Cracking the Code of Resume Writing [Meetup LIVE x Michelle Perchuk]

We are going to go ahead and get started. So thank you guys for all joining us. I'm Emily. I am the marketing events coordinator here at meetup and today we are joined once again by career coach Michelle Perchak for expert tips on the art of writing a resume. She will be busting myths about HR preferences and applicant tracking systems so you'll know the keywords. You should be using formatting requirements and layout hacks to stand out among candidates, which will be very helpful because I know we all have struggled with this at some point. So before I let Michelle take it away, I'm just going to go over a few guidelines and the agenda so this event will be recorded. But don't worry, you will not appear in the video. You can only see Michelle and I. We can't see you. There's also a mute courtesy. Your audio will be muted throughout this event, but if you have any questions for Michelle, be sure to submit them in the Q and A feature at the bottom of your screen. And we will be going over the Q and A at the end of the event. Closed captioning is also available. To turn it on, just click on the live transcription icon at the bottom of your screen and you can select your preference. And just to quickly go over the agenda for today, we're just doing a quick introduction right now, followed by a presentation with Michelle and then a Q and a session at the end. So again, before I let Michelle take it away with all her great tips, I'm just going to give her a quick introduction. So Michelle is a house have in common.

So before we get to that, I just would like to talk about a couple of myths that you probably heard over the years or from friends and colleagues about resumes. So a resume should list all of your job experience. If you have a gap on your resume, it's going to be a problem and you probably will not be asked for an interview. If you have more than five jobs on your resume, it really looks bad and you don't have a chance to get that particular job. And companies don't really like to hire people over a certain age. And if you held certain titles in your past job experiences, that guarantees that you're going to get this title again. And lastly, all you need is one great resume. So it really matters that your resume is going to be very sophisticated and very elegant because the resume will help you ultimately get the job. Well, some portions of these myths are right, but all in all they're really false because I've seen people get jobs with having eight year gaps on their resume. I've seen people get amazing opportunities way into their late 60s, and these things are called myths for a reason. So this particular webinar is going to be all about how to make yourself stand out from the thousands and hundreds and thousands of candidates that are applying online and through company websites. So I have a solution, and you will have a solution. After this webinar is done, you will have an amazing resume and that will withstand time. And what I mean by that is you'll have a resume that you could give to people you could email to people you could email through company portals, and you could definitely use it to apply on job boards because this resume will make it through those infamous ATS systems, which stands for Applicant Tracking Systems. You will learn how to put together and build a resume that shows your unique qualities. This resume will show the employer the better version of you. Who do you aspire to be? You will learn how to highlight your transferable skills, which are those infamous keywords that all employers look for, but they just never tell you about it. And most of all, you will learn how to put together a resume or the basics of putting together a resume that will stand out. It will be different from all the other resumes that are coming in for a potential job. And once again, you will learn how to pass through an applicant tracking system, which is an automated system fueled by AI that is programmed to accept resumes and to bank them in a company system so they could look up your candidacy if they want to later, or if they want to hire you. You will then start the onboarding process. So very quickly, since we're using the symbol of building a house, what do a house and a resume have in common? So when you decide to build a house, first you need to have a vision, then you need to select the location, and then you have to start working on a design. Once those three things are somewhat set up, you must pour a foundation, start working on the framing, install systems, then work on the interior, like the kitchen, the floors, and the bathrooms. When that's all done, you have to start thinking about the curtains and the furnishings. And if you want your house to look different or if you want your house to look amazing and impressive, you invest in landscaping, a great paint job, and, and all the extras that go on the interior. And most of all, as a homeowner, you need to be committed to constant updates. Same thing with a resume. So here are the seven things employers look for in a resume. And I tend to go a little bit toward the traditional resume format here, because once again, we need to make sure that we're in line with those infamous ATS systems, which I just read something this morning that they have not changed since 1999, which is probably before some people on this call were born. So those ATS systems have not changed. And if your resume is not ATS friendly, it will not transcribe. And the only way to make it ATS friendly is to keep it on the traditional side. So what does an effective resume have? Here are the components. First, it starts with a summary, which gives your resume a human feel. Instead of listing all of your experiences and all your skills, your summary gives a human feeling to your resume, to the potential employer. And an objective is an integral part of the resume building process because it gives the employer the reason to look at your resume. It states your objective and what job you're applying for. Certain professionals struggle with these two components. Putting together a summary and identifying an objective is because they're really not sure what they want to do. They're applying to various jobs, to various titles. They'll apply to anything that looks great. And this is where most people miss out. So if you're not sure what you want to be, you're not sure what your career objective is. I designed an amazing tool which you could download right here from this QR code on the screen. How to Gain Career Clarity. It's a guide, very short, five pages that will help you identify your passion and will help you come up with an objective of who you want to be and in what position will you be successful in. So now let's continue to building the resume basics. The format and the setup of the resume have to be very simple to read, very easy to read, because people that read resumes, people that get your resumes, they scan hundreds of resumes a day, and if your resume is confusing, not clear, has fancy designs, they will quickly get bored and look at the next resume. So my advice is have a very simple format and have the resume set up very clearly on the various pages so that they can quickly understand