Feedback on resume - tough love

It's always easier to look at someone else's resume or CV and critique than your own. Always. I help a lot of people with the job applications, scanning their resumes and CVs, adding a few key words, giving suggestions on how to best "present yourself in line with the ad" and so forth.

And I am aware that my resume isn't directly on par with what it should be. Why? Mainly because I'm in the (for me) new position where my technical skills in the lab and some other details aren't as important as "overall roundness and experience in management and strategic planning working with upper management and board work".

And my resume has lagged behind. Add on top of that, my detail orientation and want for accuracy. I'm silly proud of some of my skills, not to mention wanting to show what a renaissance* person I am (dabble in writing, volunteer work, selected for this and that, got a grant here) all the time I do know though that "Those things" need to be cut, streamlined and focused for one specific job advert and the process.

Kill your darlings indeed.

I got the opportunity to get my resume and cover letter abilities evaluated a bit back. "Look for your dream job and write cover letter and resume for it- then get feedback and concrete suggestions tailored for you".

Said and done. In the process I found a job ad that was interesting, not only "a sense of humor" as the last bullet point in the ad. I mean, who wouldn't want to work in a place like that?

Anyhow, I got a good slap in the face when it came to the feedback part of the exercise. I've never been great with listening to praise, and I didn't have to worry about it too much. My resume needed some work to be "top notch". Funny enough, a lot of it stemmed from issues I am very aware of in my personality:
1) my sense of wanting "all the details"
2) I'm old and haven't kept up with how the cool people do it nowadays
(3) I've reached the age where it's more than 15 years since I entered the work force, therefore not every job I've had is relevant, nor should go on the resume* )
4) losing focus on the point - also known as "cut some details" and present a whole image/brand...

In short, I've spent my last week updating it and going through a few steps that I thought were really good advice and figured I could write them down and share.

• Don't lose focus. The Goal of a Resume is to get an Interview (All the details are for the interview itself). Some details though, are relevant and extremely important (see next bullet point)

• Bullets points under each job with your achievements - use action words (implemented, wrote, published, planned and executed, communicated, presented, directed, organized .... ) Make these things specific and if possible bring metrics to the table "coordinated three project teams with 10 scientists in each, resulting in two clinical trials". If you had a grant "awarded Grant X for €20000 for 2 years" etc... 

• A suggestion on how to reminiscence and get a kick start on what you have done is to look at your self evaluations. If you get evaluated each year like where I work - you write a self eval (where you end up wanting to highlight all the stuff you've done that your manager may or may not remember and realize) before your supervisor writes the final eval and sends it to HR. Pull these self evals and see what you wrote. Also, check the final evals for what your manager wrote about you - usually nice strengths and good action words to boost you to write about yourself.

• Make a summary on top with who you are and where you fit in - three-four rows with succinct keywords from the adverts highlighting your marvellous personality and experience (this is one of those things that have come and gone for me, making me feel dated. For a while it was "one liner", then it was "nothing", then "a story"....) Alternatively, this can be bullet point list with years of experience highlighting skills&qualifications that they look for in the ad. Again, GOAL is to make you stand out for the 6 seconds the HR person looks at your resume. And for the seconds the computer scans through the resume to pick up the key words and moving your resume forward in the system.

• IF you have publications and presentations that you would like to add to the resume (since this is generally 2 pages tops), you can add a "supplement list" with the publications. However, if you are very productive and have published more than 20 articles, I'd recommend you add that in the summary section about you rather than adding long supplement with ALL the pubs and presentations. Same thing with presentations (pick the mot prestigious ones and add to the specific job position) or add a section "Honors, awards". (again, how important are those details for getting you the interview?)

• If you have volunteer work that gives you qualifications that are relevant for your job search (say that you haven't gotten too much team skills working as a post-doc in a lab but you have worked with community outreach/teaching sports to children and worked with parents) you could rename your "work experience" to "relevant experience" and add non-paying work into there.
• I struggle a little with this since I like the "other experiences relevant to being you".... However, back to the "I like to show that I'm a well-rounded person who can interact with others, likes reading books and work out on a regular basis (half-marathon runs) and certain races are always excellent to highlight (based on my country of origin where this is regarded as 'fit character') - HOWEVER, back to the first point: Focus on the goal - getting an interview. And "what I like to show", that might not be what is best for the goal. Tough. It's just to deal with it and decide what you think is best for the goal. (I cut all those things apart for my "origin country resume" where I have a short paragraph on the bottom second page with "Övrigt" ("Diverse"). I haven't been able to cut that just yet. Work in progress.)

• No need to keep that (physical) address on top (in header or bottom where ever you keep the contact info) - UNLESS it helps you to prove that you are already "in town". For everyone else, email address and phone number is plenty enough. When was the last time you got a REAL letter sent to your house with "we would like to interview you on the phone"? Yep, back to the "focus on the purpose of the resume - to get an interview".

