Your Resume Is Too Modest - How to Sell Yourself Effectively

This week, Jeff and I are tackling a struggle that almost every job seeker faces but rarely talks about: the discomfort of "tooting your own horn." 

We’ve been conditioned our whole lives to believe that bragging is rude, so when it comes time to write a resume or head into an interview, we suddenly feel the imposter syndrome kick in, just for sharing our successes. If you’ve ever felt like your work "isn't that impressive" or you're terrified of being called out for taking credit on a team project, this episode is for you. We’re here to give you permission to brag and show you how to do it with total confidence.

We’re talking about:

• Why "it was just part of my job" is a resume-killer
• Two specific tactics for including numbers when you don't have the exact data
• How to take credit for group projects without feeling like a liar
• Turning a demotion into a "high-stakes" success story
• Why your "work bestie" is the secret weapon for your resume
• How to "brag" about meetings where you didn't even speak
• The "Over Method" for safe and accurate data estimation

Listen in to help us, help you give yourself the best chance of landing your Next Job… NOW :)

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https://youtu.be/z9oEbG1GhqM?si=qOCB3yLLnETzFEJY

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, the other thing is like we're conditioned for our whole lives. That like it's rude to brag, it's rude to go on about how great we are. You have to put that aside when you're writing your resume, and you have to put that aside when you're in a job interview.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Next Job Now. The podcast where we help you get your next job right now.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Greg Langstaff. I'm a certified resume strategist. I've written over 2,000 resumes, and I love helping people get new jobs.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I'm Jeff, and I have a lot of questions about job searching. Together we're going to talk about everything you need to know about landing your next role. Today we're going to talk about tootin' your own horn. Toot doot. And what we're really trying to talk about is how you can sell yourself and giving yourself permission to brag. Really brag. Which I think that this is an uncomfortable episode because tooting your own horn, selling yourself is so uncomfortable. Why? I think that the imposter syndrome is at a max when you're doing your resume.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

To be like, I can't technically put that on my resume. Like I wasn't the lead of that project. So like putting on my resume feels shady, or like these numbers seem so big. Like I didn't directly generate that revenue. But the projects I worked on did. Like, I don't know what I can when it's eligible to meet my resume. And I think it causes for me a lot of anxiety of like, am I lying? Do you experience that? Do people feel like they can't toot their own horn?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, that's one of the main reasons people come to me for one-on-one resume writing help, is that they just they don't know how to sell themselves or they're uncomfortable tooting their own horn. When you say they don't know how to sell themselves, what does that mean? Well, I think that's a situation where people are either not sure what counts as an accomplishment, or they don't know what they're allowed to take credit for, or they just don't know how to phrase what they've accomplished in a way that sounds impressive.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

And then what about the tuning your own horn? What are people getting caught up for? And what are they saying when they don't feel comfortable tuning their own horn?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Well, the other thing is like we're conditioned for our whole lives that like it's rude to brag, it's rude to go on about how great we are. You have to put that aside when you're writing your resume, and you have to put that aside when you're in a job interview.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

You mentioned that clients will say they don't really know what they can put on the resume. They feel uh, and that's the same thing that I kind of brought up. What do you say to those clients and how do you walk walk through that?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Well, any project that you were a part of whatsoever, you can add that to your resume. If you were on a team, if you were the leader, if you were just supporting, you can put it in your resume. It's fine to be a part of a bigger group that accomplished something, and no one is gonna look at your resume and see that you facilitated a$20 million cost savings initiative and assume that you mean that you did that 100% on your own. Like you're working at a company, it is assumed that everything you did, other people at that company will be working on it as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So when I hear that, I think my fear comes up to be like, well, I'm gonna get the interview. That was the bullet point that they're most interested in. And they're gonna ask me point blank, how did you raise 20 million?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Well, they want to hear who you collaborated with on these projects. Like they're a company, too. They're not gonna say, sit alone in that room, find a way to save us 40 million dollars, and then do it all, and then come back. Like you're gonna be on teams, you're gonna be on committees. That teamwork is a huge part of it, and it's implied in your bullet point.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

It's okay to talk about group projects on your resume.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Would you say that there's a line of a contribution level to say if you're gonna put on your bullet point, you better be ready to speak about it and your role, or would you encourage to have that flexibility of put a little more than you like? Are we inflating it at all?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