exactly what you're all about and what job you're applying for. Now, I know a lot of people have heard different things about the length of the resume, and I came up with a very simple solution. For students, it's one page. For professionals, it's two pages. And if you're published authors or you have done a lot of research, or you're creatives, where you need to include links to samples of your work, then you may go on to the third page. If your resume is longer than three pages, it's way too long and it defeats the purpose because honestly, they don't read beyond the first page. Your education is a key component of your resume. If it's required for the job, skills and competencies need to be listed on the first page. So your best version of you is highlighted on the first page. Your work experience, and then absolutely your achievements or highlights of your career. Let's say a few things about the summary and the objective again, because I know that's where many people struggle. And once again, you could download the Guide to Career Clarity in this QR code, which will help you define your objective. If your resume does not have an objective, you are taking the risk of your resume not being submitted to the actual hiring manager. Very often when I spent years in HR and in talent acquisition, we would look at resumes that don't have objectives and we would wonder, what job is this particular individual applying for? Because sometimes the skills and the job descriptions are very, very similar. And if you're not clear on your resume exactly what your objective is, then your resume can go missing in translation. So we're trying to avoid that to happen. So what is a summary? A summary is actually a vision of yourself, of your professional self. So how do you see yourself as a professional? Are you a successful extrovert or are you a successful introvert that's dedicated to research and data? What are the best aspects of you? The summary, like I said earlier, provides the resume a human touch so that a potential employer gets a human feeling of who you are and not just a chronological order of achievements, skills, and experiences regarding the objective. I know you have questions. Should I make my objective generic or. Or should I make it very focused and should I make it a niche? My advice is the more focused you are, the higher your chances are of getting an interview after submitting the resume. We're all submitting a resume because we would like to be invited for the interview. And the more niche your objective is, the higher your chances are that the employer will understand exactly what you want in your career. So, for example, if someone is a school teacher, it definitely makes sense to add as much detail into the objective as possible. So instead of saying to obtain a teaching position, which opens up to all kinds of teaching positions at colleges, at pre K or elementary school, it makes sense to say to obtain a teaching position as a math teacher in K through 12 in a charter school in the Northeast. So when a potential employee receives that resume, you took the guesswork out and if your objective matches their objective, guess what? You get invited for that interview. I decided to include an image of a perfect resume that that will transcribe perfectly into an applicant tracking system. And you're welcome to take a screenshot of this. This is an ideal length for a student, but obviously a professional can expand on it. So very quickly I'll just run through the various components. The summary is once again, the human feel of who you are as a candidate. Your objective, you may want to include a personal mission statement which is definitely optional, but that will make your resume stand out. So if you're a scientist or a marine biologist and you want to decrease pollution in the world so that animals can thrive, definitely put that in there. Then the highlights and the industry achievements are the best moments of your professional life or your academic life. Something that you want the potential employer to know about you because you're most proud of me personally. I managed a huge staffing project right after 911 because New York Stock Exchange was my account at that time and I provided staff for their last minute projects. So when 911 happened, I was tasked with this problem of providing them people that could work 24 7. And I'm very proud of that moment in my career. The core competencies are those systems that run through your professional life. And I'll talk about core competencies just in the next slide. But this is just to show you where it has to appear on the resume. Then we get into your foundation, which is the education, and then let's just spend a few moments on the professional experience. So you list the company name, your title, the days that you were employed by that company, and the first bullet point that I have there in italics has to state why this employer hired you, what problem were you hired to solve? Then list a couple of bullet points about your responsibilities and your achievements. And the last bullet point needs to include some sort of roi, return on investment, some data, some numbers of things that you have accomplished that are tangible while you are employed by this particular company. This is a game changer because a new potential employer will see right away that you were a great investment. And guess what? A lot of people are not doing this. So this webinar is all about how to crack the code of resume writing so that you could get the interview. So this is a suggestion that will lead you down that path. And lastly, many people leave out volunteering or any nonprofit work that they do offer their resumes. I recommend for you to include any charity work that you did maybe over the pandemic, because Once again, that shows a potential employer that you are human, that you have empathy, that you have emotional intelligence. And guess what? Those qualities are. What Employers look for some formatting basics. So the sections we already discussed and the layout, I would like to say it's very important to keep all of your important information on page one. So the layout is extremely important and we need to capitalize on the space on the first page. So that's why I am recommending to use margins 0.5 to 1 regarding the layout. Also showing a potential employer that you are a modern candidate, that you've updated your resume recently, and that you are on top of the trends. So using a more trendy professional font like Calibri and Garamond are definitely recommended. Once again, we have to beat those applicant tracking systems. So I urge you to please avoid photos, graphics and fancy images on your resumes, because those will not transcribe properly into an ats and they may even throw off any kind of evaluations that employers have for keyword searches and abbreviations do not transcribe well. They do not show up in keyword searches for employers. And also we assume that people that review our resumes may understand what those abbreviations stand for because it's necessary for our profession. So I know that many scientists, many financial people, many technology people have many certifications with abbreviations. Remember, HR is not familiar with those because