Engineers, Stop Relying Only on Resumes to Get Jobs, Do This as Well!
Intro
If you’ve been reading my articles on creating a sales and marketing mindset for going after jobs, which would include writing resumes and cover letters, you would know that the goal of making these documents is to use them as sales and marketing tools for the selling and marketing of multiple products. You would also know that the products you are selling, ultimately, represent your expertise, leadership/management abilities, experiences, etc. If you need to catch up on this philosophy, check out my articles on The Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” Sales and Marketing Mindset for Success and The Sales and Marketing Mindset to Job Hunting to get up to speed.
In my article on How to Create Marketable Content for Your Resume, I state that focusing on content creation to capture your audience’s attention is the most important, and easily the hardest, thing you can do in the game of creating a marketable resume designed for success. Once you’ve dedicated the time to generating marketable, attention grabbing content for your resume, you will have a lot more leeway in how you present it, and can really apply mythbusting and stereotype breaking techniques to creating it. Let’s see how you can apply stereotype breaking techniques to busting the myth of the boring resume!
The Myth of the Standard Resume
Fundamentally, this is another great myth. Although I don’t discredit a standard black and white resume that uses Arial or Times New Roman font, I do discredit the proliferation of the myth that you have to abide by this practice when creating your own resume. In the “old days,” it was likely the standard practice to use a black and white, single font resume because typewriters couldn’t provide the document editing power that is available to us on all of today’s computers. Technological advances have paved the way for increased flexibility in how creative we can be with our resumes.
Something else of great importance to consider when making your resume is what companies are expecting to see. I would say that most companies expect to see the standard, single page, black and white resume; however, many modern day tech companies, especially the giants in Silicon Valley, are possibly expecting the exact opposite. This is why it’s extra important to know your target audience in order to manage expectations and outcomes. To provide some context, I have friends who have interviewed, and have eventually gone and worked for big tech companies like SpaceX, Google, and Amazon, where they were explicitly instructed to create an out of the box resume using different colors, fonts, pictures, multiple pages, etc. How would you respond if given this requirement?
In this situation, the best way to respond is by fulfilling the requirement of your customer, of which there is a much larger takeaway than just being instructed to make a unique resume. You see, there are things that these companies value more than just pure intellect. What these companies place a high value on are pure creativity and a sales and marketing mindset. In essence, these companies are telling you to be as creative as possible, in order to market and sell your product to them. They are telling you that a simple black and white resume is not going to attract them to buy the products you are selling. As I’ve quoted multiple times from Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book on financial education, “Most people are just one skill away from great wealth.” In this case, they may be one or two skills away from a phenomenal job that could eventually lead them to great wealth, where those skills are sales and marketing.
Now, most people will think that these companies set a resume requirement like this because of the free spirited and liberal characterizations these companies have based on their location: California. Instead, I really think they have requirements like this for their potential future employees because of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. These companies value creativity. Silicon Valley is the mecca of thinking outside of the box. Their, at times unorthodox, customs are what allow their creativity to thrive in order to develop solutions to incredible problems. I also think they set this type of requirement because of the other skills they highly value: sales and marketing.
When it comes right down to it, in the eyes of these companies, math and science are easy, and sales and marketing are hard, especially technical sales and marketing. I think the majority of these companies know that most of their potential future employees will naturally be sufficient at the technical aspects of their jobs, which is why they challenge their potential new hires to market and sell their own brand: themselves! It is the fusion of creativity, engineering, and sales and marketing that make a company successful. No one skill alone will build great wealth or success. For the scope of this myth, let’s take a look at how we can stray away from the stereotypical black and white resume, and create something a little bit more creative.
The goal in busting this myth, regardless of what kind of resume you create, is to deliver a resume that flows and that is aesthetically pleasing. Your resume needs to be legible, and easy on the eyes. Personally, I would stay away from using extremely bright colors, using too many colors, using illegible fonts, and using too many fonts. Colors, fonts, and general formatting tools should be used to enhance the content of your resume, and not detract from it.
Since we are considering showcasing ourselves and making a product that people want to buy, one of the best tools I’ve found for doing formatting and for showcasing anything is to use a tool like Microsoft Powerpoint or Google Slides. In this scenario, you have complete freedom in how you present your content, and can include professional photos, pictures, logos, projects, links to social media like LinkedIn or other professional websites, etc. This would be a great product to have, in addition to a PDF/Word resume, especially if you are a job seeking student on the verge of graduating.
As a quick aside, I had an interview at Texas Instruments (TI) in Dallas, Texas my final semester of college, and had to give a presentation in front of a few engineers during the interview. This interview occurred back in 2013. In my Engineers, Apply To All Jobs…Not Just the Ones You Think You are Qualified For! article, I go into further detail regarding my most recent interviews that occurred during 2020 Covid times, where I had multiple interviews. Although I didn’t have to present anything during these interviews, they all occurred online, with some via Skype or Zoom. The first point I’m trying to make in telling this story is that presentations can and do occur during interviews, whether you request it or not. The second point I’m trying to make is that, especially with Covid, more interviews are occurring remotely rather than face to face. Lastly, you can easily spicy up the overall delivery of your resume or set of products that you’re trying to sell, by thinking outside of the box. A Powerpoint detailing all of your experience, projects you’ve worked on, etc., would be a great tool to use, and keep in your toolbox, during the job submission process, as they usually ask if you have extra supporting information to attach with your resume anyways. From the interview perspective, this would also be a great tool to use and keep around, as you could be running the interview like a customer meeting, showcasing not only technical expertise, but also leadership and speaking capabilities.
If you don’t want to make Powerpoint slides, you could always consider making a website. In addition to consulting, I have leveraged this website to showcase some of the projects I’ve been working on outside of work, and through the articles I’ve written, also use it as a means to showcase some of my personal and professional experiences as well.
The last thing I would like to point out in this section is that, for any kind of resume you make, one of the best formatting tools available is the table. If you look at my latest resume, you will see that I’ve used tables for almost everything, where I’ve removed the border lines for aesthetic purposes. Using tables is a great way to create a professional looking resume by keeping all of your content in perfect alignment.
For more resume building tips and tricks, check out my articles in the Mythbusting Techniques for Creating and Using Engineering Resumes section of my website. Also, check out my very own engineering resumes that you can tailor, and start sending to employers immediately.
