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Short-term jobs are common in todays employment landscape, so dont fret if you have a few brief stints on your résumé. Not only can such experiences at several organizations showcase the breadth of your experience, your ability to adapt to new corporate cultures is also a skill you can sell. But you do have to sell it it, and HR experts explain how to positively spin your employment scorecard and answer questions about your résumé that hiring managers may ask. Should you list all your short-term jobs on your résumé? Your résumé can be the first impression you make, so let it reflect an accurate history of your experience. Your résumé sets the tone for a transparent dialogue with potential employers, says Jaune Little, director of recruiting services at Insperity who is based in Houston. Honesty builds trust, and trust is the foundation of any successful professional relationship. From her vantage point as a recruiting executive, Little says todays career paths are less linear. Many professionals are taking on project-based or exploratory roles to build skills, broaden their exposure, or recalibrate their long-term goals, she continues. This kind of career agility reflects curiosity and self-awareness but knowing how to frame them in a conversation or cover letter can be make or break, she notes. How to upskill and highlight various job stints on your résumé Its best to be prepared to answer questions about your short employment stints. Here are a few ways you can frame a shorter stint to highlight your learnings and intentionality when asked for in a job interview: Why were you only at that company for five months? Be forthcoming, say the role wasnt a good fit. Little recommends answering with a response like: The role wasnt what I expected, but my experience there clarified what Im looking for. Show self-awareness, integrity, and a commitment to meaningful work by describing what didnt align for you, the steps you took to pivot, and more importantly, why, Little outlines. We are wondering what caused you to leave this job after only a few weeks? If the role was a contract opportunity, be sure to convey that, by having an answer ready. Little says this reply will leave the interviewer understanding more. Tell them that the The role was short-term by design. Its also valuable to add context around an intentionally short project-based or contract role, sharing that you are open to opportunities that help you to build different skills quickly, and where youre able to contribute in a focused manner for the benefit of your skill set, asserts Little. As long as you are prepared to offer context and an explanation as to why your tenure at these companies was brief, it can be framed as an edge. At the end of the day, HR professionals are looking for storytelling and context that makes sense, Little says. If your résumé reflects thoughtful decisions and real contributions, it can easily be framed as a competitive advantage. Just be ready to explain why you did itand how it made you better. Should you always include brief job stints on your résumé? If you were at a job a very short time and it didnt add anything to your skill set, in some cases omitting it from your résumé is acceptable. Theres a difference between being strategic and being misleading, says Joshua Smith, a senior vice president at Adecco in Dallas. If a role lasted a few weeks and had no impact on your trajectory, it might be reasonable to omit it. However, if that brief stint sharpened your skills, or improved your decision-making or your career path, youre better off including it with context, he clarifies. The key is to frame it well in your interview dialogue, he says. Keep in mind, a gap with no explanation, he says, tends to raise more red flags than a short stint with an honest story. If you leave it out, you must be prepared to address the gap, as smart interviewers will ask what you did during that time, Smith advises. Ultimately, can you spin that several shorts stints were helpful to your development? Smith says several roles over a short period of time do present your ability to be nimble and agile so you can turn perceived instability into a story of momentum. To do this, he suggests you might say: Each role gave me the chance to stretch different muscles, solve new problems, and build resilience. Or While some of these roles were brief, they were highly intentional. I sought out environments where I could quickly add value and accelerate my learning curve. Another component to consider regarding your whirlwind work history could be that your interviewer is curious about your professional path. As someone who partners closely with HR and hiring leaders across industries, I can tell you the first instinct is curiosity rather than judgment, says Smith. We care more about the why than the how. Use your cover letter If your résumé could spark questions, opt to use a cover letter to get in front of it. Smith says even a brief letter that addresses your circumstance could work to your advantage. He suggests framing your cover letter this way: My recent roles have each been targeted opportunities where I was brought in to support transformation, lead through change, or build something from scratch. Offering this statement simply will set the tone with maturity and ownership and will showcase your ability to be transparent, which is vital in the interview process, he says.
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E-Commerce
Late-night Zillow scrolling just got a little easier on the eyes. The residential real estate platform announced that dark mode is now available on its iOS app. Just tap your profile icon in the top-right corner, then tap app settings, select the dark app theme, and voil, you can scroll through listings more comfortably in the dark. “Your midnight move starts here,” Zillow says. Dark mode has been one of Zillow’s most requested features, the company says, and before the update, the best fans of dark mode could do was use a browser extension that offered a three-month free trial. Dark mode is popular for reducing energy consumption (and saving battery life), and Zillow says it’s about more than just aesthetics because it reduces screen glare and eye strain in low-light settings. [Image: Zillow] The reason Zillow dark mode took so long to arrive is because the companys app has many content-rich screens, including interactive maps, listing photos, and financial tools. Designing a dark mode wasn’t as simple as applying a dark theme across the board, Zillow tells Fast Company. Extra attention had to be paid to elements like color-coded map pins that show different listing types and statuses such as rentals, for sale, new construction, or homes youve already viewed. Zillow has 227 million average monthly unique users. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zillow usage surged as Americans on lockdown dreamed of moving to a new place. Today, scrolling Zillow without any purchase intentionknown as Zillow doomscrolling (or Zillow therapy for some)is how many people use the app since mortgage rates remain high and home sales are softening. At least with dark mode, there’s one less reason bedtime Zillowing will keep you up at night.
