The Foundation of a Results Producing Resume
My Resume Is Good Enough Isn't It?
Isn’t My Resume Good Enough?
The retired U.S. Government Agent called and told me about an interview process he was fortunate to have made it into. He was amazed when he learned how much competition his resume faced.
The senior executive at the hiring company who was conducting interviews told the retired government agent that his was the last resume the company chose to pursue.
“You’re lucky to be sitting here today” the senior executive hiring decision maker said to the retired government agent. The Fortune 100 Company selected only 10 resumes out of 200 that landed in their human resource Inbox to seriously review.
The other 190 resumes continued their journey to the abyss. That place where resumes go to die.
Isn’t My Resume Good Enough? It Depends On the Results You Desire
Are you in it to win it or are you content to just play the game?
Are you content for your resume to be part of the 190 resumes that didn’t see the light of day in this example? If you are, then your resume is probably good enough.
Do you want your resume to land in the group of 10 resumes that were singled out and reviewed? If this is your desire then “good enough” won’t cut it.
The most qualified candidate always gets the job…don’t they?
There’s a pretty strong chance that amongst the 190 resumes that were passed over, that there were at least a hand-full of very strong candidates. Candidates who were even better candidates than the 10 candidates who were chosen because they presented the best resumes.
Why didn’t all of the best candidates get interviews? The best candidates in this situation were not necessarily great at writing, packaging and branding.
Isn’t My Resume Good Enough?
If you want to compete for the best jobs, you’ll have competition. You won’t always have 200 people to compete against but you’ll likely have competition of some kind.
When you send your resume, are you in it to win it or are you content to just play the game?
Cost Versus Value and Results…How Are You Thinking?
The Incoming Email:
"Was inquiring about your overall cost for a resume from your company for a mid-level Security Manager?"
This question pushed a button in my thinker
- Is the person who asked this question focused on the right topic?
- Is this really the right question to ask?
- Is there a better question that could have been asked first before asking about price?
The Incoming LinkedIn Inquiry:
"Would you be able to take a look at a CV/Resume, and give me your thoughts / feedback? I’d also like to understand what you could potentially do to help me…:-)"
This person is in need of the same assistance as the person who sent an email. His approach was quite different.
Here’s What I Think
- If blending technical writing, business writing and creative writing isn’t your gift, get help.
- If you’re sending out resumes and not getting desired results, get help.
- If you're targeting a specific move in your career and you don't want to risk wasting opportunities to make your first impressions count, get help.
- If you’re even slightly uncertain about the quality of your resume’s strategy, get help.
- You may not know what you do not know.
How To Spot A Great Resume Writing Solution
- If you’re going to look for resume writing help, look for a resume writing service that has delivered results to past clients. The only purpose of a resume is to create a positive first impression and then to generate and open interview doors. That’s what you should look for in terms of results.
- Look for a resume coach who intimately understands what you do.
- Look for a resume coach who has invested time to find out exactly and precisely what your resume’s audience wants, needs and expects to see in a resume.
- Look for a resume coach who is skilled in helping people like you to interpret what you do into language that your resume’s audience can understand with ease. Your resume's audience should not have to interpret your resume.
- After you’ve found everything mentioned above, consider the value of what you’ve found. If the resume writing service puts you in a position to interview for a job that might pay you $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000 more than what you’re earning today, what is the value of the service?
- For many people, they shouldn't even be concerned about money. They should be focused on finding a job that better aligns to their strengths. If a new resume could help you to capture an interview for your dream job, what is the value of that service?
Eloquent Communication versus Effective Communication…What’s the Difference?
Eloquent: having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful and appropriate speech.
Effective: adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result.
Today’s Examples
Example 1, the Flight
This morning, someone I’ve been waiting to hear from regarding a trip I committed to take in May sent an email to confirm that I was still willing to speak on a certain day in May. I responded with this message:
“You can confirm me. Could you tell me exactly when you want me to arrive and depart so I can book a flight?”
While the response I received was polite, it did not tell me exactly when I should arrive and when I should depart from the airport.
“Thanks so much. You will need to arrive on Sunday, 22 May. your speaking commitment is Monday, 23 May. The event runs Sunday-Tuesday."
While this was a polite response, it was not an effective response. I still don't know what i need to know.
Telling me what time on Sunday May 22 I need to arrive before making my 1+ hour drive from the airport and exactly what time I should book a flight on either Monday night or sometime on Tuesday would have effectively answered my question.
Example 1 Result
- I still can’t book a flight
Example 2, the Goalie
This afternoon, I was informed by the goalie for my Red hockey team that he can’t make it tonight. Finding goalies with a lot of notice is tough. Finding goalies on short notice is even more difficult.
I sent an email out to the list of local hockey players I have in my possession. A response came back to me.
Calling all goalies, it looks like red needs a sub tonight @ 8:00. Can anyone take it?
