How Relateable is Your Resume?

Big thought day today.  I woke up contemplating why I'm not a "yesman" and what makes my experience on my resume so unrelateable.

Let's take a step back...  I am assuming that my experience is unrelateable because in two interviews I received feedback that I am underqualified to work in an autonomous position, and overqualified to work in a support position.  Confused?  Me too.

My two areas of experience in this work world come from very ambiguous, magical areas: making television news happen, and teaching dinghy sailing.  Television seems to boggle the minds of most.  The most typical reactions I get when people see that I've worked at Global Edmonton is to ask if the anchors or reporters are nice.  But what are interviewers actually gleaning from that time in my life?  I never get questions like "so what did you take from that experience?" or "what did you learn that that could be helpful to our organization?".

The other double-edged sword on my resume is that I've spent a good portion of my life teaching sailing to kids and adults.  It's so foreign to people it seems like they don't understand what could possibly come out of it. 

I feel like I need to clear the air and do a better job being more relateable, so I've come up with a bullet list that has nothing to do with tasks I completed in those positions but everything to do with relateable skills.

Television:

• Worked under pressure (sometimes LOTS of pressure) to meet a deadline... every day.
• Learned how to be objective in the interest of truth.
• Turned into a huge team player as everything you do in television relies on someone else, or someone else's job completely relies on yours.
• Learned the value of how socializing with your coworkers bonds a stronger team and gives you a network to trust and bounce ideas off of.

Sailing:

• Sailing is based on teamwork as well.  You must rely on another person to help you achieve your goals.
• Being in charge of a program means that it will only be as good as your ability to pour your heart in, learn new things, and always think of making it better.
• I've learned to manage peoples' expectations. Some students just aren't going to make the standard in the time frame they wanted to and I need to explain why (and how they can still achieve their goals).
• I learned to make tough calls.  Sometimes I've had to disappoint people, but the best way to make people understand is to educate them about why you made your decision.

I strongly believe the era of "listen to me because I told you so" is over.  Gen Y has been programmed to ask why.  So instead of resisting and worrying about losing your authority, explain why, and in turn gain mountains of respect.

If there are any suggestions about how I can translate this relateable content onto my resume in an easy-to-understand way, please let me know by leaving a comment.  : )  Thanks!