Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep77: One page resume is a problem. Here's WHY.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello and welcome to another episode of my Grow Your Career online and offline podcast. So we are in week four of my 30-day client success story series where I share with you client successes who have worked with me either in a one-on-one capacity or even in group

Starting point is 00:00:45 training as well. So we are in the second half of the success stories where I really deep dive into my clients' struggles and later successes in their job search process. So today I actually want to cover a really interesting topic and it is actually around resume. So I work with a lot of corporate professionals to position their value very clearly in their resumes and as a former hiring manager at an international bank, I have seen hundreds of resumes in my corporate career and even as a career coach nowadays. So in today's story, I actually want to share with you the worst resume I have ever seen. So like I's story, I actually want to share with you the worst resume I have ever seen. So like I said, I've seen like hundreds of resumes, but this particular

Starting point is 00:01:32 version of resume I received from a coaching client about six months ago. And honestly, if I were to give a rating out of 10, one being the worst, 10 being the best, I'd rate this resume probably a 2 out of 10. And that is really, really low. And in comparison to the hundreds of resumes I've seen, I think it's definitely one of the worst. So let me break it down to you, why I think that resume, it's a really, really bad one. And I think this is something that a lot of people don't realize that a resume also creates a professional impression of you, right? So while you think that your resume is very clear, the hiring manager, recruiter, and HR might not necessarily think the same. And if you have never been in any of those positions before,

Starting point is 00:02:25 you might actually be missing out on that kind of perspective that is actually really important for you to make sure that you tailor your resume accordingly. So anyway, back to this client story, she was looking for a job for quite some time. And in fact, she was one of the ones on the Dean's list. So it's also one of those cases where she did a lot better than her peers academically. But somehow, when she started looking for a job, she couldn't really find any. Well, most of her peers have already gotten a role.

Starting point is 00:02:59 So obviously, that is a really frustrating process. But when she came to me, right, before sending me her resume, she gave me all these background, which sounds like, you know, everything sounds like she's doing it correctly. But the moment I opened her resume, I was really quite shocked because if there's one way I could describe it, it's almost like looking at a newspaper cutting or a leaflet that just has too much information that to be honest i don't even know where to start when i first looked at it i was so confused and i actually thought that it was it looked like scrap paper it looked like it looked like something that you were just trying to squeeze every single thing in without giving it much thought right so she actually fell into this um what i call the laundry list syndrome when preparing

Starting point is 00:03:51 her resume so what that means is that she's trying to squeeze every single thing that she has done in one page and i think this is sometimes due to the incorrect advice that again i'm not sure where you guys are getting these resume and career tips from, but make sure that you speak to a proper hiring manager, because I can tell you as a former hiring manager, like if that come, if I actually received that on my desk, I will not even bother. I will directly throw it into the dustbin because it was so confusing. It had so much information. It just looked so cramped and something that's not easy to read, right?

Starting point is 00:04:31 It's pointless. So sometimes I think we underestimate the importance of simplicity in a resume. And I think now when you go to, you know, you only go online or YouTube, Google or whatever, you might be able to download a bunch of like resume templates that supposedly guarantee apparently the best results. But in most instances, what I've seen is these resumes are focused on beauty over functionality, over real value. So i think a lot of times like younger professionals particularly

Starting point is 00:05:07 or even those who have not um look for a job in a long time where they might not be more uh they might not be aware of the other modern job search techniques or they have not actually been a hr recruiter hiring manager position before so they don't actually know yeah what we're actually looking for so for this particular client i was really so shocked like the first five minutes i saw her resume and i actually asked her like why did you squeeze everything in so she told me that number one um some she was downloading all these templates from online apparently she was getting advice from um i'm not gonna name names but she's getting advice from people who told her that this is the best idea and she was so fixated on squeezing

Starting point is 00:05:51 her resume into one page but if we were to actually break down the content that she has put in in most instances they were so vague because she was trying to squeeze it into one page what then is compromised is the real value the real achievements that she had what she actually did in the job that one she didn't really focus there was just a lot of like other stuff which i think are really irrelevant so she she also had this other problem of like unable to tell what are the important points and what are the relevant points to put in her resume. So again, what I'm calling this the laundry list syndrome is something that I see a lot in job seekers and professionals who don't know how to edit and curate and position their resume for

Starting point is 00:06:39 the next job that they want. So they just put in a laundry list and just hope, hope, right? Hope it's not a strategy, guys. They hope that the hiring manager will just spend the half day or like half an hour just to read every single word. This does not happen. At the end of the day, your resume needs to present a good first impression. And first impression comes from two things. First is visually to make sure that it is formatted nicely. It looks easy to read and pleasant to read in the first place. And then secondly, the content, particularly for the resume summary portion, which I teach my clients to write with my very specific formula, the resume summary portion, or you could call it objective or like personal statement, personal mission,

