October 22, 2012

When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into your resume

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The current employment climate can create many unlikely scenarios on the job market. As candidates vie for a shrinking number of positions, they get increasingly creative in their tactics with hiring managers.

For instance, there's the story of Greg Drevenstedt, a former "number cruncher" at a market research firm in New Orleans, whose life was turned upside-down after Hurricane Katrina put him out of work in 2005.

After moving to Los Angeles, he found his dream job in 2008, road-testing and writing about motorcycles for Rider magazine, despite having no previous journalism experience. As he explained to career consultant Anna Runyan, Drevenstedt crafted a confident, well-written cover letter and resume that explained how his lifetime passion for motorcycling would resonate with the average reader.

One of the most famous cases of overcoming professional hardships is the heroic journey of Chris Gardner, a talented stockbroker who, in the 1980s, managed to land a coveted spot on the Dean Witter Reynolds trainee program despite being homeless and struggling to raise his young child on the streets of San Francisco.

Though no one knew of his dire situation, Gardner performed well enough to be recruited by Bear Stearns and today is CEO of his own brokerage firm, Gardner Rich LLC, in Chicago. His story was later adapted into the Oscar-nominated 2006 film, "The Pursuit of Happyness," starring Will Smith.

In both of these Horatio Alger-like examples, the job seekers took the unconventional path, transforming unfortunate situations into new opportunities through hard work and innovation. By making lemonade out of the lemons in their careers, so to speak, they provide inspiration to any longtime job seekers who think of themselves as "unhirable."

But what happens when these "lemons" are entirely self-inflicted? What if the career hardships came not from difficult outside circumstance but from the job seeker's own reckless behavior? If there ever was a poster child for resume redemption it is Canada's Brian O'Dea, a convicted felon who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for running one of the largest drug-smuggling operations between the U.S. and Canada in the 1970s and '80s. Not only did he overcome what might be a professional death knell for most people, he was able to turn his life of crime into a resume highlight.

The details happened more than a decade ago, but they were recently rebroadcast in a National Public Radio interview from 2009. O'Dea had kicked his drug habit and was out on parole from his conviction by 1995, but he was also in his late 40s at the time and had no college degree. After dabbling briefly in the venture-capital business, he said he began to despair about ever setting his life straight with a legitimate job. His wife, however, pointed out that after being successful in such a high-stakes, high-risk occupation, he must have some "transferable skills" that many businesses would find highly desirable.

O'Dea began to draft a resume, citing the management skills he employed to build a distribution operation that, at its height, pulled in $100 million a year, employed 120 people, and involved the coordination of a fleet of trucks, boats and airplanes. In 2001, he went so far as to place a brazen classified ad in Canada's National Post newspaper, which read, in part:

Almost immediately, his phone began ringing off the hook, not just from media requests but also from employers seeking his business acumen. After receiving more than 600 job offers, O'Dea went into the television business as a producer and host of a show called "Creepy Canada." He later wrote a book about his life, "High: Confessions of a Pot Smuggler," and currently serves as an adviser for CBC reality-TV show "Redemption Inc.," in which ex-convicts compete against each other to create a successful startup business.

Make no mistake: O'Dea was no choirboy. He was a cocaine addict who ran a dangerous, illegal business that contributed untold misery to the lives of his former "customers." No sane person would ever advise anyone to use his bizarre career path as a model for their job search. However, O'Dea did serve hard time and has made some admirable attempts to turn his life around.

The lesson that can be learned from this odd story is that any undertaking -- even criminal activity -- that is done with a high level of quality requires a certain amount of skills that can be transferred to other professions.

If you're thinking of switching to a new (legit) career and are in despair about your chances of starting over, just remember Brian O'Dea. If an over-60 ex-con pot smuggler can become a successful TV personality, then you, too, are already likely to possess all the skills you'll need to pursue you own dream job.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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career change, finding your passion, job search strategy, resumes, self promotion, skills

2 Comments

Amit De on October 23, 2012 8:09 AM | Reply

Thank you for this very interest post, Randy. Overcoming professional hardships can be quite challenging in such a competitive job market. I still believe in complete honesty and diligence, though. Your title says it all. It’s very important for job seekers to take their negative experiences and learn to use them to the best of their ability.

Erin on October 25, 2012 10:12 PM | Reply

Thank you for your sharing. It is an interesting article.

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