The Winding Road

How to Land Your Next Job Without a Resume

• Travis L. Scott • Episode 49

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If you have a non-linear career path, you're all but guaranteeing that you're throwing your resume down a black hole when you apply to jobs and lead with your resume. 

In this episode, I give you the framework to never have to do this again.

Topics discussed:

  • I made a promise to myself that if I had to look for another job, for whatever reason, I was not going to find it leading with my resume.
  • Find a way for people to talk about you when you're not in the room.
  • People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
  • How to find a mentor
  • How to find and reach out to people you think are interesting and would like to get to know better.
  • Why hosting an event is a game changer


Books I mentioned or recommend reading on this topic: 

  • The Proximity Principle by Ken Coleman
  • Croissants vs Bagels by Robbie Samuels
  • Two-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray
  • Lose the Resume, Land the Job by Gary Burnison
  • The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
  • Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon


Connect with me:

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Ep#49-How to Land Your Next Job Without a Resume

Hey, it's Travis and welcome to the Winding Road Podcast,

doing a solo riff. again, this is what I used to do all the time. now I, I interview a lot, but, want to just do a little bit more on, on the solo riffs. So this week, I. Did a couple of presentations for the marketing, the Mo Pros, the marketing ops, professionals or marketing ops.com, career fair, and my presentation was how to land your next Job Without a resume.

I'm also building. a cohort based course in Maven around the same topic. And I'm building a course for Mo Pros as part of their professor's program, around the same topic. So it's kind of my theme right now, in a lot of ways, and I think it's vitally important. couple of years ago, I made a promise to myself that

 if I had to look for another job, For whatever reason, I was not going to find it leading with my resume.

I just wasn't, Even, even though I, I'm a former recruiter, a lot of times in a lot of companies, it's a black hole. and especially if, if you're one of us, if you have a non-linear career path, if you've made some pivots and you don't fit into that box, that that recruiters and hiring managers wanna see.

You don't fit the story of, of what they would do if they were in your shoes. And that's, that's a lot of it. Really. That's how recruiters and hiring managers look at resumes. There's a, there's a bias there. and, you know, it's, it, it's, it's unfortunate, but it's, it's psychology. It's just the way that it works.

And so, I had promised myself that I was going to build professional relationships really with nothing expected. No expectations of anything in return. Just get to know people in my field, different fields, share my knowledge and experience and insight with people and learn from other people and try to be generous and helpful, and just be a human.

And any, any way I, I could and, and for the last couple of years, that's what I've done and I, I can tell you that I feel a lot more confident. About where I'm at with my career and my security that I have in a long time. I'm 47. some people might be shocked to know that I'm that old. I don't feel that old.

I don't act that old, and I think age is just a number. But when I turned 40, it was different. I was scared to. About my career because I had been in recruiting and I know that ageism is real. I know that when you look on job descriptions, you'll notice the majority of the time, what's the number of years of experience they want three to five.

Who has three to five years of experience, people who just graduated just within the last four year. They haven't even been in the world of the professional world, world for a decade yet. There's still so much to learn, but they're inexpensive and knowledgeable. They can get the job done,at a, at a discount compared to, older peers.

So I get it, but it doesn't bode well for us who, who are older, who have a lot more experience. and not everybody wants to climb the ladder. Not everybody wants to be a manager, which I think is expected. And if you want to be an individual contributor, your salary might have to just kind of remain flat for a while, I guess.

unless you can prove value otherwise. But the, the key is to keeping your salary at a high. Getting the job you want at the company you want to work for is building a real, a, a brand for yourself. I hate that term. I hate per, I hate personal brand and things like that, but it's a reputation. And just like any product or service, you need to have people talk about you when you're not in the room.

You need to have people recommend you when you're not in the room. When they come across somebody out in in their world and that person mentions, mentions a problem, they say, Hey, you need to talk to so and so. You need to talk to Travis. He's really good at at marketing ops. So that's where you need to get to.

And that just is, goes with building professional relationships, building trust, getting to know. Them getting to know you and what you do and, and what you're passionate about, what you enjoy, what you're really good at, and so that's why I've, I, you know, when I, as I've built my first course, And I'm doing some presentations and some talks and things like that.

