I interviewed a young woman this year and I asked her to take me through her resume. My questions are always the same: start from the beginning and tell me about each of your jobs. How did you get them? What was good/bad about them? And why did you leave? The line of questioning tells me quite a bit. I’m looking for patterns to find out what drives this candidate and what they’re looking for in each job that they didn’t find in the previous one.

 

“Tracy” was so full of energy, she was practically vibrating when we met. She had a huge smile, a huge personality and we connected easily, chatting about her new move to town and her eagerness to get to work. But she couldn’t seem to get interviews despite the brand-name companies on her resume and her obvious success with clients. She pulled out her resume and I asked her to take me through it. And that’s where the pattern showed up.

 

Tracy changed jobs about every 12-18 months. Her infectiously positive personality would get her into a role, she’d be insanely successful for a short time, and then she would leave. Why? Someone took credit for her work and she couldn’t stand for that; someone changed her bonus structure and she couldn’t stand for that; she developed a great client relationship and it was reassigned. She couldn’t stand for that, could she? Each of her 11 positions over the past 15 years (seriously – 11!) ended when someone did her wrong.

 

I asked her directly if it was impossible to please her and she was surprised – she hadn’t seen the pattern until now. But here she was, in her late 30’s with a job-hopper’s resume in a recession – who was going to take a chance on her? She had moved to a community where company loyalty is valued and her resume highlighted her lack in this arena. And most importantly for her own development, at what point was she going to commit to a company for the long run, living with the success and problems that come with that commitment?

 

Our interview time was more of a therapy session with Tracy finally figuring out her career had stalled because she wouldn’t stay and work things out when she felt wronged, she’d just bolt. Now the question was, how to handle it at this point?

 

Honestly. Well, pretty honestly. I had Tracy re-do her resume to more of a functional one.  Her individual successes, which were incredibly impressive, were bullet-pointed on page one, and her actual job history was listed at the extreme end of the resume, right above Education, with no details, only names and dates. I also had her eliminate the earliest positions so the pattern wasn’t quite so obvious. Now the reader had an opportunity to be impressed before seeing her short tenure.

 

The new resume quickly got her an interview and questions there generally focused on her work successes rather than on job longevity. When one person asked her directly if she considered herself a job-hopper, she handled it gracefully – she had always left on her own, she said (which was true), was often hired away by former co-workers (also true and always a plus) and although she may have left one or two positions too soon, she always left the companies with better client relationships and better profits than when she started. She was expecting this opportunity, based on what she’d heard, to be a solid, long-term relationship.

 

A terrific answer, under the circumstance. Tracy was hired and is learning to table her knee-jerk reactions to work out problems rather than leaving. A great ending to this story!