Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:00
You wouldn’t say Timmy is responsible for his clients investments because it’s too general and underplays Timmies impact a better way to explain to him his career would be.

Chris Villanueva 0:13
And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma career warrior podcast where our goal is not only to help you land your dream job, but to help you live your best life. Today, we’re going to touch upon some top questions here. Are you using top keywords in your LinkedIn profile in 2024?

Chris Villanueva 0:28
Do you need to include the company’s address or your own in a cover letter? And also, how should I phrase my professional experiences on my resume will cover all these questions and more, but also would acknowledge the fact that I am the CEO and founder of Let’s Eat, Grandma, a professional resume writing service. If you are a mid, or senior level professional head on over to letseatgrandma.com forward slash podcast and we have all the resources for you.

Chris Villanueva 0:54
And I also wanted to shout out our review of the month here. This comes from Clay, who says I was skeptical at first spending a sum of money I’m quite attached to is a big deal. And I want to make sure that I’m still getting a return on investment.

Chris Villanueva 1:08
This company did not disappoint. I received an initial resume review and a follow up call from Matthew, I found this very reassuring. We put Katie on my case. And she was amazing, very professional and asked all the right questions the finished product, including the LinkedIn refresh beyond what I expected. Thank you so much clay for giving that review. And I hope all of you listening. If you’re in the same position, you can also seek out our help.

Chris Villanueva 1:36
So for this episode, I’m going to focus on some very specific questions from our blog. This is such a valuable data because I was quickly taught that you all have some very specific questions. And when it comes to your resume, your LinkedIn, your job search. So these were top responses on Google search. So I have to give a special shout out to our past blog managers, Katie McIlroy, and Daniel Lorenzo for helping to develop a blog that got ranked by Google for many of these responses.

Chris Villanueva 2:06
So I will delve into detail some of these blog articles and give you some encouragement as you all embark upon your job search here.

Chris Villanueva 2:14
So our first question that was inspired from our blog is do you need to include the company’s address on a cover letter? This is a very good question. Because the conventions of a cover letter say that, yes, you need to include all of these formalities and all of the things in the top left hand side of the cover letter, we’ve done it for decades. So you need to do it. Now. That’s what the convention says.

Chris Villanueva 2:40
But my hot take is this is something that may be outdated, and I personally don’t think it is something that’s necessary anymore. So the marvelous Caitlin sky Bennett or sky says, quote, since the company knows their address, you don’t need to include it in your cover letter. And since your header has a contact information and sitting on it, you don’t need to write out a full address.

Chris Villanueva 3:02
So there you have it, write your next cover letter without the company address or yours. And you’ll have so much more room for the stories, values and personal voice that will actually get you hired. So really well put, I think, and I think you can kind of just rest easy knowing that you should focus on those stories and not the conventions that we’ve been tied to for decades here.

Chris Villanueva 3:25
The next question is, are you using the top keywords for your LinkedIn profile and 2024? So a lot of you are focused on applicant tracking systems and getting the right types of keywords on your resumes. But did you know that LinkedIn can open up a whole new world for you and a way for you to get noticed in your job search.

Chris Villanueva 3:46
So by including the right types of keywords on your LinkedIn profile, and including them in the right way, we can make sure to get the most opportunities to really maximize the interviews that we get when we embark upon our job search here.

Chris Villanueva 4:00
So the brilliant Daniel Lorenzo says the difference is in how these keywords are used. While resume keywords are tailored to each job description to pass through an ATS for one specific position you apply to LinkedIn keywords can apply for multiple positions to make you appear in the searches of multiple recruiters.

Chris Villanueva 4:19
So my advice to you would be think about all of the different types of positions you’re applying for. So if you’re applying for let’s say, a marketing manager position and say for example, an SEO analyst position, those are two different types of resumes you can have, make sure that your LinkedIn profile is generic enough and you’re including all of the different types of keywords that can be used for both the marketing manager and the SEO analyst position.

Chris Villanueva 4:45
So you may need to include more keywords. LinkedIn keeps putting more emphasis on skills these days and I would say it is okay to include more skills and to include them in that about section to include those there. So I will make sure to link this blog article because I think that it can give you some more inspiration on how to include that.

Chris Villanueva 5:07
The next question is about phrasing. And so this blog article says this phrase can hurt your resume synonyms to use for quote responsible for. So my hot take is that every single job seeker listening to this needs to hit Ctrl F on their Microsoft Word and look for responsible for and obliterate that remove that completely from your resume. This not only makes you look weaker as a job seeker, but this just ends up kind of giving you more of a verbose professional experiences section and you can just really get a lot more power by integrating the action verbs in your resume.

Chris Villanueva 5:46
So Cheyenne Jouvert says speak about yourself the way you’d speak about a friend. Think about how you’d promote your friend to your supervisor, if they applied for a position at your company. You wouldn’t say Timmy is responsible for his clients investments because it’s too general and underplays Timmies impact a better way to explain to him his career would be that he quote, championed a $3 million portfolio for a fortune 500 company.

Chris Villanueva 6:12
So think about the ways that you will communicate your experience. And as job seekers as professionals, I should say, we are taking action, and we’re doing so much work and effort. So make sure to put those action verbs up front and remove the phrasing that is just weak and responsible for definitely falls within that category.

Chris Villanueva 6:33
So this is a short episode, but I want to make sure to link blog articles within the description of this episode. So feel free to tag me on LinkedIn. And are there any questions you have submit either something through Let’s Eat, Grandma, or reach out to me on LinkedIn. And I would love to review what questions you have and come up with an episode.

Chris Villanueva 6:51
If that works. For publishing schedule, we really are open to the questions that you have. And I want to make sure that we’re addressing these things in a way that makes sense for you. So I will link the blog articles within the description of this episode. And I hope you have an awesome rest of your day. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks Go out be Warriors

Chris Villanueva 7:10
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.

Chris Villanueva 7:30
We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search in 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.