Why experience and training make a difference in success

There’s a difference between someone who has experience or mastery in a craft and the person just starting to learn. Looking at the musician in the photo, you can assume he has played for a long time. He is confident that he can produce beautiful music. This musician may be naturally gifted but you can also assume that he has invested time learning his craft.

Why does experience make a difference?

Since we finished remodeling my kitchen, I started baking bread again. Baking bread makes me feel good. I enjoy trying new things. I had some successes, I made some mistakes, and I had some total failures.

One batch of rye bread had to be tossed out. The book I often use for bread had both a narrative or storytelling version of the recipe and a regular recipe page. I was following the narrative. The problem was that there was an error in the amount of salt. I was concentrating so hard on the ingredients that I didn’t think about the salt amount. 2 Tablespoons is a lot of salt. First, the bread didn’t raise and then when I finally put it in the oven, the final product was inedible.

If I had taken the time to read both recipe versions right away, I would have seen the 2 teaspoons in the recipe listing. But I didn’t. If I had baked bread regularly, I also would have understood that there was a problem. But I didn’t have enough experience to recognize the problem.

As I continue to practice my skills in bread baking, I probably will find more consistency in the product. When you develop experience, you generally can be more successful.

Why does experience matter in resume writing?

You often read articles saying you should write your own resume. But like me baking bread, you need experience writing resumes to capture the success stories that intrigue the reader and make them want to call you for an interview.

I work with a range of clients. Yesterday, I worked with a mechanical designer and learned about nanotechnology as I was writing his resume. Though I can’t be an expert on every field, my skills in resume writing taught me to ask the right questions. As we talked, I searched for ways to ask him the right questions to be able to find not only his experience but his passion. We discovered that his joy comes from working on leading edge projects and transforming the operations to be the most efficient and successful way to create the product.

His experience came through as we captured story after story of the contributions he had made to companies. We also discovered that he had always been recruited to his next positions because someone else recognized his value. He will find a new role quickly because he realizes his network is critical to his success.

As an experienced resume writer, I can help job seekers better understand how to market themselves. It isn’t that a person can’t write their own resume, it is just that most people don’t have my depth of experience helping thousands of job seekers find their next job. Experience matters!