5 Reasons Your Resume Sucks

What would you like someone to remember about you?

And how does your resume deliver on that?! Your resume is the face with which you present yourself to companies and potential employers. So when your resume sucks, it's not just your resume that sucks, it's your whole career story.

Irrespective of the fact that machines scan and approve your resume, people do as well. And most likely, your resume is not designed or built to favour readability among people. Here's 5 things that probably suck about your resume!

1_ You talk about your past, not your future:

You're being hired for a future role. Yet your CV entraps you in your past experience, instead of serving you to use your past experience to reach your future goals. However, if you only talk about the things you did in your past, as opposed to demonstrate the qualities from your past that you need for future roles: then you are going to be stuck in this trap.

2_ You make it about your jobs, not about your self:

A potential employer does not hire your past experience, they hire YOU. If your resume only works to highlight your past experience - your job description particularly - then you're not demonstrating your capacities. You're simply saying what you did, not what you are capable of doing. Highlight stories of excellence of yourself, not past job descriptions.

3_ Your bullet points lack an underlying career narrative:

The human brain is not designed to process bullet points that do not have an underlying narrative. The narrative style is more easily processed by the human mind. It is for this reason that Jeff Besos banned the use of powerpoint and replaced this with narrative memos in Amazon! However it's likely that your resume is simply a 'series of events' rather than a clear coherent narrative.

4_ You are trying to look good, not true:

A majority of us build resumes thinking 'What are they looking for?', as opposed to 'What do I really want to show?' (Which naturally leads to 'What am I really capable of?') An ideal resume, should be at a point where these overlap each other, rather than an either-or. This would not only make your resume relevant, but also a true and accurate representation of your skills and competencies.

5_ You are way too focused on results:

Give our work culture, this is a hard one for most of us to wrap our heads around. But for all of us - especially for younger professionals - very often results are outside of our control. Even though we know we did a project to the best of our abilities at the time, the result doesn't show that.Most of us shy away and actually exclude important projects, simply because we don't have great results to show of them! Instead, focused on your process, as results are out side of your control.

At any point ask yourself, what you'd like someone who reads your resume to know/remember about you when they're done. That should be a good place to start.

If you need help answering these questions, or wish to talk in-depth about your career story and how to make the change you seek, drop me a line.

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www.beyourownstory.com