AUDIO: If you’re a woman, why you didn’t get the job

SACRAMENTO
January 8, 2010 12:01am

Looking for a job or a move up? Forget about flooding the market with a pretty resume. If you’re a woman, think of yourself as a box of cornflakes. It might help you avoid being turned down, says an expert in preparing women for hiring and promotion.

“What you identify first are the marketing channels and the sizes and types of companies, then you back into your resume, just like you were going to market a box of cornflakes,” says Vicki Brackett, president and chief executive officer of Make It Happen for Women, of Parker, Colo., a career coaching and marketing company for women.

“Ask a man why he’s great at something and he’ll be happy to tell you. But a woman will give credit to other people – it’s the team, it’s the family, it’s the organization, it’s the client, it’s the customer” says Ms. Brackett. “That’s a fabulous leadership skill, but not a good way to do a job search.”

(Vicki Brackett talks about how women unknowingly undermine their success – and how to avoid it – in today’s CVBT Audio Interview. Please left-click on the link below to listen now or right-click to download the MP3 audio file for later listening.)

Ms. Brackett says that having experience, the right information in the résumé and providing the correct answers in an interview may not be enough to get hired today.

“Women need to market themselves like a product. Understand what the market wants and then give the market what they want,” she says.

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Comments on this story

AJ 1/9/10 5:41 AM
hmm, interesting article. I don't think women have any problems marketing themselves as a product. History shows that women are actually quite adapt at it. I think that rather then attributing the lack of getting hired to not packaging themselves as the new hot product the market wants. The individual should consider instead that maybe the employer didn't think they were qualified or possessed the necessary experience to fulfill the job duty. At the end of the day, I hire a individual who can perform the job duties (man or woman), rather then the package their selling me. Unless I was running an illegal "entertainment" business.