Resume Digest Blog

Do you go to work in order to survive and pay off the bills or because you are fulfilled in your vocation? For many, job satisfaction has gone out the window but there is a sense where you get the job that you deserve. Let me explain.

As labour inevitably becomes a commodity you have two choices: you can become a bureaucrat who enforces the rules or you can be an artist who is creative at solving problems.

There is enormous pressure from the corporate mindset to avoid risks and tow the party line. The rule book has been refined to perfection and you have heard it said: "We have always done it like this before. Our methods have served us well all this time. Don't try to fix something that's not broken..."

An artist on the other hand doesn't mind rocking the boat for a good outcome. It is someone who believes in what they do and find satisfaction and fulfilment by going the extra mile. They like not just to do their work but to do it well and in an elegant way. They are experts at problem solving - the sort of problems that the rule book never thought of... They are the guys who don't mind breaking a few eggs to make an omelette. If everybody else has become a cog they are the ones who know where lubrication is badly needed.

If you are the boss of an artist in your organisation you can become jealous or you can see the benefit of a subordinate that makes your department look good.

Artists are those who can see over the business horizon and are prepared to try several things just in case one idea might work.

Bureaucrats will enforce the status-quo and spread rumours to stifle any creative attempt at making the corporate machine more adaptable in its environment. They have zero imagination, cannot handle risk but can only repeat what they have been trained to do all along.

In a start-up everybody is an artist. In a large conglomerate the majority are bureaucrats obeying the rules while a handful of artists are kept out of sight for their own protection. They come up with solutions that only someone on the shop floor with a different mindset could dream of.

If deep down you know that you are the artist-type you will have a hard time during the recruitment process. People will love to hear of your achievements but they will screen out anybody who doesn't fit the corporate mould.

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What once happened to blue collar jobs is now happening to white collar jobs: The Commodification of the labour market.

By hiring drones who follow instructions factory owners can drive their labour costs to a bare minimum. We have seen so many manufacturing jobs fly overseas and we are delighted to import from these people what we used to produce ourselves. Some people call it progress. Progress for who?

Here comes the call-centre. An entire office floor of cubicles with in each a computer screen to read the script to the customer, a telephone headset to yap all day to strangers you never get to see and a mirror to remind you to keep smiling...

Yes - wake-up to it office jobs are now a commodity. There will always be someone else to take your place and undercut your pay.

By providing a script, a rule book, a procedures manual (whatever you want to call it) bosses are declaring that you are not allowed to think for yourself. You are not expected to show initiative or demonstrate problem solving skills - all you are expected to do is turn up on time and stay there for the duration of a day's work.

You have become a cog in somebody else's marketing machine. Everything that could be tried has been tried. Outbound automated telemarketing messages were the ire of homeowners who got interrupted at meal time by obnoxious appeals.

Failing that, we had the craze of calls from India to induce us to take up a new credit card or swap our telephone plan.

In the face of all this, it seems that average jobs are disappearing fast. You can either get undercut by a plethora of cheap labour eager to take your place. Or you can make yourself indispensable by providing initiative in a workplace where they didn't get around putting everything in the rule book yet. (They might actually ask you to pour all your knowledge into the rule book and then turn around and make you redundant...)

You think this is too far fetched? I worked in the IT industry as a contractor and the Indian effect was astounding in cutting down our hourly rates. The permanent staffers had a unique technique to hang on to their jobs: procrastination by obstruction. Under the cover of security of information they erected barrier after barrier of passwords and network access so that newcomers could waste an entire day's work by simply being unable to get to the data they needed to perform their task.

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Develop the ability to look at yourself from the employer's point of view. Being able to hit one or more of these hot buttons will be music to their ears. Think of anything that you've done in your employment history that could be rephrased like any one of these:

Employer's motivator #1 making money

• Cleared unwanted stock by attending specialized auctions
• Sold company's trash to recycling company

Employer's motivator #2 saving money

• Outsourced maintenance saving 2 full time positions
• Saved office space with single parents working from home

Employer's motivator #3 saving time

• Scheduled driver's route for efficient delivery runs
• Started an hour early to provide materials for morning team

Employer's motivator #4 making work easier

• Modified plant for occupational health and safety
• Organized car pooling for employees in my suburb

Employer's motivator #5 solving a specific problem

• Partnership with Wisconsin Uni for by-products reuse
• Performed delivery installation and training all in one call

