Do you fret about rejection as you prepare or send your résumé?
Are your thoughts so focused on rejection that your résumé is ambiguous, general and plain?
Hopefully, your fear is not driving you to send out a boring résumé. If it is, it is time to revolutionize the way you think about your résumé. (Remember, not every employer or hiring manager is going to like you or your experience — and that is OK!)
At the end of a recent presentation, a woman approached me and shared how frustrated she was having to spend endless hours targeting her resume to the large list of job openings found on the internet. She shared her disappointment that after 100’s of applications, she had received a handful of rejection emails and not one interview.
Her kind soul, bright smile and brief words led me to believe that she was an organizer of projects, people and things. She was someone who knew how to keep customers happy and projects moving forward. I knew this in just a 3 minute conversation.
With tears and a crack in her voice she asked if I would look at her résumé. I did. The skills and personality that I experienced in our brief meeting were totally absent from her résumé.
I inquired if my impression of her was correct. She confirmed it was. Then, I inquired why she had elected to omit her uniqueness from her résumé.
In a bolded voice she stated, “Rejection is awful.” She pulled her résumé from my hand, saying, “I am old school and what you are asking about does not belong in my résumé.”
Standing out, sharing who you are and how you deliver value can feel uncomfortable. Clearly, this was outside of the woman’s comfort zone.
I smiled – I do get it.
Many people like to play it safe. Innovation can feel risky.
For years, I was afraid to stand out or to share how I am different and unique. Why? I didn’t know how to communicate my unique value in a way that worked for me.
Therefore, I took the safe, blend in, be the same as others, approach. It seemed far less risky than standing out and facing the ridicule I feared.
Here is what I discovered — there is far more acceptance of my unique value when I genuinely share who I am. It doesn’t mean everyone likes me or that I don’t experience rejection, I do. Not everyone likes me, wants to work with me or hire me.
Are you leaving YOU out of your résumé? WHY?
Is it fear of rejection? Fear of ridicule? Not sure how to communicate your unique value in a manner that is comfortable for you?
Here is a activitiy to help you revolutionize your thinking:
- Write down all the possible rejection and ridicule you might experience in a week, a month, in a year.
- Beside each item, note how many times you experienced the specific rejection or ridicule.
- Describe the rejection or ridicule experience in detail, then note how likely the same experience is to occur again.
The discovery for me? The odds that the response I feared would actually occur were minimal.
Here are additional questions for you:
What is the real risk of genuinely sharing what makes YOU unique in your résumé?
Will sharing your unique value really increase the number of times your résumé is rejected?
What are the potential benefits of taking the risk and sharing your unique value?
This is fascinating. Working in medicine, I often feel like I need to go with established protocol and not seem too “outside the box”. Maybe I need to rethink that!