Career Advice from the Mandalorian

Fans of the show will no doubt be familiar with the phrase “This is the Way.” It is a Mandalorian mantra used to express certainty in their way of thinking. It is an absolutist view of the world.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of a group of bounty hunting space Spartans, rarely is anything absolute. And that is especially true of career advice. For example, keeping your resume to one page may be the right advice for someone early in their career, yet for someone more experienced, that is clearly not the way.

Here is some other oft shared advice: you should only go back 10 years on your resume, cover letters are useless as no one reads them, never ever give a desired salary, to name just a few.

Recognize that advice is subjective. And as the advice recipient, it is vital to listen to it, process it, and customize it to your current situation. Maybe it works for you, and maybe it doesn’t. Most importantly, the person sharing the advice now knows you are looking for a new opportunity, and most people want to help.?

Now to get back on the right side of that bounty puck, the Mandalorian and his skill set can indeed provide an effective blueprint for those looking for that next opportunity.

Before a Mandalorian starts a bounty, there is always that scene where they check their inventory. Imagine that as a job seeker: cue montage with a dramatic instrumental background. Resume. Check. References. Check. Spruce up that LinkedIn profile. Check. End scene.

However before that montage there is always that other one. It’s that combination of an inner monologue often filled with prerequisite flashbacks and some sort of training. In other words, it’s about getting in the right frame of mind and adding new skills or refreshing old ones.?

Let’s start with that inner monologue. Are you self-aware? Have you cast a critical honest-eye over your career? What roles did you like? What roles did you not? What managers did you like and not like? Take a pause to consider what you truly find meaningful about the work you do. Recognize though what is meaningful to you, will change as you change. As you grow and learn, you will want different things. And that’s okay.?

And then doing a skill inventory. Are yours up to date? If not, what are some free or low cost trainings you can take? Or maybe you realize that you need to learn something from scratch. This links back to being self-aware and doing an honest assessment of your knowledge, skills, and abilities.

If those things are not exercises you are comfortable in engaging in, then a Career Coach might be helpful. After all, for every Luke Skywalker there is a Yoda.?

The next scene if this were an episode of the Mandalorian, would be in a dimly-lit cantina across the table from your contact to pick your next bounty. In this case, of course, we are talking about opportunities. This is often an under focused area. It is vital to clearly define what role or roles, what industry or industries are of interest to you. Do you prefer large companies or small? By understanding what you’re searching for, it can then inform how you search for it.?

This logic impacts everything. And that is never more true than when it comes to the primary job search tool: the resume.

Resumes are still segmented into chronological, combination, and functional formats. Each style of resume will have their pros and cons. (However the functional resume is the Jar Jar Binks of the resume world, so it should be a hard pass.) Other resume advice can be that you should customize it for every role you apply to, it should be no more than one page, or some will say no longer than two, and the advice can go on and on.?

Before you engage in resume analysis paralysis, know your audience. Who is the likely recipient of your resume? It can be a sourcer, a recruiter, or a hiring manager.?

• A sourcer is an internet detective and their skill set is about finding people who fit the recruit profile that has been given to them. Ideally the language of your resume uses words, phrases, and terms that are relevant to the roles you are interested in.?
• Now a recruiter is going to be similar to a sourcer yet they will also look to understand outcomes as well. Outcomes are the results of the work you did. Think of these results as career headlines. The recruiter then uses those headlines to present your candidacy to the manager.
• The hiring manager role in the interview process will vary. And it largely depends if they have the advantage of a recruiter. If there is not a recruiter in the picture, then a manager will examine your resumes for results as well. In many cases though a manager will also look for examples of how you learn and how you’ve grown in the roles you’ve held.

How do you know who your audience will be when you send in your resume? Typically the larger the company the more likely it will be a recruiter. Whereas the smaller, the more likely a hiring manager.?

With this in mind, develop a resume, or modify a master resume to your likely intended audience. Make sure it is jargon-free, watch those abbreviations, and also when you create a file name, resist the temptation to call it Resume 2022 as the same file name can wreak havoc on that recruiter’s hard drive!

Alright now the hunt for that next opportunity can begin.?

You started with introspection. And that really is the foundation for any successful search. Understanding what you find interesting (and what you don’t) is vital. And remember, if you need help. A career coach can be a valuable partner.

With that better understanding of you, there is still more homework. Examine the industries you are interested in, the companies in those industries, and types of roles that interest you. After all, you can’t hit your target if you don’t know what it is.??

Finally, target the resume. The key here is to recognize that each audience will want something a little different. So if you have done your research on the roles and companies you’ve applied to, you can tweak your resume to get noticed, and most of all get them excited about you.

It is said that looking for work is like a full-time job. And in today’s market, despite what the news says, it’s still difficult. In fact you might say it is a complicated profession. So be kind to yourself.?