On Mar 30, 2016 10:22 PM, "Jim " <jimxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
I can take it...
Jim
On Mar 30, 2016, at 9:29 PM, jessicaxxxxxxx@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi guys - I'll be out of town next Monday (April 4) and need a sub for Silver at 9:15. Can anyone please help me?
Thanks.
Jess
Okay, you tell me. Has Jim committed to being a substitute goalie for the Red team tonight at 8 PM or has Jim committed to being a substitute goalie for the Silver team next Monday at 9:15 PM.
Example 2, Result
It’s now 4 PM and the 8 PM puck drops in 4 hours. We still don’t know if we have a goalie for the Red team game or not.
Eloquent: having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful and appropriate speech.
You only need to be an eloquent communicator if you’re going to stand on a stage in front of an audience or if you’re going to host a weekly podcast.
Effective: adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result.
If you want to be successful in any professional field, in any relationship or as a teammate on any kind of team, you need to master effective communication. Learn to communicate clearly and properly so your audience is perfectly clear about your intentions once you’re done communicating.
Professionally speaking, when you learn to be a highly effective communicator, there's a good chance that your "Personal Stock Value" will increase. That's the amount of money others are willing to pay you to do whatever it is that you do.
The "Smartest Person in the Room Syndrome"
Perhaps you’ve encountered this person?
The smartest person in the room tends to dominate meetings. They don’t let others add a word to their one-sided conversations. They have a consistent need to let others know how intelligent they are. More often than not, they truly are the person in the room who was gifted with the highest IQ.
When it comes to IQ (cognitive skills), the smartest person in the room frequently possesses more intellectual, analytical, logical and rational abilities than everyone else. They are drawn to highly analytical careers such as engineering, information technology or cyber security. These are careers where exceptionally high IQ serves one well.
It is this exceptionally high IQ that enables the smartest person in the room to excel to a certain level. At some point though, the IQ that got the smartest person in the room to where they are will no longer propel them forward to the next level of career success.
Research suggests that IQ can be responsible for as much as +-20% of one’s career success but more often than not, IQ is responsible for as little as 6% of career success.
Is the smartest person in the room doomed to hit a glass ceiling in their career? Often times the answer is yes and the reason is behavior. The smartest person in the room frequently leaves a trail of relationship carnage behind them. They may not wake up every morning thinking about whom they can step on that day, but throughout the day, if they behave in ways that are natural to them, they will step on other people.
What are some of the characteristics of the smartest person in the room?
- Talk more than they listen.
- Fail to consider other’s points of view.
- Have a constant need to be right and to win.
- Share opinions even when the topic they have an opinion on is not their expertise.
- Frequently not teachable because their regard for themselves is inflated.
- Fails to understand how they come across to others.
- Low in empathy.
Is there a cure for “The Smartest Person in the Room Syndrome”?
There absolutely is a cure if the smartest person in the room can humble themselves to not just accept coaching, but they need to humble themselves to actively participate in and work on their coaching. It’s not a matter of turning weaknesses into strengths. Addressing behavioral change is more about creating strategies to manage behaviors that could impact others in an adverse way.
IQ is generally thought of as being stagnant. In other words, you're as smart today as you're ever going to be. Emotional Intelligence is generally thought to be flexible in that the skills that make up Emotional Intelligence can be adjusted through coaching.
The "Smartest Person In the Room"...with a Behavioral Strategy
A retired military 2 Star General told me a story while we shared a meal. He asked me to take a look at a person I could see over his shoulder at the next table. He asked me if I wanted to know how that person became a 4 Star General when my meal companion had only reached 2 Stars. Not that becoming a 2 Star General is an easy task but my companion really wanted me to understand how his friend and colleague reached the 4 Star level of success.
Of course I wanted to know. The 2 Star General explained to me that he and the 4 Star General graduated from the same class in the military academy they both attended. They both started out with the same credentials to begin their military careers. The game-changer for the 4 Star General was his ability to be the smartest person in the room more often than not throughout his career but he learned to suppress his need to let everyone know that he was so smart.
The 2 Star General told me that the 4 Star General, whom he admired as both a friend and career colleague, excelled in everything he did because he was intellectually gifted but he learned quickly that his career would take off if he learned how to treat people with respect.
Some of the characteristics that enabled the 4 Star General to excel include:
- Listened more than he talked.
- Let other people win whenever possible.
- Considered other people’s points of view.
- Shared opinions when he was asked for his opinions and not just because he possessed an answer.
- Was teachable, trainable and receptive to being coached.
- Exhibited humility.
- Developed empathy for others.
The 4 Star General developed and mastered Emotional Intelligence. Think about it. The 4 Star General had to have a high IQ in order to get into a military academy. He had to have an exceptionally high IQ in order to graduate at or near the top of his academy class.
