Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How to get an employer to review your resume – spoon feed it!

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spoonfeed2136507155_3b31d1f9ab_mYesterday, I reminded you that it’s  not a good idea to order your Chinese food in French. Or, more specifically, to use the language that your targeted employer will understand when writing your resume. Today, another food analogy:

Food analogy #2: You need to spoon feed the employer exactly what you have to offer.
In other words, you would not hand an infant with no teeth a whole apple to eat; he or she wouldn’t know what to do with it. (For the uninitiated, take my word for it here. The baby may just throw it back at you and still be hungry. And crying.)

Instead, you would offer applesauce and manipulate the spoon full directly into the infant’s mouth. Similarly, (see where I am going here?), you need to give the employer exactly what he or she needs and understands with regard to what you offer that will help him or her. Just like a baby couldn’t really care less about YOUR needs, your potential employer cares most about his or her own requirements and is not all that interested in what YOU want.

To extend the analogy, you better not be serving up green beans if the baby employer wants bananas! To top it off, the bananas need to be peeled and mashed and on the spoon if you want a chance to succeed.

So, two lessons from this analogy.

#1 – The resume is about the employer and how you directly fit what he or she wants. Spending a lot of time including things on your resume that are unrelated to the job at hand is only going to confuse the employer and make him or her wonder why you are interested in THIS job.

#2 – Don’t expect the employer to spend a lot of time figuring you out. If you aren’t making it easy to “eat” your resume – if you are passing crunchy apples when applesauce is preferred, you are not likely to pass the initial screen, no matter how great your underlying skills may be.

The fact is, recruiters and hiring managers are too busy to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your job is to break things down for them into easily digestible, bite-sized pieces AND spoon feed it directly to them. When you do make solid connections between what they want and what you offer, you will find that your search goes much better and your chances of landing an interview increase exponentially!

If you are ready for a change and could use some help with your search, follow THIS LINK to learn more about me and how we can work together!

photo by seandreilinger

Improve your job search prospects: Don't order in French at the Chinese food restaurant!

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chinesefood429537352_e3f1654733_mFor some inexplicable reason, I seem to be thinking of a lot of food analogies when I’m coaching clients. I’m blaming this on reading too many peoples’ lunch and dinner menus on Twitter, but the analogies really do make a lot of sense when thinking about the job hunt.

For example, I was explaining to a prospective client how important it is to identify and target job and career goals in order to write a resume that will appeal to employers. She was having trouble deciding where to focus her search, and rather than choose some specific areas to address that would appeal to hiring managers, she combined everything in one resume – kind of a “jack of many trades” document, in an effort to demonstrate all of the various “things” that she could do.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times – the resume must speak in the language that an employer will understand. If that job requires someone who knows how to “develop proposals and presentations detailing new implementation process plans implemented by top management,” saying that you have done that is terrific! If the job has nothing to do with developing proposals and presentations, that language might as well be Greek to the hiring manager simply stating your ability to do that task is not likely going to help your cause.

Food analogy #1 – Would you go to the Chinese food restaurant and place your order in French?
Not if you want to get your order right, you wouldn’t! Similarly, you need to speak the language that your target audience will understand.

To do this successfully, you need to:

1. Know Your Skills
Assess your skills and accomplishments. How? Talk to your friends and co-workers. Review written evaluations of your work. Think about the skills you use/d in your positions. Study a skills and accomplishments list.

What aspects of your job do you enjoy? What type of work do you hope to do in the future? What skills do you have that will be the stepping stones to getting to the next rung of your career ladder? Once you identify what you have to offer, it will be easier to connect the dots between the employer and you.

2. Know the Employer
What does the organization value? Use the job description as a guide and research the company using the internet and any available published material. For example, if the organization uses the words “team player” four times on their company home page, you will want to emphasize your ability to work well in teams. If possible, conduct informational meetings with people in the organization or those who know about it.

