THE RESUME IS DEAD

• Posted by chicagosean
• on January 14th, 2011

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This is a little off topic, but relevant to many traders…

I’ve been having a discussion with a friend this morning about his efforts to land a trading job with a prop firm. Good guy. Smart guy. Sense of humor. Everything a trading desk would want.

But the problem he has – and one that is not unique to Traders (especially self-employed ones) – is that what he’s done in the past doesn’t necessarily translate well on a resume. Even if he had a kick-ass track record of personal trading success, it still doesn’t quite land the necessary impact on a resume. Yet, his first step in reaching out to trading firms has been to forward his resume and hope an HR rep will ask him in for an interview.

What I’m trying to get across to him is this: THE RESUME IS DEAD.

Smart employers don’t care about what you’ve done – they care about what you’re doing NOW. They want to see you adding value or more importantly, creating value. Do you think a canned one-paragraph intro on top of your resume is going to tell your prospective employer everything they need to know about whether or not you may be a future superstar?

This is 2011. Resumes are how your daddy got interviews at Dunder Mifflin. HR reps get forwarded hundreds of resumes a day. My friends who work in HR tell me its actually the really crappy resumes that get noticed – but only so they can make fun of them and then toss them in the garbage. The good ones don’t even grab attention – they just look like the hundreds of other good ones they’ve got on file.

The good news is: If you want to get noticed today, you’ve got a worldwide audience.

Thanks to the internet, people with something interesting or useful or entertaining or smart to share can create an audience, build credibility, and become an expert in whatever niche that moves them. If you’re motivated, be awesome! Create. Interact. Share. Comment. Support. Be authentic. Be yourself. If you’re a trader, share smart stuff on StockTwits. Write a blog. Offer to help. Network. Make new friends.

If you put this kind of effort in, opportunities will come to you. People will recognize you and your work. Your well earned reputation will precede you before you even walk in the door. At that point, your only challenge will be to convince people you’re really the guy behind all this great work. If you’ve been real and authentic, that’ll be easy.

I’ll leave you with this quote:

It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history. – Henry Ford

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The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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