Harness the power of your resume's personal section to show the whole you.

Personal sections are for some reason weirdly controversial in the resume world, but not for me. I am 1000% on Team Personal Section, because I’m a proud cheerleader for each of us being true to who we are. And that includes your resume.

Whether you call it “About Me,” “On the Side” or “Etc.,” the personal section in your resume is where you can make yourself come alive as a real person who is interesting, multidimensional, engaged in life, and with a personality. 

Showing how you choose to spend time outside of your job and other non-work accomplishments is one of the secrets to being seen as a multidimensional person. 

Done right, it’s a great psychological icebreaker, too.

One of my resume clients got the interview and when the hiring manager called, they began by saying “I feel like I know you already,” which was in large part because of how we crafted the personal section. (She got the job.)

Your personal section reflects your values and interests. 

It shows what you value when you can choose. If you share that you bake sourdough bread at home weekly for your family, do volunteer work overseas every year, are a certified scuba divemaster, or have visited all 50 states, the reader is forming a much fuller picture of what you’re like.

Your personal section can also be used strategically for your branding.

This is also where you can share things you want them to know that they can't ask about… things that could help them choose you as a candidate.

Let’s say you’re applying to a job with where you’d interact with customers in Asia. Including your time in college as a guide for Mandarin-speaking students learning about campus life, along with the months you spent teaching English in Thailand, will show some pertinent experience outside of your jobs..

Or you could feature side projects that relate to the job you’re going after, like the years you managed the fundraising gala event for the local dog rescue, or organizing video game tournaments, or the website you built to manage your 300-person family reunion next year in your ancestral country.

Share affiliations with groups or activities that are important to you.

Maybe you were an Eagle Scout who is now Cub Scout pack leader, or you were head of the Young Republicans chapter in college, or you run an online group of world travelers, or organized a huge art project at Burning Man. 

Or you might be a sorority/fraternity member or regular at Toastmasters, or a longtime sponsor of orphans in other countries.

As you can see, each of these instantly communicates something about what you value outside of work.

This strengthens their understanding of you as a person, which is important in their decision-making process.

 
What’s a positive to one company may be a dealbreaker to another. 

Personal information can work both for and against you, which is kind of the point.

If your goal is to get a job that suits who you are and what you want, the screening process goes two ways. You are deciding if you like them, and they are deciding if they like you.

If you share authentic aspects of yourself and they don’t like it, you still win.

Disaster averted, you don’t want to work there anyway. 

A workaholic boss who expects someone to be on call 24/7 and travel constantly would see being a Cub Scout leader as a bad thing and maybe even a dealbreaker. But that's probably a good thing for you, a parent who chooses to commit blocks of personal time to your child’s activities and loves it, so working for a demanding 24/7 workaholic is not the job for you. 

On the other hand, the hiring team from a family-friendly company will relate to you as an active and engaged parent because they support their employees with kids by offering flextime and childcare, etc., and that's the kind of company you want to work for. 

What about my Burning Man art project? Or being active in the NRA?

Again, anything could be a positive or a negative.

Some companies have whole teams who go to Burning Man together, so it could be a positive since they know the amount of work and dedication that role takes. But a conservative organization might think you're just a weirdo.

Or you might list being secretary of your state National Rifle Association, which could be seen as a positive by some companies or and environments, and a negative in others. 

You get to decide what to share but remember to be true to yourself. 

It’s your call if and how to tailor what you share in your resume to show the sides of you they would relate to, but remember that you are looking for a job that works for you.

When you tailor your resume for a job, think carefully about whether sharing certain personal information will be a help or a hindrance for that job.

If you don’t know your audience, it may be better to be safe than sorry, and leave off anything controversial that isn't important to you.  

But don’t underestimate the power of a personal section to communicate things you might not be able to say otherwise, and to make the real-live you come alive on the page.

People hire real people, not just lists of software skills and methodologies. Having them see you as a human is half the battle. 

And don’t be afraid to be who you are.

If something important about the authentic you is considered a negative, then you don’t really want to work there, do you?

That really is the essence of what I know as one of the secrets to happiness in life… find the people who accept you for who you are. 

When you are willing to be real, to be yourself, all the time, new doors open that more than make up for the ones that are shut by the people you didn’t want to work for anyway.

P.S. I know some of you are reading this and saying “but I need a job yesterday and I can’t afford to be picky or do anything that will make someone not talk to me.”

And I feel you, and I know that it’s tough out there, and survival comes first, so you do what you need to do.

But try to do it for the short-term, and keep the faith in your career vision, because it will always be my firm belief that you deserve to work in a place where you can be yourself and I want you to believe that, too.