Don’t Shy Away From Brutal Honesty if You Seek to Be Better
Listening to another person’s opinion might be the reality check you’re unconsciously looking for
When I was unemployed for 6 months (desperate to get more job interviews), I managed to get a phone call from an experienced recruiter on LinkedIn.
I’m not sure how I pulled that off because I hate to cold outreach someone on the internet. All I remember was that I poured my heart out in that message. No, I didn’t write a novel — but it was a “cry for help” written in a few sentences. It didn’t really matter to me if he responded back. What I really wanted to do is to tell myself that I’ve done everything I can to get out of my career slump. I’d rather try hard and fail than have regrets that I didn’t do all the possible things that I could’ve done. But, to my surprise, he responded and asked for my résumé.
That’s when I realized how pouring your heart out into something (even in your messages) can make miracles.
After sending him my résumé, he asked for my number to discuss things further. I thought, “Wow, this is it!”. Now, he didn’t set up a meeting with me or anything like that. I wasn’t sure if he was really going to call. Self-doubt kicks in when things are uncertain, but I didn’t wanna dismiss the fact that someone responding to my cry for help is already a win.
But guess what? He called…on a Saturday morning…when I was on my way to meet with my family who is in town (just for that weekend).
I asked if we could reschedule simply because the timing was off for me. But he made sure I understood that I was not in the position to negotiate. He goes, “If we don’t do this now, then I don’t know when the next time would be”.
Looking back, I realized how asking to reschedule was ungrateful because it’s not like I’m paying him for this time or his advice. It made me question myself: is my career more important than meeting with my family?
But there’s no time for life analysis — my family was waiting, and I didn’t wanna miss my chance to get advice from someone who could save my career. I had to be present and really listen to what he was about to say. However, things didn’t go as “positive” as I thought they would be.
For the first 45-minutes of our call, he asked questions that I had no answer for.
He would read a qualification on my résumé and then asks (in an aggressive tone), “Why did you do this? Why didn’t you write that? What made you think that was a good idea?”
The only response I could come up with for all of his questions was, “I don’t know…”.
Then he ended the “interrogation” by clearly stating what he was really trying to say: You are delusional for thinking you can get an interview with an elementary résumé.
Ok ok, he didn’t say it in those exact words, but that’s what I felt.
This whole time, I thought that my résumé was A+ (because it’s the same résumé that got me my last two jobs). Only to realize that I was so wrong about it! Because if it was that good, then I would’ve had more than one interview in 6-months…of sending résumés…daily. I almost burst out crying during those 45-minutes (feeling like I deserved to be unemployed). But the last 15-minutes of it were filled with words of hope and encouragement.
He goes, “You have potential. But you just didn’t know how to show it on your résumé. I also understand how you lost confidence in yourself because of all the rejections you’ve had”.
After hearing those words, the last 45-minutes of bashing my résumé didn’t matter. I realized he had no intention of making me feel like I’m a piece of shit. But he needed to do that to help me see the reality and acknowledge it for what it is.
That’s when the value of brutal honesty dawned on me.
“Brutal” in the sense that it needed to be emotionally and spiritually painful. I’m talking about a traumatizing kind of pain that makes you say, “I’m never ever doing that ever again!!”. Because if it wasn’t, I would still be the same person — the kind who refuses to see things for what they really are because it’s painful for my ego.
While his approach made me tear up while sitting on the curb of a sidewalk, I was grateful for it.
Honesty is not about stating what’s positive (that’s called a compliment). It’s about stating the hard truth — regardless of whether it’s something you want to hear. The further you steer away from the hard truth, the more challenging it is to improve and achieve the success you are looking for.
It took one painful phone call to update the way I see things.
It got me to where I am today — happier, healthier and more successful than that person who waits for luck to give him a break.
