A short career-advice video by Madeline Mann (Self Made Millennial) advising jobseekers to replace a generic 'skills' section with a specific 'interests' section on their one-page resume. She argues concrete, unusual interests (e.g., mapping taco trucks, unique contest wins) spark authentic interview conversations and human connections, while vague entries ("foodie", "travel") are dull.
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Hey, everyone, this is self made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. You know, I love reading nonfiction. I love reading autobiographies, but reading resumes really bites. Let's make your resume a bit more riveting, shall we? We'll make it a page turner. One page. Page turner. In this video, I'll share a tip that will show a bit of personality on your resume while still remaining professional. And it will make your conversations in your interviews more authentic. So my advice is to delete your skills skills section and add an interest section instead. Let me go into detail with both. With most people, their skill section is a big waste o space. They'll write things that are very broad, don't give much context. Like if you've been a CEO in the past and you put leadership as a skill. Yeah, I hope so. There are jobs where this section is important. Maybe if you're a software engineer, you want to list what languages you can code in. But do that reply, save the space and instead put an interest section. Now, many people already do this. They'll put an interest section or a personal section, but they do it in a way that actually makes them seem incredibly dull. The majority of the time I see people write that they are a foodie or they love travel. Everyone loves those things. Do not write those things. If you're going to say that, then be specific. Say, I love this restaurant or this cooking show. Or say, I love to travel to this city. It's my favorite city to go to. The goal is to spark a conversation. So. So if you write, I love trying new restaurants, I'm not gonna be like, you like food too. So do I. But if you say, I've created a map of where all the best taco trucks in LA stop, I'm gonna be like, wow, that person sounds interesting. I'm gonna ask them about that. Another good example is Michelle Ward. She has an amazing site called When I Grow Up. It gives tons of exceptional career advice. I suggest you go there. I'll link it in the description and in her About Me page. She writes about a lot of legitimate things she's accomplished, and then she just throws in there that she's a Judge Judy contest winner. Now, I don't know what that means, but if I saw that on her resume and she came in and I was interviewing her, I would definitely ask about it. And I think it would be a really interesting conversation. Know that not everyone's going to bring up what you wrote in your interest section. It's not supposed to be something that appeals to everyone that everyone can relate on, but when someone does see something that they relate to, that's an opportunity to create a meaningful human connection with them. It'll make your interviews feel feel more natural and authentic. So give us some good reading material and zest up those resumes. And I wasn't kidding before. I really do love nonfiction books, so toss some recommendations for me in the comments. Hit a like on this video because that's how I'll know if you dug it. And I come out with new videos every single week, so make sure you subscribe. I've got to go read all these resumes. They're all online. This is not actually the true pile of work, but this is a pretty good visualization of how many resumes I have to go read right now. Just next time.
