Maybe like me, you struggle with self-worth every once and a while. Honestly, self-worth is something I have struggled with since middle school. This was compounded by the series of awful nicknames I had as a kid. Guitar nose, Ichabod Crain, and others didn’t help my self-worth. Despite being called some pretty terrible names in school, Jesus found me towards the end of my middle school career. Knowing that I was worth the death of Jesus Christ changed a lot for me. Sure people still made fun of me throughout school, and even after, but I pressed into my relationship with God the creator.
This post isn’t completely about my hardships growing up. I give the background as I think it is an important part of the story. When I say that my resume sucks I don’t mean that it looks bad. In fact, I paid someone on Fiverr to make sure it was formatted correctly, the spelling was correct, and it communicated my education and job history accurately. These are all things that are important when putting together a quality resume. What do I mean when I say “My Resume Sucks”?
My first job at a church I was recruited by the pastor to be the Audio Visual director. This was a part-time role and I was grateful for the opportunity. I ended up at a series of tech type jobs over the next 8 years. In May of 2009 was the first time that I needed to put together a resume. I was “laid off” from the church I was working at. I sent my resume to at least 50 different churches across the USA. I didn’t even get an in-person interview. Why? I was applying for jobs outside of my job history.
The problem was I wasn’t passionate about doing tech. I was at heart a leader that found a place and paying job in tech. Most of the positions I applied for were worship leader jobs or pastoral positions. I believed I was qualified for the positions I was applying for. My resume did not reflect that. I will admit that I am not your typical tech person. I like spending all day in meetings and do not like spending all day hanging and programing lights, setting up a stage or editing audio/video. I know that not every tech person does like these things. Let’s be honest, I was more comfortable on stage speaking or playing than I was on the sound board. This truth about me was very hard if not impossible to communicate on my resume as my titles and paid positions clearly stated I was a “tech person”.
The implications of the mismatch between job history and, what I would consider being my calling, led to nearly 6 years of constant “no’s” from perspective employers. This brought me right back to middle school and early high school and my self-worth began to suffer. The result of my self-worth suffering was that I was a real jerk at work. This created a vicious cycle of bad interpersonal interactions at my current job, Central Tech Lead at a multi-site church. These bad interactions limited my chances to move into a position that I thought I was best suited for. My resume hadn’t really changed, which made applying for jobs worse than it was 6 years before.
What did I do? The first thing I did was employ a coach. Andy Kerr, who had been a long time friend, ministry partner, and local pastor was my first call. Through a series of conversations with Andy, the scales began to fall from my eyes. I realized that it was my attitude not my resume that was the problem. I spent time raising my leadership lid, as Maxwell says. This meant spending the time learning and growing as a leader. Andy and I put together a plan for raising my leadership ability. Through my relationship with Andy, it led to an introduction to Rick Schenker. Schenker was the CEO of a national apologetics ministry called Ratio Christi . Because I prepared ahead of time, when the opportunity to speak with Rick came up, I was ready. Shortly after this, I started working for Ratio Christi, and gave my 6 month notice to my church. My resume is starting to reflect my calling, but I still believe it doesn’t give an accurate representation of what I can do professionally.
Do you have a calling on your life? Have you spent time thinking about how to achieve that calling? I didn’t spend enough time thinking about either of those questions. It wasn’t until I had a coach that these things started to fall into place. The experience I had with a coach, helped me realize that I wanted to help other people the way Andy helped me. Maybe you are having a hard time getting to where you know God has called you, just like I did. Coaching changed my attitude, my outlook, my self-worth, gave me the confidence I lost and moved me forward.
What do you think it could do for you?
Plugged into leadership 