This is a topic that's really, really close to me and personal to me, and I know a lot of people are frustrated out there. I I, I talked with someone in the pre, in the, during my workshop yesterday at the career fair who said that, that they had applied to over 80 jobs. 81, I think, to be exact, and has not heard back from any of them, which is absurd.

And she's working right now. so she doesn't really need a, a job, but she wants a different job. and I thought that was unbelievable to me. Especially when we hear these job reports that keep coming out. Job people are still hiring, even though there's layoffs everywhere, people are still hiring. And, I mean, it's just that to me is, is is gross.

To not hear back from any of them is just, that's horrible. And, and that's what's gotta change. And the way companies hire. I mean, you have to get back to people, period. Even if you're not gonna move forward, you've got to communicate. You, I mean, there's so many tools and automation is, I mean, people would be fine with an automated message if yet they haven't talked to anybody yet, just so they know, like to cross it off and not keep it on their minds.

And so it's just a lack of consideration. It's a lack of professionalism and, and honestly, it's, you know, in that world of, of talent acquisition and recruitment in within companies, people. Numbers, They're not people anymore. that's why I got out, man. It was too transactional. And we're dealing with people's futures here, their livelihoods, their happiness.

It's disgusting. So that's my rant on bad recruiting. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good recruiters out there. I know a lot of good ones. If you want to connect with a good recruiter, let me know. I know a lot of them, but there's a lot of recruiters that are just absolute shit. They're they're ass, so, So I get it.

It's bad. And it's tough out there. And so that's why I'm developing this course. And I apologize for the screaming kid upstairs. That's, that's a remote life, right? and I'm not gonna sweat it. But that's why I think this course, this, this topic is so important. And so the idea, like if you are, if you need a job right now, networking.

Is not gonna be your thing. It might, you might get lucky, but you're going into it with an expected outcome that you are expecting someone to do something for you, and there's not really a mutual social contract there that you're establishing. It's really one sided. Sometimes if it can feel desperate, and that comes.

And so if you need a job right now, what I talk about really isn't gonna be the best thing for you. It might help get you started, It might start to open some doors. But if you have just landed a job and you know, in a couple of years you're gonna probably look somewhere else or do something different, whether it's within the company or outside of it.

that's when you need to start building professional relationships and networking. Kind of hate that term too. It's got a negative connotation to it, but really being human with other humans is really what it, what it is, in a professional sense. And so that's who this episode is for. That's who my courses are for.

if, you know in a year you're gonna be looking. Now's the time to dig into this stuff. So it's about cultivating long-term relationships, not short-term networking. And there's, there's really three areas of focus that I talk about. It's the why, the who and the where. You already know the what you are, what you are.

You are a marketing ops professional. You are a salesperson. You are a, a content marketer, you're a growth marketer, whatever that means. you already know the what. But I think it's really about when it, when it comes to finding a role, building a professional relationship, it's about establishing your why and then knowing your whos and wheres that?

You need to go for that. So when I talk about why. Many of you are probably familiar with Simon Sinek and his books. Start With Why. You may have seen his Ted Talk on YouTube about his Golden Circle. If you haven't, look it up. because it's, it's a classic. It's from like 2009 and I highly recommend it.

But the Golden Circle is really starting with why. Like his book title and then moving out to the how and the what and it, it kind of frames it around businesses and how they should really market and how that, a lot of companies start with what, then maybe they talk about the how their product or service works and then the why and by the time they get to the most important thing, the why they've al people have already tuned out.

Right. And I think it's the same. With your career, with you, and, and when it comes to, to positioning yourself, to, to kind of stand out and be found, I guess, your, to, to build the pillar of your reputation. And, and if you think about it, starting with why. Is the ultimate antithesis of a resume. A resume is 100%.

The what? Well, mostly the what? Maybe a little bit of the how. Hardly ever the why. You might throw the why in a cover letter. Recruiters don't read cover letters. Shocking. You may throw it in like your summary at the top. Recruiters don't really read that. Nobody really reads that. They might, but they're moving fast.

