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Killer Resumes & Cover Letters

this section on killer cover letters and actually just resumes we're gonna cover today. Uh, they can apply to every piece of marketing collateral that you create. We have, ah, module in dream job called your perfect marketing materials. And that is exactly what your cover letter and resume their marketing materials. Think about that. If you were gonna create a marketing brochure, would you spend a lot of time on the copyrighting? Of course. Would you spend a lot of time on the design? Okay, Yeah, that's not a perfect analogy, because you don't really need to design your resume that well, but they are marketing documents you are selling yourself. So when people actually actually will often cut back on things because they think that's too much bragging, they do this, especially in cover letters. Totally wrong mistake. To put it bluntly, I have never turned down someone to hire them because they brag too much in their resume. But I have turned down many, and so have every hiring manager b...

ecause they didn't brag enough. Okay, so the biggest mistakes that we see in resumes anybody have any idea anybody? Thank we'll start with this. First this one's actually very surprising because a resume isn't it just like, What have you done wrong? Resume is a marketing document. If marketing was simply about saying, What have I done in just the facts? That's not That's actually just not marketing. Market is about telling a story. Now the story has to be accurate, but it's about telling a story. Okay, think about this. If this is a huge, huge blunder that people make with their resumes, just like people walk into an interview and think they have to just answer questions wrong, you've already lost because you're like everyone else. A chronological list of faxes. When people say, from 2006 to 2008 I did this, I don't care. What I care about is seeing your narrative. So all the other expert advice you're not all I shouldn't say all there's some really good stuff out there, But a lot of the expert advice you here is gonna be talking about. Use these power words or make sure that your margins are one inch, but almost nobody will talk about a narrative. What is the narrative? We apply what's called the 12th test. Everybody close your eyes, pretend you are a hiring manager and pretend that you just got a resume sent to you. And that resume happens to be yours. The real you. So you the hiring manager looking at your resonate for me? I just look at most these Renzo Vase. I get hundreds of resume applications for a job and literally they get 10 seconds. Um, and I just don't know who they are. They're just It's just a list of facts work from here to here. Why do I care? Acme Corp 2006 to 2008. How does this help me? Who is the most important person in the room at that moment? The hiring manager. Right now, your whole goal is that you can actually eliminate the need for your resume to be the world's best, because you're going to use natural networking and you're gonna actually build a relationship. But your resume still needs to be world class. Doesn't very good, even if you don't have much experience. So in 10 seconds I'm gonna actually show you the exact resume. I used to get job offers at these different places. Um, but a chronological list of facts is not a narrative. It's just dates and times and companies. What you want to do is within 10 seconds earned the right to get their next 10 seconds, and that means you need to be someone super interesting. You need to demonstrate that you're interesting on paper. Need to market yourself. And after 10 seconds, that person should be able to put that paper down to say, Oh, out. He's the guy who studied technology and psychology and he's got a little bit of marketing. Whoa, that's interesting versus oh, this person likes marketing and also cutting cheese. What doing? I'm gonna show you how to do that. That's mistake number one, filled with corporate jargon We love to you. It's so funny. We look at other people's resident God. That doesn t mean anything. And then we do it and were like, uh, achieved unsurpassed success and fortitude at my company, like what the hell? I don't even think that makes sense. We do it even though we make fun of everyone else doing it, too. Anyone here, look at your resume and say there's just a bunch of jargon that means nothing. Yeah, stuffy and boring. A lot of us have a mental barrier like I don't wanna have to write like that person. Ironically, we try not to be marketing. We end up being more marketing. We use these words that don't even mean anything. Who here here can share a phrase or word from your resume that you use that you would never say in real life? Yeah, Proficient. No one has ever uttered that word out loud in English, just like a Latin word. No one even says it pro. I'm proficient. No. And by the way, it's not even impressive. It's like it's like I could breathe. I could breathe out. I'm proficient in breathing oxygen and processing that molecule all right? Irrelevant. But we use it. Why? Why'd you put that on your resume? Because it seemed like the right thing to do. Yeah, exactly. And everyone else