Sometimes the camera LIES!

I have a minor (very minor) insecurity about my hair.  A few months ago my daughter had a friend over who said “why do you shave two circles on the back of your head?”

That, my young friend, would be how I bald 🙂

About two months ago I went to our local grocery store in the evening.  I made the mistake of looking up into the monitor that shows what the security camera picks up, and saw myself… with a huge, shiny, 10 square inch patch of skin.  This was on the top-back of my head, and it was big!  According to the monitor, there was no hair on this huge area of my head!

I shared this with my 16 year old daughter and she kindly said “Dad, it’s not that bad.  No one can see a bald spot back there.”

Yes, of course, she is kind.  But she’s also my trusted fashion adviser, and she was being honest.  I didn’t dig anymore because, well, I really don’t need to know if it’s that shiny up there.  But I’ve been thinking about this for a while and the phrase “the camera doesn’t lie” came to mind recently.  In this case I’m going to choose to believe that the camera is lying, and my daughter is being truthful.

How does this relate to you, in a job search?

Sometimes we go to the expert to get feedback on our 30 second elevator pitches, responses to interview questions and especially our resume.  That certain someone who really knows what we should do or say or communicate… and they give us erroneous feedback.  Just like the camera at my grocery store, which had too much amplified light on that one part of my head, was giving me the wrong feedback, sometimes your friend who just might work in HR might be giving you horrible feedback.

In the eight years since I’ve been passionate about this stuff I’ve heard a lot of conflicting opinions.  They are usually not shared as opinions, but as facts.  You get some person who did an interview a few years back and they think they are an expert in interviewing. You get someone who does benefits in HR (nothing to do with hiring) and they speak their version of the truth with only their job title as their authority.

These people might be focusing (or fixated) on the wrong thing, and their advice could be detrimentally flawed.

Folks, I’ve even heard this from career coaches, resume writers, and LinkedIn trainers.  Not every coach, trainer, writer or consultant is going to know the right and best answer for every scenario and situation.  You might have exceptions, and they might have assumptions.  Make sure you communicate honestly and wholly what you know, and ask questions about their solutions.

At the end of the day, you are the one that needs a job (aka, an income).  Take the best information from the right sources, discount the junk (like I have to do with that cursed camera at the store!), and move forward.