Refine Your Resume

Here is a recommendation from the edge of reality.

I say the edge of reality because Washington, D.C. at this point at least, doesn't feel like a good parallel or reflection of reality. I say that because the national average for unemployment is currently at around 8.5% and at the same time the DC unemployment rate is at nearly 10% while at the same time politicians surrounded by that reality keep printing and spending money like MAD with a nation that is trending toward larger numbers of people who won't pay taxes hence finance their expensive spending trends. So, take this blog post with a grain of salt.

Anyway, If you have been working in your industry for a long time then you have likely amassed a fairly flexible and diverse resume. Right now, that resume will likely keep you employed. At the same time, this currently economy won't last forever and if you end up doing a ton of work outside of your career focus for too long then you will end up being unemployable in your target job. This is the catch-22 of being broadly marketable. You keep working... but you probably don't care much for the work you are doing.

Now, I have amassed the resume of two completely different kinds of individuals. For example, if I wanted to work as a pale-skinned potato chip munching dark closet computer programmer geek, I have a resume that demonstrates this experience: VB, C#, Web Services, Web 2.0, SOAP, SQL Server, SharePoint, .NET, etc. And if I suddenly wanted to focus on my creative career then I could have an entire resume devoted to those experiences: Flash, Ajax, PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, logo design, branding, Web Site Design, minisites, etc.

So what is the problem with putting all of that on a single resume? Well, I have personally experienced the pain of being hired under a bloated resume. There are three kinds of employment scenarios that like such a resume:

1. They hire you for a particular skill, but they like the benefit of you having been exposed to such a diverse amount of technique and technology.
   The problem: The particular skill they want to employ is not the particular skill you want to devote your career to for the majority of your employment.
   The Solution: Be certain that you and your employer understand what that key "particular skill" is and that you can suppliment your services with diverse needs, but you don't want a minor skill to become your major assignment.
   
   
2. They hire you because they want to use you as a jack of all trades.
   The problem: In this scenario, you have no key skill. You are simply a flexible asset. Your career might ebb and flow and change a dozen times (in a single week or day.)
   The Solution: Same as above. Ensuring that you have a career focus while being willing to tackle diverse work from time to time is an agreement you have to arrive at proactively.
   
   
3. They hire you for a particular skill and they don't care about the other skills.
   The problem: The particular skill they want to employ is not the particular skill you want to devote your career to for the majority of your employment. Your resume is like a Warshak Inkblot test: they only see what they want in your resume.
   The Solution: Be certain that you and your employer understand what you imagine to be the purpose for your employment. Every job comes with some diversity but you don't want to get trapped into a career move that has nothing to do with your focus or interest. You won't be happy and neither will they.
   

In my mind, the best kind of scenario is scenario number one above. As long as the people who hire you respect your career then you might get good exposure to new and exciting stuff while not venturing too awefully far from the career that you have invested so much in over the years.

Scenario two is a hard lesson to learn. That lesson is: never assume anything. Over-communicate. If people hint to the idea of you doing stuff outside of the career you have deeply invested in then be certain that they see you and this career move as you see this career move. If you aren't on the same page, then you might as well be taking just about any job you can get. This is a bad move, if you care about your career.

Scenario three is a complete nightmare. Employers like this disrespect (intentionally or unintentionally) the investment you have made in your career. You are a swiss-army-knive in their pocket to pull out and abuse in any situation they see fit. They don't see this as abuse, however. They think, "Hey, I pay them for eight hours a day. I ought to get ten hours of whatever-I-need out of them during that time." What they forget is that employment is an agreement. You are providing a service and they are paying you for it. The terms of service are an agreement and you share a reasonable dilligence to be good at what you do and for them to make use of you in an agreed upon manner. If the job contains reasonable diversity of duties, then you want to agree on what "reasonable" means before you sign up. They don't "own you between 9am and 5pm" and you only owe them as much time beyond that as you both agree to.

As a personal note, due to this shifting economy, I am finding my current employer shifting my career. This is partly due to the fact that there more work available in an area when I have a minor skill. But since the shift has started I am now being "informed" that I am beign groomed for a career move that I have no real interest in. Despite the fact that I explain my lack of interest in the duties they are targeting for me (it isn't that I can't do them... I just have zero interest in those career goals) they continue to re-explain how excited I should be in the job niche they are carving out for me (which I am not.) This is a combination of scenario two and three, but slightly more like scenario three in that they are phasing out any serious regular involvement in what was to be my core skill.

Update: The VP who hired me came into my office to tell me about a coming project in my core skillset. We chatted about it and I had about 5 seconds to get excited. At this point, in walks the director who is now managing me. She (the VP) tells him that I am going to be pulled into that project at which point he says, "We need him to do what he was hired to do!" and proceeds to point at my desk where I have been tasked with setting up Windows XP on a couple of PCs (I am, in his mind, "hired" to be a network geek / technician and not a creative person who can design or develop e-learning or marketing-related projects.) The VP responded by saying, "Well, that really isn't what he was hired to do. He was hired to be a creative multimedia developer," towhich he replied, "So I guess he does whatever you want him to do." I am certain that my future will continue to be debated. As a director, he is imagining that since I work for him that he is fully empowered to redefine the focus of my employment per his new vision and his vision is now "what I am hired to do" which is an attitude that falls squarely into scenario three: who cares why I accepted the job... I work for him therefor I am his Swiss Army knive. If she wins the inevitable argument, then I have a future here. If he wins, I won't stick around based solely on that non-collaborative paternalistic management style.