they're hr, they're not finance people. And I wouldn't want them to look over your resume because they don't know what an abbreviation stands for. Quickly, about length. The suggestion is one page for students, two pages for professionals, three pages. If you have a lot of published work style, style is extremely important. Please don't write resumes to impress. Write resumes to express, be clear and let there be no guesswork for the person that is scanning your interview. Once again, we want that interview. Not the interview, excuse me, the resume. We want the person who's reading your resume to put it in the stack of resumes of people who are being called in for interviews. Data is extremely important, especially if you're in sales or if you're in any kind of financial reporting. If you could back up your roi, return on investment, or your responsibilities by numbers, by percentages. That means that your resume is going to the stack of people who are going in for interviews. And lastly, this is something so simple and many people overlook. But please do a spell check and do a grammar check on your resume. Education, just like a house, has a foundation. The foundation of you is your Education, especially if it's required for the job. So please clearly list your educational organization, your degree, your gpa, any honors, awards, notable projects or classes. And once again, those certifications spelled out core competencies. We spoke, I mentioned those before. And just like the systems, the air conditioning, the electricity and the plumbing run through your house, your core competencies are systems, I call them transferable skills that run through your entire career. They show who you are to the core as a professional. A couple of years ago, I conducted a small research project about what are those transferable skills that employers look for? And here is what I came up with. I audited more than 3,000 positions across all levels, from low end to middle management to C suite. And I realized that these are the six common denominators that all organizations look to attract in a candidate. Communication, collaboration, creativity, technical, meaning, technology, friendly, teamwork, and leadership. And once again, you don't need to be in a leadership position to show leadership skills. So please take a moment to take a photo of this particular slide because these transferable skills should run through your resume. Those are keywords that employers don't tell us about. And these are great conversation starters during your interviews. Now let's talk about the content. The house has content, the furnishings, the wallpaper. Your resume needs to have content as well. And what is that content? That content is your actual skills that are required to do the job. And those are the competencies and the skills that only you have and that qualify you as the only person to do the job well. So all the skills that you have, whether the communication skills, technology skills, any software that you know, any financial maneuvers, please list the skills on the first page, especially if they are required by the job. Now let's talk a little bit further about content and on the professional experience that is required for your for your candidacy. So when you enter an actual job, you list the name of the company, the years or the months that you were employed by them. Your actual title, the first bullet point, which is what I had in italics in the previous slide, is a statement. Why were you hired? Were you hired to design, to develop, to reorganize? What was the reason that you were hired for? Then a list of your responsibilities. So in your current job, you should be listing five to seven bullet points, and in your previous job you just do two less. So every time that you go back to a previous role, you include less and less bullet points because once again, we want all the important information to be on the first page. And the last bullet point has to be the results a summary of the results that you achieved in that particular role. So now that we have the decorations all done in the house and we have all the systems and the foundation is solid, what are some extras that we could add to our house to make it have curb of the appeal and to make it unique? Obviously the landscaping, the beautiful decorations on the outside of the house and a beautiful paint job. So volunteer volunteering experience and samples of your work are those extras that are going to make your resume stand out just like all of these extras would make your home stand out. So volunteering is mentioning any charity that you were involved in, any fundraising, any organizations you nonprofits that you worked with, any any organizations that you made donations for and for people who are in creative professions. Definitely including samples of your work, either articles you have written, any publications that you published, books or journals for other types of creative people in the visual arts, a link to your website or to your portfolio, any recognitions and any notable project. All of these extras will make you stand out from your competition and will increase your chances of being called in for an interview. So what makes a resume outstanding? It's the same thing that makes a house a home. There are many houses on the street that may look the same, but it's what's inside that makes them unique. And that is tied into the fact that your resume will be different is the unique qualities that you will choose to highlight in your resume. But a resume is not always enough, like I mentioned in the beginning of the webinar that you may have the great resume, but you really need to know what to do with it. So a resume without a strategy is just a piece of paper. And once you have an impressive resume, there are so many things that you could do with it. Not only apply online, that could lead you to your dream job and an amazing career opportunity. Once again I want to thank meetup for inviting me back. I enjoyed putting together this presentation to share with the world of what you need to do in order to crack the code of writing a resume. You could find out more about what I do on my website mtvcoaching.com and you could contact me at@michellemtvcoaching.com I'm very active on LinkedIn. You could message me there if you have any questions. And I put out a lot of amazing content and Instagram. And lastly, as my way of saying thank you to meetup and for having having me back for the second time, I created two amazing packages with a great discount for people who are dialing in this Afternoon One package is about a resume revamp where I walk you through how to make an impressive resume and you get a face to face coaching session by me on Zoom where I really help you write your own resume. And for people who feel that they have gaps in their resumes or they feel that they're being aged out of the market or their resume is too long, I actually developed an amazing product called the One Pager where you include everything the highlights of your career in a one page document that you could use to submit as your resume and definitely open up doors for new opportunities. I look forward to hearing from all of you and thank you so much for allowing me to speak to you.

