"Mirror mirror on the wall..
..
who has the fairest Resume of them all?" What is your resume telling you? More importantly what is your resume reflecting to Medical Sales Recruiters and potential Medical Sales employers? If your self assessment is not in line with these decision makers, then you have a problem! A resume is a mirror of our career decisions starting from college to the present.
It truly is a reflection of how we have performed within our career, as well as the business and personal decisions that have brought us to where we are today.
,It is also a reflection or measurement of your perseverance, stamina and success! I am always amazed when I review a resume that is, shall we say, less than perfect, yet the owner of the resume is seeing a whole different reflection.
It is almost as if they are at the local carnival peering at their distorted reflection in one of those fun house mirrors and saying "I know I am so much better than how I look in this mirror, the mirror is not reflecting the real me, I am better looking than this!".
As we all know this is often true at least in the carnival mirror, but why is it people want to use this same philosophy when peering into their own resume and evaluating that reflection? Yes you may have had some unfortunate events that have affected a great career build, BUT you must try to step back and be objective.
Try to look at your resume from a recruiter or employers eyes, what is your resume reflecting to others? Yes, these means taking a good look at your resume (sometimes even a good look in the bathroom mirror) and stopping a behavior that is killing your resume! You need to find a better way to address its short comings, or should I say possibly your short comings? Tough stuff I know but in this market of too few jobs and so many Job Seekers you need to understand what can look ugly on your resume and how to overcome it or at least get on course to make it look prettier! 8 Resume Blemishes

1. Multiple Job Hopping (more than 2 jobs in most recent 5 years and/or reflected pattern in the past 10 or 15 years as well)
2. Lack of at least quota sales performance in the past 2 or more positions
3. Job Gaps from being unemployed more than once (we use to say even one Job Gap was damaging within the past 5 years until the economy changed that notion).
   Repeated Job Gaps is ugly on a resume.
   
4. No College Degree (sorry, 2 classes short of one, still means no degree in fact being that close to getting the degree is worse! It reflects lack of judgment, perseverance ).
   
5. Illogical change of industries that reflects "I can't figure out what I want to be when I grow up even though I am 40 years old" (i.
   e.
   ; going from copier sales to pharmaceutical sales to medical device sales is good, going from copier sales, to pharmaceutical sales to medical device sales, to financial sales, to real estate sales, to teaching to re-enter the medical sales arena is not good).
   
6. Huge one year or more job gaps to find your inner meaning.
   
7. Quitting your job without another job lined up because you did not like it or just couldn't cut it or worse, you decided you did not like your manager.
   This one reflects 0 stamina AND ability to make good sound business decisions, I merely call it the other unpardonable sin!
8. Multiple moves across the USA not related to Job Promotions within one company, I call this the "where will I be happy living syndrome", typically these people are happy in a place called "no where".
   

Any of these blemishes can make your medical sales resume sit dead in a resume data base or not responded to in a Job Posting (and I don't care what Job Board you use!).
If you have the required experience that a Job Posting is requiring AND you are not getting any response then add up how many blemishes you may have on the above list: it could be the reason.
So what does one do if you have a blemished resume? I will be frank, it is probably easier to clear up a bad case of acne than clear up a troubled resume but it can be done by building a short term and long term plan for correction! Keep looking for a job (especially if you are unemployed or think you will be shortly), but if you don't change your choices and behaviors an ugly resume won't get prettier, in fact often they get uglier.
I will address each of the Medical Sales Resume Blemishes and possible solutions in this series over the next several weeks (including link backs on our own blog article post on our website).
In addition, you must change or at least add to your career search strategy to land a job if you have a resume blemish.
It's like going to a High School Dance stag (by yourself), if you aren't measuring up to the other gals or guys standing on the side of the dance floor, you will never get on the dance floor! Throwing an ugly resume into a resume data base/job board post along with pretty resume's get's you about the same results; nowhere.
Truthful and accurate assessment of your resume appearance (weaknesses and strengths) is the first step to having the fairest resume of them all, or at least one that won't crack the mirror! By Linda Hertz