Feedback

I Showed My Resume To (Whoever) And They Said (Whatever)

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While it can be a good idea to get feedback on your resume, who you ask and what you ask are important. Everyone has an opinion about your resume, especially if you ask them for their opinion.

It’s important to be strategic about who you ask to review your resume.

There are a couple of people you should ask for feedback, and specific tasks for each of them.

The first is someone who knows you — and your work — well.

This might be a close friend, a spouse or significant other, or a past colleague. (Why not a current colleague? Be careful who you let know you’re looking for a new job. Some bosses presume you’ll stay with your current employer forever and may perceive it as disloyal that you’re looking. You can’t count on your current co-workers to keep your job search completely confidential.)

You want this person to review your resume and answer the following three questions:

  • Do you see anything I need to change or correct?
  • Does this sound like me?
  • Is there anything I should add?

The second is someone who hires for jobs in your field or industry.

This might be a past supervisor (perhaps someone you’re using as a job reference). It should be someone who is currently hiring, not someone who used to hire candidates. The job search process changes rapidly, and the advice that you may get from someone who hasn’t reviewed resumes in a while might be dated. (For example, the one-page resume is no longer a big deal in the age of electronic resume submission—and is totally inappropriate for federal resumes, which easily range 4-6 pages.)

Remember, though, that the person involved in hiring likely sees resumes only after they have made it through the applicant tracking system (ATS) software or made it past Human Resources (HR).

Don’t ask just anyone for feedback. Too many opinions can lead to “analysis paralysis” where you become obsessed with perfection instead of getting started using your resume in your job search.

Need assistance with resume writing? Check out our services and resources!

Advancing Your Career: Accepting Feedback

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All of us need feedback to be our best selves. And of course, we need a clear goal to strive towards. This article is about asking and accepting feedback; we’ll tackle setting goal setting at a later time.

Learning to accept feedback is hard; many of us are skeptical that the feedback we receive is correct or have difficulty understanding it. That being said, real feedback is invaluable; here are some ideas on how to solicit and use feedback:

  • Recognize that receiving asking for and receiving feedback requires trust; and trust does not come quickly. Before asking for feedback, make sure you have a real relationship with the people you are asking. And the people you ask are willing to be honest with you and not just tell you what you want to hear.
  • Ask for feedback from supervisors, peers, subordinates, and customers. We tend to interact with people at different levels differently. For maximum effectiveness, try to solicit feedback from those people who might see you from different perspectives.
  • Thank people for taking the time to provide you with feedback. Even if you think the feedback is off-base or not helpful, you should thank people anyway. And find a way to let them know that you took their feedback seriously.
  • Listen, write the feedback down and look for themes. Practice active listening and really pay attention to what people are telling you. Write down what people say (not while you’re sitting in front them). If you hear the same feedback from multiple sources, believe it—even if you disagree.
  • Develop a plan to follow up and track your progress. Set personal goals for improvement and establish measures so you can track progress. As an example, if the feedback you receive is that you need to broaden your contacts, be specific in your plan: “meet one new person each week and invite them to coffee,” rather than, “be friendlier.”
  • Follow up. Don’t expect immediate change. Give yourself a couple of months of practicing new behaviors and then go back to the people who originally provided you with the feedback to see if they can see a difference.

None of us are perfect and all of us can use improvement. By sincerely soliciting and integrating the feedback you receive, you can help push your career forward and meet your potential.