RESUME TIPS

UPDATED ON 5/17/2022

Your head might have blown up at the time, but if you survived — flourished, even — those dire situations could do wonders. 

In the midst of the coronavirus, every human being on this planet has hunkered down in their homes, set up dining room offices, round up the kids for their online math lessons, and disinfect everything like Howie Mendel might make a surprise appearance.

I don’t know about you, but that is enough for me to look yonder and scream to the top of my lungs.

Thankfully, many of us have capitalized this as an opportunity to cultivate gratitude. An opportunity to practice human connection — especially those we have lost touch with — from a distance. Texting. Social media. Virtual happy hours. Phone calls Even snail mail. Now that’s a novel idea.

On the employment front, unemployment filings has broken records. In fact, actual numbers have surged way past the official projection of four (4) million individuals from just two weeks ago. Sadly, those same individuals may or may not have jobs to return to because their companies may not exist anymore.

So back to the job-search bandwagon they go.

All of a sudden, the resume that may be buried under an enormous pile of folders comes into play.

We are stressed out of our minds.

But guess what?

Whether we have jobs or not, all these stresses contain a treasure trough of opportunity to succeed.

Although it may not feel like it right now, time will tell because our reactions to our most desperate circumstances may just give us our much needed punchline to launch us.

Silver Lining

If we think about it, the coronavirus is the first time our jobs are on the line. This isolated period would likely rank low on our list of most disturbing work-related situations.

Remember when we were in our offices? All those deadlines? Customer complaints and demands? Conflicting ideas? Sudden crises?

See? Those are the times when we want to go home and attack a quart of rocky road ice cream.

If we examine closer, however, there must have been occasions when we achieved what we set out to do despite those hardships. We might have been pissed off while doing it.  We might have cried even. But we prevailed, nonetheless.

What is also excellent to note are all those other times when we are not stressed out at all…but everyone else around us is. We stayed calm and presented solutions that all stakeholders appreciated.

Why is that?

It’s because what is hard for others is easy for us just as what is hard for us might be easy for others.

All of us are unique in our strengths.  Those are our silver linings.

So the more stressful the accomplishments, the more we could amplify our significance to our prospective future employers.

It shows that we would not be frazzled. We can still think objectively and find solutions in spite the high stakes we faced.

Anybody who can solve problems while everyone is scrambling like a chicken without a head will surely catch a lot of employers’ attention.

Translation On Paper

Now, before you take another look at your resume, open a new document or take out a blank sheet of paper.

For every role you ever had, relive and list all those times that irritated either you or everyone except you, especially the most painful ones. What could likely be a problem for others might not have been a problem for you at all.

Then for each of these aggravating occasions, identify and write down the solutions or approaches you created and implemented to relieve each issue.

These could be projects. These could be crises. These could be personality conflicts.

Once that is thoroughly thought out, pick the most triumphant ones. Remember, you only have so much space on a two-page document.

The end product would be a list of accomplishments that prompts readers to ask in amusement, “Wow, you were able to pull all that off?”

Well, isn’t that the kind of reaction we want?

Climax

As the most successful comedians claim, the best jokes come from the worst situations. It might be painful now, but you would likely laugh about it later.

That goes for our resumes too.

Make whoever reads our past feel the torment we were in, then fill them with suspense and give them a satisfying climax as they reach our resolution.

Sounds like the movies, doesn’t it?

All in all, there is nothing much we can do about the coronavirus except to follow what the government and health authorities order us to do at the moment. But rather than drowning in cabin fever, view this period as value time to connect with people — and with ourselves.

Nothing is ever as bad as they feel right now. In fact, we will find silver linings even if we have to wait for them.

Feeling burnt out by all the stress? First, take a break. Then, when you are ready, let me help you uncover your silver linings.