Doing one’s own résumé can be
a lot like cutting your own hair. It can be a risky proposition. Sure, you save
a few bucks, but more often than not, you end up looking a mess.
Homespun
résumés arrive weekly. This week, one arrived from a multi-directional
jobseeker needing a makeover. At the employment level he was seeking, he had perused
volumes of résumés. For him, it was a matter of cherry picking the ideas of
others, and repackaging them as your own.
That
appeared to be the case. He had managed to cherry pick every buzzword known to
man, and incorporated the overcharged verbiage into his presentation. For three
solid pages, the material buzzed, but not in a good way.
He
presented himself as Mr. Marvelous who
could perform anything and everything from soup to nuts. The only items
not mentioned involved sweeping floors and making coffee. Everything else was amply
covered.
There
was a critical chink in his armor, however. Aside from being an otherwise spectacularly
individual—he was unemployed! That oops undid him. He had no comeback to, “If you have been so damn successful, why are
you unemployed?”
Such
a question is rhetorical by nature. No explanation can satisfy that type of
inquiry once you present yourself as the end-all
and be-all perfect candidate. It is a
dichotomy of substance—not to mention the get-real
factor.
By
the time this jobseeker made contact, he was in crisis mode. He needed an
immediate trim-job. He brashly informed me that all the information I needed was right there in his existing résumé.
All I would have to do was make a few
minor snips and clips so he could apply to any upper-level opportunities. (That raised an eyebrow.)
I reluctantly
agreed to review his material, only to discover utter chaos. The jumbled mess did
indeed fly in multiple directions. Worse, it made no sense. After 20 minutes of
head-spinning jargon, I concluded it would not be prudent to proceed.
On such
short notice, little could be done anyway. He had been styling his own hair too
long for me to reshape his material into a smart hairdo. He was informed I
would be taking a pass on his otherwise ‘interesting’ project.
The potential
tragedy was that he might have been immanently qualified to do something. Unlike
re-growing hair, résumés change as rapidly as technology. What was in vogue
three years ago can quickly become blasé today.
While
it is okay to cut your own hair (or do
your own résumé), such decisions come with consequences. How you approach any
project often determines the results.