If you ever find yourself blurting out the words “I’m a quick learner” in an interview, you’ve already lost.
These words are the kiss of death.
Might as well pack up your bags and go home and re-evaluate the interview.
But, Robbie, isn’t being a quick learner a GOOD thing?
Yes, it is. It’s great actually.
Here’s the problem:
Nobody wants to pay you to learn when they can pay someone else who already has the experience.
I wish that Donald Trump would go on national TV and tell everyone how much he loves resumes so everyone would finally start hating them publicly.
If I had a choice between spending the day with Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, or a pile of resumes, I would ask for double the time with Trump and Kimmie over spending a minute with the resumes.
That’s HOW MUCH I hate resumes.
Now let me tell you why.
The original purpose of a resume was to create a single document that outlines your experience & skill-set for future employers. It was a fantastic tool.
The problem is that things have changed. A lot.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects 1,791,000 students at the bachelor’s degree level will graduate as the college Class of 2013.
Let me write it for you in long form just in case you missed that number. There are ONE MILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY ONE THOUSAND people graduating from College in 2013 in the U.S.
That’s a shit ton of competition. So you start looking for a job, except there is one problem: Looking for a job sucks.
I, Robbie Abed now declare the Cover Letter dead. It is a useless waste of a word document. For every time someone uses a cover letter, a kitten will die.
There are two problems with cover letters:
Let’s play a game. I will give you two recruiter’s responses to a résumé that has “I am very motivated and can learn quickly if needed” in the objective statement or cover letter. You pick which one is most likely the response from the recruiter.
Ready?