Parse their information down and pull out the language that resonates with your audience. Identify exactly what they want and demonstrate how and why you fit the bill.

For more information and some examples FOLLOW THIS LINK! Stay tuned for more food analogies…I need to get something to eat!

If you are ready for a change and could use some help with your search, follow THIS LINK to learn more about me and how we can work together!

photo by voteprime

Using your "motivated skills" on your resume

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motivated221946800_60549aa0bf_mYour resume is highly optimized. It is skills focused and accomplishment driven. Take another look. How many of those skills are the ones you actually enjoy doing? Are you emphasizing what you might be GOOD at doing, but don’t care to do at work?

Richard L. Knowdell spoke at the Career Management Alliance conference, and I was intrigued by his suggestion that coaches advise clients to OMIT skills from their resumes if they are skills the job seekers do not enjoy.

In a tight job market, this advice seems extreme, or even foolish, on first glance. Shouldn’t we all be marketing everything we have to offer? It’s a recession, after all! So, I posed the question on Twitter: Should job seekers leave off (or de-emphasize) skills on their resume that they do well but don’t enjoy?

Veronica replied, “As job seeker, I don’t think should leave off any skills that could help get a job. Each circumstance individual.” @vmodarelli

Sam Blum, Co-Founder and CEO at Razume said, “Resumes are marketing documents, not statements of personal interest. I say list any skill that can give you an advantage.” @samblum

Reasonable replies, certainly.

However, my goal (and that of my colleagues in the career coaching world) isn’t only to help people find and land jobs, but to secure positions doing what they enjoy. My friends who are experts in personal branding have a different take!

Deb Dib, a CEO coach and personal brand expert explained: “I leave them off/give subsidiary placement. Don’t want burnout skills attracting interest; fit won’t be right.” @ceocoach

Walter Akana, a life strategist and personal branding expert said, “Yes, deemphasize skills that you don’t enjoy. Emphasize ones you do – provided, of course, what you offer creates value!” @walterakana

This makes a lot of sense to me. Why attract opportunities that may be a bad fit?

Two social media/marketing professionals had some practical advice:

Avi Kaplan suggested: “Leave everything on applicable to each job & don’t apply for roles needing skills you don’t want to use,” which Neal Wiser echoed, “If a job seeker doesn’t like doing something, they shouldn’t apply for that job.”

Think about it…Are you over-emphasizing skills you are not motivated to use on your resume? How much time do you spend thinking about applying for and targeting positions that you would enjoy doing? Are you applying for just “any old job?”

I hope this is food for thought…I’m open to your “take” on the subject, but I hope you’ll seriously consider focusing your job search in areas that appeal to your motivated skills. I’m happy to help. Follow THIS LINK to learn more about me and how we can work together to optimize your resume to help you land the job you love!

photo by BPM

How to convert your resume to a text only file

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blue-arrows374707207_612c8c49d2_mThanks to Laura Smith-Proulx for a reminder that resume databases may still require job seekers to convert their resumes to plain text to apply for positions. These are the steps that Laura suggests to convert from Microsoft Word to ASCII text form:

1 – First, ensure that you have saved your new resume document in Microsoft Word format in at least TWO places on your hard drive.

HINT:  For backup purposes, you may also want to email it to a friend or family member in case your hard drive fails.

2 – Next, save your resume document by choosing Save As from the File menu, then using the pull-down menu for Save as Type (under the File Name box) to select Plain Text INSTEAD of Microsoft Word Document.

IMPORTANT: Give your new text file a different name, such as “Resume Text File,” so that you do not confuse it with your original Word document.

3 – A File Conversion window will appear. Check the button for MS-DOS Conversion and the box under it labeled Allow Character Substitution. Click OK.

4 – Now, close the document and go to the Start menu. (When you close the document, you may receive a message stating that the document contains changes not compatible with Word. Click OK to proceed.)

