Do You Recognize These Early Warning Signs of an Egocentric Resume?

Do you have an egocentric resume? What’s an egocentric resume, you ask?

Based on Wikipedia’s definition, an egocentric resume is a resume you’ve written for yourself as the audience. It makes you feel good. It should – you’ve written an autobiography, talking about things that are most important to you, that you’re proudest of and probably summed it up in a page or two.

Egocentrism – defined by Wikipedia as a) the incomplete differentiation of the self and the world, including other people and b) the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the self. The term derives from the Greek ego, meaning "I". An egocentric person has no theory of mind, cannot "put himself in other people's shoes," and believes everyone sees what he sees (or that what he sees in some way exceeds what others see.)

What Does An Egocentric Resume Look Like?

Egocentric resumes take different forms. Some give vast amounts of detail about management or projects that the writer was most proud of. Others are understated, stating “just the facts, m’aam.” Still others are full of puffery and overly self promoting, but often about accomplishments that are less important to hiring managers.

There’s one major problem with egocentric resumes … they usually don’t cover what interests the audience.

For example, I recently helped a friend with her resume. This woman is brilliant and engaging, a part time freelance writer published in major magazines, who spent much of her career as a restaurant manager. She egocentrically described how she managed, hired and trained staff. After hours of dragging information out of her with a pair of pliers (ok, I’m exaggerating a little), I discovered many amazing things she had achieved. While the manager of a single location, she developed and implemented a new revenue channel program for her major national restaurant chain that increased their annual corporate revenues by 20%!

Now she wants to apply her skills and recent education in health fields. Regardless of the industry or job she’s applying for, don’t you think increasing national revenues by 20% would interest employers, giving her an edge to overcome real-world health experience? But because she didn’t think it was rocket science, she left it off her resume. This is just one example of individual brilliance, left off client resumes because the accomplishment didn’t fit the candidate’s self perception, regardless of how incredible the achievement was.

Imagine that! You’ve spent many hours finely crafting your resume, getting 10 different and conflicting comments from 10 different people, had it proofed 3 times … and then you wake up and realize it’s written to stroke your own ego - but misses the information that’s relevant to hiring managers.

Congratulations! If you’ve actually realized this, you’re ahead of the game. Most job seekers don’t recognize their own ego and remain frustrated with today’s changed hiring system. Others accept underemployment, largely due to a resume that doesn’t adequately communicate their skills.

Ok, ok, I admit it! I’ve got an Egocentric Resume. Stop twisting the knife and HELP ME!! Now what do I do?

( Continued ... )

Article: http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/06/do-you-recognize-these-early...
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