Now, that's a very funny story. So the worst resume writers and I've been in this business now 26 years. I've seen thousands, tens of thousands of resumes, and I've helped tens of thousands of people. The world's worst resume writers are sales, marketing and human resources. Now, you would think those are the three functions that would know how to write a resume and sell, sell, sell. No.

 

My guest today is Martin Buckland. Here's three facts I think it would be helpful for you to know about Martin. Number one, he is globally acclaimed as an executive, career coach and executive resume writer. He's helped thousands manage their careers and climbed the corporate ladder to get the job they wanted most.

Two. Martin works with MBA. MBA that's executive MBA students and grads, professionals, mining executives and the C-suite. And he's he's helped them in 74 countries. And three, before Martin went into the MBA executive resume business. He had a distinguished career in law enforcement. In particular, he worked with the London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard. Don't tell anybody. Can't talk about that here. Martin Welcome to your intended message.

Martin. You work with executives to better their careers to promote themselves right there. Right. Their resumes, Premier prepare themselves for the interviews and such. What what do you often find lacking and perhaps even might be surprising to those of us who think that executives, well, they got it all under control. They know what to do. In fact, what is the reality?

Well, actually, the reality is that hardly any of them know how to manage their careers.

So I put it I get it down to the basics. I'm very realistic, Coach. I'll say it as it is. So really, everybody on this planet who's in the profession is a is a product and the rapping is your resume, your LinkedIn profile and other social media assets. So you have to get into the mindset of selling. Now, people can't do that, especially introverts. That's really, really problematical for them. But they can get into that mindset because you're a product and you're sending that product to the market and you constantly have to nurture and update that product because you never know when you're going to be downsized. Termination is rife right now, especially during Covid. And who knew in January, February that millions across the world will be let loose?

So. These executives need to think of themselves. And that's a great analogy as a product and their resume and their social media. That's simply the wrapping to attract people to come running. Oh, I want to open up this one first.

This looks attractive. And does that mean that they need to be dishonest or hide their flaws?

Gosh, no, no. They need don't embellish, don't tell lies. But everybody everybody has their own unique promise of value. Everybody has their their differentiator. And, you know, there's higher you go, the less the less jobs there are. And so you're fighting fierce fighting at the top there. But you have to differentiate yourself and make yourself basically look seductive so everybody everybody can make themselves look seductive. I have people say, oh, I haven't got anything. I said, Well, sit with me. That's where my police interview skills come in. I don't put them in the handcuffs. But, you know, yeah, I really, really, really put them through a grilling because I want them to get the best and they want the best. So I put them through a set process that they really learn about themselves and they get that mindset, okay, I'm going to go on the road.

I'm going to sell, sell, sell my product.

So I imagine so the concept of selling a product, I would imagine that sales executives probably excel at this because they know about selling.

Now, that's a very funny story. So the worst resume writers and I've been in this business now 26 years. I've seen thousands, tens of thousands of resumes, and I've helped tens of thousands of people. The world's worst resume writers are sales, marketing and human resources. Now, you would think those are the three functions that would know how to write a resume and sell, sell, sell. No, I see resumes often every week when I give a free critique of sales resumes without any dollar value, any euro value, any pound value or any other currency value, any percentiles. Well, what are you in this game for? What are you going to be measured for? You're going to be measured basically for how much money can you make? How many new clients can you go? Can you snag from the competition and things like that? They're very, very basic.

I know you do account management, but I know I want to know how much money can you make me or can you increase my revenue per client and things like that? Oh, it's it's shocking. I think I can count on one hand the number of good sales resumes I've seen.

A resume. A sales resume crosses my desk. I'm looking to hire a VP sales or a director of sales. And what three points should I be looking for that goes into. Yes, we want to talk to this person pile.

Well, that's a great question. So you should look for their accomplishments because we revolved around accomplishments. When I first started writing resumes, it was basically a resume was your responsibilities. I'm not really interested in your responsibilities now except for a few things. Your number of direct and indirect reports and your budgets, etcetera. I'm interested in the money. So territory expansion, new product introduction or expanding the market from 1212% to 15% or capturing this client from ABC company or whatever. 

So start the world revolves around what I call star stories.

So situation, task, action, result. So that's when a client engages me. I get them to think about those star stories. So they have to be they have to show performance, they have to have the resume in the ATS format. Now, this is a tragic tragedy. I see so many viable candidates who don't have their resume in the ATS format. What is ATS? ATS is the automated tracking system. So it's a computer system. So you create your resume, you send your resume and it goes through a computer and it's stored in that database. It's a database. Unfortunately, human resource is very, very rarely or, or executive recruiters very rarely touch a resume initially. So this ATS, this scanning machinery processes it for for you. If you don't have an ATS resume, it's built around a certain function, a certain format because it's computer. You never mess around with a computer. You can never be the computer, but you can at least try and match it. You will fail even though you are the perfect candidate.

