Posts Tagged ‘Career Story’

Does Your Resume Have All The Pieces Of The Puzzle?

Posted by • December 30th, 2010 • 84 Comments

Akin to constructing a jigsaw puzzle, preparing your interview-cinching resume requires the assembly of many interlocking career pieces, each with a small part of the picture on it that, when complete, produces a whole picture.

Unfortunately, it is most common for a resume to resemble a starter jigsaw puzzle that, although ‘complete,’ is rudimentary and unsatisfying to the more sophisticated hiring decision-maker weeding through dozens of finalist resumes for the perfect-fit candidate solution to their job-search conundrum.

[Does Your Resume Have All The Pieces Of The Puzzle?] While your resume may include the basic puzzle pieces, if it is undeveloped, it omits the rich nuances and shades of gray to differentiate you and make you stand apart from the pack. To help you visualize what I mean and in an effort to assist you in piecing together a more brilliant and mature resume puzzle, I’ll share a few good and not-so-good elements that I see when reviewing resumes.

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Career Reinvention Starts With A New Frame

Posted by • August 11th, 2010 • 6 Comments

A woman called me from out of state. “I want to apply for this call center manager job I found,” she said, “but I don’t have call center experience.”

“Do you have another kind of leadership experience?” I asked. “I ran an animal shelter,” she replied.

Hurrah! Now we were in business.

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Working Through The Stretch…

Posted by • January 19th, 2010 • 1 Comment

This time of year is a hard time of the year for a lot of people. The newness of the New Year has worn off, the holiday break is a distant memory, Martin Luther King Day marks the last holiday until Memorial Day (or maybe Good Friday if you get that day off). It is a long stretch regardless between now and the summer and it feels longer when the weather is bad and the job market continues to suffer. The winter doldrums can set in and if not careful, morale begins to suffer and then productivity slips and ultimately results falter. Here are some ways this winter to beat the winter blahs and push through the long stretch positively:

• Take control of your disposition. The recent Glassdoor.com Employment Confidence Survey indicates that there is worry about the time it will take in the future for finding a job to replace the one you are in now. Abraham Lincoln said, “You are only as happy as you make up your mind to be”. In this time when it does not look like things are going to get much better in the short-run, you have to make up your own ...

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Completing The Career “Story of You” During An Interview: Part 3 – Act III

Posted by • December 1st, 2009 • Leave a comment

Over the past month we have been learning how to be better storytellers when it comes to telling your career story during an interview.  We have looked at four mini-stories/plots that we should each have ready to tell at any time.

How to Tell the ‘Story of You’ in A Job Interview: Part 1
How To Tell The ‘Story of You’ In A Job Interview: Part 2 – Plots
Be The Hero In The Career ‘Story of You’ During An Interview: Part 3 – Act I
What You Can Overcome In The Career “Story Of You” During An Interview: Part 3 – Act II

We have established us as the protagonists and heroes and shown how we can tell our stories of overcoming and achieving.  All that is left now is to bring the story home and ensure that the listener is right there with us at the end, wanting to help us complete the last Act.  Act III is the resolution act.  Or maybe better thought of as the “so what” part of the story.

We have all read books and watched movies where the ending leaves us wondering why we wasted the time allowing ourselves to get this far.  That is because the pay-off ...

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What You Can Overcome In The Career “Story Of You” During An Interview: Part 3 – Act II

Posted by • November 24th, 2009 • 1 Comment

Act II in stories we are used to hearing is the part where we hear and read about the barriers and challenges that the hero (the protagonist) faces and overcomes. In the stories that we read  or watch, the more great barriers and challenges that build up the suspense and give the protagonist the chance to show how she/he overcomes them, the better.  Each of the challenges get bigger and bigger until only a superhero using every power bestowed, or so it seems, could surmount them.  This makes for a great story and one that we will listen, watch and read intently.  The same can be done with your career story during an interview.

Last week we established you as the protagonist and the interesting and compelling character that has caught the interest and intrigue of the interviewer.  They now know just enough about you to want to hear more about where you are going and how you have gotten to where you are now.  This is when you begin to introduce the barriers and challenges of Act II that you have been able to overcome and beat back when they were put in front of you.

