothing about you and what you’ve achieved. But…there is a way to use your job description to turn your resume from robotic to robust and it starts off by using just two phrases: “How did I?” and “How well did I?”

Think of each entry as an example and ask yourself:

• HOW DID I meet or exceed the sales quota?
• HOW WELL DID I meet or exceed the sales quota?

• HOW DID I sell solutions and make recommendations….
• HOW WELL DID I sell solutions and make recommendations?

Asking yourself those two phrases before each area of your job description will have you well on the way to writing powerful sentences that highlight your achievements.

Here’s an example of your draft response:

HOW DID I meet or exceed the sales quota?

• I met and exceeded the sales quota by establishing a follow-up campaign where I called all clients every three weeks.

HOW WELL DID I meet or exceed the sales quota?

• I generated an average of $5,000 a week in repeat business which far exceeded the quota of $3,500 and beat my nearest competitor by $1000 a week.

The achievement in your resume then becomes:

• Consistently exceeded sales targets by up to 43% and outpaced nearest sales team competitors by 28%. Successes attributed to personally developed follow-up campaign that kept product and company name at the forefront of customers’ minds.

Now this is an achievement! It is also an easy way to develop value-added structure to your resume by using those job descriptions as a guide. All you need to remember is “How did I” and “How well did I”?

Let’s make this the week that you revamp your resume with the aim of making every point made on it a winner. Are you ready to take on that challenge?