She’s a boomer.

I feel like an idiot.

*my therapist would be proud - I said I feel like an idiot, not I am an idiot.

I’ll get to why in a second.

I attended a talk this morning (yes, she’s still heavily networking) where the speaker was the Executive Creative Director of a leading tech company. As she talked about her journey to where she is today, I had a moment of reflection, a realization that I had during my medical journey last year: while it’s all nice and good to hear about how a “successful” (used here in the very stereotypical term) someone got to where they are today and the challenges they overcome, it can feel very unrelatable to someone who is still deep in the trenches, struggling to make things work, wondering if their efforts will ever pay off.

It’s rare to hear the stories of people who are trying to make it, yet don’t know if it’ll come through. Part of it is probably because we love a hero — we love a story of triumph, of beating all odds, of having an inspirational ending. But I imagine the other part of it is because those at the center of these stories are reluctant to share what’s going on during the meat of it — the uncertainties of what might (or might not) happen, the potential and very real risk of failure — because what if it doesn’t have a happy ending? What if it doesn’t all work out? Will anyone want to hear it then? It’s almost safer to listen to someone talk about facing uncertainty — or to be the one sharing the story about uncertainty and risk — when you already know the outcome and the happy ending.

And yet, if I’m sitting here wondering if there’s anyone out there who’s writing, sharing, publishing stories of their times in the trenches, then there must be others who are desperately looking for those stories as well — I can’t be alone in my desire to know that other people are struggling too. Actually now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure I’ve been most impressed with the LinkedIn posts (the death of me) about people who are unemployed documenting and sharing their hustle rather than those publishing a standardized template announcing that they got promoted (though I do wish them a sincere congratulations!).

So this is for all the other people in the middle of something who haven’t quite gotten “there” yet, who are still in the trenches and not yet to the point where hindsight is 20/20 and where you can believe that there was a reason for everything.

~~~

I’ve been on the job hunt train for a while (four months in now), and it’s been quite bleak. Disheartening. Disappointing. But this isn’t about that, and it doesn’t change how I feel about the choices I’ve made to get to where I am today.

But.

I am still working hard and putting a lot of effort into the job search. Today I planned on submitting a job application to a role I’m quite keen on (thank you, community for referring me in: people here in Australian have honestly been so supportive and willing to help — I’ve met some pretty great people here) and of course, turned to ChatGPT to help tailor my resume for this role, especially because this company plainly stated that they do use ATS during the screen.

This is when I turned to another great resource, Reddit, for some support and tips. And that’s when I had my big realization. All the threads said the same things if you wanted your resume (or CV) to succeed with ATS, you should absolutely avoided any type of complexity in formatting, including columns — go for the simple, boring, single column layout, and that’ll make it easy for ATS to parse your resume.

Comments on Reddit (among multiple threads):

“I got so many interviews after changing my formatting.”

“Changing my resume format helped me land a job!”

“I saw a noticeable difference in interview requests after updating my resume formatting.”

Fuckkkkkkk.

My resume is formatted with columns and rows galore. It’s to help standardize the formatting and ensure alignment. But that resume template is from 2013 from when I first started applying to corporate jobs (wow how was that over ten years ago?!). Sure it got me an internship in 2014, a consulting role in 2015, entry into the startup world in 2019, and interviews in 2022…but it’s been three years since then, and things have changed. The pace of technology is still rising baby!

Am I outdated? Am I behind? Am I now what so many decry…a boomer?!?! A boomer who doesn’t know technology, who’s behind on the latest trends, who can’t keep up with the innovation around her?

But worse than that…if the formatting was the issue, that my resume was immediately discarded because ATS couldn’t parse it, rather than my need for sponsorship or mismatched experience, then did I completely just miss out on all these opportunities I was excited about and spent so many hours applying for just because of a dumb mistake? Because of my arrogance thinking I knew how to play the game despite being off the board for the past two years?

Is this what my parents were worried about when I choose to take myself out of the job market? That I’d fall behind the latest trends, that I’d miss out on what’s current, that I’d inadvertently take myself out of the running?

But I also pause and think: why does this matter? Is this the first thing that pops into my head because I’ve been conditioned to believe that corporate is god and all that’s holy and all that’s only worthy of achieving?

Don’t get my wrong - I do think there’s value in staying up-to-date (and value in getting a corporate job because the employer is more likely to sponsor me #keepmeinAustralia), but what does that actually mean? I’m questioning what “up-to-date” means to me and what has more and what has less value. This is part of (a long string of) ideas that I continue to explore as I experiment with different ideas and ways to live my dreams here, on the opposite side of the world.

For so long, especially during my time working as a management consultant, executive facilitator, strategist, and product marketer, “up-to-date” meant staying on top of emerging technology, the markets, the shiftings and rumblings of the business world. But if your job is in a different industry, or your world is centered around something completely different, “up-to-date” can mean something entirely different things — there might not be value in knowing that you need to keep your resume in a single-column format.

But hey, better late than never.

Only thing you need to keep up-to-date at a cafe is the latest latte art trends (I have not achieved this level of perfection — yet).