does it great. What else? It's the model. It's what we believe corporate Canada America wants from us. So we cookie cutter and fit ourselves into that mold and thereby enter the trap of competing with everyone else. Millions of other people who have mediocre resumes and have chosen to go down the same predictable route everyone else has you already lost. So I'm gonna cover three steps to improve your resume. One craft your narrative. You will almost never see this advice given about resumes. People will give you power words. They'll give you margin advice. They'll talk to you about margins and funds. None of that matters relative to your narrative. Your narrative is what allows you to differentiate yourself from everyone else in 10 seconds. What is your narrative, by the way? Remember back to yesterday when we talked about your pitch with a little bit of pitch exercises. I did some tear downs and we ripped it up. And then we came back. If you're looking for a 9 to 5 job and you're doing your resume, what is your narrative? My narrative? Waas Hey studied technology in psychology and he's has experience in marketing online marketing. That was my narrative. Make every word earn its way onto the page people. It's so funny when I tell people all these different things to do with their resume there, like who remediate? I don't have any space for this. It's not gonna fit on one page. I'm like, OK, really give me. Give me a pen. I cross off half literally 50% of their words because they don't mean anything. When you have a narrative, this is like your thesis. If your thesis is technology and psychology with a background in online marketing, every single word must earn its way onto the page to support that narrative. So all of a sudden, if I talk about how he used to work in a pizza place, is that relevant? No, it actually distracts from the reader's mind. So it's gone struck off the page. If I talk about how in college I used to do wakeboarding, that could only serve the purpose of making me seem cool, which is there is a reason in time and place to put that. But if I'm crunch for space, does it support my narrative? No. Again. Remember how yesterday we talked about ever wants to serve everyone here? We've done so much of the work, such deep research in this stage that we know the actual words the hiring manager uses, and so we know our narrative are negative, is gonna be loved by the people that were being hired by every word has to support that. We're not trying to be appealing to everyone, and broad based and serving Everyone out there is you send out 100 resumes were actually like a surgical knife. Every word must earn its way onto the page to support your narrative. That means that for most people instantly, you can cut 40% of your resume, right words that don't mean anything. Things were, if you write it into plain English. We called the plain English principle. I actually take people's resumes, and I write down in plain English what they mean. They'll say stuff like, uh, achieved unsurpassed results in timeliness and productivity. And I'm like, in plain English, that means was on time. That's it. That's not that impressive. In plain English. You just you put lipstick on a pig deleted. You can't use fancy resume words to cover up a piece of shit deleted. Because if you actually have a powerful narrative, you will have mawr than enough stuff to say on your resume. Does that make sense? Okay, right with energy and confidence. Uh, this seems like weird and vague, but it's actually super important, particularly cover letters. I see cover letters and they start dear hiring manager. I am applying for that delete. You really get such a short amount of time. It's unbelievable. I do. I rewrote a lot of my dream job students. I read a couple their entry paragraphs and it started like Dear Mike. I'm thrilled to apply for blah, blah, blah and I showed them how to be excited, tell great stories in there and then end with a huge amount of confidence. And so that was one of the scripts in the dream job actually put a before and after cover letter. I then brought some dream job students in for an event, and I said, Send me your before and after cover letters. Every single cover letter started with dear, blah, blah blah. I'm thrilled to done it on it. I'm like you guys can't copy my writing. Exactly. This is not about plagiarizing. The script, in this case is just about showing you The point is right with energy and confidence. How many people here have a cover letter that is super boring and just you wouldn't even want to read it if it were someone else. How many people How many people have read someone else's super boring cover letter, every single one of us. Yet when we go to write it, we write it in exactly the same way, because that's what's expected of us. You can stand out right there with your cover letter. I'm thrilled to apply. I'm very proud of what I've done it. X y z. When was the last time someone said I'm very proud, almost never, particularly for women. You don't use that phrase. And yet when I go into an interview, I say, You know, it's interesting. You ask that one of the things I'm really proud about my work at blah, blah, blah is we were able to dot