Don't you want to know if your current resume is good enough? A quick guide to "Branding" yourself

As a career coach, I meet with potential clients on line and in person all of the time. I met a client one day at a Starbucks in downtown Manhattan. We were discussing her short and long term career goals and she seemed confident that she was the best person for every job she submitted applications to, but it had been 6 months and no luck with even landing an interview, let alone a job. I immediately applauded her for her confidence, and I convinced her that this positive energy will help her in an interview. So I told her that we should start from where she starts...her resume. She explained that it was flawless and that the resume was not the problem. She wasn’t looking for any critique or constructive recommendations.

She proudly pulled out an impressive, ivory colored, watermarked, 20 lb. piece of paper from a nice leather bound portfolio and handed it to me. What I did next was a shock to her. Rather than read it and scrutinize it line by line for formatting, dead space, redundancy, flowery language, non-specifics, I kindly turned in my seat and scanned the room for someone professional looking sipping their coffee browsing their iPhone. One table over there was a respectable looking professional woman that just sat down and was scrolling through twitter. I gently interrupted her and asked if she could take part in a social experiment that would only take one minute of her time. She agreed, so I handed her the resume and asked her to look it over for 20 seconds. When the 20 seconds had passed I took it back and then asked her what she remembered most about the person on the resume. She basically had 3 specific recollections-

1. She didn’t know what kind of job the person was applying for because it was vague.

2. She figured out that the person went to a school, but she wasn’t sure what she actually did in school, or if she even finished.

3. Her description from a previous employment didn’t sound too exciting.

That’s it. That is all that she could recall. My client was in shock but immediately understood the exercise and agreed to accept my criticisms. She understood that she needed to “brand” herself in a way that stands out and that her “pitch” has to be memorable.

Writing and designing a good resume is hard. Writing and designing a great resume can seem impossible.

But, before you embark on crafting the best possible way to brand yourself, don’t you want to know how good your current resume is? Approach a stranger and try this exercise.

If you’re happy with what these strangers remembered about your resume, you’re off to a great start!

If not, keep at it and you’ll surely get to a resume that tells the story of the best you.

If you do not have the desire to approach strangers and are too embarrassed to ask a friend or co-worker (they may be biased since they like you) , then let me take a look at it. I would be happy to offer a free constructive assessment and analysis. richardfruscione@hotmail.com