Resume Basics Part 2 - What To Include In Your Resume
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Successful Encore Career podcast brought to you by Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging, Nationwide Insurance, Innosource and our special episode sponsor The Resume Coach. I'm Brett Johnson, a longtime volunteer with Employment For Seniors. And with me Executive Director Carol Ventresca.
[00:00:19] We are in the middle of a wonderful series of podcasts on creating resumes. Resumes are the bane of everybody's existence. That's a job seeker and we all need as much help as we can get on creating resumes. So we are going to do several podcasts talking about the basic information on resumes and why a resume is important in your job search. What to include or not include on a resume and also about accomplishment statements. So in our first podcast we covered the purpose of resumes and formatting and length and appearance and in today's podcast we're going to talk about what to include and we're going to cover the first three sections of resumes contact information summary statements and work experience. So I'd also like to introduce our guest speaker Sharon Hamersley. Sharon is the Principal Coach for The Resume Coach where you help job seekers conduct a 21st-century job search. So that's important to think about because our mature job seekers go back a century or so and they are looking for all that great information for how to do it. In today's world, in today's economy. Sharon has been a longtime supporter and volunteer for Employment For Seniors as well as the Career Transition Institute. She also facilitates our Employment For Seniors career workshops. So Sharon thank you so much for joining us today in this podcast series.
[00:01:54] Thank you, Carol and Brett. I'm very pleased to be here and I hope that the information that I provide today will be of benefit to all of our listeners no matter whether they're a half-century a quarter century or maybe a bit beyond that.
[00:02:10] Exactly. Yes, we have. We had a client come in today who is 89 years old still working and doing a great job and she was touching base with us and wanted to talk about a little bit about other opportunities that are out there for her and all.
[00:02:28] So yes so welcome to all of our listeners regardless of your age. Let's talk about resumes. OK, what do you include in a resume? So first and foremost is you've got to put your name in there now and contact information has changed over time. And so let's talk about what does go in what can go in and what doesn't go in.
[00:02:50] That's a great starting point. So in your contact information and this goes right at the top of your resume on Page 1 you need your name and you should use the name that you're generally known by professionally. I give the example of a good friend of mine who to all of her friends is Fluff. There you go. However, on her resume, she has her professional name which is Vivian.
[00:03:27] Unless she's going into laundry. She could use the fluff.
[00:03:31] That would be yes. If you want to use the name that you're generally known as in your professional community. Now another question that I get is ok my address and my recommendation in today's world where unfortunately we're seeing a lot of nefarious stuff going on out there.
[00:03:57] My recommendation is that you use the city and state that could be Columbus, Ohio or Westerville, Ohio or Delaware wherever you are. And you don't even really need to use your zip code. So just that address now when you fill out an application you're going to provide your street address anyway. So it really doesn't need to go on your resume. That's optional.
[00:04:23] I have a question about an address. I don't think our Employment For Seniors clients, for the most part, they're all here in central Ohio but once in a while we get someone who is looking to move to central Ohio and they try to fake an address in our city.
[00:04:39] So if this contact information is specific to that individual they really need to be truthful on their resume. Exactly unless they actually have an address that they are connected to somehow in there that this the city where they're looking.
[00:04:56] Yes. And actually, in your contact information one way you could kind of finesse that is relocating to Columbus. There you go. Good idea. Great. OK. Yeah. I've had that occasionally relocating to. Then the next part of it is your email address.
[00:05:17] And here is where sometimes we run into a bit of difficulty with with our email addresses because we really don't stop to think whether they're professional because I have I have actually reviewed resumes at the Career Expo and places where the username was and I hope this person isn't listening quilter lady and I don't think she was looking for a position as a seamstress.
[00:05:50] So also your service provider rightly or wrongly you can be judged based on your service provider if you still have an at AOL dot com email.
[00:06:09] That unfortunately pretty much says to the reader this person is really on top of technology. So what I really recommend and I know this is a pain is that you get a Gmail account because that's the current one and it's just your first name last name. Some combination of that. No dates. If if you're forced because your name is Jane Smith. If you're forced to add some numbers after that pick three or four random numbers and just throw them in there.
[00:06:45] Yes. Jean Smith 1950 likely means Jane Smith was born in 1950. That is correct right.
