In the movie American Beauty, the main character—Lester Burnham—quits his lucrative-ish but antagonizing inside-sales position, and sets out to apply for the entry-level job of all entry-level jobs: flipping burgers. Of course the burger-joint manager is baffled, and tells Lester he doesn't see this as a good fit. Unfazed, Lester points out how the manager’s judgment is misguided.

Granted, this scenario is hyperbole, like so much in American Beauty. Even so, the reality is: people do pursue jobs they are overqualified for, all the time.
 
How about you? Have you laid eyes on a job opening but not applied in the end because you thought you would be passed over for being overqualified? Are you at that kind of crossroads right now? Or have you perhaps already gone through the frustration of being rejected specifically for being overqualified?
 
First, put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes.
 
The concerns on an employer’s part are understandable, whether they are based on common sense or on preconceived notions. That, too, is the reality of the situation. At the same time, there are various ways to neutralize the “overqualified” label, or even turn it around to work in your favor.
 
Your résumé may be the place to start.
 
Talk about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure! Of course you are proud of your accomplishments, but it may be better to hold back so you look like a good fit. Much as this may feel like severing your own limbs, it might be a good idea to leave some things off your résumé.
 
A Certified Professional Résumé Writer will work with you on what to emphasize, what to deemphasize, and how to shuffle your assets. You will still be “found out” eventually, but a strategically designed résumé is more likely to get you an interview, and when that happens, it will be much easier to address the “overqualified” concern.
 
“Hm hm, I am overqualified…and that is a problem because…?”
 
Take the bull by the horns. Of course you are overqualified. Why is that a bad thing, though? Let the interviewer point out specific concerns; get them to put their finger on something beyond the vague negative connotation of “overqualified.” The interviewer will probably come up with one or more of the following.
 
—You will certainly get bored, and not last long.
 
“Oh, I see what you mean. Let me put your mind at ease: I understand there are a lot of new things to learn for me here. As long as I can keep learning something new, I won’t get bored.”
 
—It could be a problem that you know more than your supervisor does.
 
“How so? I imagine my supervisor would rather have a resourceful new hire; someone who gets where management is coming from, who will have their back, who won’t require constant supervision, and who is regarded as competent by clients. Been there, done that.
 
“What is certainly true is that I bring the potential for growing with your company. I will be there when the right opportunity for advancement comes along, so I can take my contributions to the next level.”
 
—The salary we can offer probably won’t be enough for you.
 
That one is a bit trickier, but your answer might go something like this:
 
“Oh, I am not too worried about that. I have done my research on what this type of position realistically pays. If that were an issue, I wouldn’t have applied. I appreciate you for bringing that up, though. What is the salary range you have budgeted for this position?”
 
What else?

Oh, yes—Lester Burnham. He did get that job flipping burgers. And if you have seen American Beauty, then you know that job was the one Lester would have for the rest of his life.

As with all things related to job search, applications, and interviewing, there are always subtle “tectonic shifts” that see trends come and go. A fad enters the scene, it seems to work for a while, until it wears itself out after everybody and their brother has jumped on it.

One such trend was injecting “oddball questions” into the interview, such as: “How many Ping-Pong balls can you fit in a jet airliner?” Of course no interviewer in their right mind expected you to come up with a definitive answer. The idea behind those oddball questions was something like this:

In every job, there will be oddball situations coming at you every once in a while. How do you deal with that: Do you get defensive (“What the &*$# does that have to do with anything??”) or do you acknowledge, even welcome the oddball question as an opportunity to show your capacity for outlining the path to a solvable problem: “First of all, are we taking the seats out? Are we filling the kerosene tanks as well? (…)”

You get the idea. And while those typical oddball questions have been on the wane, the underlying premise remains: Every so often, we all are faced with something we don’t know, and have to find out about. In the above example of the Ping-Pong balls, it is quite obvious you wouldn’t really have to know that. But what if the interview question does have bearing on the job you are interviewing for, such as: “How would you go about in developing this niche market in our new sales territory?”

I wouldn’t have a definitive answer to that one. For starters, I would need more information—read up on the demographics of that new territory, consult with existing area sales directors and field sales reps about what has been working thus far, etc. I would relate all that in my answer to that question, so the interviewer would know I was capable of defining and framing the problem, and resourceful enough to formulate steps to tackle the challenge.

Another way of looking at it: If any interview candidate were able to hand the interviewer a definitive answer on a silver platter, then the interviewer might respond (or at least think): “Great! Now we can do it ourselves!”

