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Don't Send a Resume

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Don't Send a Resume

And Other Contrarian Rules to Help Land a Great Job

Hyperion,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

It’s not how great you are — it’s how well you are packaged.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

For a book that tells you not to send a resume, the author spends an awful lot of time telling the reader how to write resumes (or "resu-letters") and what to do with them next. Don’t be fooled by the clever title. Jeffrey J. Fox hasn’t banned resumes, he simply wants you to understand how to write versions that will work for you. He explains what to do - and not do - to land a terrific job. In bite-sized chapters that get right to the point (in a book so small you could fit it into a leprechaun’s briefcase), he guides you through job-hunting research, planning and marketing the product of you. Some of what he offers is innovative; some is standard, common-business sense. Even if you only dig out a few gems, getabstract notes that this is a fine place to begin your job search - and a very fine place for job search beginners.

Summary

Introduction

Everything everyone has said about how to land a job is simply wrong. Conventional wisdom has it that you’re supposed to write a detailed resume, beginning with your job objective; send it out to as many personnel departments as you can to increase your chances of hitting a good company and then sit back and wait for your phone to ring. Maybe some people have gotten jobs that way, but it rarely works. If you want a great job, ignore the common wisdom and set yourself head and shoulders above the average guy or woman by using tactical job-hunting techniques that will get you noticed.

If you rely simply on resumes and networking to land a job, you’ll limit yourself. After all, Microsoft doesn’t sell software by sending a flyer to ten million people and having employees call old contacts. Budweiser doesn’t sell beer that way, and Proctor & Gamble doesn’t sell soap that way. You shouldn’t sell yourself that way, either. And job hunting is all about selling yourself. You are simply a product that you want a company to buy. What do corporations do when they want to sell a product? They invest in innovation, create differentiated products, tailor the products...

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Fox is the best-selling author of How to Become a CEO and How to Become a Rainmaker , as well as the founder of Fox & Co., in Avon, Connecticut. He earned his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School. He lives in Connecticut.

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