The 2 Star General was confident that it was the 4 Star General’s ability to develop trust with those around him, his ability to humble himself and his ability to step into others’ shoes to consider their needs and their points of view that caused his career to excel.
A short story of results, growth and more results
Career Transition Coaching Results
I Read the Book...I'm an Expert Now!
“Many people have an incomplete sense of how to learn from books. They make the mistake of reading a book and deciding they know the information in it, but put the book down before they have actually mastered the information – as it applies to their life – and poof! The knowledge they gained – and the benefit they could have derived – from reading the book is gone. It didn’t have anywhere to stick, and so the potential wisdom fades away.” Angela E. Lauria
This paragraph comes from a book I’m reading called “The Difference”. It’s a book that outlines how to go about writing a book. This particular paragraph caught my attention because I’ve heard people tell me many times that they’ve read books on Strengths or they’ve read books on Emotional Intelligence.
These are the people who don’t usually see any value in strengths coaching or emotional intelligence coaching because they have already learned everything there is to learn about strengths and emotional intelligence.
The other reason that the quoted paragraph caught my attention was a personal experience I had. In the 1995 timeframe, just after I started my business at the age of 27, I read a book called “The E Myth”. Since I was young and I hadn’t had time to make many entrepreneurial mistakes yet, the book didn’t mean much to me.
Twenty years later in 2015, I picked up “The E Myth” again. This time, I had 20 years of experience with both mistakes and successes. This time around, I highlighted half of the book because it made sense to me. If you have read a book on Strengths or Emotional Intelligence, great job for taking the first step. You know what both topics are about.
I encourage you to take the next step to gain an understanding of how your unique personal strengths impact your life and how your personal emotional intelligence impacts your life and the lives of those around you. It is after this second step that you might be in a position to learn to leverage your unique personal strengths and your unique emotional intelligence.
Is the Significance Strength One of Your Top Strengths?
The Clifton StrengthsFinder suggests that people who have the Significance strength want to be very important in other’s eyes.
Significance is an influencing theme. For people who have Significance as a strength, they have a deep desire to leave a legacy. When they understand how to leverage their strength the right way, the strength of Significance can give someone the ability to lead others.
A person who has the Significance theme high on their list can sometimes get stuck in a mindset that says “Look at me!” A person who has this theme high on their list and has learned to turn Significance into a positive strength can use this strength to lead others.
You can find out how you’re uniquely wired and you can learn how to turn your unique set of strengths into leverage that comes out in your personal power!
Friday Results Roundup...He Has An Interview!
The Anatomy of a Great Technology Leader
IQ Gets You Started…Strong EQ Takes You Further
Cognitive Intelligence
IQ is Cognitive Intelligence. Cognitive Intelligence involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.
Emotional Intelligence
EQ or Emotional Quotient (Emotional Intelligence) is a set of emotional and social skills that collectively establish how we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges and how we use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
The Professor
A conversation I shared a while back with one of the smartest people I know shed light on a topic I set out to master a few years ago. I have a friend who has a PhD in Math. He was once a college math professor. He has worked in academic, government and private industry roles.
We got into a conversation one day where I learned about the early part of my friend’s career. As a young college math professor, he learned the hard way that his high IQ wasn’t enough to make him successful.
My friend told me that he wished I’d come along to teach him about the value of people and relationships long ago. He learned the hard way that strong emotional intelligence is a requirement and not an option.
This amazingly smart former professor encouraged me to stick with my mission of wanting to help gifted, high IQ technology professionals to get to the next level in their careers by addressing their people skills, social skills, relationship building skills and for some, their leadership skills.
In my Inbox yesterday was an email from the Harvard Business Review. The subject line read like this:
“Unleash your emotional intelligence for a leadership advantage”
HBR was offering a collection of books focused on Emotional Intelligence. This is the real deal folks. There is nothing in my portfolio of work that is more important than the Emotional Intelligence Coaching work I’m fortunate to do with people who are ready to improve.
Jeff Snyder Coaching, 719.686.8810
Simply Knowing one’s Strengths Isn’t Enough
During one of my public speaking opportunities, I asked my audience for a show of hands. I was curious to know how many in the audience had taken a Clifton StrengthsFinder. My guess is that there were 60 or so people in the audience.
To my surprise, approximately 45 hands went up. I asked a follow-up question. I asked how many people who had their hands up had done anything with their StrengthsFinder report. I was curious to know if anybody had gone through Strengths Coaching with a Strengths Coach or if they had done additional research on their own.
Out of the 45 hands that were up, only 5 hands continued to stay up. That day, I learned that out of the now 13,000,000 people around the globe who have taken a Clifton StrengthsFinder, only a small percentage have gone beyond taking the assessment.
I took a Clifton StrengthsFinder approximately 5 years ago. The report came back to me. I read the report. I put the report into a folder and filed it away just like most other people do.