Really, it is okay not to know something (as long as it’s not like you don’t know anything—duh!). When you don’t know something, what matters is you show the interviewer how excited you are to put your nose to the grindstone. Maybe you can inject a story about how you have handled a similar learning curve before.

I have made some choices in my life that I now second-guess. Please don’t ask about specifics; sharing them would still be—to put it charitably—too embarrassing for me. I will say, though, that (fortunately) none of those choices has ever gotten me into trouble with the law. There are no laws against just being immature, unwise, or naïve. Lucky me.

Past choices are…well, in the past.

Choices I have made in the past don’t define the type of person I am today, or will be tomorrow. (And that includes the choices that turned out to be good ones; good choices in the past only mean so much with regard to choices now or in the future.)

In my daytime job at the North Shore Career Center, last week saw the graduation of a cohort of reentrants from a series of custom-tailored workshops. In case you are not familiar with the designation “reentrants,” it denotes people also known as “court-involved individuals” or “persons with criminal records.” Until recently, common designations have also included “ex-cons” and “ex-felons.”

Those would be people who, like me, have made some choices in their lives that they now second-guess. On top of that, however, they have had the added misfortune of breaking the law somewhere along the line. The consequences of that misfortune include public exposure (in court, and oftentimes also in the media) and a public record that is going to stay with them.

So what if your past affects the quality of your brand?

What applies to me applies to reentrants just the same: Choices they have made in the past don’t define the type of person they are today, or will be tomorrow. Not-so-good choices in the past only mean so much with regard to choices now or in the future.

That’s where specially designed workshops come in.

Understandably, reentrants often feel labeled—dare we say: “branded”?—by their criminal record and incarceration. When they come to the Career Center, it often is with a feeling of a sticky note on their foreheads saying something like “ex-offender.”

But that’s not even what cuts to the quick at times. Over the years, several participants have confided in us that our series of workshops for reentrants was the first thing they had ever “completed” in their lives. One participant went a step further and said she “found hope again.” That stuck with me; she had already lost hope—that which supposedly dies last.

We address these participants as the professionals they are. We probe—with the help of appropriate assessment tools, and through individual counseling—where strengths and inclinations may lie, and what positions or career paths seem like good ones to explore further. (That includes info about your record on application forms, and employers open to candidates with a record.)

We collaboratively design a job-search campaign emphasizing relevant assets.

A central, recurring theme in our workshops for reentrants is resilience. It involves acknowledging what happened in the past, and devising a strategy to move on.

Once a line of work to zero in on is identified, I am one of the main contributors in creating a fresh, new résumé. That new résumé is going to emphasize qualities that present the individual as a capable, reliable professional. And when I look at the résumé once it’s done, it strikes me time and time again how the criminal record in a person’s past is completely absent from the presentation of his or her qualifications for a future job.

Things don’t end at the résumé, of course. Plenty of practice time is given to discussing your record in the interview conversation, where the subject might come up following the interviewer’s mention of how the company routinely does background checks. At that point, it is important for the candidate to be able to tell his or her story and sound natural, so as to convince the interviewer that was an episode in the past that has been dealt with and moved on from.

And it takes a big person to open up about those darker facets of one’s past. Remember I alluded to choices of mine that I now second-guess? I have the option to remain comfortable in choosing not to discuss details. People with a criminal record must step outside their comfort zone, and address unpleasant details. If that doesn’t say something about their readiness for new challenges, then I don’t know what does.

Imagine you are at a massive networking function at some large venue, where over time the people in attendance form clusters of sorts, depending on factors such as industry, location, and what they are looking for (clients; talent; business partners; investors; etc.). So far, so good.

Now imagine there are some “Me! Me! Me!” networkers among the people in attendance: people who ricochet in and out of small-group conversations, talking about nothing but themselves and what they do—in fact, doing pretty much all the talking. Those people approach everyone in exactly the same way, regardless of the other person’s need or background. Finally, those people throw business cards around touting what they want everyone to buy from them.

Do those “Me! Me! Me!” networkers sound like grotesque caricatures? Well, in brick-and-mortar networking, the only environment where I have come across anything close to that was car sales. The sales trainer in my group of trainees suggested you get yourself known in the neighborhood by placing business-card dispensers at every imaginable local business from the dry cleaner’s to the hairdresser’s to the dentist’s.