So you have to show sales figures, performance, etcetera. You have to have an ATS resume and then at the top you should have your personal brand. So personal branding has become huge. I carry some certifications in personal branding. I'm passionate about personal branding. It's your your unique promise of value. What is so special about you? Give me a compelling reason why I should call you over Mary, Mark or Paul. So you are in a race and you're you're a sales, you're a sales person, you're a product, and you're sending that product to the market and you're in a race and there is only a trophy for number one.

Number one now personal brand. Martin Buckland, what's your personal brand?

Oh, okay. So I am an expert in helping nurturing coaching senior executives and other business professionals with a lot of ambition to reach their career goals.

Now, I notice a lot of specific words in there. So you're looking senior senior executives and you're only looking for ambitious ones you're not looking for.

You don't want to help the lazy ones. Lazy ones can stay away. Exactly. So if they come to you, they right off the bat they are saying that, okay, I'm willing to work at this.

Yeah. So career management is a full time gig. You know, especially when you're in career transition. So you have to work at your career management. Sadly, people don't. They have no idea on career management. So when you're when you're getting fully employed, you should always be managing your career. I don't want to see you disappear off LinkedIn. Yeah, you don't have to be on LinkedIn as much as you did when you're in career transition. But once in a while, show me you're there. Shows do some activity, share some content, share a blog or comment on something, or publish your own a blog. But people are innate. They have no idea on managing their careers. And then of course, you know, they manage their finances, but they don't manage their careers.

Now statistics tell us that if they manage their careers. The early on in the year. When you go and see your financial planner, you can give more money for investments in various various methods of of investment to that investment planner. And then you can retire early or you can earn more money or you can go up the ladder a lot more. So career management is an education, and that's what I'm trying to broadcast to the world really, on how you should manage your career and the importance and the benefits of managing your career.

Martin You work a lot with executive MBA students, and these typically an executive MBA is someone who's been in the workforce for some time, probably at a senior level. And now they're investing the time to to go back to school and study. They're probably doing it on weekends and evenings over a couple of years. They go through that and they expect that their careers just going to take off and then they bump into reality and they say, Martin, I need your help. I've got this MBA, but it's not enough.

 What are they missing when they come to you

Well, the reason why I found this niche was many years ago I worked for a Canadian business school and I uncovered this niche that they engage me, this Canadian business school, engage me, and they come out of this program. They go in with lots of umph and lots of ambition and lots of drive, and they want to be a CEO pretty damn fast or some other C-level or very senior level in their own industry pretty damn fast. But they come out that program exhausted and they need to take a break because they haven't seen their they haven't seen their family, they haven't seen their kids grow from here to here. They haven't maybe seen their spouses for for months and months on end. They traveled a lot. They've been doing their full time gigs. They do projects during the week. It's an onerous degree. I myself couldn't do that degree. It's so dedicated, but it's a fantastic opportunity to progress your career. And in this recession, MBAs are expediting their career growth.

I tell them to take a break and then I nurture them and then prepare them ready for a job search launch to get to where they when they join that MBA program where they wanted to go. And invariably they are. If not, they're surpassing those those targets. Yeah. So it's it's a very interesting degree. And these schools, the business schools tend not to teach about they teach about leadership and career management and management, but not career management. So they this is this niche I found and I I'm now the global expert. I work for dozens of business schools across the world. And that's what takes me in good times, traveling a lot.

Now, when you say career management, I suppose it's really self-management self about setting goals and a plan for yourself and maybe taking all that strategic planning that they learned about and turned it on yourself. Is that is that sort of what you do?

Yeah, basically it's teaching them how to manage their own career because we all manage to say a few minutes ago we will manage our finances or hopefully we do, and then the career management goes with it.

It's just like you take that career home with you. So you know, if you're unhappy in your career, you don't. You take that unhappiness home to your spouse and your kids and whatever. It's not just an eight or a 12 hour job. It's a full time gig almost. So you so you have to really. So it plays a huge role in your overall life. So you want to be happy. You want to earn a decent salary. You want to do designations. You want to learn new things. And that's where I can help with coaching various modalities of coaching. I have multiple certifications in coaching and bringing them through that doubt, that skepticism and taking them on a path, planning a path, creating a path and working with them as they execute that that plan.

Martin I'm curious, how has your your experience and the skills that you developed with Scotland Yard, how has that transferred to what you're doing now?

Okay. So in the police, it's the same as a military. You're very disciplined.