Resume Basics Part 4 - Accomplishments And Skills Key To Your Job Search

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of 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 is Executive Director Carol Ventresca.



[00:00:23] This has been so much fun to do our series of podcasts on creating resumes. So this is number four. For listeners who have missed the first three, you might want to try to start at the beginning. But we welcome you and we want to make your job search more successful resumes resumes resumes. We keep saying that they are the hardest part of a job search. So what's important what's not important so are three podcasts that we've already had have covered things like what are the basics what are the purpose of a resume what to include what not to include. We've talked about contact information and summary statements in your work experience volunteer experience all those bits and pieces. And today we're going to do the most important part. So the best is for last. We're going to talk about accomplishments and skills and that is critical in developing your resume. Let me welcome our guest today is Sharon Hamersley. And Sharon is the Principal Coach of The Resume Coach where she helps seekers job seekers conduct 21st Century job searches. Sharon and I have worked together in the past and she has been a longtime supporter and volunteer of Employment For Seniors and also the Career Transition Institute. And she also facilitates all of the career workshops sponsored by Employment For Seniors. So Sharon and I go a long way back and we really appreciate all that you have done to help us make this podcast series on resumes work for us so thank you again.

[00:02:06] You are quite welcome and I'm so glad to be here. And welcome back to our audience. I really would encourage you to listen to those first three podcasts if you hadn't. Because you won't get some really good information there. But today we're going to talk about accomplishments which are key to your job search right.

[00:02:27] Right. You know people think that resumes are just a list of tasks and we've already talked a little bit about that. That's not what. A resume supposed to do. And the basic goal of a resume is to get an interview over and above anything else. It's just to get your foot in the door. That's all it's about. So the primary message that you're giving an employer is going to happen through these accomplishments statements. So Sharon, tell us about those.

[00:02:56] Yes well the first and probably most difficult part of an accomplishment statement is differentiating between the job duty the task which is pretty obvious to everybody. You can look at any job description and you'll see what they are and the accomplishment. So. The job duty is what are the activities that the job requires. Do you have to answer phones do you have to greet clients. Do you have to provide information about financial statements do? What is it that you're required to do. Basically in order to keep your job. Yeah.

[00:03:43] So an accomplishment is a description of the expected outcome of your required job duties. But it's also any activity that may not be specifically part of your job but it benefits your company your clients or your co-workers. So it could be any of those things. So basically what you're looking to do on your resume is to get away from just that list of tasks of things that you've done and start to explain to the reader what were the outcomes of those. And that can be a struggle but there is actually something you can do.

[00:04:31] So there's a trick to this then?

[00:04:34] Yes. Yes, there actually yes. OK. It's called the Star method and that's S T A R so and that's actually acronym. S T are for situation or task. And I like to view this as what is the opportunity or the challenge that you have within this. Describe the situation as you found it. And then the possible challenges or opportunities that arise from that opportunity or challenge. So then a part of this is the action. How did you how did you work what did you do? How did you address this opportunity or challenge? So the actions that you take are actually using your skill sets they validate your skill sets. Did you problem solve did you communicate research negotiation all kinds of things. And actually Carol you know we have a whole podcast on transferable skills. There you go. These are your transferable skills. And when you when you are using them in a start statement you're actually validating that you have used these in the past and can apply them to future situations where they are a necessary component of a successful outcome for whatever it is that you need to accomplish.

[00:06:09] Right. As an example in our last podcast, we talked about volunteerism and how important it is to you to go in and do volunteer work and learn new skills or hone the skills you have or update skills that you have. And so at Employment For Seniors, we have our volunteer job counselors who are for the most part H.R. professionals. They are either retired or they're in job transitions themselves or whatever the change is in their lives the tasks that they do the duties are you know to answer the phone talk to people. Data entry information into the computer. Well that those are tasks those that's not the value that they bring to our organization and to all of our job seekers. They're helping people through the process of job seeking. They are finding resources for them. They are showing them there. They're instructing and educating our clients on how to use our job list on what how to use other resources that are on the on a computer or in written form. So the data entry is not just data entry. It's to ensure that someone's information profile is complete and correct and that they deal with confidentiality issues and all those kinds of those are all transferable skills they have brought from their previous jobs into our situation. They could take them to other situations that they choose to go and have a paid position. So it's just it's a normal progression of information that they can provide on their resume.

