#9: Don't we all want to break free?
Standing out from the candidate crowd, but without the suspenders.
It’s 1984 and there’s a moustachioed man on my TV, strutting around in a tiny black PVC skirt that barely covers his arse, wearing stockings and suspenders, with fake boobs and pushing a vacuum cleaner around a suburban house, à la Coronation Street.
Later, the same guy emerges shirtless in leather trousers from a cave. Or is it a mine?
At another point, he and the rest of the band are stood in a sea of what look like coal miners, in the dark, lit only by their helmet lamps. All very confusing.
I Want To Break Free, written by Queen’s bassist John Deacon, was seen by many as tale of fighting oppression. By others as an anthem for change. And the video used various imagery, including all the band members in drag, to put this across.
When you’re thoroughly cheesed off with your lot (job, boss, partner, housework, expectations of others, the weight of life) you just want to break free from it.
You need a change.
But in order to do that, we have to actually take some action.
We can’t keep on doing the same hoovering and expect anything to change.
You need to do what Queen did. Do something different. Stand out. Make people take notice.
In changing jobs, your CV is the one and only tool you need (OK maybe plus LinkedIn).
But in the wealth of ‘talent’ out there, with all their fancy music videos, how do you stand out like a rock star in suspenders with a hoover?
Everyone wangs on about making your CV “outcome-oriented”. This, whilst sounding like classic management bollocks, is a good plan. I call it the ‘So What?’ test. If there’s no payoff in the bullet point, find one. Please don’t just list what you’re responsible for.
This is all very well, but what about bringing your personality, the “who you are” to the show?
The Profile section is where it’s at.
They’re usually in one of three camps.
1 - Long and boring with barely any punctuation and representing a verbal diarrhoea of their entire history in one block of text that’s a bit like a brick; <breeeeathe>
2 - A couple of banal sentences that say how experienced and exceptional they are, that they’re well organised and how senior they are;
and
3 - Non-existent. Nothing, straight into the job history. Or the Experience section as I prefer to label it.
So here’s my approach for a Profile that gets across more of you.
It’s in 3 sections.
1 - A sentence or two that says what you do, the markets you operate in, and the problems you solve. Reference the state of your market if you want.
One of the best received of these I did started with “IT infrastructure is like a big bowl of spaghetti. I sort out the chaos”. That guy was getting interviews inside a week.
2 - What you’re known for and why. What your peers say, what your boss says. Are you the go-to-person for sorting out complicated spreadsheets or unblocking that all-important stakeholder veto? Say it. Bring the problems you solve to life.
3 - What you enjoy (yes, at work). Why you get up in the morning. Not a passion for customer service (please), but something REAL. Developing people and teams, managing complex merger/acquisition integrations, having autonomy and variety… and why.
What’s important about 2 & 3 is that they are saying “I’m great at this” without saying “I’m great at this” which normally can come across a bit over-trumpety.
Make sure all the profile section is in the first person. It’s more human.
Write a bit more like you talk day to day.
Be a bit more conversational and not so stuffy, stiff and corporate.
Recruiters and hiring managers will receive countless of the same worn out CV tropes. All you have to do is NOT use them, and try something a little different, and you’ll get across some personality AND demonstrate your skills at the same time.
Oh, and in a nod to #mentalhealthawarenessweek in the UK, putting yourself across as, well, you, means you’re more likely to get hired by a place that values you. Which is better for your head.
I Want To Break Free reached #3 in the UK music charts in April 1984, but only #45 in the USA where it caused a little controversy. They didn’t quite get the British soap opera parody, nor the well-worn British comedic trope of cross-dressing.
Does that matter?
No.
It went Silver (200,000 copies sold) in the UK and was in the Top 10 across Europe.
MTV banned it. Roger Taylor (the band’s drummer) said at the time that MTV was “was a very narrow minded station then… It just seemed to be all fucking Whitesnake”
Queen were being Queen, and the fans that liked Queen and got the joke lapped it up.
Now, I love a bit of big hair 80s rock now and again, but there was a time (um, the 80s) when it was everywhere.
Queen took a different route and you can too. You don’t have to go quite as far, just be a bit more you, and bit less everyone else.
Anyway, got to get on, my house is a shit-hole so I’m off to stick on my gold lame hot pants and channel my best Kylie Minogue while I clean the bathroom.
Phil
In t’socials this last fortnight….
(and by socials, I mean LinkedIn and Facebook. It’s all the same stuff).
Here’s one about adding context to your CV to make it easy for the recruiter
Here’s another with some ideas on how to bring complicated interview examples to life
And this last one where I went live for 12 minutes and 16 seconds talking openly about my breakdown a few years ago. If you’re going through it, or having a tough time, have a watch. There may be a glimmer of hope.