Thank you so much Michelle. That was amazing. I learned so much and I know our audience definitely learned a lot. I love all the talk practical tips you gave us. Just so everybody knows, all of the links that Michelle just mentioned are in the chat so if you want to check them out, they're there for you. But we are going to get into Q and A because we have a lot of them. We expected this because there's always a lot of questions going with this topic. But let's see what we have. So Stanley asked, read the qualification slash education. Is there a timeline where you would recommend leaving certain things out or leaving out the date to avoid potential age discrimination or would you recommend leaving them in to comply with the ats?

Okay, so that question is a little bit loaded, but I'll answer the best that I can. So I'm all about honesty on the resume, so never hide any information. If you graduated at a certain year, write that or don't include a graduation year at all. But I have been making recommendations to my clients in excluding the experience that is more than 10 years old. And what I mean is not excluding it completely from the resume, but creating a separate category called Early Career Experience. Because honestly, every job today encompasses technology and technology that's more than 10 years old is actually not relevant. So if you're going to use the space on your resume to highlight your best versions of you, you can't tell me that version was 10 years ago. You have to highlight everything that you're doing now and how up to date it is. But of course don't throw out all the experience that you've had. So I always recommend to make a separate section on your resume on the second page which is called Early Career Development. Early Career Experience where you list the companies you worked for, the titles you've had, and maybe one bullet point per role. So that we turn the attention to your current role or to your last to current role.

