Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:00
Oh my gosh, I bet you weren’t seeing this one coming, and I bet you thought that this is something that you are not even allowed to include in a resume well newsflash.

Chris Villanueva 0:12
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. Here are five creative ways to get your resume to stand out.

Chris Villanueva 0:27
Some really solid content coming for this episode. But first, I wanted to announce something even more exciting than I think we’ve ever announced in terms of like promotions. But we are giving away a free resume package for career warrior podcast listeners, this is exclusive to you, the listener of this episode, and we haven’t done this in the last six years that we’ve had this podcast, we’ve never given away a free resume package in terms of a promotion.

Chris Villanueva 0:56
So I am so excited to give this away to you, dear listener. So go ahead and subscribe to us by going to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/, and you could go ahead and put your name in for that resume package giveaway. We are a world renowned resume writing service, we’ve been listed in newyorkpostmoney.com, Investopedia, and so many more, and we are excited to help you do your listener with your resume.

Chris Villanueva 1:25
Alright, so here are five creative ways to get your resume to stand out. I’m going to preface this and say that there are no hacks in life. In fact, if you dive into some of these tips, you’ll realize that they are not superduper easy to execute. In fact, there’s going to be some research and planning and some things that you are going to have to get dirty with. So this is not going to be some quick fix for your resume. But this is really something that I believe is going to be tried and true to help you get noticed to help you get more interviews, and to help you stand out for your next position here.

Chris Villanueva 2:03
So time research, introspection, all of that is required. But I believe these five things are going to be game changers for you potentially here. So here is the first creative way to get your resume to stand out, think like an ad man and come up with some creative titles at the top. So I’ve spent a lot of time working and reading up on ads and running some ad campaigns myself, and this is such an important concept when it comes to creative advertising and getting your message to stand out against the sea of other messages and the just the absolute mess that exists online, we have to be short and punchy when it comes to our creative copy.

Chris Villanueva 2:45
So when we think like an ad man, practically speaking, when it comes to your resume, think about some titles, we call these headlines that we can put at the very top of your resume. This is going to be below your contact information, and right above that sweet summary that you’ve crafted for your resume.

Chris Villanueva 3:03
So here are some examples that I will pull from different industries. So an example of a title might be digital marketing manager, this is front and center at the very top of your resume, and underneath that you can include a tagline that says driving online success with strategic campaigns over a decade of experience in boosting brand visibility and engagement.

Chris Villanueva 3:24
Headline number two, data science innovator in the subtitle or tagline included below that is transforming data into insights that drive decision making expert in machine learning and predictive analytics.

Chris Villanueva 3:36
Example number three chief financial officer maximizing profits and minimizing risks with expert financial management, trusted advisor with proven track record of strategic financial planning. Alright, so these are three really simple examples I came up with this morning that are just solid I think in terms of just getting the point across and targeting a very specific job posting.

Chris Villanueva 4:00
I’m telling you this comes from hours and hours and hours of reviewing people’s resumes. People are not doing this, I’d say 5% or less of the resumes that I’m reviewing here. Let’s Eat, Grandma, they’re not doing this. So that is my tip. Think like an add man or add woman.

Chris Villanueva 4:19
Alright, tip number two for getting your resume to stand out creatively highlight your accomplishments at the top using the spark technique. Say we had a podcast guest called Sam Owens and he talks about the concept of using the SPAR technique in interviews, Blum saying, situation problem action result that is something that you can use in your resume. It’s not just for interviews.

Chris Villanueva 4:44
So what is the situation? What is the problem that you addressed in your organization, as well as the action you took to achieve the result? This is a mouthful and even just saying this on the podcast, I know how hard it is to execute.

Chris Villanueva 4:59
But again And this is a thing that you can implement, that’s not going to be easy. But it’s going to be the thing that drives results for your job search, it’s going to get you to stand out above all the other job seekers who are not getting specific or concrete in their resumes.

Chris Villanueva 5:16
So just think of three top things that you’ve done in recent history, that you were proud of the thing that you know, you can talk about in an interview, and really sell yourself to get the point across the hard part to think for a lot of job seekers is including that result.

Chris Villanueva 5:33
So do whatever digging you have to do whether it involves speaking to a past supervisor, or coming up with a general number. Of course, we are staying within ethical parameters. We don’t want to lie or embellish. But really do your research and come up with something that can speak to that result, problem as well. A lot of people forget to include the problem on their resume or during an interview. So think about that as well.

Chris Villanueva 5:58
All right, creative way to stand out. Number three, use a testimonial. Oh, my gosh, I bet you weren’t seeing this one coming, and I bet you thought that this is something that you are not even allowed to include in a resume. Well, newsflash resumes are marketing pieces, they are not these documents that have to be so rigid. I’ve seen this done effectively, and it’s not really for everyone. But if you have a strong testimonial, or a supervisor who’s spoken on behalf of a specific skill you have or thing that you’ve been able to affect at your organization, I would say bring this one also to the top.