[00:06:52] So the other part about the AOL and maybe Hotmail dot com that folks may not realize is that Employment For Seniors is on a Go Daddy server and Go Daddy and AOL are always fussing with each other. And oftentimes our clients don't get our e-mails but they don't bounce back to us so we don't know they're not getting our e-mail so we could call them in check. So if you have an older service provider you may be missing information and not even realize.
[00:07:21] That's a very good point. So the next point of contact is your cell phone. And I emphasize that you really need to be using your cell phone as your primary contact point. And I use an example that I think Carol you passed along to me. I don't know probably several years ago now about a client at Employment For Seniors who got a message on the home voicemail and the other good friend of the House forgot to tell the candidate it was it was it for an interview for a job right. Yes. They lost out on that. So your cell phone is should be your primary contact and call your cell phone and listen to the message that you're getting or not message. Again.
[00:08:20] You need a good personalized message and it can be informed. "Hello, this is Sharon, The Resume Coach. I'd love to speak with you. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as possible." That's all you need to say. It doesn't need to be formal staff just you know it needs to be you.
[00:08:40] It's another piece of your presentation and it shouldn't be something that reflects personal issues for you. Yes. And you can once you have a job you can change back to have a nice day or whatever it is you want to say in your message. But during the time that an employer is calling you he really needs to be succinct and very professional.
[00:09:02] Yes exactly. And then the final element of contact. And I know this is a steep hill for some people to climb. And it's particularly for people who are in the professional job market. You need to have your league did profile up to date and you need to include your LinkedIn profile you are well on your resume. And also your email signature your business card all of those other things but because you're linked in profile is can be much richer in content than just your paper or electronic resume and pointing your potential employer right there to that can really help you get a leg up on people.
[00:09:55] Next we want to go into the summary statement and we were talking earlier and noted from your cue sheet as is well to make sure we cover all of our points. This is your first and often only chance to impress the employer with your unique qualifications. That sounds like it's one of the most important parts of your resume.
[00:10:12] Yes we were talking about the part of your resume that's above the fold. This is it. You have seven seconds. I think we already mentioned this you've had basically seven seconds to convince the reader to keep going. Otherwise, you've basically lost them. So you.
[00:10:32] You need to be very very clear about the skills and accomplishments that you bring that will help the employer meet their needs reach their goals. However here's the challenge. You cannot write an essay. Carol was just talking about how if you have a long paragraph as a summary people will quit reading. So what's the strategy here? You can do a couple of different things. First of all, you can just use plain old bullet points very short and very succinct. Or you could write maybe two to three very very short paragraphs set off with bullet points that would be helpful. Sometimes if especially for people who are in more technical fields in addition to the summary right below that I will create a little table and and just put you know technical skills and Microsoft as an as a pea whatever those tactical skills are because again those are those really critical keywords that you need to include right at the top of your resume. The main point is this has to absolutely bring the employer in. Otherwise, you're pretty much done with that person.
[00:12:01] So to help do that. There are two strategies that you can use. Number one you mirror the wording of the job posting. In fact, if you're applying for what are basically office assistant administrative assistant office manager type positions if you just put office manager because that's what it said. You know if you make that part of your first statement your first bullet point you're mirroring the words and then pick up maybe on a couple of other things right away that they say that they want. So that's one way to do that. This indicates to the reader that you've actually read the job description that that is a very important point and when you're doing your job search. Yes. Because of what employers complain about often is that you know if they even see the resume they say this first read the job description right. Yes. So you are. You want to engage this person as quickly as possible and then the keywords we've talked about keywords a couple of times you can print out somewhere between three and five job descriptions for the type of job that you're looking for.
[00:13:26] Go through them with a highlighter and just highlight the common either experiences skills technical skills whatever it is that these employers are looking for.
[00:13:40] They won't all match by any means but you can start to get a pretty good sense of what some of the common vocabulary is. Because that's basically what it is it's vocabulary that the employers are using in their search for their preferred candidate. So if you mirror the words of the job posting and you used keywords that will help. And also if you are submitting your application online and it's going through the scanner that scanner is looking for that. And while it won't guarantee that your resume will be forwarded for review it's certainly a help.
