The initial inspiration for writing this post was seeing this piece from Sarah Kendizor (Professional Identity: A Luxury we can't afford) on the blog Vitae sponsored by the Chronicle for Higher Education. At issue is the disconnect between employers claiming there is a skills-gap (i.e. not enough people with the skills they need to fill the jobs that they say do exist) and trend for people to alter there resumes to hide work they may feel ashamed of or qualifications like education that they feel will hurt their chances.
My first thought is to remind everyone that your resume is a living document. I am sure you have heard that you must customize your resume for every job you apply for, but how often do we think about why we are doing this? We should be doing this to make absolutely sure that it reflects the background we have that makes us a good match for the job. Could this mean leaving off jobs or experience that is not relevant? Yes. Does it mean we should feel like we need to hide things from future employers? No. I think of it in the following terms: I have a document that contains everything. This document is never submitted when applying for a job. It is instead used as a tool to help me view my entire past and decide what is relevant when crafting the document (resume or CV) that I will submit when applying. For example, during my freshmen year in college my work-study job was in the print shop. The following summer I worked in a small manufacturing facility. These two positions haven't seen the light of day for a long time... but if I ever had to make a shift back to anything that needed manufacturing skills I would dust these off to demonstrate I have had experience in this area. But just the lines on a resume would typically not be enough, you would need to pair this with a well written cover letter.
Beyond thinking of your application documents as living, and telling the story of how you will be the best person for the job you are applying for, we as applicants need to remember the importance of the research. How will you know what the employer values? Research! How will you know the skills needed in the position? Research! How will you know the issues faced by the companies within the industry? Research! Just use the pieces I have written about career research to find the answers, then spend some time crafting the documents to demonstrate how you have the skills that employers claim we as applicants lack.
To further prepare you may also want to read some/all of the following articles that Ms. Kendizor mentioned in her piece that relate more directly to the job hunter:
Further Reading:
Holland, Kelley. "Why Johnny can't write, and why employers are mad." NBC News: Business. November 11, 2013.
Kendizor, Sarah. "Surviving the post-employment economy." Aljazeer. November 3, 2013.
Kuper, Simon. "The great middle-class identity crisis." Financial Times Magazine. November 8, 2013.
White, Martha C. "The Real Reason New College Grads Can't Get Hired" Time. November 10, 2013.
