Job Hunting? Don’t Pretend to be Someone Else When Looking For a Job

Greetings Leaders!

I’ve been helping quite a few people review their resumes lately. In this tough economy, some of you may be tempted to change your resume to get noticed. There are a lot of good techniques for doing this, but I want to caution you on getting too creative. When looking for employment, you want to ensure that you truly are what the company is looking for. Don’t stretch the truth or give your future employer a false impression of you. It will only come back to haunt you later.

Look at your potential employer as a future spouse. I know that sounds a bit weird, but it makes sense. You are entering into a relationship with them. Would you want them to go out with you, based on some made up characteristics or qualities? Well, ok… some of you may have been desperate before and gone down that road, but how did it turn out? Probably not very well.

Despite your best creative writing skills or acting ability, if you get hired based on a beefed up resume or a false persona, your employer will eventually see through it all and you will be in one of two places. You will either be on the street again looking for another job, or you will be miserable at a job where you can’t understand why you aren’t being promoted.

Do yourself a favor – be who you are. You are worth hiring. You have skills, talent and can make a contribution to the right employer. Sure, sometimes we need to take a job to get by. Just don’t stretch the truth too much to get in the door.

All the best!

All the time!

JT

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