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E-Commerce
How do we tell our story? That’s a familiar phrase in brand marketing. Its a decent question, but heres a provocation to challenge this conventional wisdom: Storytelling and marketing are no longer reliable ways to build and grow a brand. To understand whats to come, its useful to look at what gets awardedand what doesntat the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Based on what we saw last week, the patterns indicate that marketing, storytelling, and, in particular, the marketing funnel, in a conventional sense, have become less dependable. This framework has long been defined as: Company builds brand (awareness) Brand attracts customers (interest and consideration) Customers buy product (purchase) [Image: I&CO] In the past decade, three factors have emerged and dominated human psyche, culture, and marketing: short-form video, people as brands, and heightened consumer expectations. These shifted the power dynamic between brands and consumers, rendering the traditional marketing funnel doctrine less relevant. As marketers and brand builders helping companies grow, what we should be asking now is this: How do we build trust? Trust has always been essential for any brand, but it’s becoming a new, essential currency. The premium on trustworthiness has increased as the line between what is real versus generated or what is true versus not becomes indistinguishable. Here are the four steps of Trustnomicsthe new currency for brand growthin an algorithmic, agentic, and synthetic world. Identify your key product moment A key product moment is a distinct feature that makes the product value visible and readily understandable. Weve been obsessed with storytelling and marketing and overlooked the power of key product moments for brands. Look to the French insurance company AXA to see the power of a key product moment with measurable impact. Home insurance policies typically guarantee emergency relocation for fire and flood victims. AXA added de violences conjugales (and domestic violence) to contracts for its customers. It is a promise to help survivors of domestic violence escape by providing emergency housing relocation. Three Words is a profoundly simple key product moment that makes AXAs product value immediately tangible and morally differentiated. Within six months of adding domestic violence coverage to its policies, AXA provided emergency relocation assistance to more than 500 families. Customer trust metrics increased by 27%, and brand consideration among women ages 25 to 45 rose by 34%. The German discount supermarket Penny created another example with its Price Packs initiative. After redesigning packaging to display fixed prices in bright colors and big fonts, and showing its commitment to price stability, Pennys store traffic increased by 22% and market share grew by 3.2% in key regions, despite broader market volatility. In customer surveys, 78% of shoppers cited price transparency as a key factor in choosing Penny over competitors. To earn the currency of trust, dont tell why your brand is better. Show why its different in the product. Treat product as content Theres a brand that was on everyones mind and lips but didnt win any Lion inside the Palais: OpenAI. The company has grown by treating product as content. OpenAI publishes product-related press releases and articles several times a week. There is little effort in creating an emotional connection with consumers through marketing or storytelling. CEO Sam Altman understands that products are the make-or-break for any business. In an information era that is becoming agentic, the best way to earn attention and trust is through the products themselves. The brand that understands product as content best iswait for itApple, the Grand Prix winner of Creative Effectiveness for its decade-long Shot on iPhone initiative. At the ceremony, everyone was hoping for an emotionally driven, brand-led campaign. Quite the contrary, Shot on iPhone is technically a product demo, which creative judges and types often look down on. As appealing as brand marketing has been, a better way to earn trust, build a brand, and drive business now is by treating product as content. When you do this, though, you have to have a point of view and stick to it. Kudos to the Apple team for being highly disciplined and single-minded with their Instagram page and not littering it with product ads. Dont confuse product ads with product as content. [Screenshot: Apple/Instagram] Repeatable system > Scalable campaign Using Apple as a guide is aspirational but unrealistic. Most marketers and brand builders dont have $48.5 billion sitting in our bank accounts to spend on huge campaigns, media buys, or expensive productions. The Japanese streetwear brand Human Made, founded by the ultra-hip Nigo and supported by Pharrell Williams, was established in 2010. Despite its celebrity status, it had modest growth for more than a decade, and its revenue hovered around 1.7 billion yen (roughly $11.6 million). When Rei Matsunuma, a longtime Uniqlo executive, joined in 2021 as Human Mades COO, he created a 52-week product planning calendar and addressed supply chain issues. Then, he started Daily Tsdaily drops of date-stamped white T-shirts, making each days T-shirts unique and exclusive. [Image: Human Made] These were not shiny, scalable campaigns that would see much limelight at marketing industry events like Cannes. Instead, they were repeatable systems that generated consistent demand among brand fans and prospective customers. In less than four years, Human Mades revenue grew sixfold to 10 billion yen (nearly $70 million), with a presence in more than 80 countries and minimal investment in storytelling or marketing. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit, wrote Will Durant in his 1926 book, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers (paraphrasing Aristotle). Repeatable systems beat scalable campaigns. Flywheel of Trust By the time a business problem reaches marketing, its too late. When culture moves in real time, no marketing funnel can save a business. We need to turn our funnel mindset into a flywheel. [Image: I&CO] The flywheel of trust framework is based on the product itself, which is now the main driver in attracting customers. Company creates product Product attracts customers Customers trust brand Brand differentiates company In the past decade, this phenomenon has increased. Besides the aforementioned examples, others like Stanleys Quencher or Uniqlos Round Mini Shoulder Bag became sensational hits without relying on emotional storytelling or brand marketing. These brands gained traction not because they asked How do we tell our story? They asked, How do we build trust? If we translate this flywheel into tangible action, the four steps of Trustnomics are: Identify your key product moment Treat product as content Build a repeatable system Kick the flywheel of trust into motion As the world shifts from the information era to the agentic era, the marketing funnel doctrine is giving way to a new flywheel framework focused on earning and building trust. Trustnomics is not just an ingredient of your brand. Its the currency that powers brand growth.
Category:
E-Commerce
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