Prior to show time, I spent one hour on the phone with Angela, the "ordinary housewife," who'd had no preparation. You, however, may want to prepare by doing some of the exercises listed below. If you have trouble doing them, don't worry: you can do them together with a counselor.
- List the kind of field(s) you think you would like to go into. If you know the kind of field you would like to go into, that would be great. Let your counselor know. If not, a counselor can still help you do a fine resume.
- List all the work you have ever done, before your marriage (or school) or during it. (We left out the dates on the work Angela had done many years earlier.) We want that experience to still count. It does not matter whether you earned money doing this work. For example, Angela "helped out" in her daughter's store. She didn't get paid for it, but it added a lot to her resume.
- List all the volunteer work you have done for your church, school, for neighbors and friends. What are the things you find yourself doing again and again? For example, do you find you are always baking cakes for parties or baby sitting or making items for church or school fairs? List these things.
- Think of the things you have done that you enjoyed doing and knew you did well whether or not you earned money doing them, and no matter what other people thought. Think of things that happened before as well as during your marriage or school years.
- List any organizations you have belonged to and any courses you have taken. List your most important personality traits.
- List your most important hobbies, pastimes, or interests. Perhaps, for example, you enjoy needlepoint. We had one group member whose passion was bowling she not only bowled, but she also scheduled tournaments. She was able to make a resume out of it, and she got a job with a bowling association.
Housewives and young people often feel as though they have nothing to offer. That's OK. Still, try to list everything, no matter how silly it seems. Then set up an appointment with your counselor (even if you haven't done the exercises). If you don't have a counselor, use Angela's resume as a guide.
These are essentially the same exercises the executives do. Again, the Seven Stories exercise is the key to uncovering those things you enjoyed doing and also did well and would like to do again. But the exercise is helpful in uncovering other things as well. Through the exercise, you will find out:
- What you have done that you are proud of. In the sample resumes that follow, each person has found something to be proud of, whether it's earning money to get through school or helping a daughter in her shop.
- Personality traits that will separate you from the competition, such as the ones noted in the summary statement of Larry's resume productive, self motivated, and so on which appears on page 130.
- How to look at your work, school, and volunteer experiences objectively. In Larry's example, he spent a great deal of time analyzing the job he had. This analysis gave his resume a lot of meat.
Even young people with no "real" work experience, or housewives who have been out of the work force for a long while, can develop strong resumes if they can think about their experiences objectively.
And, as with executives, the experiences have to be "repositioned" to fit the target market. For example, Angela said she had helped her daughter in the store. The fact is, Angela was alone in the store most of the time. Therefore, she was "managing" the store. And when she went shopping with her daughter for things to sell in the store, they were not "shopping" but "buying."
Give it a try. With a little help and an open mind, you, too, can develop a resume that truly reflects your skills.
