The Pocket-Resume Mentality Will Get You Employed

I first heard about pocket resumes a few months reading a discussion in a LinkedIn group. It mentioned that a company was offering business-card-sized resumes for use at networking events. “What exactly can you fit on a business card?” I thought. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how it might help you land your next job.

On a business-card-sized pocket resume, space is at a premium. You must cut, cut, cut and then decide, “What information earns a spot on these few inches of real estate?” In the end, the final message or pitch remaining must be clear, concise and memorable, or it does you no good. What would all of our resumes look like if we wrote them with a pocket-resume mentality?

Let’s first consider what a resume is supposed to do for you. Its primary job is to land you an interview. It’s not there to explain your life’s endeavors. It isn’t there to advertise your extensive job history and accumulated accolades. It’s there to charm, allure and get someone to pick up the phone. Once you’ve gotten the appointment, the resume declares victory.

How exactly does a pocket-resume mentality help you achieve this victory? If you do your homework, you’ll be convinced that networking is the best way to your next job. You deliver your message or pitch to friends, relatives, and contacts that get it to people who may only know you indirectly in order to get it to a hiring manager with an open position you can fill. But for this to work, your networker must understand when it makes sense to bring you up in a conversation or email exchange.

This is where your clear, concise, memorable pocket-resume mentality comes to play. Let’s assume a person named Clarence (I could have used Bob or Jane, but let’s just be different here) is networking on your behalf. If your resume’s message isn’t clear, you’re out of luck. If Clarence gets your resume, looks it over, and after a few seconds is still thinking, “What does this guy do? I don’t get it.” You have a problem. Even if he’s dying to put you in front of his contacts, he won’t be sure how to do it. So you just blew the chance.

Also, if you message is not concise and instead aims at covering too many potential positions, you have a similar problem. Suppose Clarence again takes the time to look over your resume and now thinks, “This guy’s been in accounting forever. He’s done receivables and payables. He could be a controller OR an operations manager.” You have another problem. Will Clarence be comfortable recommending you for a bookkeeping job today and a controller position tomorrow? A voice in the back of his mind just might be saying, “If this candidate is willing to take a bookkeeping, controller, or operations manager position, maybe any job will do.” If something just doesn’t feel right to him, you have blown another chance.

Finally, the message has to be memorable. Forget Clarence now, let’s use me. A lot of people reach out to me because they know I’ll put my network to work for them. Remembering a person’s message is especially difficult for me since I’m not a recruiter with a file written up on you. If your message is, “I’m a good, inexpensive masseuse.” I’ll remember it. Not only is it clear and concise, it’s certainly memorable for me. I don’t know too many people in this field.

However, since I’m in technology, I get approached by a lot of candidates looking for tech jobs. Mentally, I file these people under techie. That message makes it clear and concise for me, but what happens when I’ve got four or five of them in my mind. They aren’t quite as memorable relative to one another.

Let me tell you how one of them might alter his/her message to help me out. If his/her message is, “I’m the Cisco engineer that worked 15 years at the same company,” I may just remember that. It distinguished him/her from the others. I helped one network engineer that told me he was doing computer work for individuals and small businesses until he found something more permanent. To me, he’s the “One-man Geek Squad.” I remember that. I’ve referred him to a non-profit looking to expand its wireless network and he was top-of-mind when a recruiter called me looking for a candidate last week.

So how do we practically put this pocket-resume mentality to work? For every job seeker that asks me this question, I recommend putting a three-part headline in 14-point, bold font at the top of his or her resume. The typical resume reviewer gives your resume an eight-second scan before deciding if he or she wants to read some more. If it takes them more than eight seconds to figure out your message, you’ve probably lost them.

For example, what does the following headline tell you, “Salesperson / Customer Service Specialist / Problem Solver.” Here’s another one, “Technology Leader / Programming Expert / Project Manager.” I may not be looking for one of these folks to fill a position, but I understand the message and remember it well enough to pass it along in networking situations. Here’s another one, “Communications, Marketing Major / Hard Worker / Internship Candidate.” If I’m looking for an intern, that may be all the information I need to convince me to carefully review the entire resume.

Taking on a pocket-resume mentality may be a challenge when crafting your resume. You may not be accustomed to mentally reducing all that you can bring to a job to six or ten words. Please don’t change who you are and make sure not to compromise yourself and your offerings. However, please do trim your message down so you can market yourself best through those that want to help you.

Guest Expert:

Jorge Lazaro Diaz experienced joblessness up close and personal several years ago, but received help through a faith-based career support program run by the Back on Track Network. He has since served that organization as a speaker on job-related issues, a one-on-one career advisor/coach and board member. In 2008, he took his crusade a step further by launching www.CareerJockey.org, a website and blog providing job hunt, career discernment and proactive career management resources, promoting the byline, “Ride your career hard so it doesn’t ride you.”

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