Seth's Half Right

Seth Godin is one of my favorite bloggers and but in this post about resumes, he's only 50% right.

Seth's looking for an intern and he doesn't like the resumes he's seeing. They're bland and boring and they don't tell him why these candidates are remarkable. Well, that means they're like 99.9% of all resumes out there (which is why people like me get paid to write the other 0.1%).

Seth goes on to say that he wants evidence of what makes a person remarkable:

If you don't have a resume, what do you have?

How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?

Some say, "well, that's fine, but I don't have those."

Yeah, that's my point. If you don't have those, why do you think you are  remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular? It sounds to me like if you don't have those, you've been brainwashed into acting like you're sort of ordinary.

I absolutely agree that those things are important - that's why I often include glowing LinkedIn testimonials when I write resumes. It's why I advocate for those clients who are good writers to start blogging. It's why I create online portfolios where people can show off their extraordinary work.

That's the 50% that's right.

But it's wrong to advocate for people to scrap the whole idea of a resume, just because the resumes they are writing are ineffective.  For better or worse, almost all hiring managers want to see a resume. Seth might not, but he's unusual and most people won't thank you for mailing in 3 reference letters and a blog URL when they asked for a resume. It'll just make you look like you're too stupid to follow instructions!

Instead, you should look for ways to communicate all those great things that make you special via your resume. You should include quotes from former managers (or peers or employees or clients). You should post the link to your blog and/or Squidoo page and/or web portfolio. You should focus the entire resume on showing how you have made an impact at former employers, how you've shaken things up, what you've contributed ... above all, how each company is different because you worked there.

It's not the resume that's the problem - it's what's on the resume that Seth doesn't like.

Comments

[Miriam Salpeter]

Louise,
I have seen a lot of comments and blogs lately suggesting that if job seekers are properly branded/remarkable, they will not need resumes.

Like you, I work with my clients to ensure they take advantage of new technology, blogging, online portfolios and social networks to establish their credibility and expertise.

As you note, employers expect a resume. If you are really remarkable, your resume should succinctly articulate your skills and quantify your accomplishments in a way that attracts the reader's attention. A blog, letters of recommendation (when requested) and other supporting materials are icing on the cake.

Since the internship targets college and high school students, I am not surprised that the resumes are bland. I've recently been working with soon-to-be college grads, and I have been surprised that most of their career office approved resumes are under whelming at best.

Miriam Salpeter
Keppie Careers
www.keppiecareers.wordpress.com

[Julie O'Malley, CPRW]

Sounds like Seth's internship candidates are not following the cardinal rule of tailoring the "resume" to fit the job (in this case, the resume should get tailored right out of the picture). But as you say, Louise, Seth is unusual. In fact, he's about as unusual as they come, in terms of what he expects in a job applicant. So yeah, if you hope to be his intern, you'd better know that and respond to that by doing something WAY beyond the ordinary.

But there's only one Seth Godin. And besides the millions of employers who still expect resumes, there are millions of candidates who don't want the "kind of job people would kill for."

The elements of a great resume may be changing, but the resume is still the preferred vehicle for most job candidates to deliver their message.

[Peter Dunn]

The biggest error I have seen my clients make is by being too narrow in their search: either they stick to published openings or working their personal network. Likewise, recent articles have provided conflicting opinions on resumes, letters and new technologies, including Web 2.0 and even video resumes.

Each situation really needs to be separately evaluated, based on industry, profession and level of experience. Unfortunately, there is no simple matrix for this.

My experience says that the lower the level of job and technology, the simpler the means. On the other end of the spectrum, an experienced senior-level manager in a high-technology field should probably have many tools: several resumes, cover and marketing letters, a solid web presence and some of the newer tools that showcase abilities and experience.

For a junior accountant, that could be overkill. But all credentials need to highlight accomplishments, as well as hard and soft skills; sometimes quickly and sometimes in depth, but never "bland".

Seth Godin has explained what HE wants to see. But his competitors and other industries may need the same kinds of information delivered in different ways. The published job market demands a certain response, but the "unpublished" job market -- those employers who don't yet know they need someone -- allows for a great deal more creativity in delivering that message.

Peter Dunn
www.career-hunter.info

[rahul]

Awesome article....
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[Matt]

"you've been brainwashed into acting like you're sort of ordinary." Sounds 100% on the money to me.

[Barbara Saunders]

Once, while working as a recruiter, I had a desparate need for a fast HTML person to do Web updates. I put out an ad on craigslist and got dozens of responses. Already swamped with resumes for the positions I was hiring, I called the guy who sent me a concise email with about 6 bullet points and a 2-sentence summary of his abilities.

I take a few things away from that experience: His approach worked because the skillset I needed was really narrow. I really didn't care about whether he was a "fit" or his life story; I got all the information I needed about his ability from his samples and his reliabilty from references. It also worked because he had a sterling profile -- his little coding jobs were his hobby, and his full-time job was pretty darn prestigious.

If that's the position you've been able to put yourself in, you don't need a resume and probably don't want one. Just like Seth says, if you're going for the kinds of projects where you'll be treated like "the talent" rather than like an employee, the resume actually sends the wrong image. Not everybody wants that kind of job or has yet established the cred to get one.