Sarah Palin offered an important lesson in resume writing and career advancement at the United Nations on Tuesday, said the President of a professional resume writing and career counseling firm.
“Resume writers take note: Sarah Palin's handlers had her shake hands with foreign leaders yesterday. It was a clear and important attempt to make her appear qualified to handle foreign policy issues,” said Paul Freiberger, President of Shimmering Resumes. “This was an effort to plug a loophole in her resume. She lacks foreign policy experience and has so far seemed uninformed on these matters. It was Resume Help 101.”
Freiberger said that it’s admirable for Palin to try to fix her resume. “Let's acknowledge that all of us have imperfect resumes. The question for career counselors and resume writers is: What do you do about these imperfections?
Freiberger explained that there are several methods of addressing problem resumes such as Palin’s:
1) Distraction:
2) Complete transparency:
3) Camouflage: Try to pretend that you don't have these weaknesses.
The McCain campaign chose the third approach. They sent Palin to meet with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Palin has not traveled overseas. Does a 5 minutes discussing family matters with a couple of heads of state convince us that she could step in and deal with the War on Terror? Probably not. Worse, it just looks foolish. Don’t do this on your resume.
Palin's effort was not effective. But for those of us in the resume business it serves to illustrate the point about holes in your resume. It's better to be open about them, or, address them concretely. If you do not, you'll end up looking like Governor Palin: an ill-qualified candidate in search of higher position.
