Most of you have probably caught American Idol on TV. At the least, you will likely know that it’s a talent competition that week-after-week eliminates competitors until the eventual winner remains.

During the hectic rounds of auditions, where thousands of hopefuls arrive at stadiums to have their shot at celebrity and riches, there will always be someone who, when standing before the judges, fails spectacularly. They’re unprepared, they have forgotten the words to the song, or they have not selected a song to suit their style. Maybe they’ve arrived looking like they just took a break from jogging.

Inevitably, upon being told “No”, you’ll hear them beg, “Oh please, please let me get through the auditions!” they sob. “I’ll do better, I swear. I’ll make you proud of me, let me show you what I can do. I’ll do so much better next time!”

In most cases for those people, that ship has sailed. They had one chance, they weren’t prepared and it’s gone.

Today, I was speaking with a chap called Darren. He’d asked me to look at his resume and give my thoughts. After speaking to him for a while and hearing the passion and the experience that exuded from every pore, I couldn’t align the person on the paper with the man to whom I was speaking.

• The man on the paper looked like he was lazy with the constant use of abbreviations and ampersands making him look like he was trying to save himself the effort of typing or like text messages, was restricted to a certain number of characters.  Darren could never be called lazy.
• The man on paper seemed evasive referring to actions he’d taken but not following through with the results. Darren was able to proudly rattle off multiple results as he talked on the phone; achievements that were nowhere to be found in his resume!
• The man on paper was somewhat dull. The same phrases like “Developed and implemented” or “Established” or “Responsible for” had been used multiple times, bullet point after bullet point. Darren spoke articulately.

Darren and his resume were speaking about two different people.

It was then, that he sounded somewhat desperate as he said to me:

“If recruiters just called me in and spoke with me, I’d tell them everything! I can show them, I can tell them what I can do. All I need is the chance to get before them!”

The second those words were out, I had a mental picture of those pleading American Idol hopefuls. Darren was no different.

He had his chance to get seen and he’d blown it. His resume was his big chance.

Your resume is the very first opportunity you have to get seen. It is every bit as important as those people standing in front of the judges on American Idol. They want to see the total package so they can envisage that person as a star performer. So do job search recruiters and employers. Your resume is the first thing people see about you.

If it’s not your true self, if it is not showcasing your achievements or reflecting every single value proposition you have, then why plead for a second chance when you’ve been so cavalier about your first?

You’ve tried everything you can to get a job over the past year. Your hopes have been raised, they’ve been dashed, raised again and dashed again. The couple of interviews you’ve scored, they’ve told you you are over-qualified or under-qualified or you’ve failed to connect in some way. Whatever you’ve been told, it hasn’t been what you wanted to hear; those three words—You are hired”.

What you have been doing is not working. If it had worked, you’d be sitting in a new job by now, or at the very least, you would have attended more than a handful of interviews in a year.

Take for example, Eduardo. Eduardo is originally from Venezuela where he was a leading executive for a mining company. He’s led mergers and acquisitions that have reaped millions of dollars, he’s negotiated huge contracts, and he was known as a mover and shaker in the business world. Today, Eduardo is working in Melbourne Australia as a department manager in customer service for a telecommunications carrier.

And he hates it.

It’s dull, he is unappreciated and he’s been stuck there since he arrived in Australia about 15 months ago.

This wasn’t his plan, but he felt that employers would find his outstanding achievements and career background daunting and his opportunities would be limited if he held out for a senior-level role. Eduardo wanted to find work quickly; to settle in and start making a life for himself in Australia. He was prepared to take a giant step backwards if it meant a quicker settling-in period. His resume, a skeleton of what it could and should have been, provided precious little information and certainly none about his substantial business achievements back in Venezuela.

For the past year, he has sent this resume to apply for so many jobs, he’s lost count. Eduardo is despondent. Is this all he can expect? To be a departmental manager in customer service for the rest of his career?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome.

If Eduardo hasn’t made any headway in more than a year, then something needs to change. He simply cannot expect that the resume that hasn’t caught the interest of anyone is going to suddenly become something it isn’t. He can’t expect that a weekly visit to search for advertised jobs on a Saturday is going to do anything but fail, as it has for months on end.

What does he have to lose if he changes his strategy? So far, he’s dumbed down his experience to get a job he hates. His resume fails to inspire anyone, and any attempts to apply for roles for which is is qualified, fail immediately as nothing in his resume shows him as anything other than an overly ambitious and unqualified departmental manager.

What would happen if Eduardo took a new approach?

What if he decided to embrace his experience and lay claim to his achievements as a successful businessman? What if Eduardo stopped trying to sell himself as being something he isn’t, and instead, showed the confident demeanour that allowed people to see his authentic self?

What if… indeed.

Time will tell if taking the risk of revealing his true experience and taking it to the market, will yield good results. The probability that he will do better, is encouraging. Eduardo can talk confidently about what he knows, he won’t be continually altering his interview responses to tone down his experience, or remember what is and is not on his resume. By making a new pitch, by taking ownership of his skills, knowledge and experience, Eduardo will no longer hide behind a pretence easily identified by search consultants. He can claim his true business achievements, he can demonstrate that he is a genuine, credible contender, and with that comes the conviction, poise and courage that he’s been afraid to reveal until now.