It wasn’t until someone came long a few years ago and coached me to understand my strengths, to understand how my strengths operate and how my strengths behave when they run up against someone else’s strengths, that the light bulbs began to turn on in my mind.
All of a sudden, I started to understand why I had always operated the way I did. I started to understand how other people I knew operated the way they did. It was at the point where I accepted and embraced my strengths that my Strengths Coach began to show me how to leverage my strengths.
Then the light bulbs really started lighting up!
I learned that the event of taking a Clifton StrengthsFinder was just the beginning. It is when I went through a process to learn to embrace and leverage my unique strengths that my world started to change.
Jeff Snyder Coaching, Strengths Coaching, 719.686.881
Is the Input Strength one of Your Top Strengths?
In the world of the Clifton StrengthsFinder from Gallup, there is a strength called Input. People who have this particular strength love to collect and archive information.
They are highly inquisitive people who always want to know more. They can never know enough! This type of person enjoys being a resource for others. They enjoy helping others. They are often seen as people who know something about a lot of things.
If they don’t immediately know the answer, chances are good that they saved a resource such as a blog post or an article that they can turn to in their organized collection to get to the answer.
For this person to reach their full potential with the Input strength, it would be a good idea if they were to partner with someone who possesses the Discipline strength in order to keep the Input person focused.
You can find out how you’re uniquely wired and you can learn how to turn your unique set of strengths into leverage that comes out in your personal power!
Jeff Snyder Coaching, 719.686.8810
Wisdom from a Holocaust-survivor
Reality Testing...a Really Important Emotional Intelligence Skill
Reality Testing
Reality Testing is one of the skills measured by the EQi-2.0 Emotional Intelligence assessment.
Reality Testing is part of the Decision Making domain of emotional intelligence skills. It is defined like this:
Reality Testing is the capacity to remain objective by seeing things as they really are. This capacity involves recognizing when emotions or personal bias can cause one to be less objective.
This particular skill is one of the most important skills out of the 15 emotional intelligence skills measured by the EQi-2.0. If a person’s Reality Testing is not balanced, the way they see themselves and the way they see the world around them will be out of balance.
Unbalanced Reality Testing
Let’s say you have a boss who thinks they are an outstanding communicator. From your point of view, when your boss speaks to you, he / she is never clear with regards to their spoken expectations.
You constantly find yourself wondering what your boss really expects from you because you’re never clear about what your boss just said.
Based on how confident your boss is about how they think they communicate, they set expectations in their mind for your performance that you never quite live up to.
Can you see where disconnect is occurring in this example?
This is what an unbalanced Reality Testing score looks like on the EQi-2.0 Emotional Intelligence assessment
This is what a balanced Reality Testing score looks like on the EQi-2.0 Emotional Intelligence assessment
What we're looking for in the scores you see above is balance. The top example is completely out of balance whereas the bottom example is much closer to being in balance.
If you were a boss who had healthy Reality Testing abilities or if you reported to a boss who had healthy Reality Testing abilities, the communication disconnect described in the above example would likely not occur.
Good News!
Unlike IQ (cognitive intelligence) that remains static throughout adulthood, EQ or Emotional Intelligence can be measured, coached and improved. Think of EQ as being flexible.
If you’d like to see the entire chart of Emotional Intelligence skills that are measured by the EQi-2.0, the world’s most widely used assessment to measure Emotional Intelligence, I’ll take you to it on Jeff Snyder Coaching.
Jeff Snyder Coaching, 719.686.8810
Treat the Janitor with Respect
The other day, I shared this quote on LinkedIn that someone else posted on LinkedIn. It is not my quote but I shared it because it is my belief.
Many years ago, I met regularly with a group of people on Monday nights to play volleyball in the high school gym. Several of us showed up early to put up the nets on a weekly basis. Most of the time, the high school Janitor would have already swept the floor for us before we arrived.
One day near the end of the first semester of school in the month of December, I suggested to the person who ran the parks and rec drop-in volleyball that we should consider giving Kenny a gift for his work.
The person I made this suggestion to looked at me like I was crazy as he stated the following:
"Kenny gets paid by our taxes"
That statement really bothered me. I did something for Kenny by myself. When I saw the quote that sits at the top of this article, it made me think of Kenny. He wasn't and still isn't a fancy guy but he works hard.
He didn't ask for any kind of special treatment. What he did do was his job. I appreciated that Kenny swept the floor. I don't think he had to sweep the floor for adult drop-in-volleyball as part of his job description but he did.
Over the years, I ran into Kenny on the softball field. Not as a competitor but as one of our umpires. I didn't run into him once in a while. I ran into Kenny week after week. Kenny was always friendly towards me. The last time I saw him at a high school football game, he was still friendly to me.
There is deep wisdom in the quote that sits above these words. If you don't already follow the words in the quote, give it a try.
