Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:04
And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast. My name is Chris Villanueva. I am the co founder and CEO of Let’s Eat, Grandma resume service. Our aim is to inspire you and help you to land your dream job. Here now we’re going to delve into top struggles and concerns for job seekers. I read every single one of these survey responses from our customers, and I dived into the top concerns.

Chris Villanueva 0:29
These are the top themes that kept coming up over and over and over again in regards to the resume. So we’re going to cover things such as conciseness, how to brag about yourself, and how to get past the bots here.

Chris Villanueva 0:45
I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you to check out our website letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ you can check out our recent episodes, as well as how to submit your resume for a free critique.You have that resource at your disposal whenever you like. All right, let’s dive into top concerns for job seekers. Again, I read all of these survey questions and responses very carefully, and I picked apart and for the first time ever, we have an episode that’s devoted to getting all of the top concerns in one so I hope that this concise episode will get you your challenges and your struggles addressed.

Chris Villanueva 1:22
Number one, getting past the bots. How can job seekers ensure that the resumes can get past the bots and make it into the hiring managers hands? As one client put it really well, the resume and CV portions are quite challenging for me, always with AI and machines, not always people, filtering through the resumes, it makes it incredibly hard to get your foot in the door, at least, to have the initial recall with the recruiter. So I understand it’s tough when you’ve worked so hard on your career, and you’ve done all the things to affect these accomplishments and results, and you’ve worked on your resume and it doesn’t even get read. It’s one of the most frustrating things ever when you just send your resume out into the internet, and you don’t even get the re time that you deserve.

Chris Villanueva 2:04
So my key recommendation here is try to strike a good balance between having a keywords focus and getting some interview winning phrases on your resume. It’s incredibly important to have a keywords focus, and I know it’s very robotic, but when you think about the way that recruiters search for candidates. Oftentimes it’s based on searching for specific position titles and those hard skills, or I call them nouns, comments of the position.

Chris Villanueva 2:33
So especially in 2024 hiring managers have choices so they can get more picky and more specific with the type of candidate that they’re looking for. So make sure to get just as specific in your resume and to meet those needs there, again, as I mentioned, focus on the position title as much as possible. If you are applying for two different types of positions, heck, if you’re applying for 10 different types of positions, you want to make sure you have a resume that is themed and geared towards those positions that you’re going to be applying for.

Chris Villanueva 3:06
Now, if this sounds like too much, a resume writer or even somebody who is an insider in your industry, can be a good person to have at your side. So ask them, Am I getting specific enough to the jobs that I’m applying for, and am I including interview winning phrases here? So it’s not just enough to have keywords, and I don’t recommend going crazy. I’m talking like five or six keywords to really target the resume and make sure that those are sprinkled throughout. But it’s not just enough to have that you have to include interview winning phrases.

Chris Villanueva 3:39
Now, what do I mean by that? I mean phrases that can really get someone excited about bringing you in for the interview, just to have the conversation and get the ball rolling. So what is the thing that you’re most proud of, if you are in the realm of project management, I know that there are some things that you’ve done, some passion projects, and things that have gotten your wheels turning that no one else could have done there, what’s something that you accomplished that would be interesting to bring up in a conversation for example, those are the things that you can include on the resume in workshop with your phrasing to tighten it up and grab someone’s attention.

Chris Villanueva 4:17
I always talk about making your resume like your advertising statement. When you’re reading ads and you’re looking at the different creatives from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, they don’t just say we have a great product that works. They think about how they can reach out to their target demographic and come up with mottos and slogans and interesting ways to be remembered. I want you to do the same thing in your resume. How can you be remembered as to where someone looked away from the resume for a few minutes and they still are thinking about the thing that you put on paper there.

Chris Villanueva 4:52
So as I mentioned in the last episode, silence is okay. Do not cast self doubt when you were met with period and silence. Just read a response from some of our one of our clients, that said they just were met with months of silence after sending their resume. That doesn’t mean that your personal worth goes down. It just means that your resume is not getting read, and just to keep trying, you will get something all right.

