Career Warrior Podcast #300) 5 Top Tips from Professional Resume Writers

Episode Transcript

AI Bot: Welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast, the best resource for professionals hungry to take their careers to the next level. I’m your host, Chris Villanueva, and I’m thrilled to be your guide on this exhilarating journey towards professional fulfillment.

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AI Bot: I am Chris, the host of the Career Warrior Podcast. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Chris: You’re not the host of the show. You’re an AI bot. Now leave before I do something about it.

AI Bot: I’m going to kill you Bris.

Chris: Not if I can help it! This is grandma!

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Chris: Welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast! If your goal is to transition to more meaningful work, achieve better pay or reach that flow state at work? This is your podcast. I am Chris Villanueva the founder of Let’s Eat, Grandma, the best resume service that puts customers first. This is episode 300. Oh my gosh, we made it all the way over to our 300th episode. And just a fun piece of trivia 300 is a 2006 American epic historical action film. It is based off of the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco Persian War that is straight from Wikipedia.

In addition to my goofiness, I wanted to do something else special for our 300th episode, we are looking to expand our reach, “So scratch my back and I will scratch yours” for y’all for the month of June only. If you leave me a review or recommendation on Apple or Spotify, I will personally look over your resume cover letter or LinkedIn profile. Now this is a special offer that pretty much is gonna go away on the last day of June, so make sure to leave a review on Apple or Spotify and then head on over to LinkedIn, I’m Chris Villanueva CPRW and connect with me letting me know that you are a career warrior and I’d love to give you that personalized review. Again, this is just going to be for the month of June. If you leave a review, I will personally look over this document of yours. Now that being said, I am very busy. So just at least allow a week for me to get you your review back. But I personally would love to connect with you. I always say yes to connection requests for fellow warriors, and I don’t say yes to everyone. But if I see in that personalized connection request that your listener, I would love to connect with you. All right.

So when we are stuck in our home office staring at our old resumes, it can often feel like we are walking alone error job search, we start to feel like there’s this pressure to come up with something amazing on our own. And this is one of the reasons why the job search can be so stressful and it can feel lonely at some times. And I’m here to put an end to that discouraging feeling right now. Whether or not you’re currently working with a resume writer or a career coach.

What this episode serves to do is offer some voices and some sidekicks for you want to start to get that resume in the shape that you want it to to start getting those results in that confidence that you so deserve here. So recently, Annabelle Weisinger collaborated with a resume writing team. So Annabelle is one of our All Star resume writers, and she compiled these top five tips from our resume writing team to help you to boost your job search. So I will call upon the solid and talented voices of our resume writers here at Let’s see grandma and offer you these tips. So you can start to get your resume in tip top shape. That is my goal is for you to feel better about your job search and to offer that real human connection here.

Tip number one: write accomplishment based bullet points. This one comes from Katy McElory, LEG Managing Editor. Katie says, “focus on results not just job duties. Instead of simply listing your job responsibilities, highlight your achievements and quantify them whenever possible.” This is such great advice because I have looked at so many resumes and 90% of them just don’t get this bullet point right. They don’t get writing bullet points that stand out and the best way you can make your bullet points stand out is by talking about what you specifically did not what your job responsibility called for. Not what the HR job description says online. Not what ChatGPT busted out. When they sent you a generic marketing analyst position, resume. Now I’m talking about what you did in your past that made your tenure at the company that your workforce special. So make sure to draw out accomplishments, metrics and numbers in your resume, because this is what’s going to excite hiring managers. And this is what’s going to make your resume stand out compared to all the other people who just put their job descriptions within their resumes.

Tip number two: target your resume. This comes from Jennifer Walker, an Executive Concierge resume writer for Let’s Eat, Grandma. Jennifer says, “your resume will be much more effective if you have a target in mind. And recent graduates in particular tend to think of a resume as the tool to get any job and their desire and willingness to work for anyone who will hire them is commendable.” But I use an archery analogy that seems to resonate, imagine you were blindfolded and holding a bow and arrow when you’re trying to hit a target. But you have 360 degrees of space around the shoot at the smaller you can make the area you’re aiming for the greater your odds of hitting something, can imagine what that would be like trying to shoot an arrow with a blindfold on. And I would probably not hit that apple at the top of that guy’s head, I probably would end up just shooting straight through a window. And oftentimes we do this when we send out our resumes. I just, I just looked over a resume this morning. And what they said, Really, it was disheartening to see that because this person was sending the resume out to any job that they felt that they could do. They were like, I don’t care what industry I don’t care what job this is, I’ll pretty much take anything at this point because I just need a job. And I understand this frustration. And it’s almost this, this desperation to get anything that will accept us. I mean, maybe you’re not in the case to where you’ll take anything, maybe you’ll be open to a lot of stuff. It’s okay to be open to the different opportunities that come your way that may surprise you. But when we’re talking about our resumes, we need to make sure we draw the connection between the document that we present and the actual job that the company is calling for it’s trying to fill. And so if yes, if finances are concerned, it’s okay to take a job that you otherwise wouldn’t the job that you may be overqualified for this is completely understandable. But make sure to target your resume. And to get clear, and I would just categorize you know, what are the two types of positions that I’m applying for, and then write to targeted resumes for those jobs. If it’s true, you’re applying for two types of jobs, the need to have two targeted resumes. Trust me, this is based off of marketing and sales principles that have worked for a long time, and this is the way to get your resume noticed.