[00:14:21] So if I wanted to define a summary statement and sort of what my goal for a summary statement is I am trying in literally seven seconds to convince the employer that I'm going to bring value to their table and that I have the experience and the skills to do the job. Day one. Yes, that's exactly right. Those are sort of overall goals for your whole resume but it's critical in this top above the fold section because then I'll read the rest of it if you haven't captured that information.
[00:14:59] In the very first part that's correct yeah. That's great. That's great. OK.
[00:15:05] So we're past the summary statement. The next section is let's talk about jobs. And although it comes after the summary statement in actuality you need to have a good command of what that is included in the Experian section because that's what feeds up into the summary statement you have to prove your summary statement. In your experience section.
[00:15:30] Yes. If if you claim that you have 10 years of experience in sales management and then none of your positions were in sales management. You're not you're not going to get any further. The employer sees pretty quickly which direction you're going with this and so you really do need in your experience section to validate what you briefly described in your summary statement. So in that age in the experience section, you clearly need to have the name of the company the position you held location and dates. Some people choose to include a brief description of the company itself. You know a small manufacturing company especially if it's not one of the big heavy heavy hitters and especially maybe if it's not local maybe if you've just moved here from someplace else. Maybe it would be helpful to say this was a small 150 company employee in the manufacturing business of widgets or whatever. Right.
[00:16:48] But it's not. I've seen where people write long paragraphs about the company that has nothing to do with what they did or their skills or their experience. So it's it's more of a qualifier or an explainer of your job but not your job.
[00:17:04] Yes exactly. OK so. So another challenge that all job seekers have is that we tend to not publish or job duties. Okay. So I did a I did B I did see I you know I answered the phone I sent out e-mails. I you know I scheduled appointments I did this I did that and that's where people will usually go if they don't have a lot of guidance. What we're really looking for here and that's why we're actually going to have a whole podcast on it. Are your accomplishments in your job. You want a quantitative or qualitative description of the outcome of the work that you performed and that's its own topic. So we will be getting there eventually. Now to the topic of dates, I'm sure we have people listening that have been in the workforce for 20 30 maybe even more years than that. So what the employers really most interested in is about the past 15 years or so and that's what you want to go into in detail. Now some people will say OK so I work for Acme explosives for 30 years. What do I do?
[00:18:34] My question to you is when you got hired on as at Acme explosives were you a senior sales manager going. No. Okay so how have you been senior sales manager for Acme explosives. Well, I was promoted about eight years ago to senior sales manager and before that, I was the sales manager and that was about 10 years. Okay there is you're 18 years of experience right there and then you can simply add a note at the end of that section that you know you had previous experience as a that you were hired in as there basically go from person you know in a training role and that you're promoted successively to your most recent position as senior sales manager. So that actually helps a lot with dates. Another part of the dates is you required for a job application to put both month and year. And you should certainly know that because that is going to be checking. But on your resume what you really want to do to smooth it out is to just put the years that you were in a particular position.
[00:19:49] And the other thing too is in this section is the only section that it's absolutely required to have dates on your resume. That's correct replace cells. Either you don't dates or it's optional.
[00:20:01] Yes correct. Some people say well if I put dates on my resume I'm going to look old and I say if you don't put dates on your resume they're going to question whether you're being truthful about anything else that's on your hands.
[00:20:15] So you know I think too that the job seekers are afraid that if they don't put all of the experience they had down with up company or several companies that we've missed basic information about them when in actuality that's not what a resume is about. It's not about that basic information it's about your highest level of skills. So when I used to work with science students I would say it's like this you use an electron microscope. You can't do an electron microscope unless you can do regular microscopes. So why bother to take up two lines of information when one line is going to be much better. Yes. And so it's not that you're ignoring that it's that you have to let the employer assume some things because you couldn't be a senior sales manager without having had all those other years of experience.
[00:21:10] Exactly. That's right. So what you're really looking to do in your work experience section again is to validate your summary and to help the employer understand and explain in more detail what's your value. Where are you going to be able to step in where are you going to be able to solve their problems? Where can you help them take advantage of opportunities that they may not otherwise be able to take advantage of because they have now hired you again?
[00:21:42] Again it is you know you know you can do the job day one and the resume is going to lead an employer know that.
[00:21:51] Exactly. That's correct. Wonderful.
