#6: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides....
A tale of passion....
It was a dark October evening, and I was chilly from wearing only a t-shirt and a denim jacket. I’d just emerged from a cinema in Nottingham, having experienced 2 and a half hours of a mesmerising, “What the fuck?” movie - Pulp Fiction.
Wandering to the pub with my student friends, recounting what we’d just seen. The dialogue. The humour. The swearing. The violence. The irony. The out-of-chronological-order confusion. The incredible soundtrack.
An absolute masterpiece of cinema, unlike anything we’d ever seen.
It stuck out. Nay, it JUMPED out at us, and the whole experience has been ingrained in my memory forever.
Quentin Tarantino is famed for his soundtracks, for bringing old tunes back into pop culture. Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon, Surf Rider, Let’s Stay Together, and of course Son of a Preacher Man - choices that demonstrated his love of classic, evocative music - would have been uncovered by leafing through his record collection to “find the personality of the movie”.
In this case, a mix of surf pop, American rock n’ roll, pop and soul.
He said in the booklet that came with The Tarantino Connection (a collection of songs from his soundtracks) “I’m always trying to find what the right opening or closing credit should be early on when I’m just even thinking about the story. Once I find it that really kind of triggers me in to what the personality of the piece should be what the rhythm of this piece should be.”
Putting this effort into his work demonstrates a real work ethic, a hunger to produce something epic and memorable that he truly gets behind. It is him. Something unlike anything else out there - fusing genres and non-contemporary music unlike anyone else.
Getting under the skin of what the movie is going to represent, and how the viewer is going to feel while they are watching as well as after.
You might say he is passionate about it.
But I won’t.
I certainly wouldn’t if I was writing his CV. Not that he needs one.
It’s one of the empty words I advise you to avoid, in fact.
Read these statements and imagine what life would be like if they were taken literally:
I am passionate about giving great customer service.
I am passionate about building high performing teams.
I am passionate about delivering to high standards.
I am passionate about achieving and exceeding KPIs.
Hmm.
Do you know what I’m passionate about?
Protecting my family, having fun in life, feeding my kids, helping them grow up to be rounded people.
I love writing CVs and helping people move along in their careers. I enjoy the one-to-ones, the lightbulbs that go off in the middle of sessions, and the dopamine hit when someone tells me they can finally see themselves in their CV - and the renewed confidence they have as a result.
Am I “passionate” about that? Well, I give everything I have while I’m working on it. I get a ton out of it. But I couldn’t bring myself to say passionate because
passionate is one of the most overused words in CVs and one of the least powerful. It is empty.
So, what do you do instead?
Go through your record collection. Or indeed your career. Ask yourself:
What’s given you a buzz? Why?
What’s the real emotion behind it? (Clue: it’s not “passion”)
Where’s the personality in the piece?
Then write about that. Dedicate 2-3 lines in your opening profile section to explain what you love about what you do. And why.
This is one thing you can do to stick out in a field of otherwise passionate applicants.
I’m off to bring out the Gimp. I might have to go wake him up though.
Phil
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In the socials….
My new Pro Tips Tuesday posts have taken off on Linkedin - here’s one to help you eliminate 1 simple mistake you’re probably making.
Here’s one with a full interview with Steve Marriott - a coach extraordinaire. We talk about how to get yourself out of a job search funk.
And here’s another, with some tips to help you structure your interview answers like a pro.