If we think about it in terms of how we structure an interview answer, the star method, right? Okay, situation is where we were, the task is describing this project. In this example, we keep running, it's save a hundred million dollars. Yeah, but you need actions. So, situation task, action result, the star method. You need to have some actions that you participated in that you completed. So that could be in working with others, it could be working with a group to analyze our overall expenses, it could be meeting with senior leadership to understand strategic priorities. Those are still actions you took in this process. So it's interesting. Yeah, as long as you have actions you can speak to on like a group project, you can mention it in your resume.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Um, let's talk a little bit more about like what happens if I don't genuinely know the exact numbers, but I know that I've made significant contributions, but I don't know how to say that. And what would you suggest?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

That's a great question because a lot of people want to talk about their accomplishments on their resume, but they don't have the numbers they need, and numbers look so good in a resume, but companies often won't share their numbers with us on specific things. So we have two tactics we can use for this. One is to generalize with a figure count. So if you knew that this huge project that you were a part of was valued at generating uh somewhere between 20 and 40 million a year, you could say, like participated in or spearheaded an eight-figure revenue generating initiative. So that's one option. Other option, if we really don't know the number, but we have like a general estimation, launched a new uh Instagram campaign, and that generated quite a big increase in engagement. But we weren't sure exactly what it was, it was probably around 30-40% increase in engagement. We're gonna use the over method. So we will pick a number that's safely below the accurate number. So in this example, if we think we increased Instagram engagement by 30%-ish, we might say increased Instagram engagement by over 25%. That way we know it's accurate, but we're not making any bold claims, and we're also not saying I know the exact number.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Right. What do we do in a situation where we feel like our work isn't that impressive?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

First thing you need to do if you feel like your work isn't that impressive, is go find a new job because we need to be doing work that we feel is important and impactful. But the other go-to move that solves that problem a little sooner is have a chat with your work bestie. They're gonna big up you and tell you all the great things you've accomplished. They're gonna remind you of all the value you've added to your company. So go go have a coffee with your work bestie and just tell them you need help figuring out what you've even done since you've been here.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

I feel like a lot of the challenges that I face is like, well, that's just part of my job. So like it's not impressive. That's just like, yeah, I create social media posts and they get five million views, but like that's just I'm the social media coordinator. Of course that happens.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Right? Like, do you feel like that happens a lot?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah. So when people say to me it's just part of my job, they are downplaying some of their best accomplishments in any of their work. So everything that you feel is just part of your job, you probably do that pretty well. And there's probably pieces of that experience that you can elaborate into bullet points on your resume. Like if just part of your job is creating graphics for social media. I would like to see a bullet point that shares how many graphics do you create in a month? On what uh software do you create those graphics? And then when they're posted, how many views on average are these images receiving, generating for the organization? Um, like that's how to take something that's just part of my job and look at the downstream impact. So always ask yourself, how does this help my company?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Tell me more about that. How does this help my company? So, what are we looking for? Like, if it's social media, that would be views. If it's generating revenues, that total revenue.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Yeah, well, like let's say you're literally at Foot Locker. Yeah. And you are the customer service person who goes in the back and gets you the size 10s. Sure. You're size 10, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I am.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Good guess. No, we talked about it. We talked about it. We talked about it. Like, let's say you are at Foot Locker and you're just the person who goes to the back and gets the shoes. That's just part of your job. But what you're actually doing is providing frontline high-quality customer service to 200 potential customers per day, supporting with like product selection and point of sale checkout, generating$20,000 in revenue each week, which or rolling that up to about a million dollars in revenue per year. All because you are the sales representative at Foot Locker. Yeah. So that's just part of your job. They hired you to achieve those results. You just have to think how is what I'm doing eventually helping the company usually to make or save money or achieve whatever else their organizational goals are.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

I really like what you did there. And I'd love to do an activity of turning this into a brag. Mm-hmm. So I have I've pulled together five examples. Uh, and I want to see you on the spot turn this into a brag. Like you did a footlocker sales representative generating, what would you say, a hundred one million dollars a year in revenue?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

That was incredible. Okay, here we go. How would you brag about a demotion?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

I have two tactics I use to brag about a demotion. So one, I had to do this a couple weeks ago for a client. So he was uh he was like a director of sales, then he got demoted to a sales rule. So what we did is we we wrote a bullet point that said something like um hand selected by senior leadership to transition into a high-stakes individual contributor role focusing on a niche market to generate uh$12 million per year in sales. Like something like that, where it's like I was pulled to do this thing that's very specific on the front line because it's so important, and then we treat it like anything else where there's we're explaining the results. Oh my goodness. Okay. Um, how would you break it? Sorry, I did say I have two ways to deal with that. So just to close the loop, the other one, if it's if it's a promotion and then a demotion, it just we keep it all as one job, and the bullet point, we have one bullet point about a temporary uh a temporary interim leadership rule or something.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, so you quickly address it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Okay, second one. Uh, how would you brag about organizing the office retreat?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