That's a great tip. Thank you. Chris asked While I agree that having percent of percent info or concrete ROI data is good to have, unfortunately that data may only be available to upper management at a much later date and not available to those who actually are doing the work. What is the best what is best to approach this?

So that seems to be a very unique question and I'm not sure that most people will relate to that. I have seen where certain data is not available to let's say people in middle management, only the CEO will have it. So then don't mention that data. Mention the data that is available to you, but make sure that you could back it up. So if you say that you were the second ranking salesperson in the OR in the organization, make sure you have the data to back it up. Because once again our idea is to have the resume lead you to the interview. You may put certain data on the resume, but at the interview if you don't have a backup, you will stumble.

Thank you. Got to use what you you have Mark asked, what if you are in a professional job but also have done publications, etc. For communications, should you include these samples?

Yes. And that's the three page version of the resume that I spoke about very early on in the presentation. If you are a published author, you know, in your industry, if you have the recognitions, I would include almost like you know, an index. When we used to write essays in college, we always gave the bibliography. That's what I would include on my third page.

Thank you. Carl asked, do you suggest different resumes for different job titles?

That's a really loaded question. Thank you for asking that. I recommend not having more than three versions of your resume. The only thing that really needs to change is the objective. But I know a lot of people have a difficult time letting go of not only having one resume. The reason why you really need one resume, because there's only one authentic you and and you will only get one job, not three. So the more you could load into your master resume, that's going to show the potential employer the best version of you, the more effective that one resume will be. So you could start with having three versions, but you will remember me in six months from now where you will see that you really just need one amazing version. And the only thing that if you want to change, the only thing that you should be changing in your resume is the objective.

I very much agree with that. I used to have two resumes. And then I realized that I did not need that. Now I just have the one. Annalise asks, what about columns of skills on the first page? Do the automatic system struggle with this?

You know, I would love to give an exact answer, but 90% of the time the columns skew ATSs. You never know, but it may be a spacing issue. So that's why I suggest to have less lines of skills, but organize them according to the transferable skills. So I gave you those six transferable skills. Especially under technical, you could list all of the technology skills that you have. So if you have a lot of skills, which a lot of seasoned professionals do, just list the skills as core competencies. So under communication, just list out everything that you've done. If you want specific samples and how that looks, contact me. I have. It's very difficult to describe it verbally and not really show you because that's such a visual thing. I'll be more than happy to share with you some samples which will explain much better.

That's great. Thank you. I hope I'm pronouncing this right. Moshu asked, what if you don't have any career highlights? For instance, if you were in the lowest ranking part of the company.

I promise you, you have a highlight, you just don't know it.

Dig deep.

There's a highlight when being and you mean well, that's a highlight.

Anonymous asked, I'm getting confused on whether these tips are for AI scanning or for human employer. Can you clarify?

