Not everything is a job search nail: Effective use of your resume

Have you joined the Career Mastermind Network? Jump in for “30 Days to a Powerful LinkedIn Presence.”

If you’re trying to fix a hole in the wall, are you going to go after it with a hammer?

Every home improvement project has a general work flow and calls for a specific set of tools. To fix a hole in the wall, you’d probably use spackle, a putty knife, sandpaper and paint. You’d use the putty knife to apply the spackle, wait for it to dry, then gently sand the area and paint it to blend it with the rest of the wall.

What would happen if you sanded before the spackle dried? Or used a toothbrush to apply the spackle in the first place? You might have a poor patch, or no patch at all.

Job search works much the same way. You develop your job search toolkit first. Then, the real mastery is in learning which of your tools to use when and how in building your case for employment.

Your resume

Your resume should be created with one purpose in mind: to get a job interview.

In this way your resume is a specialized tool. A good resume is designed to create enough interest to motivate an employer to contact you for an interview. A great resume should be very effective at making this conversion, but will likely stop there.

So, before you pass along your resume to someone, think about whether you’re using your resume as it’s intended to be used. In general, you will only supply a resume when it’s requested, either to express interest in a role or to help facilitate a career discussion.

Two things you should avoid:

• Handing it out to every contact. A resume contains a lot of information, only a portion of which will be of interest to your networking contacts. By handing over a resume, you’re making the person responsible for the information and the document. In mix-and-mingle situations, people don’t want to have to carry the paper. But a bigger issue is the fact that your target may never have the time to sit and read your resume. A polished elevator speech that tells your contact what you can offer and what you seek is more personal and more likely to get through to the listener in a memorable way.
• In lieu of a conversation. People hire people, not resumes. If you let your resume be your stand-in, you’re losing an opportunity to make a personal connection with someone who can help your career. Don’t send a resume instead of discussing your goals and qualifications. Don’t divert a one-on-one conversation by placing attention on a piece of paper rather than on your target audience. That personal connection will pay higher dividends than an ivory page of Georgia type ever could.

Remember that the more you distribute your resume, the less control you have over your message. Imagine you send a version of your resume to a networking contact that highlights your experience in management, and they pass along the resume for a job position without contacting you. What if you would have emphasized your sales experience for that particular role? You’ve lost that option.

Many people in your network will ask for your resume, so in that way your resume can support your networking activities. But if you want to build your network, your resume is not the best tool. Over the rest of the week, we’ll talk about other tools to support your job search.

What about you? How do you use your resume in your job search?

photo credit: Jchetan

Related posts:

1. How much is too much?: The Job Search Plan
2. Job search tip: Finding the hiring manager, Part 3
3. Job search tip: Finding the hiring manager, Part 4
4. LinkedIn Advanced Techniques for Job Search Networking
5. Time blocking for an effective job search plan

Tagged as: Career, how to, interview, job, job search, networking, resume, resumes