[00:21:55] Sharon thank you so much. This is incredible information and we have lots and lots more to go. And we've got more podcasts coming up. But this was a good overview of your contact information and your summary statement and your work experience. The first three sections of your resume. Thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome.
[00:00:19] We are in the middle of a wonderful series of podcasts on creating resumes. Resumes are the bane of everybody's existence. That's a job seeker and we all need as much help as we can get on creating resumes. So we are going to do several podcasts talking about the basic information on resumes and why a resume is important in your job search. What to include or not include on a resume and also about accomplishment statements. So in our first podcast we covered the purpose of resumes and formatting and length and appearance and in today's podcast we're going to talk about what to include and we're going to cover the first three sections of resumes contact information summary statements and work experience. So I'd also like to introduce our guest speaker Sharon Hamersley. Sharon is the Principal Coach for The Resume Coach where you help job seekers conduct a 21st-century job search. So that's important to think about because our mature job seekers go back a century or so and they are looking for all that great information for how to do it. In today's world, in today's economy. Sharon has been a longtime supporter and volunteer for Employment For Seniors as well as the Career Transition Institute. She also facilitates our Employment For Seniors career workshops. So Sharon thank you so much for joining us today in this podcast series.
[00:01:54] Thank you, Carol and Brett. I'm very pleased to be here and I hope that the information that I provide today will be of benefit to all of our listeners no matter whether they're a half-century a quarter century or maybe a bit beyond that.
[00:02:10] Exactly. Yes, we have. We had a client come in today who is 89 years old still working and doing a great job and she was touching base with us and wanted to talk about a little bit about other opportunities that are out there for her and all.
[00:02:28] So yes so welcome to all of our listeners regardless of your age. Let's talk about resumes. OK, what do you include in a resume? So first and foremost is you've got to put your name in there now and contact information has changed over time. And so let's talk about what does go in what can go in and what doesn't go in.
[00:02:50] That's a great starting point. So in your contact information and this goes right at the top of your resume on Page 1 you need your name and you should use the name that you're generally known by professionally. I give the example of a good friend of mine who to all of her friends is Fluff. There you go. However, on her resume, she has her professional name which is Vivian.
[00:03:27] Unless she's going into laundry. She could use the fluff.
[00:03:31] That would be yes. If you want to use the name that you're generally known as in your professional community. Now another question that I get is ok my address and my recommendation in today's world where unfortunately we're seeing a lot of nefarious stuff going on out there.
[00:03:57] My recommendation is that you use the city and state that could be Columbus, Ohio or Westerville, Ohio or Delaware wherever you are. And you don't even really need to use your zip code. So just that address now when you fill out an application you're going to provide your street address anyway. So it really doesn't need to go on your resume. That's optional.
[00:04:23] I have a question about an address. I don't think our Employment For Seniors clients, for the most part, they're all here in central Ohio but once in a while we get someone who is looking to move to central Ohio and they try to fake an address in our city.
[00:04:39] So if this contact information is specific to that individual they really need to be truthful on their resume. Exactly unless they actually have an address that they are connected to somehow in there that this the city where they're looking.
[00:04:56] Yes. And actually, in your contact information one way you could kind of finesse that is relocating to Columbus. There you go. Good idea. Great. OK. Yeah. I've had that occasionally relocating to. Then the next part of it is your email address.
[00:05:17] And here is where sometimes we run into a bit of difficulty with with our email addresses because we really don't stop to think whether they're professional because I have I have actually reviewed resumes at the Career Expo and places where the username was and I hope this person isn't listening quilter lady and I don't think she was looking for a position as a seamstress.
[00:05:50] So also your service provider rightly or wrongly you can be judged based on your service provider if you still have an at AOL dot com email.
[00:06:09] That unfortunately pretty much says to the reader this person is really on top of technology. So what I really recommend and I know this is a pain is that you get a Gmail account because that's the current one and it's just your first name last name. Some combination of that. No dates. If if you're forced because your name is Jane Smith. If you're forced to add some numbers after that pick three or four random numbers and just throw them in there.
[00:06:45] Yes. Jean Smith 1950 likely means Jane Smith was born in 1950. That is correct right.
