Rewrite Your Invisible Resume

Most of us spend more time honing our written resume than our invisible one. Yet the latter has far more influence on career prospects. When prospective employers call your references, they are trying to get a read on your “invisible resume.” So are the decision-makers who might be considering you for a promotion.

Your invisible resume consists of the opinions that other people harbor about you as a leader and colleague. As people add to it and share their views with others, your invisible C.V. becomes as visible as your written resume &#8212 to everyone but you.

Finding out what’s on it can be eye-opening. The vice president of sales for a major technology company delivered the numbers quarter after quarter. Relentlessly pushing for higher sales, he thought of himself as passionate about the business. During a 360º feedback exercise, he discovered that his colleagues saw him as “unreasonably demanding” and “a slave driver.”

Worse, a relatively straightforward shortcoming can turn into something far more serious. The co-founder of a highly successful online company had difficulty delegating responsibility. He would assure people that he would get to the work that went into his office, but somehow he never did. As a result, his colleagues regarded him as untrustworthy, and people began to question his integrity.

To take charge of the storyline, you should:

Find out what’s on your invisible resume. Seek 360º feedback; ask a trusted peer for a candid assessment; ask members of your team what one thing you could start or stop doing to make you more effective.

Ask your manager for substantive feedback beyond perfunctory annual performance reviews. What development experiences do you need? How does the manager assess your performance? What do colleagues actually say about you? Find out where you stand in the company’s overall talent review process, either by going directly to HR or by asking your manager. If you aren’t on the list of high-potentials, ask specifically what you have to do to get on it.

Begin to rewrite the story. This requires courage and effort. In one-on-one meetings and then with his entire team, the hard-driving technology VP confessed that he now understood the destructive effects of his incessant pushing. He also faced a dilemma: how to deliver results while abandoning the means that he believed had made him successful. A carefully structured leadership development plan helped him to alter his style and to induce his colleagues to want to become a high-performance team.

It’s important, too, to address the real problem. The co-founder of the online company didn’t need to be more truthful; he needed to deliver on his commitments, which required improved processes and delegation. Reliable performance increased trust in him.

Establish channels for ongoing feedback. Regular 360º feedback can be augmented with more frequent feedback from a trusted peer. Mentoring, which provides feedback from someone more experienced, can be helpful too — if the mentor is candid and committed to your success.

Periodic self-assessment can also be valuable. List the key competencies you need, your attributes in relation to each, and your assessment of the fit between them. People who have regular experience with the other forms of feedback can become increasingly proficient at self-assessment.

Above all, you have to be hungry for feedback and demonstrate that you value it. Otherwise you will be met with silence, which, in the case of your invisible resume, can be deadly.

Dr. Vicky Gordon is CEO of the Gordon Group, a Chicago-based leadership and organizational development consulting firm.