I talk with job-seekers all day long. Before I hear their stories, I see their resumes. Most resumes are boring. They all sound alike. They are full of business jargon like “Motivated self-starter with superior communication skills.” You would never know that behind the awful resume is a funny, vibrant person you’d love to know. The first way most job-seekers sabotage their own efforts to get a new job is in their resumes and their LinkedIn profiles, both of which tend to be awful. These are branding documents! You don’t have to sound like every other banana in the bunch.Even if you believe (falsely) that employers are dying to read your robotic-sounding resume, written in Corporate Zombie Speak language, surely you can see that nobody wants to plow through that awful boilerplate verbiage in your LinkedIn profile. You can use the first person in your LinkedIn profile and your resume, and talk about yourself the way you would at a block party or a kids’ softball game, like this:I work in factory automation sales. I represent two lines of products that make factories faster and more energy-efficient. I got into sales after spending eight years in engineering, so I know my products inside and out. You don’t need to talk about being a “results-oriented professional.” Anybody can say that. Nobody has your story except you!Even if you pitch your resume into the void using Black Hole automated recruiting sites (and I desperately hope that you do not), a human being will still need to look at your resume on the other end of the Black Hole before you get an interview.What do you want that person to think about you as they look at your resume? Do you want them to see that you are smart and interesting, or do you want them to see nothing but the dates and titles of your past positions and all the Zombie Speak phrases that make you sound as boring as every other job-seeker? The second way job-seekers sabotage themselves is in their job-search approach. I already mentioned how much I hate online job applications, a pox on the recruiting field and an insult to job-seekers everywhere. While we wait for employers to junk these horrendous systems, you still need a job, so it’s worth learning a new and more effective way to job-hunt!You can find the specific person in each of your target employers who will hire you into that company and be your manager there. That person is your hiring manager. Here’s how to find him or her by name. Once you have your hiring manager’s name, you can easily find a mailing address on the company’s website.You can send your hiring manager a letter — not a cover letter, but a pithy Pain Letter that talks about your hiring manager more than it talks about you!This is how effective salespeople sell. They focus on the customer rather than blathering about their product or service’s features and benefits. You will do the same thing in your Pain Letter. Culled from forbes, written by Jacob Morgan.