I never acted on that “sage advice” (I wouldn’t have, even if I had lasted any longer than three months in that line of work), and I can’t think of too many car salespeople who do. They, too, generally have more common sense than that.

How certain online “networking” goes really bad

Content management in the digital sphere is fascinating, even wondrous. Today content can be posted and sent out to practically unlimited numbers of recipients, at speeds and volumes that would have been unheard of just a generation ago.

And some people take that as license to hound down unsuspecting targets anywhere and everywhere. I don’t do a lot besides LinkedIn and Twitter in the social-media arena, but I have enough presence to find myself antagonized by obnoxious self-promotion every so often.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the kind of networking that gets people to think of you when they have a need for your product or service. What makes networking good is when it also includes offering something for free. (I wrote about that in detail in another blog post.)

Where things become obnoxious is when they approach you by making a faux personal “connection” (such as a generic compliment on your website or LinkedIn profile), and when you do connect with them, they message you on LinkedIn to pitch their product or service, and flood you with “newsletters” and “special promotions” you never signed up for.

And that’s where these online networkers are just like the caricature “Me! Me! Me!” brick-and-mortar networkers I made up above: all talk, no listen. As for online networking, much of it may not happen in the form of live, real-time conversations, but there certainly remains the need to “listen.” And if they don’t get that, then it’s “unsubscribe” and “unfollow”!

“Effective and efficient business planner.”
“Open-minded and flexible team player.”
“Motivated, top-notch self-starter.”
 
These are examples of what I call fluff bubbles. Other examples can be found in those self-presentations of having a “high level of energy” and an “optimistic attitude.”
 
The problem with phrases like these is not even the fact they have long been overused, like worn-out Velcro. The problem is they are lacking in substance; when the fluff bubble bursts, there is nothing left.
 
I can’t even blame garden-variety job seekers and networkers (and those new to the game at that) for using phrases like these as they try to position themselves. After all, plenty of job descriptions out there have phrases like these included, supposedly describing the desired soft skills for the job.
 
But echoing these phrases back at employers doesn’t make them sound any more convincing. Moreover, even though job descriptions seem to include these candidate “qualities” as a matter of routine, employers like to regard these things as a given in any new hire.
 
The “litmus test” for spotting fluff bubbles
 
1.  Is the phrase something most people could apply to most jobs?
 
Would you know from any of the above examples what that person’s line of work or industry is? Of course not! It could be a dental hygienist, a paralegal, a K–12 administrator…or, for that matter, a sanitation worker! That’s precious space wasted to proclaim how you work, rather than using it to showcase key qualifications.
 
Or think of what a job seeker might say in a cover letter: “I believe I have potential.” Chances are that will make the reader go like: “Duh! You want the job! Of course you say you ‘believe you have potential.’”
 
2.  Is the phrase something nobody would claim the opposite of?
 
Joe put on his résumé that he is a “hard worker.” What will the hiring manager make of that? “Well, finally, here is a hard worker! I knew it—all the others are slackers! Hey, didn’t that other résumé even say it outright?”
 
Sound absurd? Of course; it is absurd. Nobody would claim to have anything other than desirable qualities.
 
Take “excellent communication skills” as another example. I think it unlikely that anyone would say, “Oh, no, I don’t have ‘excellent communication skills’—I head for my cubicle first thing in the morning and hope to be left the &@%# alone all day.”
 
Better alternatives to fluff bubbles
 
You are trying to speak to the needs of your target audience. When you are a job seeker, trumpeting broad, random qualities is not the most promising approach. Rather, start by putting yourself in the employer’s shoes, and then show your capacity for generating results.
 
As I discussed in an earlier blog post, job openings exist because employers are in need of results in some of the following categories:
 

1. Make (more) money
2. Seize an opportunity (or solve a problem)
3. Save money, time, or both
4. Recruit, train, and develop staff
5. Develop relationships with other organizations or the general public
6. Retain existing markets and customers
7. Develop new markets and customers

 
Your past employers kept you around for as long as they did because you were capable of producing the results they needed, perhaps without you even realizing it. A Certified Professional Résumé Writer can help you “unearth” your capabilities to be front and center on your résumé or in your LinkedIn profile.
 
Moreover, talking about results will allow your audience to infer the competencies you must have. For example, if you masterminded a grand opening of a new store location, and went on to boost revenue by 200% from the first to the second year, you probably couldn’t have done it without some kind of effective and efficient business planning!

As one year is about to end and another about to begin, let me take a moment and talk about—no, not New Year’s resolutions! (I am not a big fan of those, as I have discussed in another blog post.)
 
