3FE: Lock The Job - Are You A Resume Chicken?

Have you given up before you even started?

Are you fresh out of college, or are you at the end of your rope at your current job?  And if you are truly on the edge of the end, are you doing what’s necessary to insure your next step is a good step, a true step that leads to critical success instead of the long fall into the doom of job search hell?

Critical success is the planned achievement of something urgent and essential, utilizing skillful planning and judgment for the express purpose of attaining personal prosperity.

Hey, how does your resume look?  Is it tuned for critical success?  Have you given up on your resume?  Or, does your resume have all the requisite pieces that everyone tells you it should have?  Are you conforming to the status quo?  Are you doing nothing, or are you just doing whatever everyone else is doing?

Are you afraid to stand out?  Are you afraid to maximize your brand?  Are your afraid to brand your resume for critical success? Are you a resume chicken?

Indeed, these are critical questions for a critical subject matter, securing and Locking The job.

When we talk about locking the job we are talking about bringing everything we can think of within reason to the job of finding a job.  In the process of finding a job we must consider critically what is required to make ourselves look like champion candidates, right?

These are concepts we’ve covered before and will cover again.  Differentiation is absolutely key.  How do you stand out positively?  What’s going to mark you as different from the crowd, all clamoring for a job and all submitting resumes at a break-neck speed, all of them looking almost, if not exactly like your own?

That’s the critical question.  Does you resume look like everyone else’s?  Are you afraid to stand out?  Are you afraid to look different?  Are you afraid that if you take the time to craft a resume that is radical when compared to everyone else that you will stand out in a negative fashion and NOT lock the job?  Again, are you a resume chicken? 

You are a resume chicken if you can’t think outside the norm with regard to how you effectively brand yourself.  Your resume is your extended personal business card.  It’s who you are as far is the recruiter is concerned.   You must put your all into its development. 

I was on a plane last week flying back to Atlanta and I saw a women who was perhaps in her late twenties.  She had her laptop opened and she was working on her resume.  I gave it a look-see.  It was boring.  It put me in the mind of the reams of resumes I had seen over the last year, and how so few of them really stood out in any way that said I’m not only good, but I’m GREAT!  And, I am the absolute right candidate for YOUR job. 

If you are in looking for a job then there are some things you must do, and you must do them with a critical thinking mind.

You must first recognize that you have a job.  It doesn’t pay so you need to be about completing it speedily, efficiently, and with maximum effectiveness.  You must first understand that your job is finding a job.

Once you understand your current job and you’ve accepted the reality if your situation free of the majority of the emotional baggage that comes with being unemployed you must start to aggressively think critically.  Use the Lock The Job process and 3FE: Find, Focus, establish the Fundamental, and Execute in order to build a plan for finding your paying job. 

In line with this article, you must not be a RESUME CHICKEN.  You must look at your resume and build it as the powerful representation of you that you know it needs to be.  Put the right amount of industry buzz words in there, not too many, but enough to get the recruiters interested.  PUT SOME COLOR IN IT!  That’s right, put some color in your resume.  STAND OUT!  Most people will tell you this is a NO-NO!  This is what I say … what have you got to lose?  If one way doesn’t work, try another. 

And tell me a story.  In the heart of your resume tell the story of you and the wonderful work you did on your last job and why that work is so appropriate to what I need you to do.  Tell me a story and convince me.  Don’t blind me with boring details or take me on a historical trip to when you worked at a hot dog stand.  Don’t hurt my brain with dizzying line after line detailing all your certifications and degrees.  Tell me what you have actually done with those certifications.  Prove to me in vivid color that I NEED YOU! 

Consider this approach to Locking The Job and securing your career.  Consider this approach to how you communicate with people and brand yourself.  Consider this approach in how you build your extended business card, your resume.  Stand out.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Be fearless.  Don’t be a resume chicken.

The Aspiring Critical Thinker,

D.S. Brown