[00:07:49] Yes and that's exactly right. So when you look at the are the result part of this. You're basically answering the question What was the result of your actions. You know our volunteer counselors maybe not everybody gets a job but you know if they just teach someone how to access our job board and that person accesses it and finds a job and applies for a job maybe they get it maybe they don't but that's an actual result. Something is different or better or improved because of the actions that that volunteer job counselor took. What impact does this have on the company? Sometimes people don't think about that very much. You know you can think about it sort of reverse engineer this a bit and say well what would happen if I didn't do something well. Exactly. You know as opposed to what if I did something well or maybe I even went a bit above and beyond. You know what positive impact is that going to have for the company the client the organization whoever that is. Or even my co-workers or maybe even myself.

[00:09:07] Right. You know this is really kind of in a nutshell the issues that older adults have in job seeking because they're afraid to pat themselves on the back. And this is not really patting yourself on the back. This is showing proof of the value that you brought to your employer. And so it's just a great way to be confident. Yes you can see what you have done you can and I when we talk to clients and we go through this with him all of a sudden you see the light bulb go on and they're like oh yeah I did do all those wonderful things. Yes. How much better to make your job search.

[00:09:45] Yes. You will gain if you work the start method and you do that repeatedly. You will gain a lot of confidence because things will start to come back to you. Oh yea,h I completely forgot about that you know.

[00:10:02] So things will start to come back to you that maybe you didn't even remember but they at the time they really did have a huge impact on the company on your co-workers maybe for clients. Any number of things.

[00:10:15] But but that is something that really does filter so it does so when you're going through this and you're building those accomplishments statements. Oftentimes it's easy to sort of talk about the task and kind of get ready to talk about that the value and you're looking for quality or quantity or whatever. And all of a sudden they sort of get to that stopping place like OK. What is that. How do you measure that. Well, I nobody told me. I don't know. You know so let's talk about how do we actually document that quality and quantity.

[00:10:53] Yes. So quantity is relatively easy for all you folks and sales out there you know what your sales numbers are. And you know how they stack up against other people in the same field or you know if if you're in a production environment you know you pretty well know how many widgets per hour you've produced. And that's a good thing. The quality part is in fact a lot more difficult measures so some. Some ideas for that is. How many times have you met or exceeded the requirements for your job are you. Let's take the example for instance of somebody who needs to generate a monthly under-report. OK. Task is pretty simple generated Montand report. OK. But there are some qualitative factors involved in that. OK. If if this report is going to be useful for its audience usage which is probably management has to be timely it has to be accurate. It has to be complete easily read easily read easily understood and interpreted. All of those things. So if you just wrote a column that said generated month and reports two days before they were due.

[00:12:23] That included all information and that were that included 100 percent of the required information presented in an understandable format. That's much better than that little generated month in reports. Right right exactly exactly.

[00:12:39] And particularly when it's going up and down the ladder. And so that you're showing you can deal with other audiences. So you've done it to management you've done to your peers you've done it to those working for you. Yeah. So it even gives us a larger breadth of of er span and in what you're doing. So you know it's I think there are so many instances in that somebody will say well I'm not allowed to use that information or I was never given that information. But there may be other cues that they've gotten to talk about their success. So for instance one of the large retailers here in Columbus that closed many years ago used to give out little apples every time a salesperson had a a a compliment from from one of the customers they got a little apple on their name tech and sometimes you'd see only one and sometimes you'd see 20 hanging on their name tag. So you may have got you know the listeners you may have gotten an award from your company or you may have been recognized from a professional association or if you are volunteering for an organization you may have gotten recognized from them. Those are ways to think about showing the value that you've brought to him to an employer or to an organization to a volunteer group whatever.

[00:14:03] Yes and I think that that's really important for you to stop and think not just sort of just in terms of numbers but really in terms of the quality of your work. Right. You could be you could be pretty good you know widget maker but you know maybe there are things that you did that made widget making better for your co-workers right. I don't know why. Why would that be so.

[00:14:30] Well I'm going to give one more example if that's OK. There are times when there is no quality or quantity. There's nothing to measure but it goes back to what you just said you've done something for someone else. So when I had my science students one of the things they always put down on their resumes they had to clean the science lab. And I'd always say well why. Well bottom line is number one you need to make sure that it's clean for the next group of students coming in so that their experiments are correct you haven't left some chemicals sitting around that didn't get cleaned up that's going to affect somebody else or for safety reasons OSHA regulations whatever that may be. So there's really not quality or quantity but if you didn't do it what impact would there be. So it's kind of like you say kind of a backdoor way of looking at it.

[00:15:23] Yes exactly. And there are a lot of people who will just say you know but you know what I was just doing my job right now. And I like him again this is the hide my light under a bushel problem. Exactly. You know but if you think about it just just ask yourself these questions when have you done more with less.