Starting point is 00:07:21 whatever, that needs to be very clear because that is your six-second pitch to draw interest. So if you don't have any of those two things, that is the baseline. If you don't even have those two things, then it is very, it's going to be very difficult to actually attract attention from a hiring manager, right? Don't forget, right? A hiring manager could be, not could be, they are busy. So when I was a hiring manager, I had my day-to-day job in, you know, and at the same time, I need to review a bunch of resumes. I need to do a lot of interviews. So you need to make sure that like you're making it easy

Starting point is 00:08:00 for the hiring manager to read the points that you have in your resume and make sure that your value is clear. Make sure that it is easy for the hiring manager to read the points that you have in your resume and make sure that your value is clear. Make sure that it is easy for the hiring manager to understand why they want to hire you, right? How would you fit in the team? These are really, really important questions to answer rather than, you know, just having a laundry list of points that may or may not make sense, trying to squeeze everything in a resume and making the whole thing so difficult to read it actually doesn't really work so what i did with this client is actually just a one-time resume review what i did with her was actually give her a lot of the

Starting point is 00:08:36 hiring managers perspective because she has been getting advice from like i don't know google youtube she was asking some of her friends she she was asking people on the internet, which may or may not have any real experiences hiring people, right? So if you're getting advice from people who are, who are never actually have those kind of experiences, never in that kind of position or seniority, guess what? You are getting a bunch of theory, and that is something I think you really need to recognize because yes everybody has an opinion but not every opinion actually works for your particular situation so just make sure that you talk to the right people and for this particular client i actually went through with her section by section telling her that this is the impression that is being created if you write

Starting point is 00:09:19 it like this if you present it like this and in most instances a lot of the comments were yeah the feedback were yeah the feedback were negative and it's just things that she has to work on right so i also showed her some examples on like what a good format or template should look like what a good summary section should look like some of the things that she should remove from her resume and some of the things that she should also include so all these these things, right, well, it sounds so basic, but you'll be surprised to know that most people find it actually very difficult to put a quality resume together, particularly a resume that positions themselves for the next job that they are really looking for.

Starting point is 00:09:59 So if you're actually looking for a better role, right, a job that pays more, has more exposure, has more learning opportunities, maybe a promotion, something a little bit more senior, guess what? You need to make sure that your resume is positioned accordingly. And, you know, it's time to actually go back to the basics, right? Make sure that the format, again, is very simple, it's very clear. You are getting rid of like irrelevant information that doesn't make sense and create confusion and lastly make sure that you also avoid the laundry list syndrome of like trying to put every single thing that you have done in your resume it doesn't really work like that anymore so always focus on value focus on what you can actually bring to the table and

Starting point is 00:10:41 why would a hiring manager want to hire you so all these are really like the more foundation and baseline considerations you should take account take into account when you're putting a resume together so for this particular client from a 2 out of 10 rating after she made her amendments right i'd say that i say that if you could reach like a 9 out of 10 like 8 and a half to nine nine out of 10 it is actually really really good but for clients who work with me a little bit longer i'm a i'm a perfectionist so i want to achieve like a 9.5 or 10 out of 10 in most instances but this client has also been very successful as well after the resume review session she managed to get

Starting point is 00:11:20 multiple interviews that eventually landed a job quite quickly also so she also dropped me a note on linkedin telling me that oh maybe your method really works because i um the moment updated my resume um with your suggestions i actually got a lot of interview calls and i'm really excited about that so yeah so that's the that's the story and like i said right i think we sometimes underestimate the importance of like, importance of actually getting the main point across rather than getting fixated with all these fancy templates and all these like trying to squeeze everything in. You know, yeah, because if like I said, if you've never been a HR recruiter hiring manager before, then what you are trying to do, it's your assumption of how the hiring process works but not the reality so that's why i actually found myself giving a lot of like hiring managers perspectives when i do my one-on-one resume review sessions with my clients so like the first 10 minutes even before we go into like making any amendments it is just about what is the impression

Starting point is 00:12:24 that the hiring manager is going to get when they look at your resume. So I think that's really the biggest value add because I think like probably less than 5% of people in the world are actually hiring managers. So these are the kind of opinions that you can probably get from very selected people. And most tips and advice out there are just,

Starting point is 00:12:43 yeah, teary for lack of better word. So that's the story. I hope that my client success story has inspired you and also empowered you to really think about what makes a quality resume and also maybe inspires you to take that next step to actually go and look at your own resume if you have been struggling with job search and actually ask yourself, is your value position very clearly across and i think that is the starting point for you so with that i hope that you enjoyed this episode and if you find this episode helpful and the tips shared actionable as well feel free to share it with a friend and you can also tag me at meetinglim on linkedin so with that i'll see you in the next episode bye

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep77: One page resume is a problem. Here's WHY.

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