From the Start menu, click Run, and then type in NOTEPAD inside the Open window. Click OK.

5 – A Notepad window will open. Go to File and find the Text File you just created. Click on it to open the File.

6 – You will see your resume shown with some lines put together. This is perfectly normal.

IMPORTANT:  Many lines will scroll entirely across the page, ALL the way to the right. This is perfectly normal and expected. Do NOT change these lines.

Start by adding extra line spaces between lines that seem to run together. Your goal is to add white space in this file so that it is readable.

Separate out your phone number, street address and email address onto different lines.

Do the same with your resume headings, titles and any keyword tables.

Add extra lines in between each resume Section and job. Remember that a human MUST be able to READ this file.

7 – Finally, go to File and then Save to save your changes.

8 – To test and find out how your ASCII Text File will look when viewed in a text box, open it back up in Notepad.

Select Edit, then Select All, then Copy, and then paste the text into an email to yourself. This is EXACTLY how your text resume will look to the reader. If any changes are needed, open the file back up in Notepad, and add white space or remove tabs.

9 – Now, you are ready to use the ASCII Text File to apply for jobs online. When you view a job application that states “Paste Resume Here,” open your text file in Notepad, select Edit, choose Select All, then Copy, and paste all of the contents into the online text box.

Need help writing your resume? Contact me! I will make sure that your materials are targeted and focused on skills and accomplishments.

Is Your Resume Holding You Back?

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If you’ve been looking for a job for a while, and you know that you are qualified, but no one is calling (on any of your phones!) What should you do?

I speak to potential clients who fit this category regularly. Clients suggest many possible scapegoats as to why the phone isn’t ringing:

  • Age discrimination.
  • My experience doesn’t exactly match their needs. No one will give me a chance to prove myself.
  • I’m trying to transition from non-profit to for-profit and they just don’t want me.
  • They look at my previous industry and discriminate against me because they don’t like (fill in the blank).

I would never tell potential clients that these factors have NOTHING to do with their hunt or that it is easy to overcome these possible roadblocks. However, when I review resumes from these job seekers, I usually identify fatal resume flaws that have nothing to do with age, experience or industry. Many times, it is clear to me that these job seekers are approaching their searches with resumes that are doing them more harm than good.

Some examples:

Age Discrimination. Many resumes appear old-fashioned and outdated. They include information that isn’t necessary (such as date of birth), but  omit key resume details (such as dates of employment). If the job seeker is “experienced” (read: older), an outdated looking resume only puts a spotlight on a factor that might be considered a drawback.

Lack of experience. Job seekers who don’t have direct experience in their field of choice make mistakes when they don’t attempt to address the needed skills and stick to a basic “this is the stuff I did” resume. Listing “stuff” isn’t going to cut it when you’re reaching for a job. Focus on those transferable skills. Look at your “soft” skills. Figure out what you have to offer and highlight it for the reader.

Transitioning. Consider how you describe your past experiences. If you are moving to a for-profit, use language that appeals to that employer. Always write for your target. I recently worked with a client to re-write a “non-profit” sounding job description using “for-profit” language. She landed an interview within 24 hours of sending the resume.  If you are applying for a job in France, you’d write your resume in French. Similarly, be sure to use lingo and descriptions that will make sense to the reader. Don’t expect them to translate it!

Industry Discrimination. I’ve worked with clients who believe their current industry isn’t an asset in moving to a new field. For example, a chiropractor who wants to work in accounting. It is easy to write a resume that makes accounting skills and experience the first thing employers will read. I’ve seen many resumes of job hunters who highlight the very information they think detracts from their candidacy!

So, if your phone isn’t ringing, don’t start assigning blame and throwing up your hands until you take a good, long look at your resume. You may be surprised at what you DO control in your job hunt.

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Can’t figure out how to optimize your resume with key words? Need a great resume? Career search advice? Mock interview? Visit Keppie Careers online for information about our services: www.keppiecareers.com.

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