Prospective clients often call me to get their rsums redone in a presentable form. They generally begin the call with their question, Can you improve my rsum? They are surprised when I tell them that if they want their rsum redone they are better off seeing a rsum writer. They are surprised when I tell them that I can help to improve their career, instead!
So, how do you break the cycle of getting into the same jobs over and over again because you are stuck in your job and are not able to improve your career? You must begin with a rsum that tells a different story than the one that often reads like a laundry-list of job requirements written in the past tense. A typical bullet in such a rsum can read: Managed a variety of projects with cross-functional teams and delivered each on time and on budget (one item from their job description: Organize and manage a diversity of projects working with cross-functional teams.). It is no wonder, then, that with such a rsum the next job you land is a ditto of the previous, in an endless cycle of such jobs, until you do them for so long that the interviewer says, You are too experienced or senior for this role (translation: we cannot afford you any more.)!
So, how do you break this cycle of landing the same or similar jobs that do not ratchet-up your career and does not give you the ammunition to move up in your career? Here are some tips on how to break this cycle:
1.Make an audit of your workload and see what you can do to show leadership in your role and to tell your leadership story in a way that showcases how you work differently. No matter how stultifying your job is there is always a better or more exciting way of doing it, adding more value to it, and delivering better or more than what is typically obvious. Then use this achievement to tell your story in your rsum on how you initiated something novel to add more value and spice to an otherwise mundane job.
2.Do not just limit the scope of what needs to be done to the work assigned to you by some bureaucrat. Look at it from the view of the customer or someone higher in the food chain, who can benefit from your work and see what you can do better to make them experience a better outcome (better customer experience).
3.Keep your eyes and ears open to where the problems lie in the workflow and talk to those who feel stuck in their tasks. Explore ways to make that workflow better and offer your perspective as an outsider to make things better. Not only will that person or team thank you for your input, but now you have something to write about it in your rsum bullet (uncovered that the chronic delays in getting the structural analysis done before a design was finalized was that too many people in the team were repeating the same tasks without adding value. Working with the Lead Engineer streamlined the analysis and cut the time in half, making all subsequent analyses on time.)
4.Do not merely limit the scope of what your task is to your own output, but to what impact it has in your business, customer, or the market. For example, if you helped the project team deliver your product one month ahead of schedule, do not just say, Delivered a critical project one month ahead of schedule. Instead, say, Despite many obstacles found ways to complete the project one month ahead of schedule. After the product was released its early market entry helped the company double its profits because of the first-mover advantage, helping it build momentum that prevented competitors from winning early marketshare.
5.Instead of touting your great communication, or team-building skills (many project management jobs require these) by merely stating them as, Excellent communicator and team builder, write a short narrative of how you influenced someone unwilling to provide you the needed resources and got them or write about how a globally dispersed team on different time zones and schedules came together under your leadership even when the project was falling apart.
To break through an endless cycle of sameness of jobs you must change your message. Unless you change your message you are not going to breakthrough to change your career. So, the next time you are tempted to write a rsum that reads like a job description written in the past tense, think again and spice it up with real stories of your leadership and see the difference it makes in how you land your next job!
Good luck!
| About Author | |
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Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. |
Website: http://dilipsaraf.com/?p=2665
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