[00:06:52] So the other part about the AOL and maybe Hotmail dot com that folks may not realize is that Employment For Seniors is on a Go Daddy server and Go Daddy and AOL are always fussing with each other. And oftentimes our clients don't get our e-mails but they don't bounce back to us so we don't know they're not getting our e-mail so we could call them in check. So if you have an older service provider you may be missing information and not even realize.
[00:07:21] That's a very good point. So the next point of contact is your cell phone. And I emphasize that you really need to be using your cell phone as your primary contact point. And I use an example that I think Carol you passed along to me. I don't know probably several years ago now about a client at Employment For Seniors who got a message on the home voicemail and the other good friend of the House forgot to tell the candidate it was it was it for an interview for a job right. Yes. They lost out on that. So your cell phone is should be your primary contact and call your cell phone and listen to the message that you're getting or not message. Again.
[00:08:20] You need a good personalized message and it can be informed. "Hello, this is Sharon, The Resume Coach. I'd love to speak with you. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as possible." That's all you need to say. It doesn't need to be formal staff just you know it needs to be you.
[00:08:40] It's another piece of your presentation and it shouldn't be something that reflects personal issues for you. Yes. And you can once you have a job you can change back to have a nice day or whatever it is you want to say in your message. But during the time that an employer is calling you he really needs to be succinct and very professional.
[00:09:02] Yes exactly. And then the final element of contact. And I know this is a steep hill for some people to climb. And it's particularly for people who are in the professional job market. You need to have your league did profile up to date and you need to include your LinkedIn profile you are well on your resume. And also your email signature your business card all of those other things but because you're linked in profile is can be much richer in content than just your paper or electronic resume and pointing your potential employer right there to that can really help you get a leg up on people.
[00:09:55] Next we want to go into the summary statement and we were talking earlier and noted from your cue sheet as is well to make sure we cover all of our points. This is your first and often only chance to impress the employer with your unique qualifications. That sounds like it's one of the most important parts of your resume.
[00:10:12] Yes we were talking about the part of your resume that's above the fold. This is it. You have seven seconds. I think we already mentioned this you've had basically seven seconds to convince the reader to keep going. Otherwise, you've basically lost them. So you.
[00:10:32] You need to be very very clear about the skills and accomplishments that you bring that will help the employer meet their needs reach their goals. However here's the challenge. You cannot write an essay. Carol was just talking about how if you have a long paragraph as a summary people will quit reading. So what's the strategy here? You can do a couple of different things. First of all, you can just use plain old bullet points very short and very succinct. Or you could write maybe two to three very very short paragraphs set off with bullet points that would be helpful. Sometimes if especially for people who are in more technical fields in addition to the summary right below that I will create a little table and and just put you know technical skills and Microsoft as an as a pea whatever those tactical skills are because again those are those really critical keywords that you need to include right at the top of your resume. The main point is this has to absolutely bring the employer in. Otherwise, you're pretty much done with that person.
[00:12:01] So to help do that. There are two strategies that you can use. Number one you mirror the wording of the job posting. In fact, if you're applying for what are basically office assistant administrative assistant office manager type positions if you just put office manager because that's what it said. You know if you make that part of your first statement your first bullet point you're mirroring the words and then pick up maybe on a couple of other things right away that they say that they want. So that's one way to do that. This indicates to the reader that you've actually read the job description that that is a very important point and when you're doing your job search. Yes. Because of what employers complain about often is that you know if they even see the resume they say this first read the job description right. Yes. So you are. You want to engage this person as quickly as possible and then the keywords we've talked about keywords a couple of times you can print out somewhere between three and five job descriptions for the type of job that you're looking for.
[00:13:26] Go through them with a highlighter and just highlight the common either experiences skills technical skills whatever it is that these employers are looking for.
[00:13:40] They won't all match by any means but you can start to get a pretty good sense of what some of the common vocabulary is. Because that's basically what it is it's vocabulary that the employers are using in their search for their preferred candidate. So if you mirror the words of the job posting and you used keywords that will help. And also if you are submitting your application online and it's going through the scanner that scanner is looking for that. And while it won't guarantee that your resume will be forwarded for review it's certainly a help.
[00:14:21] So if I wanted to define a summary statement and sort of what my goal for a summary statement is I am trying in literally seven seconds to convince the employer that I'm going to bring value to their table and that I have the experience and the skills to do the job. Day one. Yes, that's exactly right. Those are sort of overall goals for your whole resume but it's critical in this top above the fold section because then I'll read the rest of it if you haven't captured that information.