• "From left to right", keep the most important pieces to the left (name of job position) and the less important (dates you worked) to the right. This make is easier to focus on the "easy to scan and get a quick look on who you are". (obviously this is for applications in the languages where one reads from left-right.)

What I got reminded about most? That it is a darn long process to fix your resume for that specific job - and a little heart breaking to know that the "me writing:HR reading" ratio is "hours:seconds". Then again, it's the world we live in and it's just to suck up and accept it. One way of making the process easier is to keep a Master Life File (I have a master CV for that exact reason, where everything I've done gets put in) and keep it updated with bullet points and details that you can modify for each time you need to make a resume for a job application.

Comments? Feedback? Was this at all helpful or just an annoying "generalization" post?

*I'm being slightly sarcastic here - facing my own ego on what I'm proud of since this may or may not be relevant at all for a future job search.

**no need to add every job you've had - it also opens up for age discrimination. Apparently there is no need to add year to your terminal degrees (this dates you), nor add your thesis title. Again, this is more IF it's relevant and makes it better for you to stand out for the job advert but for a lot of things I look for at least, A Degree is relevant - not my beautiful protein thesis title....

random views

I've read a lot about the post doc salary discussion (even had a thought to write a blog post but failed in time). Went on vacation a few different times to enjoy the wonders of summer. Thought about work environment in between and work clothes. And then I decided to do a picture cavalcade instead of random rantings. Next time I'll do more cohesive thoughts and rantings ('cos there is a plethora of thoughts in my little head at the moment).

Here goes, from various trips around the US last couple of weeks - I've been busy trying to enjoy vacation times in several "long weekends".

As always, I love and miss the mountains.

View from a mountain top (not the South)

Jalapeno margarita

Sign at the ABC store. I thought it was absurd, but apparently I'm the odd one

Civil war re-enactment - it's the South after all! (they lost the battle, and the war)

Summer reading - revisiting two of my faves

Directness, rational and gooey center

“I love your sense of humor and directness” – quote from a good bye letter by a coworker. This coupled with a lot of discussion the last year with coworkers and friends has led me to wonder about a few things. (The yearly pondering was part of the “coaching experience” I have mentioned briefly before in this blog. It turned out to be pretty intense, at least for me.)

First of all, just because I don’t talk about feelings all the time doesn’t mean I don’t have them. It’s just complicated. Second of all, I’m not sure “feelings” should take up that much of the work space. It’s just complicated. Third, if I don’t like you – I’m really not going to talk about my feelings. It’s just complicated. Fourth, I’m not going to talk too much about feelings in my workplace. It’s just complicated (hello “emotional female scientist who cries”, not here.)

A lot of discussion has been phrased in the words of “you need to show you’re human and emotional in order to connect with people [in the lab/team]”. While I understand where this is coming from, and I do appreciate the sentiment, the notion of “what these feelings are” seem to differ a lot between me and some of the people I interact with.

I’m not a fan of delving into my personal life at work. Again, while I understand that people want to share their stories about their children (as the least common denominator…), about their wonderful loving spouse and parents etc. As I’ve said before, I stick to sports or cooking (but even that can apparently turn into “elitism”). It’s usually awkward for those of us who don’t have poster-child families to be in the run with the personal things. We who aren’t married with 2.2 children, white picket fence, fancy car and loving parents and grandparents where all in-laws get along. Not to mention we who might have some baggage and non-straight line trajectories and opening ourselves up for more personal questions that may or may not arise during these conversations.

Of course, “directness” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with “feelings and personal”. It’s more a question on how you phrase things and what you decide to voice and not. And yes, I can be direct and blunt sometimes. I can also be smooth talking and indirect in my comments. I think the main difference though, is that sometimes I chose to be direct (even when I could be smooth). Why? Because I’m bored being the cute woman who is correct and demure. Sometimes I just feel like saying “this is F and G and you need to decide which you want”. It’s also sometimes where the indirectness makes it possible for the other person to ignore what you’re saying and do something completely different “you weren’t clear”. To avoid those things, why not just be direct?

I know, I’m overreacting. However, it is a lot of “risk for judging” the more you are “personal” at work. And maybe, just throwing it out there, maybe I’m not really comfortable knowing too much personal stuff about you since I might be prone to start having prejudice against you? (Just tossing the idea out there, considering one of my old coworkers started talking about why they only had one child and that spilled into “all those who have children who can’t take care of them, we really should sterilize them in order for them to receive the welfare checks”…. Yeah… we really bonded. Not.)

