Photo credit (...and a soufflé recipe): https://goo.gl/Ytk52x
Think like a chef the next time you sit down to work on your resume.
The goal is to prepare it in such a way that it’s a joy to consume. You want employers to get a taste of who you are and make them hungry to interview you. This is the job of your resume.
Is your resume tasty? Ask someone you know and whose opinion you value, if your resume resembles scrambled eggs rather than a french soufflé.
The scrambled egg resume has all of content that matters but there is a lack of attention in managing the data in a way that makes sense to the person reading it. The good bits might be buried or the content has been overworked to the point of blandness. For example, I recently sat down with a newly minted MBA and while I loved a lot about her resume, I asked her if she was intentionally hiding her GPA. Turns out she had over a 3.5 GPA but had not included it because she didn’t think it was important. It may not have been important to her but this tasty detail meant a lot to me.
In another case, I was looking at a resume of a very experienced sales professional who had been successful throughout his career by meeting or exceeding his sales quota every year with just a few exceptions. However, he formatted his resume in such a way that he just recycled the same bullet points for each position. All the information was factual and he did update the numbers for each role, but it was boring as hell and tough to stomach!
The soufflé resume involves transforming the simple ingredients of your experience, education, and skills, through the application of method, intention, and control, into something tasty, elegant and satisfying.
Bring attention to the high notes tastefully and add just enough “self” to make it stand out.
If you want a specific recipe, do a search to find examples of great resumes and find a style that you like and use it. All great chefs steal!
While it’s true that making a soufflé can be tricky, it’s worth the effort just like a properly prepared resume. It might take you multiple tries to get things right but keep working on it. Julia Child describes the soufflé as the “epitome and triumph of the art of French cooking” and while I have nothing against scrambled eggs, I don’t want them to remind me of your resume.
Written by: Austin Meyermann, Founder and President of Hunter Crown, LLC
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