They are actually for both. Because the point of entry into any company these days is through some kind of a system. Because most people on this call are applying to job boards. So in the job board itself there is an AI component in the back. I know this for sure because I work with Indeed, which is the most effective job board in the world today. So once your resume is comes in from Indeed, it doesn't go to somebody's desk, it goes into a system. And if your resume is fancy, has photos and characters, we don't know how it will transcribe because there are at least 30 different ATSs and all of them are different. That's why I really recommend if you're sending a resume, you're not giving it into someone's hands. Send the most basic Word document. No one wants to alter your resume. They have better things to do. If you send it as a PDF, it becomes an extra step for the recruiter to try to transfer it into a Word document so they could drop it into an ATS Send the word document. If you're meeting someone, let's say you're then called in for a face to face interview. Then bring your beautiful elegant resume on a nice piece of paper and present it to them almost like a business card. But if you're submitting it to a non human, send the basic one.

That is very helpful to know. Thank you. Let's see. Anonymous asked. Well, first they said thank you. Then they said I am a manager if my title is different than what I am doing and what I am doing is how hire which is a director level, how do I indicate that on on a resume?

That's a very loaded question. I actually love that you asked this question because when you write an impressive resume, you always need to upskill. So in that, in that first bullet point I had in italics, you could actually really give yourself a bonus and say even though I was hired as a VP, I'm actually doing the CEO's job. That will get them to notice you like that. And you could also connect that to your objective because you're looking to obtain a C suite position or C leadership. And you can connect it in your summary saying that I have worked so hard on myself to challenge myself, to develop myself professionally, to be able to upskill and I'm in fact doing that job without the title.

Yeah, let's see. Anonymous asked, what's your advice? Building a resume based on a specific job offer or using always the same resume whenever the job offer is an interesting one?

I'm assuming that you mean job offer as job description, so I recommend having one resume every time you go. When you have to rebuild your resume again to match the job. It's like whenever you're building a house, you're not rebuilding it. Every time your friend has a bigger house than you. You want to build a house, you start with a vision, you pick the location and you run with it. You're not rebuilding the house all the time. So that's why it may be a difficult task for people to let go of having only one master resume. So have one master and two others. But if you're exploring two different career paths at one time, what's going to wind up happening is you, you won't get one and you won't get another. People who accomplish great things in their career have one thing and that's called focus. And that's why the objective is so is such a big part of your resume because it shows exactly the employer what you want to do and that you're not playing games.

I Love that answer. So is that. I know this might confuse people. Cover letters, are they. Are you supposed to change those every time? You're not supposed to just have one of those, right?

Actually, you. It would be the ideal situation because it's a lot of work and that's why executives are so stressed today. They're applying to hundreds of jobs and can you imagine? It's a full time job. You almost need to outsource that to alter every single cover letter. If you. Okay, I'm going to give this little tip. If you feel that you have to rewrite your resume very often and your cover letter very often, guess what? You don't have career clarity and you're not in the right lane on the highway. So for those people, definitely use that guide that I, that I developed because that's going to ask you these tough questions so that you could identify what is exactly that you want to do and then focus because you're opening yourself up to risk. It's like driving on the highway when you're like zigzagging everywhere, not only are you risking getting a ticket, but it's not a safe thing. Stick in the lane and you're going to get safely to the destination.

Yeah. I think a lot of people try and be more flexible with their resumes and their cover letters because they don't know where to go.

There's a lot of confusing information out there in the COVID letter. I would really pay attention to those core competencies and show Express, not impress Express, how your core competencies are tied to what the employer is looking for. Almost dissect their job according to the core competencies and have your cover letter be the answer to their problem.

That's great. Thank you. Anthony asked most software jobs list a dozen technical requirements. How many of these should be included without making a resume too long?

Can you say that question again, please?

Yep. Most software jobs list a dozen of technical requirements. How many of these should you include without making your resume too long?

