How to Write a Winning Resume

October 26, 2016

Landing an interview for your dream job (or just your next job) can take a combination of several factors: skills and qualifications, networking, timing and sometimes just plain old good luck. But no matter how you found the job opening, if your resume isn’t up to par, you could lose the opportunity before you have a chance to speak with your potential employer. Even if you’re perfectly happy in your current role and have no reason to believe you’d leave in the foreseeable future, it’s a good idea to keep your resume up to date. If nothing else, it’s a good place to track the accomplishments you’re most proud of! Here are some tips for making the most of yourself on paper, both from my own personal experience in helping with hiring in various roles as well as from various experts in the career and hiring field:

Make it easy to read. A hiring manager or recruiter should have no trouble giving your resume a quick skim to glean the important information. If there’s too much text, there’s a chance your resume could end up in the recycle bin without a second glance. Save the nitty gritty details for your interview and avoid long paragraphs of text with no bullets.

Write a custom, personal cover letter. At Financial Finesse, this can be the differentiator in whether our hiring managers even look at your resume. Use your cover letter to explain why you are excited about the job and highlight anything that would make you the most qualified for the role over someone else with similar experience. Your resume may be a bit dry and clinical, as it should be, so your cover letter is where you can let your personality shine through.

When I applied for my role at Financial Finesse, my cover letter started out, “I am enthusiastically submitting my resume for what I’ve bookmarked as my Dream Job and am so excited to learn more about this opportunity.” It wasn’t hyperbole, that was the truth. And it got me in the door.

Emphasize success, but don’t exaggerate or lie. If you note that you tripled sales in your first year on your current job and it’s the truth, be sure to say that! But also be prepared to give specifics. If you went from $1,000 to $3,000 in sales, there better be a good story behind why that is noteworthy.

Choose a type that fits your career best. Most first resumes are chronological. They list your education and work experience in chronological order. But as you gain more experience and start to move into more strategic roles, you may need to shift your resume to be more functional, where you focus on functions of a job you’ve performed, with the actual jobs and education listed later, or you may want to target your resume for each role you’re applying for.

Before I was at Financial Finesse, I was the Director of Marketing for a small CPA firm. On the surface, that isn’t exactly the type of position that would transition well into a financial planning role, so I targeted my Financial Finesse resume to focus on my prior planning experience, as well as the things I did while in my marketing role that would complement my qualifications to join Financial Finesse. It’s one of the reasons I lead our social media efforts and am on the blog team!

Use key words. This is particularly important if you are submitting your resume online for a published job opening. Many companies use software that scans resume for certain words to help the hiring managers sort which to even look at. Make sure yours includes many of the same words that are used in the job description.

Keep it focused on the value you can add. View everything you put on your resume through what I call the WIIFT lens – what’s in it for them. That means avoiding statements that start with ‘I,’ focusing on how your experience can add value rather than just listing duties and tasks you performed, leaving out information on what you hope to get from the job, deleting irrelevant experience (especially from the distant past), and staying away from flowery language. Everything on your resume should be laser focused on telling the prospective employer what you can do for them.

Proofread, use spell check and proofread again. Nothing turned me off more when reviewing resumes than a typo or grammatical error. Ask a friend or family member to give your resume a thorough read for errors and then proofread it yourself once again. Don’t let a boneheaded oversight ruin your chances for your next job.

Don’t forget that if you hire a resume writing coach for a job search in your current field, you may be able to write off the cost. Your resume should always be a work in progress. If you haven’t updated it lately, let this be a reminder to dig it out of your files and do a little refining in the next week or so.

 

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How To Network Your Way To A New Job After A Lay-off

October 05, 2016

I’ll never forget the date October 5, 2001. It was the day I was called into HR at my very first job after only one year and one month to be advised I was being let go as part of a firm-wide staffing decrease. I was given a generous separation package, including an assigned mentor, Steve, to help me find a new job.

After I scraped my pride up off the ground, called my mom to cry and accepted that it was time to move on, I called my mentor Steve to get started. His first and most emphatic piece of advice was, “Let your network know. Tell them you’re looking.”

