Common Ties Between Short-term Investments and Resumes
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When talking to clients on the initial front I can always tell who has done their homework and who hasn’t. For instance, one client may say, “I may need a generic resume that I can use for sales, consulting, medical billing work, and launching a pet grooming business.” Obviously, this makes no sense. Why would someone want to use the same résumé for sales, consulting, medical billing, and launching a pet grooming business? Those are four completely separate types of work.

On the same hand, if you’re talking to an experienced financial advisor and you say, “I’d like to participate in as many short term investment plans as possible. What kinds of get rich quick schemes can I get involved in?” A typical response from your financial advisor would be, “There is no such thing as ‘short term’ investments and you’ll only get burned with ‘get rich quick’ schemes.”

Typically, you’re going to listen to your financial advisor and decide he knows best and let him talk you out of doing anything stupid. Eventually you’ll come to the conclusion that get “get rich quick” schemes don’t work and that there is no such thing as real short-term investments. So, now, as a professional résumé writer, I’m going to tell you, there is no such thing as generic résumés.

So to answer my question – What do generic resumes and short term investments have in common? Nothing, because there’s no such thing.

Generic résumés equate to one thing; bad résumés with no clear target. Résumé writers and career coaches will always tell their clients that the résumé needs to have focus, just as your job search must have focus. It’s certainly possible to target a few closely related industries and create a résumé that can be targeted to those industries, but a “one size fits all résumé” will not be effective. Even when clients are targeting a few different industries, I’m still going to advise changing the professional profile or summary, at the very least.

A credentialed professional résumé writer who is an industry professional will help educate you in the process of what an effective résumé should include and what kind of strategic approach will make the most sense for you personally. All résumés will contain the basics, a professional profile or summary, accomplishments, and job history. The writer can take many different angles in determining what the best course of action should be, for example, whether a chronological or combined résumé should be used and what kind of information to include in the résumé, but the result should be the same; a strong résumé targeted toward a specific profession or industry. Many writers today are even including branding statements or at least ensuring the résumé is branded for a particular industry.

Why should we be branding résumés and targeting specific industries? For the same reason some people drink Coca-Cola and some people drink Pepsi. Different industries require different flavors. Let’s go back to the scenario of using one résumé to target jobs in sales, consulting, medical billing, and pet grooming. On a cognitive level, there are similar skill sets involved in all of these jobs such as communication, problem solving, and creating a course of action. However, I don’t want a medical billing professional trying to sell me a mutual fund. I want a financial advisor to sell me a mutual fund. On the same note, I don’t want a sales professional to groom my dog; I want a pet groomer to groom my dog. We are looking for highly sophisticated skill sets and accomplishments within specific industries. This is what distinguishes one professional from another. This is another reason why there is no such thing as a generic résumé.

Let’s take the dog groomer for instance: Here are some questions I would ask of the dog groomer, “Have you won any awards for your pet grooming? What percentage of your clientele are repeat customers? How many referrals do you get from existing customers? In what ways do you educate you customers about how to care for their pets?”

Again looking at the sales professional I would ask: “Have you won any awards for sales? What percentage of your clientele are repeat customers? How many referrals do you get from existing customers? In what ways do you educate your customers about the products you sell and compete against?”

I realize these are the same questions, but I’m looking for very different answers from the job applicant. Also, the employer, or the person reading this résumé is looking for something specific from each answer.

An award, regardless of industry shows a level of expertise that only few people achieve.

Repeat business shows that people like you and the product or service you provide.

Referrals show that others value and appreciate your products or services.

Educating customers shows a certain level of passion and expertise in your field and provides a value added service. Résumé writers strive for the exact same thing.

Typically, a generic résumé, which really doesn’t exist, can’t capture expertise in a specific industry, client appreciation, client value, or passion for what you do as a professional.

It’s, well...generic. According to The Merriam Webster Dictionary, generic means “not specific”. If your résumé is “not specific” then the reader will be “not impressed”. If the reader is “not impressed” then you will be “not a good candidate” and if you’re “not a good candidate” then you will be “unemployed”.

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you to give up the idea of a generic résumé, which doesn’t exist, but let’s take it one step further. First, what kind of job do you think you will be applying for with a generic résumé (which doesn’t exist)? Let’s say you look in the classified job listings under generic job and apply. What will you do in this generic job? Let’s take it a step further and try negotiating your salary for this generic job. What kind of salary do you think you’ll be able to command? Perhaps just…generic. I imagine that the salary negotiation will go something like this:

Employer: So what kind of salary are you looking for?
Applicant: I was thinking of something along the lines between generic and generic.
Employer: Hmm, I’m not sure we’re capable of doing that. How about generic?
Applicant: Can we throw in a generic signing bonus and generic benefits?
Employer: I’ll have to double check, but I think the generic pay, generic bonus, and generic benefits could work.
Applicant: Email me a generic offer and I’ll sign it on generic paper.
Employer and Applicant shake hands.

Here’s a formula to highlight the point: Generic résumés = Generic jobs = Generic pay.

Is that what you REALLY want?