Rather, I want to talk about informational campaigning for your professional persona. If you haven’t tried that before, why not let the New Year be the trigger to do so! For consistency, the following is based on the example of job search, but much of it can be equally applied to targeting new clients, vendors, or other business partners.
 
The operative word here is “informational.” You are not the candidate begging for a job; you want to think of yourself as the long-awaited silver bullet for of their challenges. Showcase your assets; drive home your capabilities relevant to their needs. Help them cut through the fog between job seekers and talent seekers.
 
Seize the control you have, beginning with your timing.
 
Have you heard it said: Opportunity is not waiting for your ship to come in; it’s swimming out to meet it. So the company of your dreams doesn’t have any jobs posted right now? That might just be the best time to let them know you are out there, and what you are all about—speaking to their perceived needs.
 
Do some detective work to find the name of an individual who is a likely decision influencer, possibly a mover and shaker. Then send an informational letter along with your résumé. And yes, make that a letter—printed out, in an envelope, and sent in the regular mail. E‑mails are better for follow-up than for first contact.
 
A proactive informational campaign has a better chance of standing out.
 
When companies post jobs, they are inundated with résumés, and it depends on a host of factors whether yours will be noticed. On the other hand, when you send a letter when there is no job posted, you won’t be competing with countless others for the reader’s attention.
 
You may be catching them at the time a need is beginning to emerge. And even if that is not the case, they will be more likely to get back to you later if they already know who you are. Remember, most jobs (65–80%) are never advertised but filled through networking of one type or another. That goes to show how critical it is to be proactive about making a connection.
 
While on a proactive roll, announce your next proactive move.
 
Don’t leave them under the impression you will be sitting by the phone, holding your breath for them to call you. Instead, say what you will do next, and when, and how. Usually, that will boil down to a variation on the theme “I will call/e‑mail you within two weeks of this letter.” I have discussed this in more detail in my blog post How to Follow Up After Making First Contact.
 
Speaking from experience: This does work!
 
When I was a job seeker, I executed the above steps quite a few times. Although I was met with “radio silence” here and there, and even some outright rejection, I was able to generate some phone interviews.
 
In the case of one company, the day after my follow-up e-mail, I heard from another branch of the same company, saying they were just starting to interview for such-and-such job, and whether I was interested. Two days later, I interviewed for that job.
 
As far as employers are concerned, the way you job-hunt is the way you work. And when they can see you are proactive about your job hunt, it will work in your favor not just for the proactive quality of it but because you are making their hunt easier.

On that note: Let the New Year be your best year yet! ​🍾

On this Veterans’ Day, I want to kick a few ideas around on helping military veterans move their careers along.

Some of the veterans I work with are baby boomers whose service dates back several decades. Others are millennials who got out of the service recently and are now working on re-claiming their civilian lives and careers. And yet others are somewhere in between.

Although I myself haven’t had the honor, there are various ways the Certified Professional Résumé Writer in me rejoices at the chance of marketing the assets of job seekers who have served in the military.

Military service always belongs on your résumé.

Hiring managers worth their salt realize military service is not something you do just for the paycheck. Rather, it shows a person’s capacity for dedication and commitment. It doesn’t matter if you were drafted; you answered Uncle Sam’s call, and for the purpose of résumé writing, that comes down to the same as if you had volunteered.

Good hiring managers will also assume you came away from military service with certain transferable capabilities—such as clear, efficient communication, and level-headed performance under pressure.

The amount of military-service detail that should go on your résumé will vary.

Usually, the minimum info of military service on a résumé includes: the branch served in; any commendations received; and, as long as there was an honorable discharge, the mention of that. (I am not trying to sound patronizing; I know the honorable-discharge part can be an issue for the most absurd-sounding reasons.)

If you are concerned about dating yourself because your military service goes back several decades, rest easy; your Certified Professional Résumé Writer will discuss ways around that with you. (For starters, you will notice the dates of your service aren’t necessarily part of the minimum info.)

How much more detail you go into beyond that minimum info depends on factors such as the marketability of your service to your civilian ambitions and aspirations. For example, if you served in an IT-specialist capacity, you might elaborate on that if you are now looking to build intranet solutions for businesses. Or if you were a communications officer and regularly put out press releases, that might certainly be helpful to market you to a public-relations role.

As I mentioned on another page on this site, veterans have always been part of my particular clientele focus, besides mid-level professionals and career changers. In that sense, let every day be Veterans’ Day.

