If You Want to Get a Job in Sports - Read This.

When was the last time you came across a passage that you felt was so compelling that you wanted to share it with all of your friends and colleagues in the industry? For some, this exercise takes place every day. For others, just once or twice per year.

I recently had an opportunity to read Seth Godin's latest New York Times bestseller, Linchpin, and there was one particular section that I felt was truly insightful and applicable to all sports business professionals, notably job seekers and those looking to take that "next step" in their career.

Enjoy.

I wanted to send a special thanks to Jason Belzer of GAME, Inc. for thinking of me and sharing Linchpin - what a terrific read. If you have a moment, check out all of the terrific things that Jason is doing with GAME Inc., including the launch of a company new website! 

Do You Need a Resume?

This is controversial, but here it goes: if you’re remarkable, amazing, or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a resume at all. If you’ve got experience in doing the things that make you a linchpin, a resume hides that fact. A resume gives the employer everything that she needs to reject you.

Once you send me your resume, I can say, “Oh they’re missing this or they’re missing that,” and boom, you’re out. Having a resume begs for you to get a job as a cog in a giant machine. More fodder for the corporate behemoth. That might be fine for average folks looking for a average job, but is that what you deserve?

The very system that produced standardized tests and command-and-control model that chokes us also invented the resume. The system, the industrialists, the factory … they want us to be cogs in their machine – easily replaceable, hopeless, cheap cogs.

If you don’t have a resume, what do you have? How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects? Or a sophisticated project an employer can see or touch? Or a reputation that precedes you? Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?

Some say, “Well that’s fine, but I don’t have those those.” Yea, that’s my point. If you don’t have these things, what leads you to believe that you are remarkable, amazing, or just plain spectacular? It sounds to be like if you don’t have more than a resume, you’ve been brainwashed into compliance.

Great jobs, world-class jobs, jobs people kill for – those jobs don’t get filled by people emailing in resumes.

The only way to prove (as opposed to assert) that you are an indispensible linchpin – someone worth recruiting, moving to the top of the pile, and hiring – is to show, not tell. Projects are the new resumes. If your Google search isn’t what you want (need) it to be, then change it.

Change it through your actions and connections and generosity. Change it by so over-delivering that people post about you. Change it by creating a blog that is so insightful about your area of expertise that others refer to it. And change it by helping other people online.