That's a full-on resume conversation. Like that doesn't take any spinning. So we might just say coordinated uh um a large annual office retreat for 14 people on a budget of$20,000, spearheading all strategic planning, uh, venue coordination, travel logistics, and uh maybe if there's a result I can and generate like leading to the successful creation of a five-year strategic plan. Or like whatever your team accomplished on the retreat, you plan the retreat that allowed them to do that. Okay, I'm gonna try this. Brag about taking extra long lunch breaks, elevated personal and team morale through the through the extension of 50 50% extended recuperation period. I don't know, that one's tough. 50% I'm picturing like an hour.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Recuperation, that's so good though. 50% recuperation period.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Don't put that one on your resume, but uh yeah, yeah. I appreciate you testing.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

I like your your try there. Okay, what about you help customers at the cash?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Oh yeah, that's that's our like just extrapolate the amount of money you've checked out, like at a grocery store, right? Cashiers probably pulling in 20, 10,000, 20,000 a day. But am I generating that$10,000 a day? No, and we wouldn't say we generated it, right? Okay, so what would how would you frame that? Enabled, uh we could say supported customers uh in a frontline um frontline point of sale position pro uh processing. I would say probably processing. In that case, uh$200,000 a month in in uh sales, you know, consistently receiving strong feedback on uh performance and customer relationship building. Um and then it's a grocery store, right? So like yielding a high rate of return customers.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

That's good. Oh my god. You were invited and sat silently at a leadership meeting.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Okay, here's the thing: if you are in a meeting where a decision is made, you are trusted to be part of that decision. And by not saying anything, you are signing off on what was agreed upon. They brought you there to contribute. And if you're silent, your contribution is I like where this is going, the expertise you invited me into this room to contribute is aligned with this. So I needed to say nothing to steer this conversation. So, in that situation, you contributed to the development of a long-term strategic plan alongside members of the senior leadership team.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

So, even though you didn't actually participate, say anything, generate an idea, we can still pull that as a positive bullet point about our contribution to a strategic plan.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

You contributed. We're not gonna say we wrote a strategic plan, we're not gonna say we built the strategic plan, but you contributed by being in the room as an expert and identifying that there were no flaws in this plan worth pointing out. All right.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Thanks for doing that little exercise.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Thanks for setting up the exercise. That was fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah. So I guess I what I really wanted to get from you in this episode is how can we be more confident when we approach our resume?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

I think like just to speak to the human nature of it all, like we appreciate that you don't go around bragging about yourself all day, every day. We love it. You're we, your friends, your family, your coworkers. Like to be humble is typically to be a pretty good hang. A great coworker. Like, you just like have to turn that off for your sake and for the sake of the people considering hiring you. Like they need you to brag too. They need to know all the best stuff that you've done. No one's gonna think you're arrogant when your resume is bragging like crazy. So just let go of that. Make that your best, best stuff. Don't be shy to make it all sound as good as possible. And if you need help, check out my resources. We have an ebook 540 badass bullet points for your resume. The title is self-explanatory. There's a ton of great bullet points in there. You can copy and paste them, you can use them as inspiration. Um, reach out for help too. We provide one-on-one resume writing services, resume reviews. Like there, there's so much great stuff you've probably done. I would love to help you unlock that.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Awesome. All right, well, it's now time for unusual interviews where we ask each other questions that we hope you never get asked in an interview. What would you say is the most impressive thing that you've done by mistake?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I once scored a tournament-winning goal in soccer with my eyes closed. Just hope for the best. I like a corner kick came in, and I was standing in generally the right place, but when the ball came, I just closed my eyes, and it happened to hit me on the forehead and bounce into the net, and we won the tournament.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

And you won the state championship and you went to the nationals?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

It wasn't a state championship, but we won that tournament that we were at. Uh, okay. My question is in a son theme. Jeff. Yeah. Mario, Sonic, or Donkey Kong? Mario. Really?

SPEAKER_00 18:43

It's me, a Mario. I'm not doing it. Woohoo!

SPEAKER_01 18:49

I'm flummoxed. I thought you would be a Sonic guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

I'm far too slow to be Sonic. I like to pick characters that I like and connect with. I can double jump, but I can't run.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Alright. I thought I just thought you I thought you liked Sonic. Sonic?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show, give us a rating, share it with someone who's currently looking for a job. Don't forget to visit Greg's website for additional free resources, greglangstaff.com. Join us next week when we talk about how to write your education and additional certifications section.