You know that, ultimately, your résumé isn’t written to please the ATS. Behind every ATS, there are humans who look over your résumé once it “passes” the electronic pre-screen.
 
The other week, at our local networking group, we looked to empower each group member to make his or her résumé more of a “human magnet” by trading on-the-spot feedback with other group members. We had them pair up over multiple rounds, each round with a different partner, putting notes for feedback on each other’s résumé. That way, everybody came away with multiple copies of his or her résumé with spontaneous written feedback on them.
 
In the concluding discussion, it became apparent that the “rules” job seekers often worry about really fall short. Whether it’s about how far to go back with dates, how many pages to give it, or where to list awards: there isn’t any “quick fix” where you just flip the switch, and your résumé hits it out of the ballpark henceforth.
 
So what are some things to bear in mind?
 
All readers of your résumé—recruiters, HR pros, hiring managers—are people. As people, they will have a gut response to your résumé.
 
Do you think anyone will be blown away by a cliché-laden “objective” that reads: “To utilize my skills in a new full-time opportunity with potential for growth that speaks to my ambitions while benefiting the team”?
 
The fact that there even is an objective is the least of problems with it. Hopefully it will garner some feedback to the effect that none of the “information” in this phrase distinguishes you. Which leads to the next point:
 
If several people give you the same feedback on something about your résumé, there probably is something to it.
 
If there is fair consistency among people in pointing out what they thought worked well, what caught their attention, or what they might have done differently, that is something to be taken under advisement.
 
Interacting with human persons about your résumé can help develop your résumé to be more like that of a human person.
 
Discussing your assets in your own words—spoken words, not writing—makes it easier to put it in words that sound like they come to you naturally…like the natural you.
 
Look at it this way: You will be sending some variation of your résumé out to many different people. Wouldn’t it seem like the smart thing to do to get insights on your résumé from many different people first?

They say most people try their hands at five to seven different lines of work during their work lives. I say if that is true, then by now I am like most people.

If you are concerned your career may be a patchwork of disparate jobs, and how you are supposed to build a brand with your history, then get the following overview of my history and judge for yourself if it sounds “patchwork” to you.

Right after getting my degree in psychology, I freelanced as an information specialist for a psych-lit database, writing abstracts and keying search terms and categories for new publications so database subscribers might find the literature they needed.

Then along came a position as a research associate in academia. The idea was that I should get a Ph.D. and make academia a career, but I found that didn’t speak to my kind of creativity after all. I did find the publishing aspect intriguing, though.

Following a major relocation for personal reasons, I took a series of stop-gap jobs, including work as a driver-training instructor and as a part-time, on-call instructor at a private language school. (Should I mention I also tried car sales at one point? I lasted all of three months….)

Sound “patchwork” enough, yet?
 
It did seem to me like publishing might be my eventual permanent stomping grounds. I took a two-semester program to become a Certified Publishing Professional, and I did land freelance gigs copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading textbooks, ancillaries, and companion websites. And yet, a “career” to speak of never got off the ground.

When I first applied to a Career Center position as an instructor for workshops in job-search–related topics, it seemed to me like just another among many applications I was sending out at the time. But then I got an interview, and eventually the job offer.

And that’s when everything started merging and blending into the career I am still in today.

In “my” angle of career services, I draw on nuggets of prior experience. There is the part where I research, read and understand, and manage and integrate information from relevant books and articles. There is the part where I am in a classroom providing something like continuing education, and encouraging a group dynamic where people are comfortable sharing. And there is the part where I provide customer service, such as listening actively and offering options.

Moreover, there is the part where I edit and write cover letters and résumés with exacting style conventions and guidelines in mind. That way, I help the “real” authors (i.e., the job seekers) come up with compelling pieces of writing for their target audiences.

And there is my diversified experience working in a broad range of jobs, and some of them in the gig economy at that, with its challenges to my adaptability and my capability of communicating effectively with all types of internal and external clients.

I like to think all of the above enhance my knowledge and understanding of the territory. I like to think that this is how the seemingly jagged, disjointed tidbits of work history come together and add to my resourcefulness in the career in which I am today. It certainly is the career in which I have lasted the longest.

Well, I hope I have been able to illustrate how a supposed “patchwork” career may in fact have common threads that can end up working in your favor. Your work history may turn out to be rich in that regard. In some way or another, the least of common threads that ties it all together is you.