You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See – A Marketing concept that works for your resume too
on January 6, 2020 / by Preeti Khorana
You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See – A Marketing concept that works for your resume too
Starting a business of my own with no experience of how to run one was a challenging task on its own. On top of that, I wasn’t clear about who was my target audience. And then my business coach recommended Seth Godin’s new book “This Is Marketing – You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See”
Don’t freak-out! I am talking about the business I started before I decided to start this consulting business. I see who I want to help and my messaging talks directly to the – “Busy Senior Executives who want to be more visible outside their organization.
There are quite a few marketing concepts and case studies in the book which are good for business leaders to know. I want to talk about how it applies to job searching & resume writing.
I had this very experienced salesperson who came back with feedback on her resume for both sales & project management roles. So as a resume writer, my first job is to help clients figure out who their target audience is. What’s the role they are a better fit for & gets them excited, a sales role or a project manager?
Unless you have clarity about the next role that you’re excited about, it’s hard to focus on the content that needs to go in your resume. There was a time when people got jobs with 6 page long resumes, not anymore. Recruiters take 6 secs to skim a resume & hiring managers want the resumes to talk to them.
I keep getting asked this question, do you think you can fit all my experience in a 2 pager? Nope, not even if I reduced the font size to 6, made the margins small! And guess what you don’t need all your experience, all you need is information that will get you an interview call.
And how do you get there? Think of it like going to attend a concert in downtown Toronto. What you need is the date & time of the event & you also need the address. Will your GPS be able to give you the correct directions if you don’t have the address right?
Follow these simple steps to apply the same analogy to your resume:
First, get on to LinkedIn & search for roles that you would like to apply for & get you excited.
Second, look for the specific skills the job requires & check for the terminology they use
Third, match your content to what the job is looking for & not your 20 years of experience. Only select achievements that will talk to the hiring manager. And now you have a 2-page resume that gets you an interview call!
If you’re a business leader looking for an interesting read & marketing concepts that you can apply to your business click here to get your hands on a copy of “This Is Marketing by Seth Godin”
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Thanks for sharing some great insights, Preeti! And good luck to you!
Cheers!
Thanks so much, Navin! “This is marketing” is a great book by Seth Godin. I think every business leader should read it.
Great! Preeti.
Best Wishes.
Maninder Singh
Thanks so much