Unsatisfied?

Dissatisfied?

I could not decide on the right word to express what I felt.

I had just finished updating my linked in profile, and writing a resume. I was expecting to feel the satisfaction of job well done – some sense of accomplishment – at the very least, some anticipation of incoming requests from recruiters.

Instead, I felt nothing. No, it was not nothing; it was negative. Something was nagging me.

Condensing years of learning and experience into a short summary and bullet points reminded me how much I was not sharing. It did not capture how hard I worked in the early days of joining the team to earn the team’s trust and respect. It did not capture the after-hours and weekends I had put in to keep the lights on, when we were severely understaffed on a mission critical project. At no point did the resume reflect the tact and patience I employed with difficult coworkers. It did not even begin to describe my philosophy of what makes a good team, a good company and a good employee.

Instead, it was a keyword soup.

The keywords were gleaned from job descriptions online – from the part that said what the ideal candidate should possess for my dream job.

The purpose of my resume was to get a phone call from a recruiter. But my experience informed me that the resume would be seen by many people – including my future colleagues. They would form their impression of me through that document. Suddenly, I wanted my resume to serve two purposes – get a phone call from a recruiter AND make a good first impression on my future colleagues.

Most of all, I did not want my resume to make me look phony.

With authenticity at stake, the recuiter-phone-call-winning resume was suddenly unacceptable.

I was feeling not just unsatisfied or dissatisfied – I was feeling betrayed!