[00:15:51] I don't think there's a single person listening today that hasn't had that experience. Exactly. Not enough resources not enough resources. But I got done. OK. When have you seen or solved some problem that other people didn't see. And that may have impacted you and maybe a couple of other people but it made your life easier maybe it made a couple of other people's lives easier. Right. So why not. Many people have actually started a new program or a process. They saw a need for something within the company that just wasn't getting done at all. But if it got done it would be a huge help. So you know even even as an employee you may just see that there's if new employees were just given 30 minutes of training on something that they're not getting right now they would be productive. You know I don't know 20 20 percent faster. You know a much shorter time. So that's something that you can do and you may not even have the numbers for that but users can see that.

[00:17:04] But it may have been a number they didn't think about. Yeah, I started something and people were more productive by 10 or 20 percent. Yeah, and they didn't attributed to what they did. They attributed to the program Yeah. And yet they were the one who did.

[00:17:17] Yes exactly right. So if you've ever been a manager and this isn't just that you had "manager" in your title. Have you had to lead a team of other people and this could be your work. But going back to what we talked about our volunteer experience we teams all the time in our volunteer life. And we don't even think about it. We don't think about it you know we get a group of people together we we all shovel the dirt out and we get the job done and we don't even think about it but somebody kind of has to coordinate all of that. It's not just for people kind of shoveling dirt on their own. Somebody has to figure out why.

[00:18:01] And for our listeners being a volunteer doesn't mean that you're working in the office every day. We have a team of volunteers in our board and nonprofit agencies are always looking for great board members. You get the fiscal experience, you get the organizational experience, you get marketing experience. Brett can attest to this. Brett's been a longtime member of our board. It's just amazing what you do. And oftentimes those board members are working full time.

[00:18:29] Yeah. So that's a great thing. So have you ever saved the company money. They may not have noticed it but I bet you did. I had a client once who saved her company and she actually did have a number for this. She saved her company in six months she saved them something like 70 hundred dollars just by organizing their supply room. Wow. Because they were ordering stuff that they didn't need and they didn't have stuff on on hand that they really did need. She saved them 75 hundred dollars in six months just by organizes the fiber. That's wonderful. So and then finally have you ever been recognized for your performance. You know those those apples from the retailer. Great example of that actually.

[00:19:20] Yeah we had a meeting here at Employment For Seniors with an employer who had has this employer has many many locations in central Ohio had hired one of our clients to be an administrative assistant at one of the locations and they were administrative assistants at all the locations. And she realized that she was having trouble getting something done. Nobody kind of really answer her question. So she reached out to another administrative assistant at one of the other locations well suddenly then they had they both had another question. They just kept reaching out to where they actually created their own little administrative assistant group. And they are making all of the locations more effective more efficient and they you know the owner is sitting here telling me what what this added to their company.

[00:20:08] Wow. You know what can you say how much better is that on a resume.

[00:20:12] Yes. That's all better on a resume. So don't think that you were just doing your job. Think about what you have actually done in your job. That is me your job better. Your company better a better work environment for your co-workers better services to your clients whatever it was you have actually done all this. You just need to get it down on paper and it will make you both more confident and it's going to make you a better employee at your next job.

[00:20:46] Sharon we went over some tips on our last podcast that we talked about. And maybe it would be worth repeating those again and kind of incorporating to some tips on accomplishments statements.

[00:21:00] Ok. So I think the biggest step that we talked about was be truthful. Well, that's kind of the flip side of this. Be truthful but don't hide your light under a bushel. So when you look at accomplishments statements basically that's both truthful and letting your light shine. And that's really what this is all about. The other tip is and this is this is this relates directly to accomplishments. You'll understand the employer's needs better if you understand how you can help that employers. So I think that's really important. And yeah. Last but not least don't be afraid to ask for help. Have. That's what Employment For Seniors is here for many other agencies. There are very good people in private practice that help people write their resumes so yeah just just reach out ask for help.

[00:21:57] Don't try to go it alone and really see your job search as a continuum of steps and bits and pieces that need to be drawn in together and that all of the researcher join on employers all of the thoughts you're putting into your resume. The practice scene that you're doing on your interviewing it's going to make you a better job seeker and much more successful working for a company that you truly want to work for. Exactly.

[00:22:27] Wonderful. Sharon thank you this has been great. We hope all the listeners have gotten a lot of great information about doing resumes. If you're in central Ohio 50 and over you are more than welcome to contact Employment For Seniors for some help. And as Sharon said there are a lot of other agencies we can also help you find them. So again four parts to our podcast series. We hope you listen to all four.