They're scanning, they're looking for keywords that that fit their job description. So your why is gonna get buried, and that's why you shouldn't lead with your resume. So your why is a great thing to put on your LinkedIn profile and you're about, it's gonna be the cornerstone of your, of your messaging really out there to people.

And so in, in that TED talk that Simon Sinek did back in 2009, I think. He said, People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And he's talking about companies and products and services. Right? But then he went on to say, when it comes to hiring people, and this is kind of from the employer's side of things, the goal is not just to hire people who need a job, it's to hire people who believe what you believe.

If you hire people just because they can do a job. They'll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they work for you with blood and sweat and tears. And I think that's true the other way around. If, if the company and the managers you have that you work for, believe what you believe, you will work for them.

you'll wanna work for them. And, and if they, if you believe what they believe, they'll want you to work for them. The what they'll want, the what should be there to some degree, some of the what can be trained, and if you find a company who really understands this and, and understands their own values and what it takes to really be successful at their company or on that team, they'll realize the what can be.

What can be trained, right? So, so it's important to define your why and, and your why is really what do you believe in? Why do you want, why do you do what you do? Like for me, why am I in marketing ops and revenue operations of all of the things I could be in within marketing? And I've been in other things and I've, I've evolved and eventually found ops as the perfect fit for me based on.

What I enjoy and especially about marketing and, and so when you think about what you do and if you enjoy it, why do you enjoy it? Why do you believe what you believe about, about your career, about what you do? And once you start to get, and just write down anything at first as an author, I can tell you there is something called a shitty first draft, and you have to do the shitty first draft to get it out out there to then make it better.

So don't overthink it. Just write down the first thing that comes to mind and move on. Because what you wanna do is then create your golden circle statement, and that has, it starts with your why, talks about your how, and then the what. And so I'll give you an example of, of one, and this is my shitty first.

Something I just wrote out really quickly that I'll eventually update over time. My why is I'm passionate about marketing and revenue operations and believe that technology, data processes and hiring the right ops people are the keys to unlocking a company's growth. My how is. Hiring a marketing ops professional who can optimize tech stacks, create clean, usable data, optimize processes, and manage HubSpot, which is what I do.

I'm a HubSpot Solutions partner, is the best way to do this to, to set your company up for growth. Essentially, the what? I happen to be a HubSpot Solutions partner, so you can see that if I would've led with I'm a HubSpot solutions partner, that might not have meant anything to. And they might have tuned out and I would've lost them from the very beginning.

But because I started with my why and what I believe and what I feel is important and, and what I think can help companies grow, hopefully that sparked their interest and they're like, Okay, tell me more. So, So if you have a chance, sit down, watch Simon Sinnek. Ted talk, Read his book. Start With Why It's always good.

You don't need to to do this part, but then write down your why, why you, what you believe and why you're doing what you're doing. And then kind of then, then your how, how, how, how do you achieve? Your why, And then what, how, how does your, what fit into it? Basically, the what that you would put on your resume about what you do, who you are.

and then, you know, now let's get into the, the who and the where and, and really the, the, the crux of building long-term relationships. And so let's talk about the who and, and I'm not talking about the band, I'm talking about people. and so think about who's, who's your. Who are some people that you would like to reach out to and connect with, that you think would be interesting?

You'd love to, to chat with them one on one if possible. who are those people? They could be within your discipline or outside of it. and as most of you may know, I, I read a lot of books. I'm a book nerd. I love reading and. And in the show note notes, I'll link to several books that I think are good overall books for thinking about building a professional, professional network of people and building and cultivating relationships.

But one in particular that I wanna talk about now is called The Proximity Principal by Ken Coleman. In that book, he talks about the how and and the, the who and the, and the the where. But I really want single out the, the who part of his book. And he mentions early in the book, in order to do what you wanna do, you have to be around people who are doing it in places, in places where it's happening.

And I think that sums it up. And I think that sums up building professional relationships, right? He also goes on to categorize the who in five different ways, professors, professionals, mentors, peers, and producers. Now talk a little bit about what those are. So professors are kind of what it sounds like they're teaching courses.

so on HubSpot. Kyle json and a lot of other people at HubSpot actually lead on demand courses for certifications and for training in HubSpot and within different areas of marketing and, and ops. and so it's, it would be good to learn from him and the other professors there at, I don't know if that's what they call 'em or not, but the other people leading courses at HubSpot and then connect with them on LinkedIn, on Twitter, follow them, engage with their posts.

