The Virtues of Bragging

I’ve been volunteering once a week critiquing resumes at a career center in Boston. And I’ve noticed two interesting trends: people are willing to lie on their resumes, but they often aren’t willing to take credit for their achievements.

First, the lying. People come in with resumes that list suspicious-looking credentials, such as “Child Abuse Preventer Certified.” When I ask them to tell me more about that certification, I’ll get an answer like, “Well, I’ll be honest with you. I made that up. I thought it would look good on my resume.”

There seems to be a widespread fantasy that making your resume look good (regardless of its accuracy) will get your foot in an employer’s door – and, once you’ve gotten the interview, the hiring manager will be blown away by your charm and will forget to check up on your credentials. Needless to say, it doesn't work that way, especially in the age of Google, where anyone can do a background check in a matter of minutes.

But oddly, though people are fine with lying, most of them don’t know how to brag. As Clay Shirky pointed out recently in a wonderful essay, this is especially true of women, who are brought up not to boast.

But a resume is a showpiece: it is a piece of elegant, streamlined boasting about your professional fabulousness. Why are people so afraid to let themselves shine?

Some of this is cultural. While most Americans are OK with exchanging praise, we’re taught to downplay our good points. For example, if a friend tells us, “Your hair looks great,” most of us won’t respond with an enthusiastic, “Thanks, I’m really happy with it!” Instead, we’ll say something self-deprecating: “Thanks, I finally got it cut. I was really sick of having it in my face all the time.”

People from other cultures are taught to deny and turn away any praise even more aggressively. (In China, the polite version of the same exchange would be: “Your hair looks great!” “No, my hair is very ugly.”)

Marketing is all about taking credit for your achievements – and make no mistake, your resume is a marketing piece. Think about all the things you did at your last job, or your current one. Did you teach someone to do something? Did you learn an online skill, such as blogging or maintaining a database or updating the company’s online news feed? Please, please get it on there.

People sometimes feel that if they did something outside of their job description, they’re not allowed to speak up about it on their rez. So untrue!

I’ve had people talk to me about how they trained several newer employees at their last job, showing them the ropes and keeping an eye on them as they scaled a steep learning curve. “So why isn’t that on your resume?” I’ll ask. “Well, I wasn’t officially their supervisor. That was someone else’s job.” All the more reason to brag about it!

Honestly and flair can and should coexist on a resume. As an experiment, try creating the most egotistical, obnoxiously braggadocious rez you can, and then tone it down just a hair. Send that one out, or just put it side by side with your tamer one and compare. As long as you’re bragging about stuff you’ve really done, a bit of ego in the job hunt isn’t just a plus. It’s an essential ingredient.

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