Build my career series Part 2 Resume building

TIM KLECKER: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the second part of our Build My Career discussion series presented by U.S. Bank Goals Coaching Team. In our first section, we discuss the importance of career pathing. How does one go about determining what direction they want to go for their career? 
We covered questions such as, what motivates you? How do your personal values impact the choices that you make around your career path? And how can you leverage your strengths to help you craft a strong personal brand? The next portion of our discussion makes a bit of a shift and focuses on something that I know a lot of my clients struggle with. 
My name is Tim Klecker. I am one of the goal coaches at U.S. Bank. I am a certified master life coach through Transformation Academy with a special emphasis in goal setting and achievement. I also hold a master practitioner certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming through the Academy of Modern Applied Psychology. 
One of the things that I love about coaching is that it is agenda-less, at least on my part. As a coach, I don't bring an agenda to our sessions. The coachee, you, gets to set the agenda. My role is to help serve you in helping you find new pathways towards the outcomes that you're looking for. 
Many of the goals that you have to choose from, such as what you're seeing on the screen here, are layered and have different components before you can confidently say, I have achieved this goal. Maybe, with Build My Career, when it comes to the career pathing piece, you already have a level of confidence, which is great. Maybe you're still unsure of where you're supposed to be with that part of this goal, and you could benefit from watching the previous installment in this series around career pathing. 
Or perhaps consider connecting with a coach to make some progress. Other elements of building my career, such as interviewing or negotiating job offers, are going to be discussed in future sessions. But right now, our focus is on resume building. 
So what is a resume? A resume is your presentation card to a chance at a fulfilling career. Putting it another way, a resume is a reflection of you. It's your standard. It's your banner. It's a professional leaf litter brochure, which shows potential employers what you intend to do when you arrive on the job if they hire you. No pressure, right? 
Contrary to popular belief, the point of a resume, the purpose of a resume is not to get you a job. It's to land you an interview. The application process sees a lot of people applying for the same job. The thing that will distinguish you from simply filling out an application for that HR rep is the quality of your resume. It's the determining factor that puts you in the maybe pile versus the no pile. 
A resume that is well crafted showcases your experience, past experience particularly, especially if it aligns with what they're looking for in this current new position. It highlights any skill sets that you possibly have learned over time and currently possess, both hard skills and soft skills. It reflects your knowledge level around certain areas. It shares your accomplishments, and it shows in what ways you're able to do the job. 
So here's an interesting insight. A corporate job opening on average receives about 250 applicants. Of that pool, about four to six on average are chosen to go through the interview process. Then of that four or six, normally only one gets the job. Again, no pressure, right? 
The point of our conversation today is to discuss ways of making your resume stand out from the rest. How do you do this? Let's go over some tips and tricks. 
Step 1-- choose a format and design. It is said that we eat with our eyes first, and the same concept applies here with your resumes. The first time someone sees it, what is the impression that it leaves them? Does anything stand out above other things? Does the resume itself speak to the job? Or is it just a jumble of information about you? 
How you construct your resume can determine how a hiring manager or a recruiter takes in your credentials. So choosing a format and design, choose one of the following formats-- now, these are suggestions from me and the Goal Coaching Team. There are three formats-- chronological, functional, and combination. 
You want to keep your resume as brief as possible. A rule of thumb is that your resume should be one page in length. For those applying for a role of greater responsibility, such as a promotion, the next-level supervisor, manager, two pages might be acceptable. 
When it comes to your resume design, black and white scheme is always a safe bet, but color may be acceptable in more creative industries. Personally, if you do choose to add some color, I would encourage you to stick with the single theme as far as the color goes and not necessarily a crayon box or a rainbow type of scheme. 
Here's an example of a chronological resume. This is the most commonly used style with the sections of your resume being listed in reverse chronological order. In the standard type of resume, work experience is listed along with relevant job duties, which makes up the bulk of the body of the resume. 
You can see that there is a professional summary at the top. There's a separate section on the side for skills and education. And the work history is very prominently placed in the middle. Also note the contact information is right up by the name. 
Another kind of resume you might consider is the functional resume. This format might be helpful if you desire a career change but do not have much related experience, especially with your job history. If your employment history is unstable or if you don't have any professional experience, instead of focusing on your work history, this type of resume focuses on the different skills that you have acquired along the way. 
