Why resume advice often misses the point

Dear Reader,

Something interesting happened in the small-group discussion with my program members this week.

About seven people attended the small group discussion I hosted for program members, and the first question was about skills-based resumes:

What did we think about them? Has anyone used them? Any advice?

This is a less common resume format, sometimes recommended for career changers or very early career folks. I don’t love it, generally, not least because most readers expect different.

During the discussions, members shared their resumes, and we talked about them together (so fun).

And across multiple examples, it was clear that the main challenge wasn’t structure or formatting—though those things can matter—but something more fundamental.

In other words, while on the surface we were discussing resumes, what we were really talking about was clarity about career goals.

I see this all the time with my clients:

They don’t struggle because they lack required credentials, experience, or skills.
They aren’t stuck because they don’t know the right keywords.
They aren’t even necessarily unsure how to write strong bullet points. (There is a recorded workshop on exactly this topic, btw.)

So what’s the issue? It’s that they aren’t yet clear on what they want to say about themselves.

Specifically, what is most relevant and compelling about themselves for the people they want reading their application materials.

For example, a couple of resumes included lists of skills. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But in one case, I suggested omitting the list and instead incorporating evidence of key skills directly into the experience section.

Demonstrating (read: proving) that you can do a thing because you’ve done it well/impactfully in the past is often a more effective way of showing you’re qualified for a role.

It’s also a harder exercise than simply listing skills such as familiarity with key software, language proficiency, or having mastered select technical methods.

This difference matters.

Skill lists often show up when someone knows what they can do, but hasn’t yet made decisions about how they want to be seen professionally, or how their experience fits a particular role or context.

In that situation, a list of skills can read less like confidence and more like unfinished thinking.

And if your documents might signal uncertainty, the work ahead isn’t polish and sparkle.

It is clarifying what you want, understanding what your audience cares about in that context, and then crafting sentences that clearly communicate your fit.

You can’t feel confident communicating your experience if you’re still unsure what story you’re telling, or why this audience should care.

You can’t commit to a narrative if you’re hedging about the role, the direction, or how your past work actually fits.

And no amount of polish can substitute for that.

This is why I resist treating job search as a mechanical process.

Done well, it’s thoughtful work.

It asks for reflection about what you want and why.

It asks you to respect the people you’re talking to enough to communicate clearly and honestly.

And it asks for attention to alignment—between roles, evidence, and story—all the way through.

Many people can do this thinking on their own.

But as this conversation reminded me, there’s something powerful about doing it in community.

Hearing how others are reasoning, borrowing language, testing ideas and assumptions, and realizing you’re not the only one wrestling with these questions.

Phew! All super valuable.

Individual clarity plus collective sense-making is often where things really start to click.

What’s Happening

The PhD Career Clarity Program is open for enrollment! Perfect for professors, postdocs, and other PhDs who are ready to pivot their careers so they can secure meaningful jobs where they’ll be valued and respected.
Free Wednesday co-working continues; sign up on my website.
Want more co-working? Sign up for Flow Club, where I’m a regular host. Use my link to get a free two-week trial.
Are you still obsessed with Heated Rivalry? Join me for a live discussion next Thursday.
And, if you’re testing JenBot for me (see last week’s email), I’d love your feedback! You know what to do 🙂

Cheers, and thanks for reading,

Jen

P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!

Jennifer Polk, PhD