Finding your network

I was clueless to what he meant. I was a lowly staff accountant at a Big 5 accounting firm. We didn’t network. That was for partners and salespeople. My “network” consisted of other second year staffers who went out drinking together on Thursday nights and played flag football on Mondays — in other words, my friends.

As the years went by and my network naturally expanded due to co-workers leaving for other jobs and even led to me being recruited to a new job, I started to understand what Steve was talking about. When I moved to Chicago in 2010 and didn’t know a soul, I took to networking to make friends and find clients for my coaching business. That eventually led to a post as the president of the Professional Women’s Club of Chicago, the premiere networking organization for women in all industries in Chicago.

Networking is just making friends for business

What I’ve realized is that networking is really just making friends in a business setting, and the truth is that the best time to build your network is when you don’t need it. When you’re in a position to help someone else out before you need help, you’re much more likely to receive the help you need when it comes time to ask, even if it’s not from the same people you’ve helped. Basically, it’s karma. So how do you use networking to find a new job? Here’s what’s worked for me and my network:

Reach out to former colleagues. Who knows your work self better than people who have actually worked with you? Connect through LinkedIn or just send them a note to let them know you’re looking and see if they know of any opportunities.

Use those professional associations. Almost any professional career has some type of association that posts jobs and other networking opportunities. CFP® professionals have the CFP® Board, CPAs have state societies as well as the AICPA, lawyers have local, state and even the national bar associations, marketing people have the AMA, and IT specialists have AITP. The list goes on. Even if you’re not a member, check their website to see if they have job postings or upcoming events where you can meet others in your field.

Look to your alma mater. Pretty much every major city has an alumni group for larger universities. Look on your school’s alumni website to see if they have any local events coming up that you could attend to make new connections.

Even if there is no local chapter, you may still find job postings or at least a listing of other alumni in your area. Reach out and ask for coffee or lunch. You never know who your fellow alumni may know.

Just show up. Virtually any situation where you’re meeting new people can offer networking opportunities. The next time you’re invited to an event where you feel like you might not know anyone besides the host, consider going anyway and set a goal to meet three new people. That takes the pressure off from feeling like you have to work the entire room and even if you don’t find your next job, it’s good practice for networking at events designed for job seekers in the future.

Be specific about what you want. My friend Marcy wrote in her brilliant book You Know Everybody!: The Career Girl’s Guide to Building a Network That Works about how to zero in on exactly what you’re looking for before asking for help. Make it easy for people to connect you to others by being very clear about who you want to meet or what you want to do. It’s much easier to flip through your mental Rolodex and offer an introduction when someone says, “I’m seeking introductions to sales managers in the hospitality industry,” than when you hear, “I’m looking for a job in sales.” Unless I’ve just spoken to someone who said, “I need salespeople!” it’s unlikely I’ll be able to help you find what you need in that situation.

Above all, remember to be yourself when networking. It can be nerve-wracking to introduce yourself to strangers, especially if you’re desperately seeking a new job opportunity. Keep in mind that pretty much everyone else in the room is probably equally as uncomfortable and find your common ground there. Then just work on making friends. You never know where it might take you!

 

Un-Crushing Student Loan Debt

June 26, 2015

Very often, I talk to people who have financial concerns that are weighing on them. I’ve noticed a correlation between the age of the person and the concern. Lately, a lot of people who are within a few years of retirement have been concerned about the stock market and relatively new hires who are just establishing a career have been concerned about their level of debt impairing their ability to make progress toward their important life goals.  Those are two mini-trends I’ve been seeing lately.  Continue reading “Un-Crushing Student Loan Debt”

My Second Career as a Financial Educator

October 09, 2013

If you would have told me in 1994 that I could make a living helping people with their finances without the pressure to sell financial products, I would have thought you were joking. Back then, there was a certain esteem associated with financial professionals, and as the stock market began to rise to records levels, the idea of NOT being an investment sales professional seemed silly. So attractive was the prospect of being successful as a financial advisor that I left my first job as a 401(k) enroller after six years to pursue a life as a personal financial advisor. Continue reading “My Second Career as a Financial Educator”