What Color Is Your Parachute?

depending, absolutely depending, on them to get you an invite to an interview:

1. And if some of your friends tell you their resume actually got them a job (not true: it actually got them an interview), you may feel lower than a snake’s belly. Many job-hunters never snap out of the depression and feelings of worthlessness that follow. “Ten thousand people in my town found a job using a resume, and I’m the only one who didn’t!” Or some fantasy like that. Every resume should carry a warning label, addressed not to them but to you: “Depending on this may be hazardous to your mental health.”

2. Resumes make you feel like they’re out there, working for you. They make you feel as though you’re really doing something about your job-hunt. But in fact they may be moribund or comatose. That is, they may not be getting read, at all, even when posted on an employer’s own website, as we saw in the previous chapter. Some employers, in fact, hate resumes (I kid you not; they’re tired of sifting through all those exaggerations, all those unsubstantiated claims, all those outright lies—in anywhere between 30 and 80 percent of the resumes they receive). Other employers love resumes, but not for the reasons you think. They love them because they offer an easy way to cut down the time employers have to spend on job-hunters. Remember, for the employer, hiring is essentially an elimination game: in a large organization, they’re looking for a reason—any reason—to cut their stack of resumes down to manageable size. As mentioned, it only takes a skilled human resource person about eight seconds to scan a resume (thirty seconds, if they’re really dawdling), so getting rid of fifty job-hunters—I mean getting rid of fifty resumes—takes only half an hour or less. Whereas, interviewing those fifty job-hunters in person would have taken a minimum of twenty-five hours. Great time savings—for them!

3. Resumes may cause you to give up your job-hunt prematurely. Resumes can be a useful part of anybody’s job-hunt, but they should never be your entire plan. You can send out tons of resumes, or post them on every resume site on the Internet, and not get a single nibble. Bummer! As we saw in chapter 1, you need alternatives. You need resumes and…. A resume is one way to get yourself invited in for an interview, but there are other ways, even preferred ways. Know what they are. For example: getting introduced there, by a mutual acquaintance or friend (a contact of yours, a business contact, a personal contact or friend, a family contact, or anyone you’ve ever met and know well enough to have their name and address or phone number).

ALTERNATIVES TO A CLASSIC RESUME

Many experts suggest that instead of sending a resume, you send just a “cover letter,” summarizing all that a longer resume might have covered. If you don’t know what a cover letter is, or how to write it, the Internet can rescue you handily. Just type “cover letters” into your favorite search engine. You’ll be surprised at how many tips, examples, etc., you find. Look particularly for Susan Ireland’s Cover Letter Guide at http://susanireland.com/letter/how-to. It’s free. Incidentally, recent surveys have revealed that many employers prefer a cover letter to a resume.

Another alternative to a classic resume is a Job or Career Portfolio. A portfolio may be electronic (posted on the Internet) or on paper/a notebook/in a large display case (as with artists), demonstrating your accomplishments, experience, training, commendations or awards, from the past. Artists have a portfolio, with samples of their work. You probably knew that. But portfolios are equally apt in other fields.

Instead of “portfolio” we might just call them “Evidence of What I Can Do and Have Done,” or “Proof of Performance.” For guidance on how to prepare a job-portfolio, and what to include, type “job portfolios” into Google; you’ll get a wealth of tips and information. I particularly recommend Martin Kimeldorf’s site, http://amby.com/kimeldorf/portfolio.

CONCLUSION

Okay, let’s go over it, one more time: do you really need a resume?

Well, no you don’t, and yes you do.

You already have a resume if you’ve been posting any stuff on the Internet. That resume is called Google.

You’ve got to clean up that resume, edit, fill in, expand, and add to it.

But that, alone, is not enough. You need to supplement what’s already there, by organizing the most pertinent information about you—whether it’s on the Internet or not—by writing the old kind of resume.

You can and should post it everywhere on the Internet, but if you decide to send it to particular employers, then you need to edit it before sending it to those employers. The principle by which you judge every sentence in it is, will it get me invited in for an interview?

These ancient truths reign, over all:

The primary purpose of a resume is to get yourself invited in for an interview (with a prospective employer, of course).

The primary purpose of that interview is to get yourself invited back for a second interview.

If you keep these two simple truths always in front of you, as you go about your job-hunt or career-change, you will be ahead of 97 percent of all other job-hunters or career-changers.

What is success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

BESSIE ANDERSON STANLEY, 1904 TRADITIONALLY ATTRIBUTED TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882)

Chapter 7. Networking in This Age of Social Media

If someone out of work knows only three words about their impending job-hunt, I’m willing to bet those three words will be: resumes, interviews, and networking.

If there’s one really overworked word in the whole of job-hunting, it’s that last one: networking. It’s used by more job-hunters, and with the least understanding of what it really is for, than any other word that I can think of, in job searching.

Job-hunters will go blindly to group meetings—job support groups, business presentations, college reunions, even beer parties or cocktail parties—and when you ask them what they’re doing, they will say, “I’m networking. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Job-hunters will collect people’s business cards day after day, week after week, convinced that this will pay