At some point, if you have a lot of questions you'd love to ask them, reach out and say, Hey, I'd love to sit down and I've got a lot of questions for you that I'd love to ask. Or if you have a podcast, even better, get 'em on your podcast. Easy, easy, win. and so just find people who are putting out courses, putting out workshops who are teaching.

The thing is you wanna learn, start to follow them outside of the courses and then start to engage with them outside of that. and then you've got professionals. Professionals are oftentimes considered thought leaders. Kind of hate that term too. I hate buzzword if you haven't figured that out by now in corporate speak.

But they're, they've got big followings usually, on Twitter and LinkedIn and it, and. Follow those people, engage with those people. A lot of times on LinkedIn there's a, when you follow someone, there's a little bell in the upper right corner. Turn that on, and then that way you'll get notified when they have a post, out there.

And the sooner you can get to that post and comment, the more likely it is that they'll engage back with you. if you're like two days late in commenting on a post, they're, they've probably moved on. But if you want to kind of be visible, be. Engage with that person in a meaningful way, be early to comment.

that's, that's really gonna be your best bet there. And so, so if there, there's some people in your world, follow them. Engage, make sure that, you know, have their notifications. Same with Twitter. You can get notified as soon as someone posts something. So just be early to the conversation and learn from professionals.

Be observant. How they talk about things, watch, pay attention to what they talk about. I mean, they're usually sharing knowledge. That's what they do. That's why they're a thought leader. Right? And, and start to imitate that. And ts Elliott has said talent. Talent imitates, genius, steals. And really what that means is learn from these people, imitate them, replicate what they're doing, reverse engineer what they're doing.

And then over time you'll start to insert your own, Like, don't steal their comment, their their content, word for word, but try to recreate it in your own way for your own topic. imitate their style, things like that, their format, how do they organize things? Just kind of reverse engineer what they're doing.

And then you kind of present in a, in a similar way. And over time what'll happen is you'll start to modify it, you'll start to add your own elements, your own flare, so to speak. And that's when now you've stolen it and made it your own. And that's where genius steals. And I, I think I. One time also that, well, I think that's irrelevant anyway.

and when it comes to professionals and stealing, quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes, if you can't see it on the podcast. one of my favorite books is called Steal Like an Artist. You've probably heard me talk about it before by Austin Cleon. He writes the book coming from more of a creative point of view.

But the concepts, the framework can be applied to anyone doing anything. So it's a quick read. I would highly recommend you have that on your bookshelf and you read it. it's a fantastic book. One of the best out there. Another category is mentors, right? And if you've never had a mentor or you won a mentor, now's the time to go find one.

And the thing is, it can be a little scary, you know, like asking someone to be a mentor can be awkward. And a way around that is to kind of single out somebody you, you may know kind of know and try to reach out and get a regular call scheduled with them. Maybe start once a quarter. Just say, Hey, I'd love to catch up.

I have some questions. I'd love your thoughts on. And come prepared and frame it as just a, Hey, I've got some questions I'd love to, to ask you about, and then do it again the next quarter and the next quarter. And then at some point it might start to become clear that they're kind of a mentor to you. And, and then all of a sudden it clicks.

And then you can say, Hey, I'd love to do this on a more frequent basis. How about once a month? How about every other month? and next thing you know, you have a mentor. And even if it never comes up that they're a mentor, they're still a mentor, they just, they just may not take that title. Or it may not be official, but, but if there is someone you're close to, that you know well, that you'd love to learn more from then approach them and just say, Hey, I'd love to learn more from you and your experience and I, and I'd really like to have a mentor.

Would you be open to being my mentor? As simple as that. Right? And a few things to think about when you. Are looking for a mentor. Try to, and this depends on where you are in your career, but try to find someone with about 10 more years of experience than what you have. because they're gonna, they'll probably, they, they probably have been down the road.

that you're on, they've already gone down that road and they can tell you, Hey, here's, here are the curves, here are the bumps, here are the potholes. Here's what you should try to avoid. Here's where I tripped up. These are the mistakes I made and learned from. And they're gonna know all that stuff. They will have done it.

