You may think, “Wow, I wish my resume or experience could be more perfect.  Then my job search would be so much easier”  Well, think again.  One of the top pet peeves for recruiters today are “perfect” candidates – someone with all successes on their resume and often times can’t see any more ways to improve.

Recruiters and employers are not looking for perfection but rather…

• if there are good reasons (stories) on how your experience can best help the company in this job.
• if your past work history make sense.  Do you have a clear direction of where you’re going and how this next position fit in your career path?
• what you’ve learned from your “mistakes.”
• when asked for your strengths and weaknesses, do you have a true weakness that shows you’re self-aware and that you’re already making improvements on it?
• how quickly you can learn and pick up new knowledge.
• if you’re a team player or an arrogant know it all (which a perfect candidate can come across as).

Soft Skills Approach for Job Seekers

Sometimes job seekers spend too much time worrying about imperfections from their past experience.  When you do this, the insecurity and nervousness will come across in your interviews when you discuss those areas.  It’s never a good vibe for the hiring manager and this may be enough reason to not invite you back for a second round.

You can’t change the past, but what you can change is your perception of what happened and how you tell the story of these experiences.  You need to realize, through a soft skills lens, the learnings from your past experiences and have a positive perception on what you may see as “imperfections” in your resume.  And most importantly, you have to believe that perception!  You won’t be convincing if you tell a story in an interview that you don’t truly believe.  Also, never apologize for anything you did in the past, instead focus more on communicating what you learned from your past experiences and ultimately always bring it back to how this helps your candidacy for this position.

By putting in effort to practice telling these stories, it can give you the leg up you need to be more effective in interviews.