When I visited Florida, I became fascinated with the amazing capacity of these little creatures to change their color to match their environment. We can learn from them! It’s not that they become something they are not. Instead, they use resources within themselves to become what they need to be at a given moment. That’s a marvelous lesson for us. We can become what we need to be in a challenging economy.
Is our Interview or Customer Traffic a Measure of our Talent?
My daughter is an entrepreneur and a talented, gifted artist, and I am a professional writer. Often I remark on how God gave us different gifts so that we could help one another. On good days when business is booming, and we are in high demand, we feel validated in our professional roles. But on quieter days, and in slower times, doubt can cast a shadow over our self-belief and sense of reality.
It reminds me of a what young man who was repairing my TV once said to me. “I always marvel” he said, “about how everybody needs me at once or doesn’t need me at once.” From a business owner’s perspective, I found this to be quite hilarious, but I also immediately grasped his point.
Once in our travels out West, my husband and I were looking for a quaint restaurant. We spotted a lovely little Mexican Restaurant. It had charm and curb appeal but there were no cars in its parking lot. We pondered a bit wondering if that was a forecaster of its quality, but then we decided to give it a shot.
When we entered the restaurant, we were immediately capitivated by its compelling cultural ambience and decor. The customer service was exquisite and the cuisine was tantalizingly off the charts! Afterward, we couldn’t help but reflect on the experience we would have missed if we had followed the “no traffic” diagnostic approach. The fact is that we had encountered a fantastic eating place in “off hours”, and its lack of traffic had nothing to do with the lovely experience that beckoned to outsiders who would dare to chance an entrance through its elegant and ethnically decorated doors.
My daughter and I often discuss this phenomenon and remind each other that whether we are overwhelmed with business or in “off hours”, we are still the same talented people. Or, put another way, our talent isn’t fairly measured by our traffic.
And the application for my clients is the same. When we have a job, we feel that our worth is validated. We feel in control We feel that we are valuable.. Conversely, when we do not have work, the terror moves in, and we worry about whether we’ll ever find a job and often we correspondingly lose our sense of self-worth. Yet, it is precisely at such times that we must challenge ourselves to remember that our talent and our value are not related to our customer traffic or our employemnt status. Our value is a constant that never changes. Nonetheless, the outside world can distort our reality by its acknowlegement or lack of acknowledgement. So use your talent to find work in off or down times, and leverage it to serve your client’s or employer’s needs well in those much easier to bear, high-demand times!
What Makes a Resume Successful?
There are many diverse ideas about what makes a resume successful. People can be very dogmatic about what to do and what not to do when preparing a resume. There are many different resume styles. There are chronological, topical, and functional resume approaches. Of course the final judge of what works and what does not lies in the perception of our marketplace and our prospective interviewers.
What Makes a Good Cover Letter?
Over the years, I have reviewed many cover letters and I have learned a great deal about what motivates our audience.
A good cover letter does not reiterate the specific accomplishments in the resume. The resume is the place where we demonstrate in concrete terms what we have done and how well we have done it. The cover letter is more about who we are, what we stand for, why others have appreciated us, and how we can bring value to their company.
The cover letter is more abstract. It is about our feelings, our commitment, our drive, and our interests. If a cover letter is the theorem, the resume is the proof. In the cover letter, we tell them why we can be an asset to them. In the resume, we must show how we have been an asset to others.
The cover letter and resume compliment each other. If done well they fit hand in glove and combine to make a powerful impression.
Discovering our Natural Gifts and Talents
I believe that all of us are richly endowed with natural gifts and talents. Isn’t it obvious when we sit in a performing arts center and listen to a voice like that of Pavarotti, or Sarah Brightman. These are people who discovered and used their gifts to bring joy to others, and ironically, they have been well paid for doing what they love so much.
Acceptability verses Unacceptability in an Interview
What is it about an interview that connects with all the youthful messages we carry about acceptability verses unacceptability? Somewhere in time, someone indelibly impressed on our souls that as we lived our academic lives, there was some kind of transcript of life we were recording with every missed class, unfinished assignment, or lesser grade. Whomever it was that articulated that message, a well-meaning parent, a threatening teacher, an ambitious counselor, or the ever-illusive definers of success, the stage was set. We were programmed to think that our imperfect life would somehow need to be defended in almost every place. Why didn’t we finish college? Why did we stay in school so long? Why didn’t we get better grades? Why weren’t we able to get along better with people? And on and on.
Should you have a one or two-page resume?
There is much controversy about the one verses two page resume. I recommend a common sense approach. What is it going to take to differentiate yourself and demonstrate to your audience how you have brought real-world value the the companies you have represented. If you can do it one page, that’s great. If you need two pages, don’t be afraid of the naysayers who tell you this is going to be the deadliest promotional mistake you ever made. The fact is that the two-page resume is in!
Skiing the giant moguls of unemployment in today’s economy.
I am a professional writer and have had the privilege of writing resumes for over 6500 people of every walk of life. Over the past 15 years my work has been mostly about helping people to get better jobs and professional opportunities. Today, it’s about survival in an economy that has imploded into unprecedented job losses and striken terror into the hearts of many.