Stop wasting valuable resume real estate by including information that won’t help your case! You only have limited space, so use it to sell yourself and highlight the skills, experience and attributes you have that make you the ideal candidate for THIS specific job you’re applying for.
Same goes for the interview process. You only want to share information that is going to help the panel understand that you’re the ideal candidate for the position.
Links I mentioned in this episode:
22. Will this information help me get the job? – Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, there I’m Bec McFarland the host of the Pop Your Career Podcast. As a career coach, I’m most passionate about helping my clients to discover their own personal flavour of career fulfillment. In this podcast, we are going to be exploring ways that you too can feel more fulfilled by your work. So strap yourself in, get ready for the ride. The tips around here are fast and in abundance.
[00:00:29] Hello, Hello, Bec McFarland here helping you do better and be better in your career. And today’s episode is a little shorty, as we address this question, will this information help me get the job? Now, this is not a question that anyone has asked me. This is a question that I want you to ask yourself, and I want you to ask yourself this question frequently, [00:01:00] whenever preparing a resume, a cover letter, or when you’re preparing for an interview, I want you to ask yourself. Will this information help me get the job? In other words, will this specific piece of information help the panel to assess whether or not I’m the most suitable candidate for this opportunity?
[00:01:22] So when you are preparing your resume or your cover letter, or you’re getting ready to go for an interview, I want you to know that you have got very limited real estate. Gone are the days when we were going to submit like a 10 page resume. That is just not going to be happening anymore. You really want your resume to be like two to three pages maximum, four, if there’s like a lot that you need to cover, but realistically any longer than that, and no one’s going to read it.
[00:01:51] And I say that with love, I’m not saying that with any judgment at all, but I am telling you that as somebody who’s been on a lot of panels [00:02:00] before, who has recruited for a lot of jobs, and in each of those situations, you know, like I could have had hundreds of applications to read.
[00:02:08] You just don’t have time to be reading hundreds of applications times by 10 pages per application, especially given the fact that honestly, most of the time these panel members are doing that kind of stuff in front of the television at night because there are not enough hours in the day.
[00:02:26] So we want to be succinct and we really want to make sure that we are leading with the information that’s directly related to the opportunity. What does this mean? It means that you should be tailoring every resume, every cover letter, and every bit of interview preparation to the specific job that you are applying. Is this a lot of work? Yes, it absolutely is. But I’m telling you, it is worth it because this is the way that you effectively sell yourself as the most suitable [00:03:00] candidate for that role.
[00:03:03] But, what I see so many times, so many, so many times is that we are often including information on our resumes, in our applications, and in our interviews that is just totally not relevant. Now, for a lot of people, this is because of the fact that they’ve had career changes. You know, maybe you had one career earlier on and then you made a big shift and you moved into something else, right?
[00:03:31] So you might have qualifications or specific experiences and things like that that just don’t relate. Now, I’m not talking about transferable skills, and I’m not talking about being able to pivot your experience to suit a different kind of career path. What I’m talking about is very specific qualifications, experiences, skills that are related to one specific career path that are not related [00:04:00] to another career path.
[00:04:01] So for example, if you are trying to get a job as a tax accountant, it’s probably irrelevant, if you’ve got a certificate four in horticulture. Right? If you’re applying for a job as a policy officer in community policy, they probably don’t care if you have a hairdressing qualification. Right? Now a lot of people are including this kind of stuff on their resume because they think that it tells a kind of story about themselves that you know, they’re committed to their professional development or you know that they have some kind of level of experience or maturity or whatever it is.
[00:04:51] Now, we’ve already talked before about the fact that you should say what you mean. That was episode eight. If you haven’t listened to it, [00:05:00] highly encourage you to jump back in and check it out. But what I want to remind you is that if you are really committed to your professional development, just say that, just say that. You don’t need to include some janky, old, irrelevant qualification in order to demonstrate that. That’s not going to help your cause.
[00:05:23] So every single piece of information that you are including in your resume application and interview preparation gets run through this one very specific question: Will this information help me get the job? And if it won’t, just leave it out, and if in doubt, leave it out because you really only have a small amount of space in order to sell yourself effectively.
[00:05:48] And I would be sure that there are a heck of a lot more interesting, relevant, exciting, informative things about you that will directly relate to the [00:06:00] position that you’re applying for that you could be missing out on by including that two line qualification that is not going to be useful in this next role.
[00:06:11] That’s really all I wanted to say to you today. I don’t think I need to bang on about this one anymore. I think that it’s pretty self explanatory, but if you think I’ve missed something or you’ve got further questions about this concept, please feel free to hit me up on social media. Let’s continue the conversation. Let’s have a chat about it. But really I just want you to commit this question to your memory. I’d love to say to get it tattooed on your forehead, but I’m not saying that just in case anyone takes me, literally, I am not saying that. Just remember it. Just commit it to your memory. Will this information help me get the job?
[00:06:46] Have a beautiful week. Best of luck with everything you’ve got going on in your career this week, and I’ll see you next time. Bye bye now.
[00:06:53] Thanks so much for listening to the Pop Your Career podcast. I hope that [00:07:00] you’ve enjoyed today’s tips and that you found value in what I’ve shared with you. If you like your career advice quick and entertaining, I would love for you to subscribe. Also leave me a rating and a review. If you want to continue the conversation, come and join me over on social media. You can find me everywhere at Pop Your Career. I’ll see you soon.
[00:07:19] This episode is brought to you by the Career Clarity Quest, my absolutely free, seven day program, which is designed to support you in getting so much clearer about your next steps. Find it at PopYourCareer.com/quest.
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