For years I've marvelled at how many of my smartest friends and acquaintances ha

ve suffered prolonged periods of unemployment and underemployment. Despite havin

g loads of relevant experience, lots of personality and even pedigree educations
, many of them have often suffered exceptionally long periods between jobs: wher
e even interviews were scarce.
One day, however, I happened upon an article about how "smart people" (i.e, peop
le with higher cognitive abilities) tend to actually be subject to a greater (co
gnitive) "bias blindspots". In other words, they are more prone to incorrectly t
rust their gut instincts (heuristics) when making decisions. As a result, they o
ften make more mistakes of reasoning than the rest of us mortals. In particular,
smart people tend to see bias more easily in others than in themselves.
When I reflected on how this finding might have some bearing on the plight of my
very smart friends and their job seeking challenges, a lightbulb turned on. Cou
ld it be possible that my friends' presentations of themselves to would-be emplo
yers reflected these bias blindspots? Could it be that their intelligence actual
ly stood as a hurdle to their professional progress?
I took a closer look at their resumes, CVs and profiles and here is what I casua
lly observed:
1. Many smart people don't have profiles that "look like they are looking" (for
a job). In my long years of corporate life I've realised that recruiters and HR
managers like to put people into little boxes. If you have a CV or a LinkedIn ti
tle that says something standard, such as "CFO", this is easy to understand, pla
ce, source and recruit. Even if you appear to be happy and settled in your curre
nt job, recruiters may approach you.
However, if you have some obscure title (that, ironically, better describes who
you are and what you do), like "financial wizard", you're likely to get overlook
ed because it takes too much time for a recruiter to wade through your profile t
o match needed skills. You probably won't come up in a keyword search anyway. As
a result, many smart people that present themselves as these sorts of self-suff
icient, entities may be greatly reducing their chances of getting noticed.
2. Smart people often have profiles that are too lengthy and detailed. One of th
e by-products of high intelligence is the ability to do more activities in short
er amounts of time than most other people. As a result, it's not uncommon to see
a smart person's CV spanning 10 years look like that of an average person's CV
of 20 or even 30 years. The problem, however, is in the presentation.
If the smart person tries to go into detail and list every experience, nook and
cranny of his or her life, the recruiter is likely to get information overload a
nd overlook relevant experience. Furthermore, long or crowded CVs (with some reg
ions of the world excepted) may look like a person is trying too hard. It would
be better to get to the point, highlight the relevant experience, skills, tools
and pedigree in a logical format.
3. Smart people often look too narrowly at their experiences--selling themselves
short. Oftentimes, I've mentioned a job lead to one of my smart friends--having
a pretty good idea that it's a job I think he or she can excel in--only to have
him or her say, "I am not an expert in that area."
This compartmentalised, conservative way of thinking seems to come right of some
belief that one must always remain in a certain comfort zone--moving from job t
o job with no growth, except what comes internally. That may seem natural, but i
t's not professional. It will get a person no where if he or she hopes to advanc
e and leave a person jobless if he or she rejects every opportunity that is not
a perfect match to his or her experience.
The lesson seems to be that if one wants a job, one needs to be willing to leave
the comfort zone of past experience, at least to the extent of seeing where one
's skills might be transferrable.
4. Smart people tend to prefer expressing themselves in terms of results.
Many of the smart people I know are over-achievers: They speak more loudly with
their performance than with their mouths. Yet, while no one disputes that one of
the most important elements in a hiring situation is that the person being hire
d can do the job, candidates need to first get to the interview stage before the
y can demonstrate those accomplishments.
To that end, many higher cognitives may need to learn how to express their accom
plishments, talents and skills in succinct ways that speak directly to how they
can help an employer. They cannot rest on the knowledge of having once done a gr
eat job somewhere else or on the expectation that, in relation to the previous p
oint, someone will have wade through their lengthy resumes to marvel at what the
y did.
5. Smart people tend to be "too" humble.
Despite the caricature of many obnoxious, Wall Street types--toting top school d
egrees--as bores who talk, at-length, about themselves, most truly smart people
don't really see themselves as smart or exceptional. Rather, most of the high-IQ
'd view the ways that they operate as "normal" and in accordance with how everyo
ne else thinks and operates. Only over time do they discover that what they do i
s often "strange" by comparison--such as reading whole novels in ancient Greek d
uring an evening at home.
The upshot (or downshot) of this is that many smart people don't know what to em
phasise in their skillsets or experience--that is, they don't know how to articu
late it. They also don't know how to talk or write about their accomplishments i
n ways that hit all the buzzwords recruiters might be looking to hear (or that s
earch engines might be prone to pickup).
This excessive humility may not stem from genuinely humble feelings by the perso
n that he or she is not qualified (i.e., e.g., an insecurity) but from an ignora
nce of what the 'rest of the world' finds important in a suitable job candidate.
At the end of the day, smart people looking for a job need to get smarter about
how to present themselves!
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