The order of events in our careers and entrepreneurial endeavours is particularly important.
Let’s take the resume. A truncated tiny nano percentage microcosm of a persons capability. And yet people put it in front of decision makers to sell themselves. The moment we do this the person reading the resume is looking for a reason not to like what they see. We are just one of possibly hundreds of the same thing, and the natural inclination of the reviewer is to ‘cut the numbers’.
On the flip side, when we meet someone in person, we are a human. They are also a human. Neither of us are words on a piece of paper or screen. We have a 100% monopoly on the on each others attention. Our humanity takes over and we are both looking for a reason to like each other. Once we’ve met, and our credentials need to be reviewed on paper, they are then looking for a reason to justify doing business with the person they already like.
It doesn’t matter whether we are looking for a job or selling our business to new clients, a human always trumps a bunch of words, pictures or videos. While we need to have both in a modern world, it’s the order they’re presented in that really matters.