And of course, then there is the hybrid. This is a mixture of both, where you equally or hold in equal value the skills that you've learned and the different things that you'll bring to the table but also have a little bit of a body for your background history. It's suggested that you could use this if there's more than five years of work experience. 
Step 2, add your contact information. Now, this may seem like common sense, but you want your contact information to stand out prominently. You do not want somebody to have to go searching for it. Be sure all contact information is up to date, accurate, and presented correctly in the header of your resume. 
In the previous examples, we saw the contact information up by the name. That makes your name synonymous with your contact information. Email address should be professional and private. Don't do something childish or something outlandish that may reflect poorly on your maturity level or how seriously you take a professional opportunity. 
Addresses just need to be the city and the state. You do not need to include your full home address. And use phone number's standard formatting. You don't necessarily have to get creative with phone numbers. Make them easily able to read, the kind of standard form that most people are used to. 
Step 3-- this one might be a little more difficult for some people-- crafting a killer professional summary. Use your professional summary to highlight your relevant skills, share a particularly impressive achievement, and sell potential employers on why you are the most qualified candidate for the role. Strive for dynamic, memorable opening. And show the employer that you understand their needs, and explain how you will fulfill them. 
A few ways to do this is to read through the job description that is posted. What are they actually looking for? What in your history can you highlight in this version of the resume that aligns with that, that will stand out? And what are some of the more attractive ways that you can phrase and highlight who you are and what your competencies are in that killer professional summary? Let's go through an example. 
If you look here, we have an example with some blanks that you could fill out, and this might be a fun exercise. So take a moment, maybe pause the video, and see what you can come up with by filling in the blanks. Just to jump ahead, I have already provided one that is filled out. 
Summary-- experienced customer service representative with a proven track record of boosting month-to-month sales. In that first sentence, you've already stated that you're experienced and in what area, and you've already shown what you are capable of achieving, boosting month-to-month sales, in this case. Additionally, able to predict, evaluate, and meet the specific needs of customers while maintaining an efficient work schedule. That may sound like a mouthful, but it encompasses a lot about the individual. 
Awarded employee of the month for consistently receiving positive customer feedback, seeking to leverage my experience in customer service to fill your senior customer relationship consultant position. If you hadn't read that last line, what would you think this person is applying for, just based on the things they filled in? 
Almost every one of those gaps is focused on serving customers-- customer service, driving excellence around those types of relationships. And sure enough, at the very bottom, senior customer relationship consultant. The body should, in itself, explain or at the very least indicate the position that you were going for. 
Try it out a couple times on your own. Take a couple goes. It doesn't have to be a novel. In fact, you don't want to make it more than a few sentences. 
And this can be something that is brand new for you to try. That's why you want to take the time. Craft it a few different ways. See what sounds best. Maybe share it with somebody, and see what their feedback is. 
Step 4, shine a spotlight on your skills. Utilizing a skills section near the top of your resume is a simple way to get your most relevant, hard, and soft skills in front of a recruiter or hiring manager. Be sure to study the job posting and personalize this section or, as I would say, maybe reorder it every once in a while, depending on the focus for the position that you're applying for. 
Put the more relevant skills, the ones that you can extrapolate from the job description, near the top. Never list skills that you don't actually have, even if it looks good. You want your resume to authentically represent you, not to give a false impression or image of who you are. 
Step 5, focus on critical experience. Your most recent work history is the most important, so start there and work in reverse. If you have a solid work history, use a chronological resume format, that first one that we covered. That goes back no further than 10 years. 
Listing your most relevant and recent job performance stuff will help people to backtrack and deconstruct the growth journey that you've had so far. If you have employment gaps or limited work experience, you might consider the functional resume or the combination resume. And if you have gaps in your employment, don't worry too much about it. You can hopefully have an opportunity to explain those gaps. Just make sure that you list things honestly and authentically. 
Focus on the critical experience, continued-- for each job in your work history section, be sure to include the following. You want transparency here. Put down the company name, the location, the date of employment or the date range. Put down some of your job-specific duties and responsibilities, not just things that you were expected to do but things that you were able to learn also can be listed in the same manner with that sentence, and any irrelevant achievements or accomplishments that you were able to attain or reach at your time with that place. 