So I bet that I used to be a technical IT recruiter. I focused only on technology. So I bet that those technical skills can be actually sorted out by network database software and all of that. So I would just come up with several categories under technology and list all those out. I can't imagine that you have a page full of technical terms. So just list the top ones that they require. You don't have all of them. That's okay as long as you have at least eight of them. And then even if they're requiring. Nice to haves if you have some of those bold those and if you don't just, it is what it is. But for technical roles, you must expand on the skills and you must include all the technology that they're requiring you to have. Otherwise it will be impossible to get the job.

Good to know. Someone else asked, is there a maximum of bullet points for job offer? They might be referring to job description.

Yes. So in your current job, if you could include five to seven, that would be awesome. If you're in this job more than five years, you probably need to have seven to 10 bullet points on your responsibilities, your day to day and then adding the first bullet point, which is why you were hired, and the last bullet point as your accomplishments. So that's approximately 12 different bullet points. That's page one. If they're interested, if you capture their attention from what you're doing now, then they'll look on page two. You're not getting a job on what you did on page two. You're getting the job and what you're highlighting on page one. They're just validating when they look, oh, let me see what else this person did. But you're getting the job from the, from capturing their imagination from page one.

So if you're saying that they'll focus on page one and it's not, is it necessary to have three pages or two to three pages?

Yes, because it may not be enough room to, you know, think about the seasoned professionals. They have to include, you know, a 15 year career. So they have to list all the remaining jobs. So that page two, but you need to capture their attention on page one. And then if the bonus is that you also did volunteering and you know, Boy Scouts of America, oh wow. This person is a human being. You know, they're not all about career. And look how it matches their summary. And look, this is exactly what we're looking for. Let's bring them in. The third page is examples of your work or any list of publications. Always think of the bibliography for the essay.

Okay, got it. Thank you. We have another question. They say, hi, I have previous experience and now I did a master's in a different academic course. Now I'm applying for entry level positions. What is your suggestion?

That is not a one minute answer. That definitely is going to take a bit of massaging. You probably need to work with someone that does that. A career coach that could actually carve out everything that you had in your prior career, identify why you wanted to pivot and do some skill mapping to what you did. In your previous job, why you decided to invest in in more academics and then how that's tied into into your current career path. It's very difficult for me to answer that question without seeing your resume, your degree and all of that. You could address all of those in a resume. You're probably not getting the job from the resume only. You will probably need to explore the hidden job market and really sell yourself. And I think maybe the person that asked this question probably knows that a little bit.

They need to check out your resources. The links are in the chat. Edward asked how do you evaluate if under or over qualified? If the description says two plus years and you have 20 years, do you forego?

I can't imagine a scenario where 20 year experience person would apply for something that only requires two years unless there's a career pivot. So I have to really give the same answer I gave to the previous person. We need to address that and that's a very complicated matter. But it can be done. I have seen miracles happen. I've seen people with eight year gaps get amazing job opportunities. There is a shortage of great people today in the workforce. If we could bring out the best qualities of you on a resume, you will increase your chances of getting an interview. At the interview, you highlight who you are, you get hired.

That is great to know. There's some hope. If you guys, if anyone out there like the pastor who have questions, if you have a career react or need to career pivot, check out Michelle's resources. Let's see. Carl asked. A resume will be checked against our LinkedIn. Will a resume be checked against our LinkedIn profile?

So.

So please add your comments about age and modifying through your LinkedIn to match your resume.

Yes. So if the resume is artwork, a painting in a museum, your LinkedIn is the NFT. So it's really, it's a three dimensional capture of who you are. So it definitely has to match not bullet point by bullet point. I do a whole different segment on LinkedIn on creating an impressive LinkedIn profile, but it has to be connected with dates and titles because they will absolutely internal recruiters and part of the hiring process. They will definitely check it because you could put anything down on a resume, but there is some sort of auditing on LinkedIn. Like if you said that you worked for the IRS, you know there is a way of checking so make sure that the tangibles actually match. But LinkedIn gives you resume and steroids. You could highlight recommendations, things that you're involved with your school. It just really makes you three dimensional where a resume is really flat.

