Difficulties Describing Self And Updating Cv / Resume

[Anarchy]

First the good news, I just landed a new job, I'm back in engineering (many thanks to friends and acquaintances who have offered suggestions and help). I'll be hideously embarrassed with any congratulations -but I think that goes with this territory wherein we dwell.

Now the question,

do we find it harder to write and update our CVs/resumes than the normal people in this world (all three of them) do?

I find it atrociously difficult, and resist it with all sorts of avoidance, distraction seeking and all of the other tricks: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/writing-resume-over-quarter-of-a-century-of-repeated-patterns.48201/

I can think of several plausible suggestions for why we might find it harder than people without trauma related troubles:

• we have difficulty with time - we often can't think of the future and future benefits.
• we are reminded of old triggers (redundancy, narc bosses and colleagues, bad projects) and try to avoid facing them.
• We might have a very poor conception of self - who are we and what have we (in a dissociative sense of "we") done?
• we perhaps don't value and are self deprecating about our real achievements to the point of either not recognizing them or being embarrassed to appear to be boasting about them - even though this is the situation where we should be putting them onto paper.
• we have learned to think (and hope) that others are not going to be interested in us.

I'd be very interested in your experiences and thoughts, and how those might relate to our different trauma backgrounds; such as a single or at least well defined number of traumas in adult life, complex trauma, especially childhood, and developmental traumas from early in life or even pre natal.

I probably fall into the developmental and complex categories, with crap happening in my first six months and all of the way through school. I also chose a career path in a field that turned out to be very sensitive to business cycles, so I've been made redundant 4 times so far in my career.

all thoughts ideas and experiences very welcome

 

[scout86]

Congratulations anyway? :bag:

I was actually thinking about this a week ago. My T has moved his practice and the insurance companies apparently insist that we pretend I'm a new client. Part of the paperwork was a DSM self assessment test. (I took one look at it and balked!) While fighting my way through that, it occurred to me that it reminded me of the "official job application" process. For the record, I've rarely gotten a job by using a resume and filling out an application. But I've been more or less gainfully employed nearly my whole adult life;

It occurred to me that one similarity between the traditional job application and the form I filled out last week was that most of the questions seem either stupid or unnecessarily vague. "What do I see myself doing in 5 years????? Are you kidding me? I have no idea what I'll be doing next week!" That sort of thing, for sure.

Your last 2 points as well, at least for me, I tend to think "if no one knows I'm here, I can't get into any trouble." Of course you also can't get a job that way!

I'll be interested to hear what others have to say. Meanwhile, glad to hear you got a job!

 

[Deleted member 1860]

For me personally, I know that I have a lot of self-loathing issues so "bragging" about myself feels.....wrong! I know its not bragging, but at the same time, I hate putting my accomplishments out there. Well, at this point many of them are from my past life and I'm on a new path in life now, so I'm not sure how I'm going to feel when I have to put one of those babies together!

Another part of it was that accomplishments were a way of getting "love" from the maternal side of my family (well, most of the maternal side). I think that's part of the reason why I hate getting recognition. I hate those awards I've gotten over the years because I knew that they meant nothing in the grand scheme of life. [And holy crap I just stopped mid sentence there as I realized I was having an 'ah-ha' breakthrough moment!] Awards only got me 'fake' love, not real love, and I saw them as worthless. I think now I have to switch my mindset somehow so that I can see my accomplishments as a means to an end (getting a job) rather than a way of getting love. (My maternal family threw around money, so I also have problems with money = love, too.)

And I must admit, that it is a bit nauseating to see others bragging about themselves on social media, as I sit there and think ok, what is the point? (A bit of a tangent, but work with me here!) Have you ever seen the mundane sort of tasks that people complete that they subsequently use to make themselves look fabulous? (I mean in the little twitter bios and such.) I sort of think that bragging is a bit ridiculous as it just shows ones insecurities and need for approval from others. I know I have accomplished things in life, but I don't feel the need to throw them in anyone's face, especially not on social media. I guess my point is that I find these sorts of braggarts to be very off putting, and I don't want to appear to be anything like that (because I'm not!)

 

[shimmerz]

Because I know that I am saying what someone wants me to say. I hate mis-representing myself like that. What will I being doing in 5 years?

Well of course by then I will be skipping into my office at your company, working until 2 am 'or whatever it takes', all for a basic salaried position, won't care at all if there are no benefits because I am so truly blessed if you hire me, I will absolutely be being a true team player with all of my hopes and dreams wrapped around what I can do for this company, until you decide that it is time to rotate staff but of course I will never complain and then.....

Sorry, on a tangent. Best to step well back.

 

[scout86]

@shimmerz , is THAT what they want???? No wonder I never got one of those jobs! I thought they wanted an honest, serious answer! :banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[shimmerz]

@scout86 , sometimes you are just silly!

 

[Anarchy]

Oh, those BS questions that HR types - who have sweet F A idea about what the job you are applying for actually requires or entails you doing, but who desperately want to appear relevant, useful and actually needed - spring on us in interviews:

"What do you like least about yourself?"

to which the stock answer is "I work too hard".

At a crappy job I had, years ago, while I rode out a recession, there were several female engineers who I got on with really well (I worked ok with the guys too - but I wasn't trying to coerce sex out of the women, like some of them were, as a result I ended up better friends with several of the women than with the males).

One of the women had been poached by one of the big engineering consultancies already, and another who is a lovely, quietly competent woman (with early childhood trauma and dissociative freeze responses written all over her face) went for interview. she would have walked into the job, but for the question "what is the thing you like least about yourself?"

She was startled and answered honestly about the odours of certain body parts

She could have done that job in her sleep, instead the HR orifficer traumatized the poor woman, with the help of her own self loathing. Last I heard, she's happily married to a guy who has adjusted his career to be able to spend more time with her, and their two kids.

 

[sun seeker]

Awesome! I'm so pleased for you!

To answer your question, I have two main problems writing a resume. One is that my work history is so extremely varied. I've done a lot of short contract work, fewer formal jobs, and if I put in everything, it would look odd. So I write targeted resumes depending what job I am applying for.

The other problem is wondering what the point is. Most jobs are obtained by word of mouth, not by presenting resumes. I think I once got a job by presenting a resume, but I probably would have gotten it anyway just by showing up. So it's still more *(&^()*&_) paperwork!

 

[sun seeker]

"What do you like least about yourself?"

to which the stock answer is "I work too hard".

Oh yes... once in an interview I was asked "Why do you think you are the best person for this job?"
I answered, "Well actually, after hearing more about what the job entails, I'm not sure that I am."

Honesty is overrated sometimes.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes @Anarchy I too find it terribly terribly difficult.

 

[Friday]

I'm trying to think if I've ever actually used my written my CV... Once, about 10 years ago for a hospital job. And I didn't get it for the Résumé. I got it by being obnoxius. :D I really need to find a place in the CV to put that. Oh. Right. "Persistant". That's in there.

I darn near wrote up a real resume /CV recently for a lateral thinking job on a lark (to improve the poor person reading them's day). Except that I'd never send a resume for a lateral thinking job, and I started thinking I might actually like the job. I've worked several of those jobs in the past, and you don't get hired by doing the 1+1 thing. Almost by definition.

 

[scout86]

Actually @shimmerz , I had to read some "how to apply for a job" stuff before I realized these weren't exactly supposed to be serious, thought provoking questions. I was one of those people who seriously tried to answer them and it works about as well as it does when my T asks me how I'm "feeling", (Feeling????) Since I'm not a very good liar, I have a hard time coming up with and delivering answers.

It's probably good that I'm self employed! :wideeyed: