How to "Dumb Down" Your Resume

Dear Liz,

I'm getting nowhere in my job search and I've been advised to dumb down my resume by taking my higher-level job titles and my Masters Degree off my resume.

I keep getting no answer or rejection notices from the big employers in town. I'm not excited about the low-level jobs I'm applying for but I need a job, and I'm not even getting interviews.

I can imagine that my credentials could get me thrown out of a recruiting pipeline if recruiters think I wouldn't stay in the job because of my education and my past, higher-level positions.

I've been reduced to applying for very low-level jobs because I couldn't find anything at my usual level.

Should I go ahead and dumb down my resume, and if so what if someone asks me if my resume is 100% truthful? Sometimes they ask that question on those automated application forms.

Thanks,

Cameron

Dear Cameron,

There are two ways to deal with a roadblock on your path, including the frustration you are facing on your job search now.

One way is to  lower your sights and try to fit yourself back into an old box that felt comfortable to you at an earlier time.

When you choose that path, you strive to be whoever you have to be and do whatever you have to do to make your problem go away. 

I can understand why you might think that your goal right now is to just get a job - any job - no matter how the job-search process seems to require you to contort yourself into pretzel shapes and even to deny your incredible education and life experience.

In desperation mode, you might decide to dumb down your resume and deny your own experiences solely because somebody else might not value them.

In that mode, you might voluntarily submit to whatever brainless recruiting process someone commands you to follow.

When your mojo fuel tank is empty or nearly empty, you could decide that these are reasonable sacrifices to make.

Your career roadblock has nothing to do with your resume, which can and should be nearly as vibrant and interesting as you are in person. The only reason to make yourself smaller and less accomplished on paper is, as you said, to appease the fear of a weenified person who might be intimidated by the real you. 

Your confidence in describing yourself is not a trivial thing. In a way, your resume echoes across all areas of your life.

If you're willing to diminish yourself and dim your flame to get a low-level job that will bore you to tears, it is time to look in the mirror and say, "Well, I know something important. I know that my fuel tank is low."

You won't grovel your way out of that problem. If you try to squash yourself into tiny boxes that could barely contain your energy years ago, you will keep crawling over bigger and bigger piles of broken glass on the job-search trail to try and make small-minded people find you acceptable, but they won't fall for it.

The minute you show up at a job interview your power will come shining through. It's hard to hide who you are, and although we don't talk about it much, people are very good at reading human energy.

The other way -- that is, the trusting way -- to get a job is to stand in your power and decide what you want next.

I can't believe that for you, the answer to the question "What do you want next in your career?" is an entry-level job in a company you're not interested in - a job that would crush your soul.

If you need a survival job while you're waging your 'career'-type job search, walk into every retail store and restaurant in your area and get a survival job. Help a caterer serve at events. There are a lot of ways to make money.

There are people in career transition working in survival jobs everywhere you look.

They aren't trying to squeeze themselves into tiny boxes and pretend that their great experiences never happened, just to keep some bureaucrat from feeling a twinge of anxiety.  

Instead they say "Yeah, I'm a chemist and I'm looking for work and it's not bad driving this limo in the meantime and meeting people like you."

Lift yourself up and decide what you want in your career and then brand yourself for the jobs you want, not the jobs you don't want.

The career direction you choose might be very familiar to you or a bold departure.

It might be close or far from the jobs you've held already, but when you see how your background is relevant, hiring managers will see the relevance too.

You have three action steps in front of you. The first one is to change your job-search approach. Lobbing applications into automated recruiting sites is pointless. Your mojo is going down the tubes with your applications, the ones that no one reads.

Highly-educated job-seekers think "I'll bet my MA is getting me tossed out of recruiting pipelines" but the much more likely scenario is that no one is looking at your materials, period.

You're trying to send a message through a channel that is clogged and impassable.  You're wasting your time and energy.

Take control of your job search, identify the companies you want to work for and find your hiring manager in each organization.

Write to that person with a personal, relevant Pain Letter and attach your Human-Voiced Resume to it. Stick both documents in an envelope and send it off. Do that a few times, and your mojo will come back! 

You are not a passive "please find me acceptable" Sheepie Job Seeker. You are mighty Cameron and there is no need to pretend to be less well-educated, less smart or less proficient than you are. 

Your second action step is to rebrand yourself for the jobs you want, getting rid of any generic, awful branding that's gumming up your Human-Voiced Resume or your LinkedIn profile now.

You'll be able to brand yourself for the jobs you want once you decide what those jobs are!

The third step is to focus on building up your depleted mojo supply. How will you do that? You'll do it step by step, listening to your body and stopping the constant yammer in your head for at least a few consciously tuned-out minutes per day.

Spend time with people who lift you up. Get a journal and write in it, and remember that this wave trough is just another chapter in your grand adventure. A new wave is coming to carry you onward and upward!

Best,

Liz