Yeah. It all needs to add up. All needs to make sense.

Yes.

Miranda asked if you had a lower level non sales job like administrative assistant. Assistant. How do you indicate your value on your resume?

Each one of us has value. I would need to dissect your day to day. I would also like to understand the value of you not showing up and what the CEO is going to do if you're not there. If you're in a job that means you add value to society. You may just be struggling on how to word that and that's where that guide can help you or maybe meeting with a career coach and kind of hashing that out. But I promise you if you're working, you're adding value, otherwise the company won't keep you.

Great point. Let's see, none of us asked are there any specific recommendations for a resume if you're applying to an internal position in a company?

Any. I missed the first thing.

Any, any specific recommendations for a resume if you're applying to an internal position?

The only thing that I would say, and you know I really want to thank for that question that's very specific is really allude more to upskilling on your resume. Show that you are somewhat through your responsibility than through the ROI that you accomplished in your current job that you're doing so much more so that it's not going to be what's the right word so they don't have to think twice that you can do the job because you're obviously applying to something at a higher level than you're doing now. So it's going to be a no brainer that you can do that. There's ways to express that in what you're currently doing. So instead of saying just to give you an example, mentoring people is a very is a skill when you're upskilling, building, redesigning, reorganizing, showing that you have accomplished, you met the deadlines or you, you know, you met your goals 80% faster than it was outlined for you in the beginning of the project. So if you're applying internally to a higher position, show your ability to upskill and you could address all of that not only in the COVID letter but in your summary.

Thank you. I think we have time for one or two more. Let's. We'll see how it goes. After this question, Patricia asked how do you handle not finishing college? No bachelor's degree.

If it's required for the position, then that's a very tall order. If they're requiring education or a bachelor's degree. If it says in the job description the bachelor's degree is required or Bachelor of Science or Master's, then it's a tall order. Then you're probably not getting a job through applying through a job board or through a company website because they will disqualify just based on that. But not, you know, hope is not gone. I have seen people without college degrees get amazing jobs. At that point you need to tap into the hidden job market and that's going into a particular company that you're interested in working for or or for a particular manager by contacting them in person, building a network, doing an outreach, being intentional. That's all LinkedIn. Maybe the next one we should do about LinkedIn because it seems like people really want to know.

Sounds good. I think we have time for one more. So Anonymous asked I am working as an individual contributor for many years. How do I present my resume when I apply to a manager position?

So I love this question because I bet that you are a leader without having the title. So once again you need to optimize your resume in such a way to show that you're up for the challenge to be a leader, a manager, or stop being an individual contributor. So you need to just allude towards things that you're doing going outside of the box. For many years I was an individual contributor, but yet I took it upon myself to mentor others in my group. If you could just allude to activities like that on your resume, then you can start applying for low end leadership positions and address why you feel that you are a match for that in your cover letter and in your summary.

Thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for sharing all your great tips and answering all of these questions. I hope this helps some of you guys out. I know it helped me. So just as a reminder, the links to Michelle's packages and her resources are in the chat. I will just resend them again just in case anyone missed it. But they're all there in the chat if you guys need it. And before we go, we're just going to share a few slides just to wrap this up. So we are now on TikTok. We recently launched our TikTok page so be sure to check it out. We post fun videos on there so you don't want to miss it. Check it out. Eatup and the next slide. So we also have a podcast, Keep Connected with our CEO David Siegel. We have some great episodes on there about community and connection. So if you want to check it out. Just scan the QR code or you can subscribe@meetups.com or meetup podcast.com so thank you all again for being here. I hope you guys learned something and have a great rest of your day.

Thank you so much. Have a great day everyone. Bye. Bye.

Bye.