Success Hackers

had been with the same firm for 22 years, and he was let go at the ripe old age of 53 and had no idea where he was going to go.

He came to me with his “resume” and “I don’t want to bother my friends or family. I’m embarrassed enough that they don’t know I’m not employed anymore. So I have been online to see what’s available, and then just send my resume to them.” I hear this a lot. Sending your resume out to your immediate network is a very natural response to being fired and this was this gentleman’s exact plan. The advice I gave him is the advice I give everyone, and that is first and foremost, you never have one resume.

Great piece of advice right there.

CJ Seestadt: Going from reactive to proactive means writing a resume for every position and this is very straightforward. They give you the answers to the test in the job description. Most employers use word filtering software to weed out candidates instead of physically reading each resume because they receive so many; it is best that you incorporate every skill set you see in that job description into the resume that you use to apply for that specific position. And then you don’t submit it through their system unless they ask you to. You then use your resources, primarily LinkedIn, to find out if you can have your resume handdelivered. Now taking a step back, you want to identify companies you wish to work for and with. That’s proactive. You want to find 20 companies, and if you’re working somewhere, like this gentleman was for 22 years, you know that you’ve worked on a project with some companies and thought “hey, this is a cool company.” or “wow, if there was an opportunity at this place, I’d go to work there now.” Knowing that 70% of the jobs aren’t advertised, start looking at your connections, make 46