You Sound Like a Resume.
Oct 29, 2026
You keep answering what you do. They’re asking why they’d choose you.
Do You Sound Like Your Resume?
Someone says, “What do you bring to the table?” Or just, “Why you?”
And you start spouting. Your title, your team, your responsibilities, your years of experience.
If you find yourself sounding like your resume in conversation, you’re doing yourself and others a real disservice.
Here’s how to fix it.
A Resume Is a Screening Tool
I’ve been writing resumes for longer than I care to admit. I don’t like reading them. I didn’t like using them at work.
They take more than their fair share of the conversation when they’re really just a screening tool. Companies screen with them. The choosing happens in conversation.
The trouble is, the resume has shaped how we think about our own careers. We tend to talk in history and responsibilities when that’s not what people want.
That’s the resume habit.
The Screener or the Final Candidate
Sounding like a resume is sounding like the screening tool instead of sounding like a final candidate.
What your leadership and others are looking for is your unique value and how you can make a true difference for their organization and business, said in a way they quickly understand and will remember.
So how do you break the habit?
“You Don’t Need a Resume. You Need a Brand.”
That’s what I told a dear friend who was leaving their company and wanted help writing a resume. It was the actual genesis of my executive branding business, helping leaders uncover their unique value so they become the Obvious Choice.
Jordan Was Caught in a Loop
A client I’ll call Jordan was a VP leaving a company for the first time. She had sought a lot of advice on her resume and was caught in a loop. She felt the resume was the end-all, be-all.
It read dense and unmemorable, lost in responsibilities and tasks. It was not clear why you’d choose her, even though, obviously, this was a woman you wanted to choose.
We Put Down the Resume
So we put down the resume. We talked about her three greatest accomplishments and how they transformed the business. She told me all about it: the challenges, the roadblocks, and what it required of her, from creativity and leadership to bringing others along on the vision.
Then We Connected the Dots
Then we connected the dots. She could see herself in all of those facts as a story. A plot line.
She was a catalyst, a change agent who thrived on large challenges in organizations under duress.
Her problem-solving and emotional intelligence made her a leader who could rapidly transform difficult situations.
That changed her conversations with recruiters and her cover letters. Even the resume got better. Once you know your story, writing a resume becomes storytelling.
She found her next position, one designed to let her make a difference and take her to the next level of leadership.
Try This Week: Put Down the Resume
1. Name your three greatest accomplishments.
2. Tell the story of each. How did it transform the business? What were the roadblocks? What did it require of you?
3. Connect the dots. What kind of leader shows up in all three?
4. Say it in a sentence or two that others will quickly understand and remember.
5. Use it once this week. The next time someone asks what you bring to the table, tell them that.
6. Then take stock. What was their reaction? What did it tell you about your story? What should you consider improving?
Stop Thinking Like a Resume
Stop listing facts in historical order.
Tell the story of why you are the one to rely on: the challenges you’ve taken on, the abilities they brought out in you, and what you can be counted on for next.
Where Is Your Story Breaking Down?
If your resume has been doing your talking for you, start by finding out where your own story is clear and where it isn’t.
Over ten years, working with more than a thousand leaders, I built a scorecard to answer that question. I built it for leaders who are doing the work and are done waiting for someone to notice, because watching talented, hardworking people get overlooked is the unfairness I’ve never made peace with. I call it the Rising Leader Clarity Score™.
5 questions, 2 minutes. You score yourself honestly, not on how you see your work, but on what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
You’ll have something on paper you didn’t have before: one number that shows you exactly where your story is breaking down, and what to fix first. The number isn’t a verdict. It’s the starting point for the bigger career and life you’ve been dreaming about.
Take the Rising Leader Clarity Score here
Branding Changes Everything®
Because clarity changes everything.
