Know Thy Resume (and how I biffed an interview)

Know Thy Resume (and how I biffed an interview) (for those that are wondering, Im done with my conferences, everything was spectacular, and my Blogging for Business conference was well attended and, in my view, a great success thanks for your support!) Last year I had to put my resume together. After I had an acceptable draft, and had collected all the information that I hadnt had to care about for a while (official job titles, the names of my degrees, etc.), I got an e-mail from my dad. He had hired a professional resume writer for his own resume, and sent me a copy so that I could take what was applicable. So I super-charged my resume by borrowing some of the stuff on his resume. One thing I liked (not sure if resume writers would recommend this) was a section at the top with keywords of course, writing a resume is a time for self-praise, and I liked all of the cool words that he had on his resume. I had to take a few out, but kept most of the flattering descriptions of him, er, me. You can see my Expertise section here (I didnt highlight Change Management on the real resume, just for this post): And then I sent that resume all over the place to about 100 different postings. When I went in to a second interview with a really hot IT company, one of the interviewers asked On your resume it says change management, what exactly does that mean? This is what went through my mind, at the time: Hm, I have no idea where I put that on my resume, but of course I know what change management means. Ive lived through change management and could write a (very) short book on it! Do you want to know about personal change management, or change management as it pertains to teams, projects, companies? Just tell me what you want to know and Ill tell you why Im an expert in it! Dang, I wish I could remember what job/position I listed change management under! But, what I said was something like this: Thats on my resume, huh? Where exactly is that? Needless to say, they werent impressed as I fumbled my way through that one. Needless to say, I didnt get the job. Oh well, thats okay, a few months later the company went under. But I learned to not just review the list of tough interview questions, and have my tell me about yourself elevator pitch honed, but to also know my own resume! Know Thy Resume (and how I biffed an interview) (for those that are wondering, Im done with my conferences, everything was spectacular, and my Blogging for Business conference was well attended and, in my view, a great success thanks for your support!) Last year I had to put my resume together. After I had an acceptable draft, and had collected all the information that I hadnt had to care about for a while (official job titles, the names of my degrees, etc.), I got an e-mail from my dad. He had hired a professional resume writer for his own resume, and sent me a copy so that I could take what was applicable. So I super-charged my resume by borrowing some of the stuff on his resume. One thing I liked (not sure if resume writers would recommend this) was a section at the top with keywords of course, writing a resume is a time for self-praise, and I liked all of the cool words that he had on his resume. I had to take a few out, but kept most of the flattering descriptions of him, er, me. You can see my Expertise section here (I didnt highlight Change Management on the real resume, just for this post): And then I sent that resume all over the place to about 100 different postings. When I went in to a second interview with a really hot IT company, one of the interviewers asked On your resume it says change management, what exactly does that mean? This is what went through my mind, at the time: Hm, I have no idea where I put that on my resume, but of course I know what change management means. Ive lived through change management and could write a (very) short book on it! Do you want to know about personal change management, or change management as it pertains to teams, projects, companies? Just tell me what you want to know and Ill tell you why Im an expert in it! Dang, I wish I could remember what job/position I listed change management under! But, what I said was something like this: Thats on my resume, huh? Where exactly is that? Needless to say, they werent impressed as I fumbled my way through that one. Needless to say, I didnt get the job. Oh well, thats okay, a few months later the company went under. But I learned to not just review the list of tough interview questions, and have my tell me about yourself elevator pitch honed, but to also know my own resume!