Virtual interviews have become mainstream since the start of the pandemic. It appears that the initial stages of the interview process will continue to be held using video conferencing tools according to builtin.com. Career Branding Experts can help you sail through both virtual and in-person interviews.
Over the course of my coaching career I’ve reviewed or written more than 1,000 resumes. I’ve performed more than 500 mock interviews and I’ve interviewed 1,000+ job candidates.
While interviewing with these candidates, one of the things I was able to identify very quickly was whether the candidate wrote their own resume or if they had someone write it for them. I figured this out, not because of the way the resume was written, but from the way the candidates responded to the questions. Candidates who had someone else write their resume, in general, did not feel comfortable talking about their own successes.
A good resume writer will write all of the resume bullets as Achievement Statements. These achievement statements reflect the actions that you perform AND the results of performing those actions. This process is called the STAR method which stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Results. Some resume writers will create results based on a brief interview with you and/or by extracting a possible result based on a bullet that you had in your original resume.
Let me put this another way – I’ve found that clients who use the STAR method to write their own bullets are more comfortable with their resume than those folks who let the resume writer create the bullets.
Over the course of eleven years of career coaching I’ve learned to ensure that my clients are heavily involved in the resume writing process whether I’m writing it for them or they are writing their own through my review process. In each case, I teach the STAR method to my clients and work with them to create their own Achievement Statements. Thus, my clients are able to interview much more effectively and confidently.
Based on your experience, what do you think? Would you interview better if you wrote your own resume or if you had someone write it for you?