Brand New U or A Usual Suspect

It was a busy week at First Impressions; 36 new people took me up on my offer to critique their resumes last week and my FREE offer still stands. I will review resumes from Senior Executives to recent high school and college graduates FREE OF CHARGE. Just email a copy (preferably in Word format) to review@firstimpressionsresumes.biz and I will call you and let you know how good, bad or indifferent your resume is and what you can do to improve it. This is one of the many advantages you get by reading the Career Rocketeer blog, and it helps me find new material for my weekly articles and blogs. So keep those resumes coming.

This week, instead of giving advice I would like to ask you all to weigh in with your opinion!

On Thursday I reviewed a very interesting resume emailed to me from a sales/marketing professional who included not one, but two catch phrases into his resume that pushed the envelope to the limit. When I asked him what they were and why they were there, he told me he was trying to establish his personal brand.

So naturally, his question to me was “do I leave them in – or do I take them out.”

I understand what he is trying to do, and I must admit my curiosity was peaked as to the meaning and intent of these phrases and about the writer and how he is trying to separate himself from a very overcrowded field in his profession.

This in and of itself is a good thing because he did achieve his goal, at least from me, of getting me to explore what made him unique. However, when I asked him about the feed back he received, as expected it was mixed and inconclusive.

So I sent his resume to a few of my peers who I respect to get their opinion, and received the same feedback. “I took a look at the resume you sent. I think the brand statements are going to appeal to some. But it’s risky. Personally I found it somewhat off putting, but I think there are at least some resume reviewers who will like it. I know that’s an indefinite answer, but my opinion is – it’s a calculated risk to use them.” This is the response of my most trusted colleague.

Now let’s examine the other side of the coin. Last week a number of recent MBA graduates- literally from coast to coast; Stanford, USC, NYU, Duke etc.- sent me their resumes to review. They are all looking to begin similar careers from the same starting point, and what amazed me is that all of their resumes followed the same style and format and I could not differentiate one from another.

I asked them how they each came up with their resume, and they told me this was how the school told them to present themselves to recruiters and employers. They were told that this makes it easy for recruiters to read. My question is “How is the recruiter supposed to know who is the best candidate if they all look the same.” I would be interested in your feedback here as well.

So the question of the week is how far can you go and which profession should you be in to develop a personal brand. Weigh in with your comment/s to javit111@aol.com

I’ll discuss the results in an upcoming article.

Author:

Perry Newman, CPC, is the driving force behind First Impressions Resumes and can be reached at 646-894-4101 for a no cost personal consultation, or to conduct a seminar or webinar for your organization.

Perry Newman

Perry Newman is a nationally-renowned job transition specialist who develops branded resumes and is a career coach for executives, professionals and MBA’s seeking six- figure positions in multiple industries within the USA. As a Certified Placement Consultant, Certified Social Media Strategist and founder and former Managing Director of a NYC-based executive search firm, Perry has a rare combination of talent and experience that is essential for your success in today’s job market. Acknowledged as a subject matter expert in his field Perry is a sought-after public speaker for radio, TV shows and career services seminars and his articles and blog posts are published in national newspapers, magazines and blogs throughout the nation and the world.