A recent post by one of my colleagues just made me shake my head. Here is the comment …
“Customizing your resume for each position you apply to can be critical in today’s job search.”
If you are changing your resume every time you send it out, that tells me that you have:
No focus
You don’t know what you want so you’re willing to be anything or all things to all people … rather than being well-positioned from what you do best and most enjoy doing.
No target
You have no idea who your target audience is or who needs the skill sets you bring to the table so therefore, any company and every company is fair game. But, that often leads to a protracted search and the increased chances of landing in a place that isn’t a good fit for you or for the company.
A flawed strategy
Your job search strategy is primarily, or solely, comprised of searching for posted positions and then firing off your resume to anything and everything that looks like it could be a fit. With fingers crossed and the “right” re-tweaking, you send off your resume and then sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. Did your resume really go to the proverbial “black hole” rather than to the desk of HR? It’s a flawed strategy.
At the Chief Financial Officer level, customizing your resume for every position should not be necessary. Your marketable value proposition (MVP) and messaging to a targeted audience should be so crystal clear that “resume” revisions for every position are simply not required.
I’ll be talking about the tools that every executive should have in his career toolbox with Proformative members on May 4 at noon Eastern. Hope to see you on the call!
Cindy,
I agree with what you’ve said. I don’t think resumes should be changed for different opportunities.
However…
CFOs who are working don’t need a resume to attract a new opportunity. All they need is a well done LinkedIn Profile. If the person that finds them needs a resume, they can use their LinkedIn Profile as a base. I’ve interviewed many quality people based on their LinkedIn Profile alone.
If a CFO has really done their homework and is visible, marketable and branded, the only time they need a resume is when they are actively looking for their next opportunity.
Samuel Dergel – The CFO Expert
Executive Search Consultant
Stanton Chase International
http://blog.dergelcfo.com
Interesting perspective, Samuel. And one that I’ve not seen or even heard from my clients. Even for my clients being found on Linked In, they are ALWAYS asked to provide a resume.
That said, the resume is the tangible end product. The intangible – drilling down to identify a candidate’s marketable value proposition (MVP) as a part of creating marketing document (including a Linked In profile) – is the most valuable part of the process. With that, a candidate doesn’t have a compelling message nor an audience interested in listening.
As always, thanks Samuel.
I agree with you Cindy. The always changing resume really is applicable to low or intermediate “task bound” jobs, if then, and is a useless indicator for a senior financial executive. A senior executive should show range, performance, adaptability, and a sense of leadership style. A senior executive will be a poor for a task defined role. Develop your brand for versality!
@ Cindy,
Fully agree with you. I had read a write up advocating this and tried to practise it in the past. Unfortunately, it was shortlived for the reasons you mentioned above and some more – I felt my value proposition and vision of where I want to be and work should be constant. Plus it was time wasting and energy draining.
@ Samuel,
Great to see you back after you left cfo2grow. I dont quite agree with you; as a CFO not actively job hunting, I would say a linkedIn profile is key only to the extent of enabling a recruiter to identify a potential candidate. The most important part of a recruitment will happen post-LinkedIn or CV. Even with a minimum level of information on your LinkedIn profile, you will still get attention or leads. The taste of the pudding is not in the LinkedIn, but in the eating (pardon the pun :-))
Thanks for weighing in, Charles! I just don’t think we’re at the “resumes aren’t necessary” stage yet. Samuel is just way ahead of the competition!