I was listening to Paul Harvey yesterday as I was running some errands and he was talking about the founder of J.C. Penney. He quoted Mr. Penney as saying that you can't sell anything if you aren't sold on yourself and your product first. I was mulling that over as I was weaving through Saturday traffic and braving the big box store crowds. You can't sell anything unless you are first sold on yourself and your product. Hmmm.
Basically, that's saying that you first have to have confidence in yourself before anyone else will have confidence in you. That really applies to job search. When you cut right down to the core of things, job search is a selling action. You are selling your expertise to the prospective customer (the employer). Sometimes, you use a middle-man, a recruiter, as part of that sales process, but you are still selling your expertise.
If you take Mr. Penney's comment in the context of job search, then you can't convince the employer you are the right person for the job if you don't truly believe it yourself. It's all in the attitude. If you are convinced you have great skills, you can do the job, and you can communicate that confidence well, the employer will buy or interview you and possibly hire you.
That communication is where most people stumble because it is the resume that communicates that confidence first. In our Western culture, we are trained as children not to brag or boast or toot our own horn. That's probably good since if we weren't trained that way, we'd be a society of insufferable buffoons. However, in job search, communicating confidence in yourself is VITAL to success. What sounds braggadocios in conversation simply communicates confidence in writing.
The most common problem we see in self-written resumes is the lack of power or confidence. Most people are fairly good at getting their job duties and responsibilities down on paper but it's communicating the accomplishments, value, and strengths that are lacking. Often, job seekers can't see these things as accomplishments but rather just something that they did. That comes from being too close to the subject which creates lack of objectivity.
As a professional resume writing firm, our job is to bring that objectivity to the resume so the value and the accomplishments make the candidate stand out in the crowd. You should never write your own resume for the same reason doctors should never treat family members - you are too close to the subject and have emotional ties that cloud the real issues and create disconnects in decision-making.
Is your resume communicating that you are truly SOLD on yourself and your abilities? If it isn't, you aren't going to be able to convince an employer that you are the right person for the job. Time for an investment in objectivity.