[00:14:59] In the very first part that's correct yeah. That's great. That's great. OK.
[00:15:05] So we're past the summary statement. The next section is let's talk about jobs. And although it comes after the summary statement in actuality you need to have a good command of what that is included in the Experian section because that's what feeds up into the summary statement you have to prove your summary statement. In your experience section.
[00:15:30] Yes. If if you claim that you have 10 years of experience in sales management and then none of your positions were in sales management. You're not you're not going to get any further. The employer sees pretty quickly which direction you're going with this and so you really do need in your experience section to validate what you briefly described in your summary statement. So in that age in the experience section, you clearly need to have the name of the company the position you held location and dates. Some people choose to include a brief description of the company itself. You know a small manufacturing company especially if it's not one of the big heavy heavy hitters and especially maybe if it's not local maybe if you've just moved here from someplace else. Maybe it would be helpful to say this was a small 150 company employee in the manufacturing business of widgets or whatever. Right.
[00:16:48] But it's not. I've seen where people write long paragraphs about the company that has nothing to do with what they did or their skills or their experience. So it's it's more of a qualifier or an explainer of your job but not your job.
[00:17:04] Yes exactly. OK so. So another challenge that all job seekers have is that we tend to not publish or job duties. Okay. So I did a I did B I did see I you know I answered the phone I sent out e-mails. I you know I scheduled appointments I did this I did that and that's where people will usually go if they don't have a lot of guidance. What we're really looking for here and that's why we're actually going to have a whole podcast on it. Are your accomplishments in your job. You want a quantitative or qualitative description of the outcome of the work that you performed and that's its own topic. So we will be getting there eventually. Now to the topic of dates, I'm sure we have people listening that have been in the workforce for 20 30 maybe even more years than that. So what the employers really most interested in is about the past 15 years or so and that's what you want to go into in detail. Now some people will say OK so I work for Acme explosives for 30 years. What do I do?
[00:18:34] My question to you is when you got hired on as at Acme explosives were you a senior sales manager going. No. Okay so how have you been senior sales manager for Acme explosives. Well, I was promoted about eight years ago to senior sales manager and before that, I was the sales manager and that was about 10 years. Okay there is you're 18 years of experience right there and then you can simply add a note at the end of that section that you know you had previous experience as a that you were hired in as there basically go from person you know in a training role and that you're promoted successively to your most recent position as senior sales manager. So that actually helps a lot with dates. Another part of the dates is you required for a job application to put both month and year. And you should certainly know that because that is going to be checking. But on your resume what you really want to do to smooth it out is to just put the years that you were in a particular position.
[00:19:49] And the other thing too is in this section is the only section that it's absolutely required to have dates on your resume. That's correct replace cells. Either you don't dates or it's optional.
[00:20:01] Yes correct. Some people say well if I put dates on my resume I'm going to look old and I say if you don't put dates on your resume they're going to question whether you're being truthful about anything else that's on your hands.
[00:20:15] So you know I think too that the job seekers are afraid that if they don't put all of the experience they had down with up company or several companies that we've missed basic information about them when in actuality that's not what a resume is about. It's not about that basic information it's about your highest level of skills. So when I used to work with science students I would say it's like this you use an electron microscope. You can't do an electron microscope unless you can do regular microscopes. So why bother to take up two lines of information when one line is going to be much better. Yes. And so it's not that you're ignoring that it's that you have to let the employer assume some things because you couldn't be a senior sales manager without having had all those other years of experience.
[00:21:10] Exactly. That's right. So what you're really looking to do in your work experience section again is to validate your summary and to help the employer understand and explain in more detail what's your value. Where are you going to be able to step in where are you going to be able to solve their problems? Where can you help them take advantage of opportunities that they may not otherwise be able to take advantage of because they have now hired you again?
[00:21:42] Again it is you know you know you can do the job day one and the resume is going to lead an employer know that.
[00:21:51] Exactly. That's correct. Wonderful.
[00:21:55] Sharon thank you so much. This is incredible information and we have lots and lots more to go. And we've got more podcasts coming up. But this was a good overview of your contact information and your summary statement and your work experience. The first three sections of your resume. Thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome.
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