They will have. Seeing the things that you'll eventually see, but you can't see now. And that's critical. And they don't have to be in your field or doing exactly what you do. Sometimes it's, it's nice to have a couple of mentors, one that might be in your field and one that's not to learn. Just how a different perspective on things that you might be able to bring, bring back, to, to your career.

And three qualities that Ken Coleman talks about in his book Proximity Principle are. These people are accomplished and that they're understanding and they're caring. If they don't care about you or your career, they're not gonna be a good mentor, right? They might just want to talk the whole time and talk about themselves, and that's not really that, that helpful.

so those are some tips on finding a mentor and what to look for in a mentor. The next group of people are peers, and these are people you know, you consider friends. They might be friends within the same industry you're in. They might be friends who do similar things to you but are in different industries.

So let's say you're a director of marketing, at a healthcare company and you have a friend who's a director of marketing at a manufacturing company, Start doing more things, especially if you're local, like go for hikes once a month in the summertime. or walk or walk together or go for coffee or do something.

especially outside of. non-work activities that will just get you talking about all kinds of things that might not even be work. And eventually the, you'll just find that, that these people and just engaging with them will elevate your game. Just over time. another thing to do is create a mastermind group with some peers.

that, that's a very helpful thing. Easy to do, lightweight,thing to do just on Zoom once a month. the last category of people of, of the, who are producers, and they're gonna be a little bit more d. To build relationships with. These are the people who are running businesses, building teams, making decisions, really making shit happen, right?

They're gonna be VPs, C level, other leadership roles. They care about winning more than they care about being a mentor. I mean, you may find people who are interested in being a mentor, so people enjoy it, even, you know, at that level as well. But if you get a meeting with, with somebody, that, that would be considered a.

really come prepared. And, and if you can provide any kind of reciprocal value in return, try to, it might be difficult, but, but really come prepared. you know, they don't want to have their time wasted and, and, and you might only get one chance to meet, meet with that person. So, but, but still, nonetheless people to, to, to connect with and, and try to, try to get to know better.

Let's pivot now to the where, where do you find these people? Where do you meet these people? you know, some examples, and I think for me, one of the best places to meet people right now are in communities. they can be communities that are on Slack. They can be on like Circle or Mighty Networks. Mo Pros, the marketing operations professionals.

Is an example of a community and they're, people consider them safe places. place where you can be open and talk and, and the people who are in there, there's a, a relative level of trust. if you're in there and they're in there, you have something in common, right? And there's a, a built in trust factor to some degree.

And so, so start to pay attention to the conversations that happen. Find some commonalities if you can, and then reach out to people who you think are interesting that you just like to get to know better. Or maybe you, they've said something in a channel and you wanna learn more, you want to dive a little deeper, just reach out to them in a dm.

If it's in Slack or whatever, just say, Hey, I'd love to, to learn some more about what you said, the other day about X, Y, or z. You have time to hop on a call and kind of dig a little deeper into that. And most of the time they'll say Absolutely. cohort based courses and interactive workshops, kind of like what I'm building through Maven around this topic.

I've met a ton of people through courses and workshops like that. A ton of people all over the world. And it's nice because you're in this kind of tight knit, tight group going through the same thing. Some courses last a week, others can last. Months. And so you really start to work with people on certain topics and going through this experience together at the same time, can really start to to build up some bonds and form some, some good friendships.

And I would highly, highly recommend cohort based courses and interactive workshops, not just because I'm building one, but because that has been a huge. Avenue for me to build my professional network over the last couple of years since really about 2019. LinkedIn is a good place. I think when, when it, I mentioned the, where LinkedIn might have been the first place you, first thing you, you thought of.

It's a little more difficult there to, to do that. there's more people there. It's not considered as safe of a place. Trust is an issue cuz it's riddled with sales people and recruiters who are always trying to to sell you something. It's a little more difficult. But what I've found is if you start to form relationships in the communities, in the workshops and courses, and then you.