Going back to the feelings talk and the “you’re very rational and analytical”. Yes, I’ve realized a lot that I don’t make decisions with my tummy (or heart). And especially not at work. However, that doesn't mean I don't do it at home/personal life. It's more of a decision to keep rational in science and feelt gooey center in personal life. there is also the choice of not being "an emotional woman" in the work place - as Nobel laureates have mentioned lately - and therefore I wonder, in my ever feministic thinking mind, "would it be such a talking point of I was a man, and still rational"? Just a small thought, in a big world...

warning signs and sensitivity

"Look for differences in behaviour, especially if calling in sick Mondays or directly after vacation days" - that's part of what it says under "warning signs" in our Employer handbook. It's referring to "substance abuse" and potential dangerous situations. Signs that people should pick up on and call the employee in and have a discussion about it.

"Look for differences in behaviour, like suddenly texting in the bathroom and hiding the phone" from parents who are worried about drug abuse in their teenagers or the partner who is worried about cheating or criminal activities.

"Look for differences in behaviour, and withdrawing from social interactions and making up excuses for the bruises" when discussing domestic violence.

"Look for differences in behaviour, like going for a nap in the afternoon or sleeping very late in the mornings" for signs of depression.

Similar, "look for insomnia and having more drinks than before" for alcohol abuse.

These warning signs, and changes in behaviour, are picked up and worried about differently depending on your background. At least I feel that I'm in the "over sensitive" portion of the crowd. Most likely based on my history and run ins with a few of these "changes in behaviour". I try not to over-read people and situations, but it's annoying and worrying me at times since I might pick up on things that may or may not be there.

Not to mention that I over-ananlyse myself at times, looking at my own behaviour and interpreting me in the eyes of another. I personally think that I should've been asked a few times about certain behaviour. And there was that time years ago when someone at uni really should've asked me "what's going on", but with asking comes responsibility and I'm quite sure they didn't want that...

I got reminded about this a little while back when I had to question if I was over sensitive or if there was real cause for concern. I wouldn't want to sound the alarm and alert, if indeed it was nothing. Think of all the trouble they'd go through. I decided to sit back a little and collect the signs for just a little longer and so far, they've not kept coming up. Maybe it wasn't a real canary - just a yellow gleen of light?

Mixing hope with experiences

A friend and I spoke the other week about the problem with hope and experiences. You have this hope about people and situations, then you have your previous experiences that add into the situations. The notion that "previous behaviour is a prediction for future behaviour" and at the same time "giving people the benefit of the doubt and believe in them". We discussed in work context, they admitted to feeling naive since their approach to coworkers was that people
a) want to do a good job
b) care about the job
c) are telling the truth

However, what they have found out with experience is that a lot of people they work with seem to mainly be there in order to get a pay check and - this was the main cause of concern and annoyance - cover up and "looking good" while not doing anything. This was especially exampled in "they offered to help out, took over the task since I was busy, but ended up doing nothing and now I want to take the task back but it will cause a ruckus". I recognize the last example, I've encountered it myself and it is a little tricky to keep the environment happy without sounding like you are "selling out the person to your boss or others" and not getting thrown under the bus yourself.

The idea of "having hope" or "giving people a chance" (or two or three) has severely been challenged by my experiences that keep growing. I'm not saying I'm not giving people a chance anymore, I do. I probably give them too many*. However, it's part of the "using experience instead of only hope" that makes you to make alternative plans, make check points (things can get saved if you have early check points instead of waiting until deadline to confirm work), and most of all - getting used to the idea that "someone else's job is not your responsibility to fix great but to be there and help if they need help" and if that doesn't happen, well... it just doesn't. I should really work on how to phrase it since I'm sure it will be interpreted wrong.

What I mean is this, and this goes for things that aren't yours - not the things you delegate, that's slightly different.
a) if it isn't your job, don't fret too much about it since someone else is responsible and hopefully they have their ducks in a row (even if it might not be in your kind of row)
b) if you are working in a team, see if you can make clear to have check points/team meetings where reports are given so you all can make sure everyone is working on schedule
c) don't take over someone else's job just because you can do it better, do it faster, or do it "right" and IF you end up doing someone else's job - it has to be noted somewhere (preferably your boss) since otherwise you are on a track to end up as "the responsible cleaner" and risk missing doing your job as good as you can (and this will end up being bad for you).

Responsible cleaner = the person whom everyone knows will do a good job and fix problems for others, in short time frames (even when it means their own job will lack), and additionally some times without telling the boss thus making it less clear that someone wasn't doing their job.

It's important to understand a distinction here; It's not about telling on someone, but making sure your work doesn't get hurt in the end. Because I can tell you, when it comes to your job performance review it's going to be about how well you performed the things you were tasked to do, not others' tasks that you cleaned up. Sometimes it can be changed of course, if priorities in a group has shifted. In my experience though, I can't say that this really shines through as much as "why haven't you performed this thing" (especially if the 'cleaning up' happened more than a month from review time, people have short memories).

I guess what I'm trying to say here is: keep the hope to maximize your chances of success if it turns out that hope was slightly misgiven. That's what my experience tells me anyway.

*let's not go into personal compared to work... that's even harder