it up. I'm not arrogant about it. I am proud of what I did, and I explained why and how we'll cover that in the interview section. But, man, isn't it remarkable for someone to be confident enough to say I'm proud of this and explain why you can do that in your cover letter to All right, So, um, I think we have some more stuff on that site where you can get some terrorism before and after resumes, but let's actually do a tear down. I'm gonna tear down my own resume. Pretty much. This is me gonna be talking about how great my resume is for the next few minutes. So be prepared. But I am going to show you all the stuff I just talked about how it actually manifests itself in a resume. So as the crew gets my resonate on the page right now Oh, here it is. I'm going to tell you what's going on. Get close your eyes. Everybody. Even the people watching yet. Open it and you have 10 seconds to read it. Go. Stop! What do you notice? You just inferred in Oxford? Good website. Good. What else? You studied a whole bunch of different things. I have just one thing. Okay. What did I study without looking at the resumes? I cheated. I looked at it as you were saying. Persuasion. Okay, Was the number one thing. Okay, What else? Anybody else? Uh huh. What else? The one place I thought you were vague. Re said, conducted in depth tutorial on social influence. Global. He said papers on your website, which is intriguing, and I can go back and sort of fill in. Okay, So I'm gonna analyze this for a few minutes and I'm gonna show you what you can do right now. All the stuff I showed you in the last light everyone would over me. That's over. You suck. Well, now I'm gonna show you how it applies, Right? So, first of all, I lead with my education because it's a strong educational background, but in general terms, it doesn't really matter if it's a really strong educational background or not. One thing is, the first line on this resume shapes the way you think about it. I literally shaped the way you thought about me in five seconds. Why? Because what most people do they say, educated at whatever college studied economics so boring, such a waste of space. What's my narrative? Who remembers technology and psychology with online marketing experience? Oh, that's so interesting. Because my coursework included persuasion, entrepreneurship, computer science, blah, blah, blah. So do you think that the person I'm sending to this to the hiring manager who is looking for someone with this background, what is the first thing they say? What do you say? Damn, I gotta find out more about this guy. He seems like it seems kind of interesting. Wow, He's the technology and psychology guy literally wrote it out, but I couldn't say I'm the technology and psychology guy. So instead, I actually described my coursework. Right. I'm describing my background in super engaging interesting terms. Every single person can do this, you say. Oh, I'm just I just studied Nikon. It was so boring. No, you didn't. You studied pricing. You studied elasticity. You said all these things. Oh, I just any communications? That's not interesting. Really? You studied gender relations? You studied relationship. You said all kinds of stuff. All right? You are not thinking creatively enough yet, But when you know your narrative, then you can actually dig back into it. By the way, what people? A lot of people say I don't know how to do this. Like, I just think I did this boring thing. One technique you could do is actually just ask a friend. Hey, you know me pretty well. What would you say are the most interesting things I studied in college. Okay, Pretty, pretty standard. Um, notice that I didn't, uh, like the labor. The point about my master's degree because it's like it pretty much was the same thing I did undergrad. So why don't wanna waste any space? It was one line moved on. Same thing with papers back then. It was kind of rare for someone to put their papers on their website. So that was people like, Oh, what a novelty. Okay, so, um, so here, with PB wiki, um, I co founded it. I describe it in, like, 45 words because people don't know what it is, right? But I don't want to say like, Oh, it's the online platform for blob. Nobody cares. Describe it in as few words as you can move on. Now. I actually think I could have done a better job because Wiki Farm is not really a well known term. But the people who were reading it probably got it. So here I'm describing some of the things I do manage marketing, including blawg outreach, strategic deals and PR. Why did I put that? Think about the customer of this. Think about the person who is reading it. Who are they? Who is reading this? Who's the hiring manager? Perhaps a founder of a startup company who needs someone to run marketing or a VP of marketing in a large company who needs someone to do marketing for them? Does that make sense? So now we know that. Why did I say Manage marketing? What I say manage? Because they know that I can manage people because one of their fears is to hire some junior guy who doesn't even know how to manage anyone. Oh, so I addressed that already. And then I put specifics, including Blawg outreach, Strategic deals, NPR. Why did I put that again? Think