7/29/12 - Focus

by Jeff Morris, Founder of CareerDFW

At a recent career group networking meeting I met a person who cornered me after the meeting to talk about their career search. This person had an MBA and an undergraduate degree. She wanted to get into healthcare management.

 She told me that she did not seem to be getting anywhere. I asked if she was doing information interviewing and she said yes, but it did not lead to anything. She told me that she had done a lot of different things and she felt compelled to let the interviewer know that. Do you see the problem yet?

I told this person that if a company is asking for a, b, & c, you give them a, b & c. Not a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and on and on. I had to repeat this several times and I am not sure she ever got the point.

I then asked how long she had been working in her professional career. She started on this long story, I had to cut the story off. I asked how many jobs have you had? Once again into a story and she could not really give me a number.

I told her that I just asked two very easy questions and she was not able to answer me. If I was interviewing her, the interview would be over.

I then got to see her resume. It was a one page resume. This may be OK for a college grad or after the first job, but this person has worked for many years.

Things were starting to make sense why she was still looking for a job.

I asked if she had a 7, 8 or 9 page resume. What do you mean, she said. I asked again, do you have a resume with ALL the details for ALL the jobs you have ever done? No, she said. I then talked about the master resume (it could be your LinkedIn profile) that lists everything you have ever done and all of your accomplishments. This way, when you see a job posting, you just delete the items that are not sought to make it easy for the person looking at the resume to match it to the open job. She really liked this idea.

Every job you apply for should have a resume customized for the job description. Once again...if a company is asking for a, b, & c, you give them a, b & c. Not a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and on and on. Make it easy for the resume reviewer.

If you can't focus in the interview, you likely can't focus on the job.