Three Ways to Make Your Resume Get My Attention

Are you stressing over your resume?

If you are, I have one tip for you. 

Your resume should be a list of achievements - not a job description.

Too often, I see bullet points that read: 

• Repaired High-Tech Equipment
• Led Project to Repair Broken Stuff
• Maintained Optimal Alignment of Customer Perspective
• Responsible for Major East Coast Sales Account

Excuse me, but "yaaaaaawwwwwwn"...

When I see your job title, I know what you're supposed to do.

Your resume is a scorecard. Tell me the results!

It's simple. You:

1. Reduced something (costs, defects, cycle time, etc),
2. Increased something (revenue, profits, customer satisfaction, etc)
3. Eliminated/fixed something (cancer? the line at the frappacino machine?)
4. Or created something (for example, I invented the virtual frisbee - Catch!!)
5. Or a combination of the above (invented a doohickey that eliminated a whatchamacallit, which reduced costs while increasing revenue - Yay!)

If you didn't do any of the above, I'll assume you just showed up every day.
Good luck selling that.

All right, let's pretend you did at least one of the above five, since the alternative is too depressing.

All you have to do is document your achievements on your resume.

Here's a few ways to do that.

1. Quantify it: This is the easiest. You just need the numbers. Increased sales by 30%. Decreased downtime by 11%. Eliminated customer wait-time by initiating self-service fountain.
   Oh, but you say you cannot quantify how much your customer loves you...
2. Get a Reference: LinkedIn is great for this. Get someone to say how great your are, and then quote them in your resume! Delivered "quickest response of all our contractors" (see reference on LinkedIn). It's that easy.
   Wait, you're really good, but no one knows it yet?
3. Share a Work Sample: You can use Visual CV, YouTube, or your own website. Are you a great presenter? Post a presentation on YouTube. A great writer? Attach a white paper to your resume. I'm shocked at how few people do this...

Is that clear? 

Don't tell me. Show me.

Show me data. Show me a reference. Or show me a sample.

Thanks...

Where Am I?

It's one of my pet peeves of travel:
'International' hotel design.

While I think it's supposed to convey sophistication, it only implies a lack of imagination.
When I wake up, I like to have some visual cues as to where the hell I am... but most hotels don't give me those cues.


Here are Four Hotels in Four Countries around the globe. Nice rooms. Nice hotels.

But can you tell me where they are?
I bet you can't.

Let's list all the possible places where the visual cues could be placed:

• The Floor - carpet design, fabric, or wood
• The Walls - color, texture, pattern, paper
• Lamps
• Furniture - bed, chairs, tables, etc.
• Art - vases, paintings, carvings
• Fabrics- bedspread, curtains, pillows

These hotels either ignored the possiblities, or shopped at the kind of bland interior design shop that could be found in the back aisles at Sears.

The question I always ask is, "Why?"

Is it really easier to buy fake French furniture than to souce local materials?

Are there still travelers who want every hotel room to be the same for consistency sake?

It can't be because this makes people feel at home... whose home looks like this?

Here's a free idea for hotels trying to differentiate themselves:

Hang two digital frames in each room. Let guests (maybe just members?) log on to the website and pick their art.

In Hawaii, I can choose Kim Taylor-Reece, Vintage Hula posters, upload family photos, or - if I'm really lame - pick from the 'cute cat collection'.

In Japan, I can choose from Hokusai, vintage Kurosawa posters, scenes of Mt. Fuji, or geisha.

And you can always have the default Monet's lilies, for people who don't want to think...

As ESPN's Bill Simmons would say, "Someone needs to make this happen"!

One Must Tear Off One's Own Head..

It's a doll revolution...

Elvis Costello + The Bangles is a good thing.
I'm rocking to "Doll Revolution" right now.

We're heading over to Honolulu right after Christmas to celebrate the New Year with Susanna and the Peterson Sisters - a little Manic Monday and Walking like an Egyptian while we avoid the Hazy Shade of Winter in Waikiki at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort.

Really, I can't think of three bands that would be more fun (emphasis on the word fun) to ring out the old year with...

*image courtesy of www.thebangles.com

Every Day a Surprise

I'm often asked, "What was the best part of living in Japan for 8 years?"

I can't possibly pick just one thing - so my stock answer is this:

Every single day that we lived in Japan, we saw something - sometimes small, sometimes big - that we'd never seen before.

That's not an exaggeration. Every day. 

