Resume Digest Blog

The moment you hand over a brief of your employment history you are inviting people to fit you into a pigeonhole. The problem? You're not a pigeon.

Fear is an extremely powerful motivator in the recruitment process where prejudice abounds. Your mission? By-pass the process altogether and be remarkable.

This is your choice: go for compliance and be the best (cheapest?) disposable cog that will fit the corporate machine. The alternate is to let your reputation go ahead of you. Let three reliable references laud your past achievements and show how you saved the day in a sticky situation.

What about a cover letter addressing all the "must-have" spelt out in the job advertisement - not in the first person, but through your references.

Do you think those people will need a bit of help to sing your praises? Certainly. Just like you draft a contract for someone else to sign, your references will receive from you a document to put their name to. That will be no other than the minutes of a prior telephone conversation where you reviewed with them how your past accomplishments would be the perfect launch into the new position you are contemplating...

The purpose of the exercise is not to get you the job or negotiate your remuneration. Your assignment? Get yourself in front of the decision makers for an interview.

Because you are one of a kind you should not let yourself be railroaded into a straightjacket type position. If people appreciate your skills and your background they will create a new position for you.

You no longer play the recruitment game where people add up your compliance score. In the first instance what people say about you has more weight than what you might say about yourself - especially if those people are some authority figures your prospective employer knows about.

All you have to do when you turn up for the interview is to confirm those positive vibes by giving evidence after evidence that all that was said about you is indeed true.

If you are passionate about your work, if you have fire in your belly, if you bring new insight as to how you might help them reach their corporate goals - then it will shine through and they will love you to bits.

What if a member of the panel will be one of your peers and becomes jealous? You have to sell yourself to both the boss and the subordinate. They both have different things at stake and different agendas. Sometimes people are afraid of hiring someone too smart because they fear you might take them over.

Your tactic is to demonstrate how a successful person creates a draft for the whole organisation where new opportunities are being created left, right and centre.

Like the flu, enthusiasm is catching. Who said work had to be boring?