In reading job description after job description and resume after resume for decades now, I’ve come to the realization that most fall far short. The job descriptions in most cases have no relationship to what someone is going to be doing on any given Wednesday afternoon. There’s plenty of vague talk about teamwork and good communication skills, but nothing about what you, the future employee will actually be doing. DO-ING! Who knows how these companies arrive at the right candidate to handle this murky role based on the foggy, policorrect soapsuds sloshed across a thousand job boards and social media outlets? Similarly, there are uncountable resumes, keyword gamed, toward any and all possible openings, written as if the person represented was more gifted in Google SEO than in whatever their actual experiential background is (which generally isn’t search rankings).
The fact is, hiring authorities and candidates want, no make that NEED, a story. For those people applying, the story has to be a compelling saga of how you saved the day stopping catastrophe while innovating clever solutions, doing the superhuman to make your former employer notably win, handily succeed, brilliantly slay the dragon, comfortably meet the deadline,and so forth. For those hiring, there should be a rich tapestry of stories where the company against long odds came from behind to notably win, handily succeed, etc etc. Without those stories, no one has any emotional drive necessary to commit to the other. Who hires tepid chicken broth? Who wants to work in a cultural vat of it either?
So, if you’re out there writing these horrible vapid job descriptions, please STOP! Why not write the story about how in joining the company you can change the world (ala Steve Jobs’ recruitment of John Sculley from Pepsico)? Or better, write the story about what a yet to be determined superstar is going to actually contribute (meaning DO) toward that goal. Daily. Weekly. Monthly.
And if you’re the guy or gal writing your resume, and you’ve slathered all of the keywords over it that you can possible think of (and some you can’t even define!), please STOP! Instead, write the story of how you did change the world several times in the past, and you look forward to an opportunity where, based on those very well articulated stories, you can again and again help change someone else’s world. Daily. Weekly. Monthly.
TELL A STORY!