Employer's motivator #6 being more competitive

• Took #1 ranking in Google search engine
• Distributed redeemable vouchers through school contacts

Employer's motivator #7 building company image

• Blogging to increase traffic to company's website
• Sponsored new local hospital neo-natal unit

Employer's motivator #8 getting new markets

• Translated user's manual in French for Canadian market
• Repackaged factory seconds for export to China

Employer's motivator #9 getting new clients

• Signed up 10% extra members through affiliate program
• Modified attachments to suit competitors' products

Employer's motivator #10 getting more out of existing clients

• 15% increase in sales by implementing loyalty program
• New memberships by talking to visitors in waiting room

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Resume tip No 1 picture yourself where you want to be

Your resume should read like advertising copy - not like an autobiography. Take time to mentally weave yourself towards your dream job. Take stock of all the experience you have gathered towards your goal and make it appealing to employers.

Resume tip No 2 brand yourself to be in market demand

Your resume should convey a value proposition and a good fit with the company's culture.
Your should have a compelling answer to the famous question:
"Why hire you instead of someone else with similar skills?"

Resume tip No 3 detail your contribution to the company's bottom line

People who live by key indicators will love metrics like a 15% increase in customer retention, 10% improvement in efficiency or 20% over sales target. Giving percentages rather than absolute values lets you keep your duty of non-disclosure with past employers and will be a hint about your future loyalty and discretion.

Resume tip No 4 use Resume Digest's highlight section to punch your value statement

Whet the reader's appetite with three to five of your greatest strengths to communicate your brand.

Resume tip No 5 Match the requirements spelt out in the job posting

Highlight the must-have skills listed for the position you're applying for. If you lack a given qualification substantiate the claim that your experience is similar or better.

Resume tip No 6 segregate responsibilities from accomplishments

Responsibilities are what you're paid for. You're only doing what is expected of you. Accomplishments are what you have achieved above and beyond the call of duty - what you ought to be commended for. Employers like to have a self-motivated achiever on board - not a civil servant.

Resume tip No 7 speak the lingo with your industry keywords

Recruiters use scanning software to search for certain keywords in a database of resumes. For human readers make those hot buttons stand out by being first in line.

Resume tip No 8 substantiate your characteristics

"Customer focused: appointed primary contact for key accounts" sounds much better than "good people skills".

Resume tip No 9 proofreading

Aim to fit everything on one page unless you are a senior executive or an academic. Prune everything that does not support your application or worse may even detract from it.

Resume tip No 10 make it appealing

Resume Digest neat layout will help in that regard. You can still copy and paste into MS Word and do your own piece of art. But do not over do it!

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It's not very hard to get filtered out of the selection process. Remember that recruiters are trained to spot the negatives in order to reduce a list of applicants to a manageable size.

Just think you went out as a contractor because the place where you worked tried to bypass all the strings attached with regular employment. No more workers compensation insurance, no more superannuation, no more awards you have become a self-employed contractor. Terrific! Now there is a permanent job advertised and you want to apply. Guess what? Those people will shy away from contractors because they think you will get itchy feet and can't stand in a job more than six months! How do they come to that conclusion? Did they give you a chance to say anything about it? No, that is candidate profiling at its best.

Worse than a contractor is the one who claims to be self-employed. For a recruiter self-employed brings bad vibes. It means this person has other business interests that will interfere with the regular employment on offer. Too much of a risk. When it's convenient to them they like to find ways to get rid of you at a moment's notice but when they want you - they want you body and soul - all or nothing - you don't have the right to have your own life - you don't have the right to have a plan B in case their wonderful employment opportunity turns out to be a dud.

They demand total loyalty and submission - they want slaves not employees. Recruitment agencies are notorious to go overboard with this mindset because in order to look good in the eyes of their clients they want to pre-empt any objections that may or may not come up. If a rogue element has infiltrated the shortlist it makes them look bad - hence their treat candidates like a commodity they can onsell to their client.

So how do those corporate consultants get by, swinging from one assignment to the next? My guess is that they don't use recruitment agencies (even though agencies would love to represent them and get a cut of their fees). Over time they have built a network of contacts and they faithfully tap to their grapevine to check-up on any new openings. They also ferret out opportunities for others wherever they go so that when the time comes a good favour in return is to be expected.

If they do too much of that they may work for a recruitment agency or setup their own. For the rest of us we can sharpen our resume with resume digest.

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