Opportunities come from many places. I wasn’t thinking that they would come in a car dealership? I recently got a new car. I waited until the end of the month to get a great deal… or found myself there at the end of the month because my beloved 10year old car had failed inspection? There was a significant wait to meet with the finance office to pay for the car – several hours. While waiting patiently with my two… not as patiently waiting children, I started talking to a fellow car shopper waiting near me. She had two kids around the same ages as my kids and lives in a neighboring town. Our kids started playing together.
After chatting for almost an hour, she talked about how she was home with her children but was ready to return to work. She works in marketing, had enjoyed a vibrant career and had been off for 2 years. We continued chatting about both personal and professional topics, exchanged contact details and promised to be in touch. We texted that night! She was going to send me her resume so I could share it with a friend who is in marketing.
When I received her resume, the format was familiar: it was a CV. This made sense to me as the bulk of her experience was abroad in a country where CVs are the standard vs a resume. It was a strong CV, in that it was long, detailed and description of duties oriented. It was also suitably modest. I wrote her back, told her that her experience was amazing but that to be competitive in the US we should work on shrinking the document to one or two pages at most, looking for achievements vs listing every single detail of what she actually did.
This took some time. I knew she felt scattered, almost guilty that she did not turn it around as quickly as she wanted. I knew it because I had absolutely been there, in fact, about a year ago. The pressures of trying to care for her primary school aged children, a husband travelling and do her best work was a lot. I reminded her there was not a deadline, that opportunities come and go and that she would be ready for the right one. We went back and forth a few times with edits. She finished the final document today and now sounds very current and powerful!
The feeling of having a current, ready to go resume is amazing! I have made one connection already (amazing in under 24hours, right?) and will make two more. She can now start browsing for jobs in her free time and is ready if someone asks ‘do you have a resume?” It is possible to go from ‘wanting to go back to work’ to having multiple opportunities. By keeping your eyes and ears open, you might make some connections and even a new friend! Because we’ve got this!
We've Got This 