about who? My writing for a founder of a startup who's probably started this thing on his own. And now he realizes he needs someone to help in marketing what his challenges demonstrating various approaches that you have taken and can use for him. You can utilize the same skill, exactly high, low, high technique. I started really at a high level managed marketing, so I started up here and then he's like, Well, what does that mean? Oh, in the next clause, I actually used the words that he would use blawg outreach. He's like, I need someone to do blawg out. Oh my God, this guy does block outreach strategy. I need a strategic deal, right? So all of a sudden he's like, Wow, this guy, he's reading my mind But all of this happened way back here number. Yesterday I talked about how things happened way back here, and people worry about the kiss. But the decision was already made long ago. When I was doing my homework, I found out what they wanted, and I actually happen to be good at it. There are other things that they wanted that I couldn't deliver. Like I'm not writing about being a programmer here cause I'm not a program. I suck it program. Let's keep going. Coordinate with technical team. Why would I write that? You're right. Speak up. You can. You can coordinate with other with other aspects of the company, and you will be involved. Good. Also, it's well known that marketers and technical people often tend to clash. So I wanted to make it clear that I've actually worked with the technical team and I can speak at least cocktail party technical talk okay, again, answering their fears and showing them what might become so blah, blah. Oh, it's so impressive. Tens of thousands of users blah, blah, blah. So a little bit of bragging there. Okay, but notice how the bragging it's not. It doesn't seem like this. It's arrogant, right? Created marketing strategies to launch people wiki to tens of thousands of users with viral growth. That's like pretty So what? The hiring managers saying there is like, Oh, wow, like I'd like to know. How did he do that? At the very least, it's worth bringing this guy in tow. Ask him how he did that. Does that make sense? So the rest of this is on, and since then, I would actually be able to improve a lot of this. You'll notice a couple of other things before we move on from this. All right? And then we ask everyone, What is your biggest insight so far from this resume? Tear down notice what I have. This is the company used to intern with the one that I negotiate with my seventh grade friend. What is the title? I have your viral marketing architect. The hell is that? I don't know, but it sounds really interesting now. It was a start up, so I was able to create my own title, and I, of course, asked my boss if it was okay to use it. He's like, I don't care boom. But that was because I was positioning myself, and I happen to know a little bit about viral marketing. So you'll notice that all there's viral here. There's stuff here. So my client or person I'm writing for the hiring manager is like, Oh, damn, I've been looking for someone who knows viral. You see? See what? All kind of fits together now? I did not say one thing about, By the way, how does this look visually? Fine. It's nothing great. It's fine, writes done in Microsoft Word. Now I happen to spend 100 hours on this resume, but that's not because I was, like fixing the margins. It's that I was moving, tweaking, thinking of my, uh, narrative, perfecting every word to make it burn its way on the page. You see that? Think about how much I fit into two lines here in one bullet point that took, you know, I don't how many hours, 10 hours to get that one line Now am I saying everyone has to spend $100? No you don't have to do it cause I did it and I'm a weirdo, so you can benefit from my many, many mistakes. But what I am saying is the things that matter are not the things that other people talk about. Who here has heard a career center? Tell them you gotta make it fit on one page and make sure that you only use paper font or whatever. How many people look at that? Look at the room. Every single person has their hand up. Unbelievable. Why do they tell us this? Anybody know No, no. Why do they tell us to focus on the font and the this and that? Oh, why anybody? No, make it aesthetically appealing? Definitely. Honestly, they don't know. That's what they know, and it at least gives us a sense of control. We do it because it gives us a sense of control, like Okay, I got this template from the Microsoft Word gallery, so I spent time doing work, but I ironically rise. I don't even realize I'm playing the entirely wrong game. You could have a text file document which has an incredibly powerful narrative, and it would surpass the most beautifully designed. Now, are there any exceptions already? Know the question? I get asked. Raw meat. Does this apply to designers? Don't you need a beautiful resume for designers? You guys get that question? Yes. Your resume may need to look a little different for designers. Okay. Probably needs to look good, but still you need to remember. It's not just about the craft. It's about the other stuff, too. You need to address the concerns through the narrative.