I Had to 'Shut Down' a Google Employee Giving Resume Advice: Fake Influencers

First, I want to say that I absolutely love LinkedIn. It's a great place to network and expand personal and company brands. There are, however, some fake influencers on the platform, and that's unfortunate.

Not long ago, I had to shut down an employee at Google who was giving VERY BAD ADVICE to job seekers. In his mind, the mere fact that he was a Google employee gave him the credibility to provide job seekers with some resume and career coaching advice, but he was actually steering people in the wrong direction. Make no mistake about it: he was touting his employment at Google as a career coaching qualification.

Fake influencers go for "hits"

Fake influencers like to pick controversial topics because they pump up their egos with hits. And unfortunately, many people equate "views" and "thumbs up" to credibility, and it's just not true.

In this case, he started his post with a typical fake influencer's title: "Unpopular Opinion," and proceeded to say why resumes should only be one page -- no matter what.

I shut him down, and then he blocked me

Even though I could have been rude and posted my counterargument on his post and embarrassed him, I didn't. I was very polite and sent him a private message that read as follows:

Dear Mr. X:

I couldn't help but notice your post telling job seekers that they should only have one page on their resume. I took a look at your LinkedIn profile and discovered the following:

• Your resume is three pages (that's ironic)
• You're an engineer, not a Human Resources Professional
• You've never been involved in recruiting, and this is your first job out of college
• You have no training in career coaching or resume writing

So, Mr. X, here are my credentials:

• 30+ years of experience in the professional job market
• 16 years of experience as a recruiter
• AA, BA, Master's Degree, and Writing Certificate
• Professional development courses at 5 of the world's Top-10 universities
• LinkedIn "Top Voice" in Career Coaching
• Certifications in Resume Writing and Career Coaching
• I've been featured in dozens of magazines, blogs, and podcasts
• Plenty of recommendations from coaching clients

Mr. X, here is why your advice will actually hurt job seekers:

• If applicants limit their resume to one page, then they can't demonstrate their capabilities
• There won't be enough keywords on the page to get scored high enough by the ATS
• You didn't mention to readers that they should customize their resume for the role
• You didn't say that Objective Statements are outdated and that they should use a Summary of Qualifications instead

The fake influencer deleted his post

After he blocked me, I guess he got to thinking about it, and he deleted his post because it was, in fact, terrible advice.

I should mention that if he had a long career as an engineer and had worked at several of the world's top companies and scored those jobs BECAUSE he had studied and actually KNEW how the recruiting system worked, then I would have congratulated him -- but that's not what happened. He simply got lucky and scored a job at Google right out of college. Pure luck.

What a resume and cover letter should look like

I've made a free product called "The Ultimate Resume & Job Search Kit," which explains what a resume should (and shouldn't) have, and the kit explains all of the rules of the game when job searching. Good luck.