Chris Villanueva 5:18
Number two, the second concern that people were focused on is conciseness. I’m going to try to go a little bit faster here. I had to get the first one out of the way because it’s a big one. But the best approach for keeping a resume concise is a lot simpler than you would think. As someone put Well, being concise is a struggle, tailoring it for each job, capturing the essence of who I am, how I work, and why I’m a qualified candidate, my clear answer to you is you don’t have to include everything on your resume, kill the things that you are proud of, but aren’t going to be necessarily something that a hiring manager is looking for.

Chris Villanueva 5:56
Now I know I said, Bring up the things that excite you, but you have to put it specifically through the lens of a hiring manager looking at your resume and trying to find the relevance as quickly as possible. Remember people are going to be spending seconds in your document, not minutes, so you have to as the last person put capture the essence of who you are within just a few short pages here. So Do everything you can to tailor the resume to the role. And remember, in 2024 if you can cut out the resume and get it down to a nice, tight, two page document, especially if you’re mid level, then your resume will become more punchy, impactful and interesting.

Chris Villanueva 6:34
Trust me, you’re going to want to cut your resume down more than you think, and it will look better as a result. This is your highlights reel at the end of the day, so make sure it pertains to the jobs that you’re applying for. Again, a lot of this has to do with your research. So make sure that you’re going through job posting by job posting, and if you notice any common themes, then make sure to stick to those themes. Anything else that falls in your resume outside of those themes is fair game for removal. All right, the third concern from job seekers is formatting.

Chris Villanueva 7:08
How should job seekers format their resumes to stand out and keep it easy for hiring managers to read? All right? So this is one that it’s often contentious. I’m seeing a lot of misinformation that’s a big buzz word for the elections, I’m saying, but a lot of just bad advice out there in regards to formatting, no two column resumes are not better than one column resumes and visual resumes should be the exception and not the rule here.

Chris Villanueva 7:38
Do not include a resume that puts all of the emphasis on the visuals because, number one, it takes away from those accomplishments and from the stuff that you’ve actually been doing. And number two, it could get in the way of a nice, clean applicant tracking system scan, so you want to make sure to have a resume that starts off as boring, but you add a little bit of flair as you move on.

Chris Villanueva 8:03
So when I say boring, I mean just strip all of the crazy tables and charts and pictures, make sure you don’t have a lot of color going on in your resume and go single column, because that is the tried and true method here. So keep it stripped down to where everything is focused on the text, but you also want to make sure that it’s clean and it’s easy to skim and read within seconds. Here, the way you do this is through white space, making sure that you have enough white space in your resume.

Chris Villanueva 8:35
It’s almost as if you are looking at something and you’re trying to process the words that are coming through. If you have way too much information coming at you, then you’re not going to be able to process it very clearly. So that’s where whitespace comes in. Formatting is going to be really important too. So I say stick to bold italics and also having borderlines under key sections of your resume, alignment is also going to be your friend as well.

Chris Villanueva 9:00
If you have certain things that could be spread out in the document, for example, your timeline, or maybe you want to draw attention to the different sections of your resume, things like your education or your professional experience sections, you can use alignment to properly format it. But the whole point I’m trying to make here is to keep it as simple as possible. Make sure that you have a resume that is clean and is simple and that does not have too many visual elements, because that will work against you, all right.

Chris Villanueva 9:33
Number four, for top concerns and struggles, for job seekers on their resume is changing careers or industries, what are some key strategies for adapting a resume when you’re switching careers or even entering a new industry? The thing I recommend job seekers stick to is focusing on those common ground qualifications. Notice that it didn’t say professional experience, or I didn’t say degrees or education here, those things, of course, help and you.

