Kindness of a stranger

 Stranger turns friend …

Martina rode the bus to work each day. It was on her daily commute that she came to know Jodi, once a stranger, now a friend. Through the course of their morning bus rides together, Jodi and Martina began to learn about one another, and it was on one of these bus rides that Martina shared her résumé with Jodi.

Not feeling that Martina had a résumé truly reflecting her skills, and also knowing that Martina was a single mother and already struggling financially, Jodi called me and engaged my services for her new friend. Jodi and I had worked together in the past, so she knew, first-hand, of the impact a strong résumé can have on the success of your search.

 Painting the wrong picture …

Martina definitely had an “old school” résumé full of lots of faux pas and ineffective presentation strategies. First, she opened her résumé with a self-serving objective statement which communicated virtually no value to a prospective employer.

Next, she presented her education, which would not differentiate her candidacy, given a lot of the roles she would be seeking would expect a degree. So, in essence, in the most important real estate on page one of her résumé, Martina had communicated nothing to differentiate her candidacy.

In Martina’s professional experience section, she had separated positions with the same employer, making it look like she had more employers than she actually had. In addition, she presented all of her experience in brief bullet points, making it impossible to discern her responsibilities from her accomplishments.

Instead of presenting how she had driven value for her past employers, Martina was simply presenting a laundry list of everything she had ever done. Making the picture even messier, Martina had listed addresses and phone numbers of past employers which was information that did not need to be presented on her résumé.