I got an email today from a prospective client. She sent me her resume – it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful either. The grammar was fine and she had obviously used spell check. (Yay!) The thing that stood out to me was that I didn’t get a sense of what she would deliver to a potential employer. Even worse, I had absolutely no idea what kind of job she was looking for.
Big problem.
A resume without a clear direction just won’t work. 100% of the time, it will get stuck in the ATS “black hole”.
So I called her and asked her to tell me a bit about her goals. Her answer is pretty easy to guess, right?
She didn’t know. She didn’t have a target job and had not yet decided on her next career move.
I believe in honesty and telling the truth, and that means it was tough love time. I told her to do some soul searching and to call me when she was ready. Then, and only then can we create a job-winning document. Without a goal, a resume is just a piece of paper.
Making sure that your resume has a goal will give you a competitive edge and will help you escape the black hole. Give yourself a fighting chance. Pick a target.