Chris Villanueva 6:36
If you have a sentence or two that can speak to that key word or skill set, make sure to include that as well thing that you could do, and I thought about this, also this morning, is if you have a solid list of LinkedIn recommendations on your LinkedIn profile already, why not take just one sentence, probably your best sentence and bring that to your resume as well.

Chris Villanueva 7:00
I’m thinking about some of the ones that I have on my own profile. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I wish if I can get more people to see some of these things that people are saying that I think it just would look so good. So you can do that in your resume. There are no hard and fast rules, and if testimonials aren’t really your thing, you can also include I’ve seen mottos or philosophies or just slogans that may have to do with your personal mission statement. These are also things that I think look quite nicely in terms of quotes.

Chris Villanueva 7:28
Alright, fourth creative way to get your resume to stand out more use subtle, but bold design choices. Alright, there’s way too much vanilla out there way too much. Boring, I would say resume choices and not saying to make your resume look like a clown vomited all over a piece of paper, not saying that. But spice your resume up with all caps with using bold or even centering as a way to get your resume to just have that oomph factor.

Chris Villanueva 8:01
This is tough to do I understand because I receive a lot of resumes that have these inconsistencies, or you’ll include whitespace or bold, but it’s focused on the wrong things, I get that. But what I would say is focus on the thing that you want hiring managers to look at.

Chris Villanueva 8:16
So dates, those are not things that you want people to focus on, that’s not a thing that I would say, Okay, put that in all caps put that in bold. But position titles are those accomplishments that I just mentioned. Those are also things that you want people to see. So use those bold and subtle design choices, I would say subtle but bold design choices to make your resume just pop when somebody opens it at first glance.

Chris Villanueva 8:43
So for creative inspiration, I would say number one, you can head on over to our website and check out our samples. Or number two, I love and I swear by this book. It’s called resume Magic by Susan Britton Whitcomb, and this is one of the first books I read about resumes, and I just I really loved some of the examples that they had in that book, and I think they’re timeless. So check out those two resources if you’re trying to get the gist of what I’m saying.

Chris Villanueva 9:11
Alright, this is the fifth and last creative way to get your resume to stand out more. I almost thought about not doing this one because it has seemingly nothing to do with resumes, and then I thought to myself, Okay, no, this has everything to do with resumes, because resumes at the end of the day are just one piece of the puzzle.

Chris Villanueva 9:30
So the fifth thing is coming up with a social media campaign to drive traffic to your resume, again, this is my marketing hat that I’ve put on for Lindsey Graham over the last 10 years. But it’s the same thing when it comes to job seeking and your job search.

Chris Villanueva 9:47
So leverage the social media platforms that you love the ones that you feel like you are good at, I would say So LinkedIn is a obvious one, but also Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever you’re on right now. out, wherever you can imagine yourself succeeding at, I would say, start posting relevant discussions, you know, bring up an article, post something I would say once a week that has to do with your space, even getting vulnerable and talking about your job search.

Chris Villanueva 10:15
Okay, don’t put a sob story out there. I’ve seen that on LinkedIn, I’m not really a fan of, of making yourself look desperate. But what I would say is put yourself out there in a vulnerable sense, and you never know what the universe or what God can bring to you if you just start putting yourself out there and start getting more open about your job search.

Chris Villanueva 10:15
So post areas of expertise, you know, post things that you’re passionate about post something that you’ve researched recently posts, an intriguing question about AI. If you’re in that space, I recommend putting yourself out there. And the cool thing about LinkedIn is you can actually share, obviously, your profile, but also your resume as well.

Chris Villanueva 10:55
So you can drive more traffic and more interest to your resume if you are active, and this goes beyond what most job seekers are doing, which is just kind of going on Indeed, or going on these big job sites and just shooting the resume out there blindly. So go beyond that and get creative with how you are sharing yourself.

Chris Villanueva 11:16
Alright, so these are the five ways the five creative ways to get your resume to stand out more things like an ad man or ad woman with a creative headline at the top with a tagline. Number two is highlighting accomplishments using the SPAR technique. And that’s a shout out to my friend Sam Owens there. Number three is use a quote or testimonial to bring to the top of your resume. Number four, use subtle but bold design choices, and five, a social media campaign to drive it all home.

Chris Villanueva 11:46
So these are the five ways I believe you can get your resume to stand out more. I would love it. If you could give me a shout out on LinkedIn. Is there anything that I’m missing? Or is there one of these five creative ways that really stood out to you I would love to know. And other news I kind of like named drops a couple of times, but we actually have Sam Owens coming on our podcast next episode.

Chris Villanueva 12:09
I’m so excited about that, and he has a book coming out all about interviews, and I’m so excited just to ask him some questions on the podcast and get you the listener the information that you need to succeed in your job search.

Chris Villanueva 12:22
So look forward to that coming up soon, and of course, we have our free resume package giveaway. So head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ and submit your email address and name for the chance to win a free resume package by Let’s Eat, Grandma.

Chris Villanueva 12:40
Alright warriors. Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. I’ll see you next time the Career Warrior Podcast and before you go remember if you’re not seeing the results you want and 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 13:04
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 and I’ll see you next time.