The who cares test

Sunday afternoon I spent almost all afternoon working on my resume. I devoted a good four hours to writing, revising, contemplating, adding, subtracting, re-adding and re-editing. I had sent my old version to a trusted friend earlier in the week and she gave me a great deal of awesome advice. Since she had been out looking recently, I figured her input would be timely. I had not overhauled my resume for about 10 years, and having a fresh set of eyes was very enlightening. For someone who has read thousands of resumes over the past ten years, it's amazing that I didn't notice the shortcomings and omissions that were right there on mine.

I think her best advice was to take a look at every line and see if it passes the "who cares?" test. I had never viewed it from that perspective before yesterday. How do I look at a record of my professional career and honestly evaluate whether if there are things that make people say "who cares?" Those accomplishments obviously mean something to me, but do they matter to anyone else? I found quite a few "who cares?" in there. But in working through it, I also uncovered a number of feats that should have been highlighted more.

Looking back at the entirety of my career to date, I noticed some things I wanted to accomplish aren't there. But even more importantly, I saw a lot of things I never would have dreamed I would be able to achieve. When I cut through all the crap, I was pretty darned impressed by the person on the paper in front of me. I would hire just bob if I was looking for someone with his skills and experience. For someone like me who has self-esteem issues, it was a great exercise to emphasize the good things without even considering the negatives. Hopefully the next person who reads it will think it passes the "who cares?" test too.