Bring that out to LinkedIn and you follow them on, You connect on LinkedIn, you engage with their posts on LinkedIn, then you can start to really build some momentum and, and build upon that relationship in more of a daily basis. Right. And, and, so that's how I would approach LinkedIn is use it as just another way of building relationships you've already built somewhere else.

in person conferences, they can be scary, they can feel like big networking events. And if you're an introvert like me and you hate, like just going up to someone you don't know and trying to start with small talk, like, I, I hate that I can't do it. It's not that I don't like small, small talk's fine, Right?

It's finding a commonality. I just feel like I'm annoying people, but if you do it right, and there's a book about this as well called Croissants versus Bagels by Robbie Samuels, and I'll put a link to that in the, in the show notes. In person conferences can be remarkable. For building relationships, starting relationships, and, and I think you kind of owe it to yourself to attend at least one in-person conference.

Now that C'S somewhat behind us, things are a little safer. Attend one in-person conference a year and commit to meeting people, and it could be a game changer. The other thing is hosting an event, and if you're a subscriber to my email list, I talked about this a month, a couple months ago, I hosted an event.

I followed the, the framework that Nick Gray outlined in his book, two Hour Cocktail Party, and I started with friends and people I knew locally neighbors. Things like that, just to kind of build the muscle right, to get some experience, try it out in a, in a more familiar way. And it was fantastic. It was, it was great to get everybody together.

I think everyone appreciated me being the impresario of pulling people together, and I enjoyed it so much that now I'm going to take. To the next level and do host an event with people that I don't know, locally, and I'm having a, and I'm gonna start having themes. And so this month, in November, you're probably listening to this next year, but I'm gonna host an event.

Locally at a, at a hard site brewery, I guess you'd call it, with marketing ops and rev revenue operations people here in the Spokane area. And I've reached out to people on LinkedIn that I didn't know. I asked to connect with them, and then I also said, Hey, by the way, I'm hosting this event in November.

Would love if. If you're interested, I, I'd love to send you an RSVP link and I have about eight people or so, RSVP and may have more as we get closer. And I think if you can break out of your comfort zone and do that, I think it's a tremendous way to meet people. so, so seriously consider hosting an event.

And so I wanna wrap it up. By saying, When you're building relationships, think about your why. Really think about the who and the where, and there's a plethora of of who's and wheres and focus on, as Dory Clark mentioned in her book, The Long Game, what she refers to as Infinite Horizon networking where.

There is no end game to it. There is no expectation of what you'll get in return. There's just an infinite horizon to this relationship. There is no end to it. So if you go out and you focus on that and you think of building personal relation, professional relationships in that way, and you leverage some of the things that I've talked about, you will set yourself.

To be in a really good place to where if something were to happen to your job or you wanted to, to make a pivot, you know, making a pivot. Try making a pivot into something where your resume has no experience of what you're pivoting into. Knowing someone who trusts and, and knows you and knows what you're capable of is gonna be huge.

And so if you plan to pivot, if you plan to make a career change or, or a job change at some point down the road, and I'd say most of us are because who sticks with the company for 40 years anymore? Nobody. So this applies to just about everybody and. Infinite horizon networking. You do it now. If you're not looking, that's the best time.

Start building it now and you will feel a sense of security because nothing's secure. People go and work for companies and they think that's the safe bet that it's secure. I mean, look at the layoffs happening at these tech companies that get over leveraged and they've been mismanaged and now they have to let go 15% of their staff.

That's bad management. That's a bad company. that you can't weather a little bump in the road without laying people off. I mean, that's horrible. So that's not secure. Companies aren't secure cuz they're focused too much on quarterly, quarterly, quarterly. And if a bad quarter is on the horizon, they're gonna fix it so their shareholders don't freak out.

And then all of a sudden things will get back to normal. And now they're gonna be hiring and then they have to replace all these people, train all these, I mean, it's just stupid. It's so short term focused, but it happens. And so I would say working for yourself is no more, no less secure than working for a company, but that's just my riff on that.

But seriously, infinite horizon. Networking, build professional relationships, long term relationships, and you will be in good shape. That's what I've got for this week. I'm out.



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