And I bet all of us quickly discover that we had severely underestimated the skills we developed in journalism. The realization may come when the CEO looks at the talking points you put together an hour after the meeting and says, “you’re a quick study. How did you get to the heart of it so quickly?” There are not many people in the corporate world who can drop into a discussion, tease out the essence, fill in knowledge gaps with further interviews and research, and then write it all in a way that a broad audience can understand. And those are just the basic skills a journalist brings into the corporate world. They also bring a different (if sometimes warped) perception and unconventional thinking.

Reformed journalists in the corporate world stand out in many ways. The first one I notice:

Knowing What To Do When You Don’t Get A Call-Back

That’s a stumper for so many who haven’t built their careers on getting around roadblocks.

Some other ways journalists stand out in the corporate environment:

• They say the crudest things at the oddest times.
• They maintain cool in the presence of VIPs.
• They keep asking “why is it so quiet around here?”
• Ex-reporters think bosses’ orders are suggestions; ex-editors are surprised when an utternace launches a thousand ships.
• They tap their toes a lot.
• They keep phoning in updates.
• They run to the scene of trouble.
• Snow closures throw them for a loop.

Feel free to add to the list.

Katharine, who writes my favorite blog on applied storytelling, interviewed job seekers and studied reams of resumes while earning her doctorate. She supplies step-by-step story construction tips and illustrates her points with actual resumes and cover letters gathered in her research.

She clearly did an exhaustive literature search to gather a wide range of expert opinion on the subject. My only criticism is that Katharine could have synthesized the academic literature a bit more and taken a few risks by providing her own opinion.

Katherine puts the issue well for all of us, whether we are in the job market or are building our careers where we are: We should carefully nurture our own personal brand. And we know the best brands are those that evoke intrigue and emotion through the story that they tell.

In this story, some of the 1,600 graduates talk about how they landed jobs — or how they plan to live a little before jumping into the labor pool. Does your heart good.

My mission is to be better than I was yesterday. My action is not to get through the day, but to gain from the day. My vision is to take the path less traveled and act on those opportunities others are not willing to see. My process will be to take risks and only ask others to do what I myself can and will do. My objective is to identify new challenges and learn from both success and failure. My focus is my family, my health and my professional development. My goal is to inspire positive change and champion every moment of life.

This statement told me a lot about the applicant. She is mission-driven. She is mature and self-aware. She has a plan for her career. I can visualize her as an accountable, committed, and organized member of the team.

 
Kathy Hansen, in her excellent new book Tell Me About Yourself, says I am constructing your story when I scan your resume. Indeed, I made a first draft of your story when I read your cover letter (see my post on what I look for in cover letters). Your resume fills in the blanks and fleshes out the story outline.

 
I will scan your resume, rather than read it. I will look to see the employers and job titles and the length of stay. If I see nothing but description of job duties, I won’t linger. I know what an editor does.

 
However, you will catch my interest if you describe specific accomplishments in that position. Consider tailoring your resume to the job for which you are applying. If it sounds like I’m looking for someone who is efficient and accurate, your resume may say, “edited two to four magazine articles a day. No published corrections were required for any article I edited. Chosen from among the publication’s 15 copyeditors for the Editor’s Award.” If I’m looking for a leader and problem-solver, you might say, “established a new work flow that raised the level of accuracy among the copyediting team.”

Tell me how I and my team will benefit by having you on it. A mere listing of skills does not set you apart from the crowd. Many resumes I saw have a littany of skill sets at the top. I skipped that part. However, some resumes had a few bullets at the top that gave a thumbnail sketch of the person’s unique combination of skills and experience and how they would bear on the position. I read those.

 
Some resumes were organized by skill set rather than chronologically. For example, a section would be “problem solver” and then go on to list accomplishments at various employers at various times in the career. I HATE THIS, and so did my colleagues on the search committee. One said that if she had to work to figure out the individual’s career chronology, she didn’t bother with that resume.

 
Don’t try to hide short stays. If I see a range “2004-2005,” I am suspicious that could mean “December 2004 to February 2005.” if you have lots of short stays, explain that in the cover. A single short stay in an otherwise steady career is not that unusual.

 
Hansen’s book suggests an option of a “resume addendum,” in which a narrative further fleshes out your story. I did not see any examples of this in my recent search. I doubt that I would have read one if I was not already intrigued by the applicant. My advice is to put energy into tailoring your resume and cover letter to each job posting. If you have energy left and you think your benefit to me can be further described in a narrative, go for it. This may be particularly helpful if you are making a career change and want to explain how you see your experience enhancing your value in the new field.

I highly recommend Hansen’s book for more resume ideas.

1. Make your first paragraph work. “I am thrilled to apply for ….” “Enclosed please find ….” “I noticed your posting ….” Will blend right in with about 95 percent of the letters. Start by saying why you want this job, or what you think you will bring to the table. Here’s one that I liked:

How many times have you attended an event and wished you could get those 60 plus minutes of your life back? Many I bet. I’m here to help.

2. Follow the marketing mantra: Talk about the benefits you bring, not your features. Forget about sentence after sentence of traits and skill sets “attention to detail … people-person … budget management … vendor relations … passion.” Tell me what you can do for me. Such as:

To this position, I will be bringing established relationships with

vendors, caterers, printers, entertainers.

3. Tell stories, but be short and to the point. Think very hard about that list of traits and skill sets and come up with stories that illustrate them. Descdribe the situation, what you did, and how it all turned out. Like this:

I single-handedly coordinated a party in Montréal, Canada for the company’s affiliates. Challenges included selecting a venue without an in-person visit, communicating with restaurant owners in French and negotiating cost in another currency. (The company’s) president and managers told me it was the best party in company history.

4. Cut the jargon. It’s great that you worked hard on the letter, but work harder on distilling the wording — reduce the sauce. Instead of “well-versed in conducting business in a university setting,” just say “I know how to do business at a university.”

5. Know something about the organization. There’s no excuse for not visiting the organization’s Web site and finding out what their mission and vision statements are, what their current advertising campaign is, what they’re putting in their news releases. Use this information to write a great first paragraph and to convert your “features” into “benefits.”

6. Edit the darn thing. You don’t get a second chance at making a first impression. The cover letter colors my perception before I open up your resume. The worst thing that can happen is you clearly demonstrate that you don’t have “attention to detail.” The second worst thing is that I close the thing without any sense of why you want to work in my organization and what you might bring to it.

There were a couple of interesting variations of note:

Two or three letter-writers had a short intro, then tabulated the job requirements on the left and their qualifications on the right. Not very engaging, but it sure made for a quick and easy scan. I can’t say any of these made my finalists list, though.

A couple of letter writers were clever. One wrote the “top 10 reasons why I am right for this job.” Another had a list of things about herself that indicated what a “event planner wonk” she is. They gave me an indication that these are outside-the-box people, and probably have nice personalities. But I don’t think the gimmicks are as good as well-tuned, specific stories.

Coincidentally, my favorite applied storytelling blogger, Kathy Hansen, last week released a book, Tell Me About Yourself, with advice on using stories to get jobs and advance your career. It’s in the mail from Amazon (if it were on Kindle, I’d have it already!).

I have thoughts on resumes, but that will be another posting.