Have you been doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome? Perhaps you need to consider changing your job search strategy. After all, what do you have to lose?

It happens to a great many people. Personal circumstances are the catalyst for removing themselves from the workforce for an extended time. It could be four or five years caring for children, it could be a year or more caring for sick or elderly parents, six months as the executor of a Will, or just a returning to full time education. Whatever it is, it doesn’t enter your mind how difficult it is to represent that time on your resume until you have to do it. If you don’t explain your absence from the workforce, you let people assume what you’ve been doing—and letting people assume is never a good thing! Today’s webinar addresses that issue: how to show what you have done during your absence from the paid workforce and relate it as transferable professional skills and experience.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Losing a job brings about the same emotions as the death of a loved one. The Job Loss Recovery Program using guided visualisation produces outstanding results. All you need is an audio tape, a comfy chair and the will to imagine. As I’m now certified in administering this tool, I thought I’d provide you with a quick video guide to what it is all about!

If you are interested you can purchase:

Job Loss Recovery Audio CD: Buy from 2CO

Job Loss Recovery Audio Mp3 Digital Downloads: Buy from 2CO

Job Loss Recovery Program Guide:  Buy from 2CO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbrg0XJAzOA

Last week we followed Richard. A Chief Operating Officer made redundant from his company, Richard is highly talented; a great leader who would be an asset to any company. There was just one thing wrong.

Richard was resistant to change. Put simply, he never trusted himself to step outside his comfort zone and frankly, never wanted to, due to his uncompromising beliefs. Sadly, ten months into his financially and emotionally draining job search, Richard was frustrated, humiliated and at a loss to understand where he was going wrong. Read Part 1 to come up to speed now.

Let’s rewind the last ten months, and look at how it could have been a much, much different story.

Richard, a Chief Operating Officer with a multinational company has survived many restructures, mergers and acquisitions in his time, but this time he was out of luck. Fortunately, Richard’s experience with the world told him that C-level roles aren’t often long-term engagements and at his level, the wait for a similar role may be a long one. Consequently, he made sure upon acceptance of this last promotion, that he negotiated a severance package should he be made redundant. It was smart to create a contingency plan. The 52-week payout provided Richard with that important financial buffer that would allow him to sustain his current lifestyle and be strategic about his next job choice. Yes, Richard was smart and intuitive in his negotiations and it has paid off.

Despite only being a few weeks away from work, Richard finds his mind straying now and then to the restructure that brought about his termination and he wonders if he could have done things better. Should he have been more assertive or more of a contributor? Did he not make the right strategic alliances? Increasingly these thoughts appear randomly and he starts to feel a mixture of anger and a little anxiety. While he could keep these feelings hidden to fester over time, he confides in his wife Sally, who is not just supportive—she has an idea. Sally has heard of a job loss recovery program that provides stress relief and guided visualisation through audio tapes that will help Richard work through the confusion of feelings. Of course, Richard is receptive to the idea. Allowing himself to release emotional baggage from his prior employment seems like an important step to him and with an open mind, he begins the two-week program. (Buy here) Rapidly he begins to feel the benefit of visualisation; he sees himself perform well at future interviews—confident of his abilities and free from the self-limiting thoughts that came from grieving the loss of his job.

Richard decides to remain social. It really is a vital part of the job search and as he meets with friends for coffee, he starts to pick up on clues… a project that has soured, a senior executive who is failing or operations in disarray following a merger. Instinctively he knows that he can act on these clues; seek out decision makers and start building a case for his hire. Of course, he’ll need a resume; and he knows just where to go. One of his friends couldn’t stop raving about a resume he had written by a professional resume writer and has passed on the writer’s business card to Richard who immediately checks out her credentials, website and samples and decides on-the-spot to delegate the writing of this important document to an expert.

Meanwhile, as Richard commits to the process of the resume development, he takes advantage of the $3000 worth of outplacement services he was provided by his former company as part of his severance. The central city location, free use of office services, the opportunity to work through the lists of employers provided, and the coaching, counselling and camaraderie found there, makes this a valuable experience for Richard.

Richard’s attitude is good and people warm to his friendly, open demeanour. Being well liked, he is always meeting with friends for coffee, and those friends have provided him with insights to approach decision makers, present his resume and business case and pitch for an opportunity to lend his considerable expertise to solve their problems. His extensive support network on Twitter and Facebook has helped him feel part of a friendly community and he’s been flattered and touched by the amount of people who have offered their help and support.

Tomorrow, Richard is attending a second meeting with the Managing Director of the Asia Pacific region of a multinational company where they will discuss a role that the MD would like to create just for Richard.

Things are going well. Very well. And Richard’s in the right place emotionally and financially to embrace any opportunity that presents itself because he stepped outside his comfort zone and declared himself open to new ideas and new ways.

How do you see yourself? Are you Richard Part 1 or Part 2?