How to Prepare Your Resume
There are a lot of people with whom we had that talk about lots of different things. Today, Denim talks about why he decided to start his first business. He’s worked for many different industries and what he’s found over the years is people have shit resumes, and we want people to have great resumes because great resumes lead to great jobs.
Denim: Thanks, Josh. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, at ACS Consulting Services, I’ve been looking at people’s career development right from where they are from either a graduate-level from a 5-10 years sort of working perspective or a senior sort of person from 10 years plus. We have worked in various industries, including banking and finance, telecommunications, defence and hospitality. So I’ve got a wide variety of experience in those areas, but my most recent experience in the recruitment world has led me to actually see what’s actually happening on the ground, with the job seekers today. I see a lot of gaps, I guess, between the skill sets that people have and what they’re actually putting down on paper and so the business has been set up to help people actually realise what abilities and competencies they have to deliver into their industry of choice and look for us to actually help them and guide them in the right direction so they can present themselves in the best manner.
Joshua: I guess what you’re saying ultimately is we’re not all salespeople and no one should have to be a salesperson except for a salesperson, but you want to make sure you’re leading the right job that you’re getting. Would that be right?
Denim: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I’ve spent 20 years in sales-predominant environments and presenting yourself on paper is actually a sales position type of activity and a few hints and tips and support will go a long way in terms of getting your key strengths highlighted and getting you to that next step, which is the interview.
Joshua: I couldn’t agree more. And now from my perspective as a business owner of 12 years who has interviewed countless people and seen shit come through, I can say that if I was able to see some golden stars through some of the shit that I’ve gone through, I would definitely be going towards those more than anything else. So you want to make sure that you’re really honing in on your resumes. You don’t want to just be sitting there going, ‘Oh man, look at this thing,’ and you creating this resume and it looks like this boring thing. If you’re bored to read it, if your wife’s bored to read it or your 12-year-old daughter or whoever is bored to read it, your employer or potential prospecting employer is not going to have any interest in reading it. Would that be fair to say?
Denim: That would be Josh fair to say and I think to add to that, I think what’s necessary is to provide a very genuine and honest account of your experience to date and have that presented in the right fashion that meets the criteria of the role that you’re looking for and again, it’s very important to be yourself. Tell your story on that paper. That’s an actual genuine representation of yourself.
Joshua: I completely agree, and you want to make sure you’re representing yourself, right?
Denim: Yeah, that’s right. You’ve got to be able to represent yourself the right way and to do that requires a little bit of support and guidance as to looking at the experience you’ve had in the past a little bit deeper, pulling it apart and assessing where your strengths have actually been that are relevant to the next step of your journey.
Joshua: Well, I can say this is something that I’ve found. So when I’ve employed in the past and I’ve found someone that’s absolutely amazing at doing tech work and then they push themselves forward and push themselves through and then I think, ‘Man, I’ve got to start paying them more and I’ve got to start doing whatever I’m doing with them and making sure I’m staying with them, staying engaged,’ and sort of decide to put them up to a managerial role and you know what I found out is they are terrible at that role. They’re terrible at being a manager. They don’t want to be a manager and what is important is you don’t have to pay your managers less or more. You can pay them whatever you want. It doesn’t have to have any relation to the people that they’re managing. The reason I’m saying that is people have managerial skills. People have technical skills. People are great at what they do, but most people are not great at writing resumes and most people are not great at marketing themselves, and this is something that Denim is really bringing to the marketplace that I’ve not seen before. So it’s important that you think about how you’re writing your resumes, why you’re doing that and what your outcome is. What do you think, Denim?
Denim: I think you’re absolutely right. The motivation behind why you are searching for a particular position needs to come through within what you’re presenting on paper. I think that motivation needs to be honest so that you don’t find yourself in a position where you start in a new role and you find that that’s actually not the right role for you. So on the flip side, I guess yes, your employers are looking for you being the right fit, but you’re also looking for the right place for yourself and what does that really mean for you? A lot of people would say, ‘Look, I just need a job. I’m desperate to get a job,’ but how does that impact you? What sort of lifestyle are you really looking for? What hours are you looking for? What sort of salary are you looking for? What are you looking to do with those sorts of things? So are you looking for additional time or are you happy to work really hard so you can pay off your mortgage faster or are you looking for work-life balance where you might be able to spend time with your friends and your family because that’s really important to you? So it’s important when writing a resume that you take into account, I guess your complete picture as to where you are today and where you’d like to see yourself over the next few years in particular.
Joshua: That comes down to what I think about when you go sell a house. You love your house and you had the best way to promote why your house is your house and your house is beautiful. When you go to sell that house, is that the house that everyone wants to buy? When you start talking about the reason why you put something in and it might look really obvious and maybe you’re talking in your resume about why you got that training. That may have nothing to do with the buyer that you’re selling that too. So you really need to think about why are you selling what it is that you’re selling? That could be a skillset. That could be a time. That could be your freedom. It could be anything and all of the above. The important thing is you need to know the person that’s buying your resume in this situation and you need to make sure you go through a broker or someone that is going to be able to listen to what you have to say and be able to represent you in an appropriate way for the person that’s going to be buying your services.
Denim: Yeah, great and I think it’s all about identifying through a session of exploration with ICS to discover what it is that you’re essentially looking for. Some people might be looking for career progression, which might also require some support with your existing resume or CV. So I think that’s really important that what we can help you with is actually identifying for yourself what it is that you’re looking for, what your key strengths are and how you will apply those in a new position. Coupled with following on from that process or intertwined with that process, looking at how will you make yourself presentable in an interview. What sort of questions you might have in moving into a position. What do you know about that particular company? What can you bring to the table? What are your key areas of strengths that you know in your heart that again can make a difference? Highlight some of your achievements. From there, we can sort of look at coaching through that whole process of initially starting to search for a role, putting together a very sharp presentation on paper and then delivering within an interview environment so that we can get you the goals that you’re after and the dream job you’re looking for.
Joshua: I’d say ultimately know yourself, but know your competitor even better than you know yourself. So you make sure that you are the one that is there to win the opportunities that are there. I hope you’ve enjoyed this. If you have, make sure to jump across the iTunes and leave some love there. Stay good.