It might be a hamburger served on rice buns (I don't mean buns made of rice, I mean rice formed into buns - if that makes sense). It might be a man walking his pet chipmunk. It might be an ancient ceremony. It might be a tee-shirt that says, "Happy Love Clams". It might be a man marching around a festival with no pants (as my buddy Martin is pointing out in this photo from the Yokohama Matsuri).

You just never knew.

Often, our surprise would come in the form of a TV show or a movie.

If you've only watched movies by Kurosawa and Ozu (and you should see these), you have no idea what kind of wonderful weirdness is manifested in Japanese cinema.

Sometimes I worry that Japan is becoming too Western - but I shouldn't worry.

Here's a trailer for a new movie in Japan, called "Love Exposure".

If you have delicate sensibilities, don't watch. 

It features a priests son who, apparently, is the Bruce Lee of 'upskirt' photography. If that doesn't make sense now, it soon will.

If you want to advance your view of the Japanese beyond stereotypes of samurai salarymen and dutiful housewives, watch these five Japanese films.

• Battle Royale
• Visitor Q
• Audition
• 2LDK
• A Snake of June

Restroom Iconography I: Mexico

Maybe it's my fascination with the human figure.
Maybe it's my interest in graphic design.

Maybe I'm just odd...

Whatever the reason, I am unreasonably delighted when I encounter a restroom with an atypical male/female icon on its' signboard.

I found this elegant icon outside the ladies room at the Marquis Resort in Los Cabos. I was waiting there for my wife (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

I'm not sure that Frank Lloyd Wright had restroom signs in mind when he said, "God is in the details". At the same time, I'm pretty sure he'd approve.

Sales versus Purchasing - The PICOS Battleground

The last, but certainly not least, of hues values is "Offerings, not Products".
Sometimes, I jokingly refer to this value as "Selling Sucks" - sometimes, it's not a joke.

To be fair to salespeople, though, there are also times when purchasing sucks.
Last night, I attended a short seminar on the PICOS (Program for the Improvement and Cost Optimization of Suppliers) program. This program was developed at GM. It has since spread to other industries.

PICOS is disguised as a 'six-sigma' or 'lean' approach to collaboration between vendors and customers for mutual cost reduction.
In reality, it's a program in deception. PICOS bares no resemblance to true collaboration and mutual benefit, like you would see and experience in Japan. I participated in many of these collaborations, and they feel nothing like PICOS

Here is a summary of the PICOS Method.
There are a number of points in this paper that show the antagonism present in the negotiation, from the purchasing side.

• "Be prepared indirectly and under pressure to bluff and lie."
• "Destabilize each supplier's people with many urgent meetings and many demands for information."
• "Set new deadlines for suppliers to meet but defer decisions to increase their anxiety."
• "Offer exaggerated growth and future order quantities as bonuses."
• "Know your potential winning suppliers and their competitors inside and out before you begin to negotiate and play first and second tier suppliers against each other."

The underlying message here is to decide which vendor is best and then beat them up as much as possible or create the worst relationship with the best vendor.

I worked with a couple customers who used PICOS or PICOS-like programs, and I can tell you two things.

1. If your customer is beating you up, they've already decided to buy you. Hold your ground, if you know you are the best alternative.
2. Karma is a bitch. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge the golden rule (in work or life) will eventually pay the piper. And it's fun to watch.

Points of Power

Here's another commonly used tool from my toolbox.

Points of Power comes from Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler, and Laurence Hawkins' "Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager".

It's a useful concept and an exercise that I often use in my coaching sessions.

This model defines five points of power:

• Position Power - the traditional power of title and position
• Task Power - having the keys to the stock room, coordinating the schedules, shipping authority, etc.
• Personal Power - charisma, charm, empathy, etc.
• Relationship Power - customers, friends, family, connections, etc.
• Knowledge Power - any knowledge you know, languages, skills, etc.

Take a few minutes and make your list.

Write down as many examples as you can of the powers you possess under each point.

Go....

When you're done, ask yourself three questions:

1. Are you surprised by how many powers you have? Many people are.
2. Are you depressed by how few you have? Join the club.
3. Finally, how can you build up your areas of weakness? Make a plan.

I have a colleague who was trying (unsuccessfully) to get work down with Asian partners.

When we did this exercise, we found that he had a lot of power, but almost no relationship power. It turns out that this is the most important power in Asia.

So, he got on a plan and spent some time building more relationship power.

What's your plan?