You might be thinking that ...

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Voluntary Layoffs: Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?

Posted by • November 20th, 2009 • 20 Comments
AOL Company Rating: 2.9 (Neutral); CEO Rating: 64% Approval (as of 11.20.09)

AOL’s recent announcement about their voluntary separation packages brings back the question of whether or not the acceptance of a voluntary package is a good thing or not in this economy?  First of all, let’s be real about why companies offer voluntary packages.  The reason is to soften the blow of what is coming and to go ahead and flush out those who have already been looking for a job, have a job in hand, or just don’t want to be there.  This way there isn’t the keeping of someone who already has a job in hand and removing someone who wants to be a part of the company. There are many pros and cons to this approach and I have been a part of creating and administering these programs successfully.  Where they fall down is when the offer is not accepted by enough people and the alternative is that there is still a forced reduction that comes after the voluntary period has passed.  That in turn leaves those who didn’t accept the package, who get laid off later, with a smaller package, upset and not being long-term goodwill ambassadors of the company. In this economy, I would be leery ...

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Be The Hero In The Career ‘Story of You’ During An Interview: Part 3 – Act I

Posted by • November 17th, 2009 • 3 Comments

All stories that we hear are basically the same three act structure, so there is no reason that  the interview stories that we are used to hearing or telling should not come in the same three acts:

Act 1 is the story of the protagonist.
Act 2 is the story of the barriers/challenges.
Act 3 is the story of the achievement of the goal.

For the past two weeks we have been exploring how you can get the best attention by being able to tell the “story of you” in the most compelling and unique way so that an interviewer/recruiter walks away with her/his own story to tell about you. As a long time talent recruiter the ones who got the job were the ones where I could sit with a hiring manager and say, “you gotta hear the story of this person.”  If I was excited about telling their story to someone else the chances of their getting hired went up exponentially.

Last week we discussed six mini-plots about you that you should have prepared and are ready to go.  Have you gotten those down on a piece of paper yet?  If not, take the time to do so.  Once that is done, then ...

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How To Tell The ‘Story of You’ In A Job Interview: Part 2 – Plots

Posted by • November 10th, 2009 • 3 Comments

Last week I wrote about the importance of being able to tell a good story about yourself in an interview. Before we even get into the structure of the story creation, “the story of you” should be made up of at least six mini-plots that you need to know about yourself.  Storytelling expert, Andy Goodman, talks to non-profit organizations about the stories that they need to be able to tell in order to catalyze patrons to give.  Those stories or plots, with a little modification, hold up for the stories we need to be ready to tell about ourselves in an interview.  Before we put any of this into the classic structure of narrative, start now with knowing these things about yourself:

The “nature of your challenge” story – Can you articulate what the challenge is that you are trying to overcome?  People want to help each other, but they can’t and won’t unless they can identify with the challenge of others.

The “where you started” story – Are you comfortable talking about the core of who you are and where you started as it relates to what makes you up today?

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How to Tell the ‘Story of You’ in A Job Interview: Part 1

Posted by • October 28th, 2009 • 13 Comments

So, you have gotten the interview that you desired and you know that you are going to be asked once, twice, maybe five or six times, some question that is like, “so, tell me about you”.  You then have five to seven minutes to tell your story.  When I interview people I usually give them a chance to tell me about themselves and tell me their story.  Of the thousands of interviews I have conducted in my career, I can tell you that few of those stories stand out.  And why don’t they?  It’s because they are not told as stories.  Instead, what I receive is a regurgitation of their resume and a data dump that lasts too long and is far from being interesting.  As my mind wanders off to something else, I want so desperately to hear a story of intrigue.  Storytelling and narrative is our oldest form of communication.  An expert on the impact of storytelling, Andy Goodman, says “storytelling is how we mark our history, establish our identity, and how we remember.”  He also says that each of us are the product of a storytelling equation:

Stories you want to tell – Stories nobody wants to hear ...

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