I like to share with a lot of my clients that it doesn't matter if you have worked in different jobs across different industries. As long as you have been able to take something from each job and apply it to yourself as you continue on, every one of those positions is part of your career path. So don't underestimate what you can take from any position you've had in the past. 
Step 6, outline your education. Most of us are aware that employers, recruiters, HR reps, they want to know if we've gone to school or had any particular schooling in our past history. Start by listing your educational history in reverse chronological order, just as you did with your work history. Classes or degrees that are still in progress can be listed in a way that says anticipated graduation date here. Unless you are a recent grad, don't include the graduation dates. There's no need to reference your high school diploma either, unless that's the extent of your education. 
Step 7, review, rework, cut the fat, and spell check. You can't write a perfect resume without a lot of proofreading. Put yourself in the reader's position and scrutinize your tone and the items you've chosen to include. Get someone else with fresh eyes to take a look at it. 
If your resume ends up being riddled with spelling errors and grammatical errors, it might be very difficult to read, especially if the person reading it is used to reading resumes. It may actually make it stand out in a way that you don't want it to and end up in the pile that you're hoping it doesn't end up in. You can't over scrutinize all of that proofreading. 
Also, less might be more. I have worked with clients who feel that they have to write an entire paragraph so the person understands what their job duties were. Sometimes reading that entire story, all that precursor information just to understand what your responsibilities are, can be very exhausting. And people still might not understand. Leave stories like that for the interview and only if they're relevant. 
A LinkedIn profile-- I want to touch on this as we come to the end of our conversation today. A LinkedIn profile seems to be the standard for the electronic resume. It allows people-- and they do go research you. It allows them to see activity that you have around certain industries or certain interests, even, professional interests, of course. It allows you to put up a recent headshot to list some of your experience. 
If you don't have one of these, by the way, it's time to create one. And I know sometimes you might be thinking, all I need is another social media profile. This is not a social media profile like the ones you're used to. This is a professional social media profile. 
Make sure the information matches your resume, the job titles, the dates, descriptions. There's nothing worse than when someone does some research on you and sees inconsistencies before they've even gotten a chance to interview you. Make sure that professional headshot is not just on a weekend somewhere or doing something fun. Make sure it is one that you would be proud to have in an employment directory if, potentially, you were chosen for the job. 
Now, as we come to the end of our time today, I want to thank you all for being here. And I to remind you about the goal coaching service that we provide. Again, it is a complimentary service. It costs you nothing. Everything we talk about is confidential between you and the coach. 
If you were thinking that you could use any help around areas with the Build My Career focus, absolutely consider meeting with us. You have two options when you first schedule a session, either a 15-minute introductory session, where you get to know a little bit about the coach and understand the process of goal coaching. Or you can go ahead and dive right in with a 60-minute goal discovery session, in which case, we will do the introductory with you, but we will also spend the majority of that time putting structure to the goals, the specifics, the timeframes, the dollar values, if there are any. 
And hopefully, by the end of that first session, you walk away with proof that you have a goal down on paper and now we know how we can start considering moving forward. We, as coaches, are trained in areas of behavioral science and goal achievement. We know what it takes to strengthen good habits and try to replace not-so-helpful habits with better ones. 
We also have access to a variety of resources which you can make use of, such as subject matter experts around any of the financial components, or the services, or the tools that might be helping you. Whether your goal is professional, financial, or personal, we can help. And I hope you will consider us. 
There are six of us right now on our team at U.S. Bank, each of which has their own unique background but each of whom are committed towards helping you work towards achieving your goals. We encourage you to go to our site, read those bios, and consider seriously scheduling with us if you'd like to make progress with your goals. 
And with that, I want to thank you all for attending this next part of the Build My Career series on resume building. We will also be talking about interviewing, which is a very, very nerve-wracking component of Building My Career for a lot of people, and also about navigating job offers if and when you receive one. All of this is incredibly important information for you to consider when you have a career-focused goal. 
And until the next time, be good to yourself. Focus on what you want. And dare to walk boldly down the path that you are endeavoring to pursue. Thank you very much.