Resume – Strengths

QuestionWhy do we find it so difficult to talk about ourselves? Why do we allow people to assume things about us, because we are uncomfortable talking about our value within or what I can bring to an organisation? How do I communicate my gifts with humility and openness? 

Finding a level of comfort and confidence in talking about ourselves, means finding a level of comfort in our gifts. Ultimately, the value that we bring an organisation is bound up in what we do really well and given that we bring energy to the things that we love, it will usually be in areas where our gifts reside.

Most of the time we concentrate on competencies, but a more concentrated version of competency is a gift. Learn to talk about them instead. They are much more interesting. We have to learn how to be specific, how to make things clear to people, just in case they miss critical messages. We need to be proud of what we bring to the role and develop a capacity to talk about our gifts, without feeling like we are being self indulgent. 

In this little clip, we have the opportunity to explore the idea that we see, what we want to see and disregard other information.

Make your gifts obvious

We don’t see things until they are pointed out to us .. and then they become obvious.

Pre-attentive processing, is the subconscious accumulation of information from the environment. All available information is pre-attentively processed. Then, the brain filters and processes what is important. Information that has the highest salience (a stimulus that stands out the most) or relevance to what a person is thinking about is selected for further and more complete analysis by conscious (attentive) processing. When someone listens to what we say, they are taking in whatever is most relevant to them, but this may not necessarily be what we want them to focus on.

Companies don’t want to guess what they are getting if they hire you, they want you to tell them. Not only do they want to know, but they want to be assured that you are in fact, able to articulate in some detail what you are going to bring to the table. “Wisdom is in the definition of terms”, meaning that we cannot assume that we are both on the same page, we must ensure that we have a dual understanding of what is meant by the expression. When I say that I have a strength in communicating, exactly what in the communication space is a strength for me? Could it be:

• An ability to articulate vision and compel people to follow me or;
• I have an ability to make complex ideas simple or;
• I have an ability to make people feel like I have their undivided attention or;
• I have an ability to ask the right questions and get lots of information or;
• I can write great reports.

Which of these am I getting, if I hire you?

You can see that the simple act of mentioning communication isn’t enough. When I articulate my strengths, it’s not good enough just to mention the strength, but rather I need to be overt in making it clear how that strength is demonstrated in action. I don’t assume that we are on the same page, that we are viewing the strength in the same way or share an understanding as to how it will be demonstrated in this environment. I make it clear as to what I mean.

What we don’t want to do, is just select competencies and throw them together in a list. In this case, we have a bunch of words, but no explanation as to what they mean.

In contrast, we are better expanding these traits as per below:

Communication – I have an ability to hold open and honest dialogue with team members and stakeholders, leading to clear and concise performance expectations and outcomes, at an individual and collective level.

Conflict Management – To use conflict as a tool for productive and breakthrough conversations, leading to robust relationships, that respect all views on an issue and can express them in a safe and productive manner.

Team Leadership – To develop a team based culture, focused on the achievement of agreed objectives and holding people mutually accountable for the activity that supports implementation.

In this way, we give people insight into the way that these strengths impact on your performance and giving definition to the way that you conduct yourself around the business. It helps to develop about 15 of these specific strengths, that can be used in a way that is reflective of the role that you are applying for. At the most, I would use 5-6 of these in a resume, as a way of bolstering the perception of confidence, assurance and a clear sense of work related identity.

I used to find it interesting that people find it difficult to articulate their strengths, who they are and what they are great at. I used to find it interesting my questioning would often result in a blank look and a shrug of the shoulders or a response that went something like “I don’t really know”.

In fact, I would say that most of the time, people find the question “What makes you great?” extraordinarily difficult to answer. Generally, people gravitated back to the task elements of what they do, or made broad statements about competency, without being able to clearly enunciate the true gifts that made them an inherently great at what they do.

It seems that many people struggle with a real sense of identity, diminishing their skills, gifts or talents and replacing them with version which reflects a diluted self-concept.TargetBe bold in your assertions about your strengths. You are amazing in some areas and it would be helpful in the decision-making process, if people knew that.
•Focus on being specific about messaging.
•Focus on telling people what they need to know in ways they understand.
•Remove ambiguity and inference.ActionDo a skills analysis, with particular emphasis on getting beyond competency and into gifts. Ask yourself ‘why’ it’s a gift, what is it about this attribute that is so impactful for you? Why do you do this so well? Be open to the idiosyncrasies that make you unique and the little gifts that makes a difference. The smallest gift can be very impactful, given the right circumstances. 

You need to be proud of what you bring to work, but this will require an analysis and self awareness in order to understand what your gifts actually are. Many people have a superficial view of themselves and this doesn’t help when we need to justify why I should be the candidate of choice. Once you understand what your gifts are, you can develop the stories to support these gifts in action. 

Cool Stuff

5 ways to identify your unique gifts – https://chopra.com/articles/self-worth-5-ways-to-identify-your-unique-gifts

Hey … Don’t be like Big Keith

What’s next?

Your work history is the most boring and least read area of your resume, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Here is where people generally want to dump a whole lot of detail, so the challenge is to work out what needs to go in verses what might be superfluous to the process. Remember, quality trumps quantity every time and a concise record of the last 15 years or 3 roles is really what I might be looking for.