Hiring a Career Professional
I had an interesting interaction with a client this week that I can’t get out of my head. “I hired you because I am lazy.” That’s what they told me, not because of my reputation, reviews, recommendations, skills, or expertise, but because they are lazy. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not $800 lazy. I may be $50 lazy. But not $800, lazy!
The first time we spoke, they mentioned they were not getting traction with their resume for jobs they were perfect fits for. The first thing I noticed was their resume was structured with every job listed for each company and then a series of bullets under them, with no alignment. From the reader’s perspective, there was no context for what they did in each role. I suggested we break each position out to get more robust content to tell a story fully. This, of course, will add length to the resume since we are building out meaningful content.
They hired me, and we started the project. It all started when I put the first draft of their resume up for review, and the immediate response was overwhelmingly a “no.” They had initial thoughts on length, metrics, and overall content. They didn’t like how it was written because it didn’t sound like them. They wanted a 1-page resume, even though they had seven jobs (4 jobs since 2017 with one company.) Edits are part of the process, so this was not an issue, but the proposed changes were.
I suggested we have a follow-up session to go over their concerns. I was confused because their editing suggestions were poorly written, and they wanted to remove impactful content. Could I have gotten something wrong? Absolutely! That’s what the editing phase is for. But…this was a complete rewrite in their own words.
When we finally met for the follow-up session, I asked what I could do to earn their trust in this process. It’s very important that if you hire someone to help you with a resume build-out, you trust their advice.
Here are some of the things they told me during that call:
“I showed this to my colleagues, and they said they would throw the resume in the trash after reading the first two lines. I would do the same.”
“General note: I think this whole thing is way too wordy and hard to read. It's my own resume and i can barely get through it. i cant imagine anyone spending time on something like this.”
“I’ve never seen a resume that looks like this.”
“I hired you because I’m lazy, but I ended up writing it myself anyway.”
I tried to keep my composure but knew my tone was feeling it! In the words of Steve Jobs, “We don’t hire great people to tell them what to do. We hire great people to tell us what to do.” It’s one of my favorite quotes, and I shared that with them. I told them that what I was concerned the most about was the rewrite was very pedestrian. For example, they wanted to change this line:
Consumer insights thought leader with expertise in analyzing data to fuel consumer concepts, inform brand positioning, influence new product development, shape strategic direction, and drive business growth.
to
An innovative and relationship-focused leader with expertise in driving project lifecycles from conception, strategy, design, and successful execution. Accomplished in analyzing data and utilizing results to inspire dynamic change, enhance performance, and develop solutions for business growth in fast-paced environments. A trusted advisor, passionate about fostering a positive company culture and building top-performing teams that deliver results.
These words: “innovative and relationship-focused,” “accomplished,” “trusted advisor,” and “passionate”- just don’t have a place in a resume when describing yourself! These are opinions, and everyone uses them. You want your resume to SHOW, not TELL. SHOW that you are innovative with examples. Weak resumes simply say “innovative.”
It became apparent that I would not win this battle when they disagreed with using the phrase “10 concurrent projects” and instead replaced it with “10 projects at one time.” WHAT? Their actual comment was that this doesn’t show they were being managed at the same time and makes it sound like they only had 10 projects.
During the follow-up call, knowing I was not going to make them happy, I advised that I would accept all of their changes but that I wouldn’t stand behind the efficacy of the resume. We went line by line with their changes to confirm what they wanted the resume to say. I pulled the resume back into Word and explained there may be some refinement if there are widow lines. Although I wouldn’t rewrite their rewrite of my already written work, I would check it for formatting and proper grammar.
Before sending the resume to the graphic designer, I sent it to them one last time to get approval. They, of course, had a list of changes and asked, “The word actionable is used eight times; can we change this?” Sure! First, I pulled up my original draft and searched for the word actionable. It was found ONE time. As passive-aggressive as I wanted to be, knowing THEY added the word, I simply removed it and replied that it was corrected. Their changes also created widow lines that I previously fixed.
Long story short, don’t hire me if you are lazy! The sad part is that they will never know how successful that resume would have been!
Thank you for this therapy session.
P.S. During the week that we worked on this project, I had 4 orders come through from past clients needing to get their resumes updated with new positions they landed after working together. Not taking bets that this client will hire me to update their resume going forward.