Chris Villanueva 9:59
Should try to include as much of that experience, professional experience, or degrees, as much as possible. But qualifications. Why are you qualified for the role here? Don’t feel like you are not worthy of a position because you haven’t had the title before. At this point, it’s about bringing forth anything that you feel confident is going to make you a great professional in that role that you’re going to be applying for here.

Chris Villanueva 10:26
So let’s say you’re applying for a position within I’ll use civil engineering as an example here. What are some things and projects that you’ve worked on in school to bring forth your civil engineering expertise and qualities. Have you volunteered for an organization that has been able to help you move forward within civil engineering? Maybe you are applying for a position in politics, but put forth means get all of it at the very top half of your resume. So you got to make sure that these things are being seen.

Chris Villanueva 11:01
A lot of the times, job seekers are burying the things that are transferable, stuff that’s going to make a qualification relevant. They’re burying that within the second page of the resume, or burying it in these big, chunky paragraphs. So make sure to include such transferable skills, qualifications, etc. Make sure to include that within the top half of your resume, within the summary and within Well, concisely worded bullet points.

Chris Villanueva 11:29
I know it’s hard. Employers can be pickier, and you are going to have a harder time getting noticed, at least in the beginning, but it will be worth it in the end, once you get that next position here, and it’s gonna become, it’s gonna become a lot easier to continue developing your career within that one role.

Chris Villanueva 11:49
All right, number five, for top concerns and struggles, is quantifying achievements. How can job seekers effectively quantify their achievements, even if they don’t have traditional metrics to work with. As one client put it, before he started working with us, I struggle with quantifying my achievements, since I’m usually not privy to the kind of information, such as effects on sales, engagement, etc, that employers might be seeking.

Chris Villanueva 12:16
My answer to this is give yourself permission to brag. Similar to this concern is people who feel like they’re having self doubt, people who feel uncomfortable bragging, or people who may be down on their luck. You have to include these things on the resume, because if you don’t, you’re not going to stand out enough to keep moving on in your resume. In fact, this is what people are looking for anyway, so you might as well join the bragging game and include these things on your document.

Chris Villanueva 12:45
As far as numbers go, just get started including something and eventually keep replacing those numbers over and over again until you have something that looks solid here. Doesn’t have to be just about sales or revenue or cost reductions here. What were some things that were impressive about your team size or the efficiency and the processes that you developed.

Chris Villanueva 13:06
Did you improve anything in your document? How many co workers did you lead? How long did certain projects take? Were you able to get those projects done before deadline? These are things that take some time to brainstorm. Yes, but you can absolutely qualify quantify them to get them to stand out. Numbers are the things that stand out on paper. So you have to imagine that once someone is reading through your resume, just pretend that the only way that they’re going to stop and actually want to read the document is if you include something specific or a number. Yes, keywords might be the thing that gets your foot in the door by getting it read by an applicant tracking system or getting it to appear at the top of a query.

Chris Villanueva 13:51
However, you have to pretend, just for one moment, that numbers are going to be the only thing that interrupts the hiring manager and gets them to actually read the stuff in your resume. So keywords, those are going to be the things that get your resume at the top of the query. It beats, quote, the applicant tracking system. But once somebody dives into the resume, they have to see specifics, and they have to see a reason for them to bring you into the interview here.

Chris Villanueva 14:17
So include numbers. Don’t be afraid to brag, because this is how you get noticed in 2024 and beyond. So this wraps up top concerns for job seekers. I hope that this episode was useful for you again.

Chris Villanueva 14:31
Make sure to check out our landing page letseatgrandma.com/podacast/ you can get so many more resources and pieces of information there. Did I say something that inspired you or got you curious about something that I said? Or you may have further follow up questions.

Chris Villanueva 14:47
Please connect with me on LinkedIn I’m Chris Villanueva, CPRW i would love to hear from you. This wraps up today’s episode of the Career Warrior Podcast. Can’t wait to see you next time.

Chris Villanueva 14:57
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 15:17
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 you.