Tip number three: always check your file type. Lola Salaverri, a recruiter and professional resume writer for Let’s Eat, Grandma says, “make sure your resume is in a PDF format to increase your chances of the system understanding it correctly. Most ATS, which stands for applicant tracking systems, will understand a .doc file but as a general rule, always send your resume in a PDF format and never as a JPEG.” Yeah, thank you, Lola. I appreciate this one. Because I have received all sorts of different types of file types in the last 10 years, and some of them have been like dot pages file, some of them have been like these weird formats that my computer can’t even open. So read the instructions. If it says PDF, send it as a PDF. And if it says a Microsoft Word document, make sure to send it as a Word document. But that’s probably the biggest thing I would say is pay attention to what the directions say. And these days, I actually tend to prefer PDF too. So PDFs will not mess up your formatting and they’re so easy to read. So make sure to understand the file type you’re working with here.

Tip number four: combine metrics and personality. Kelly Crawford, an Executive Concierge Writer for Let’s Eat, Grandma says “My tip is to combine personality with job data and metrics to create a three dimensional summary of the client. For solid executive level summaries, I asked questions that draw out the client’s personality, and I learned so much more about them than by sticking to metrics. I spent 10 years in HR and learned that professional leading questions get people to open up without the added pressure of speaking about their work.” Okay, this one goes above and beyond because we said our very first tip Yeah, make sure to include accomplishments and metrics. But this one not only says to include metrics, but find ways to integrate your personality within your job search. Again, this is the thing that makes you unique and uniquely qualified for a particular role you’re applying for and so the kind of simple way to take This advice that might be a misconception would be okay, I’m going to integrate my personality. So what does that mean? I put bubbly, I put humerous in the resume or I just start putting every hobby that I’ve been interested in, and the resume. We’re not necessarily saying this, but we are saying is to go deep and understand what are the things that excite you about the current role that you’re in and letting those things come through in your job search documents. Now, the cover letter, I will say, it’s a pretty easy opportunity to integrate your personality because you can speak in your voice and your LinkedIn profile, same thing, but ask these questions that Kelly suggests which let your personality shine through what inspired you to get into this industry? What is the best part of your day, tell me something about your leadership style. These are the things again, that make you special and make your resume not this copy and paste document that gets passed on over.

Tip number five: show the big picture but zoom in. Annabelle Weisinger is the person that compiled this list. She’s professional resume writer for Let’s Eat, Grandma and the guide here, Annabelle says, “unless you’re a new graduate, there’s a good chance you aren’t going to be able to fit every detail of your career on your resume. That’s why you have to distill it down, distill it down to its most important, relevant and impactful parts, which takes a lot of consideration, editing and rewriting to get it right.” Oh my gosh, if you are mid career, or you’re a senior level professional, you need to listen to this key piece of advice. Okay, so imagine you are making a marinara sauce. And yeah, marinara is like my favorite thing in the world. So hecky, I’ll use this example. And you throw the tomatoes, you throw the garlic and onions in Italian seasoning in the pot, and it begins to boil. Now at the very beginning of the process, you’re going to have a lot of volume, you’re going to have a very watery marinara sauce and it’s not going to be something you want to serve to yourself, your wife or anyone else just because it’s not going to be very flavorful. But as the heat begins to reduce the volume of the marinara, it begins to get richer and flavor and it begins to get redder and just more delicious.

So compare your resume, especially you mid to senior level professionals to this marinara sauce. You don’t want to want to boil it down to the best stuff that is going to make people want to pull you in for an interview. A lot of these resumes I’m receiving these days, who are people who have 10, 15, or 20 years of experience are presenting this marinara sauce that’s very watered down, and it’s not distilled down to their best stuff. So show the big picture. But zoom in this is really important to note for folks who have a lot of experience here, you can include experiences that are, you know, in 1999, I’m not going to give you a rule of thumb that says you have to get rid of all of the old experiences that go past a certain date, you can show the big picture. But don’t include all of the bullet points and all of the things that you did for that role, especially if they’re not relevant. They’re so in your summary statement at the very top, show the big picture of who you are as a professional, but zoom in on one particular aspect of the role that’s again, targeted, that’s Tip two for the job that you’re applying for.

Alright, so these were five top tips from our resume writing team at Let’s Eat, Grandma, I just want to give a special shout out to the people who were a part of this, because I saw this article come through, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is such an awesome, you know, all encompassing, you know, list of advice here. And I think that this speaks so well to the customers that we serve here at Let’s see, grandma. So this was awesome.

And this was episode 300. I can’t believe we’ve made it here so far in this journey and I appreciate you as a listener for tuning into this podcast. We have had so much history in this podcast, we’ve had, you know, career experts to recruiters, to people who are executives at large corporations, and I do my best here to make sure to give you a well rounded podcast to give you the best advice possible. So if you found any of this to be useful, please leave that review.

And again for the month of June 2023, if you do leave that review and connect with me on LinkedIn. I would personally love to look over your resume cover letter or LinkedIn profile, give you a quick few minute review. And I would love to help you out.

All right, this wraps up episode 300 of the career warrior podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I’ll see you next week Career Warrior Podcast! And before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention. You’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast. Thanks, I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai