 Welcome everyone. Thank you for coming. This is a fun program for me because trying to put together a number of things that we teach in a two-week program in the Job Search Accelerator session for JVS. So I'm going to give some introductions myself and others and then we'll talk about three primary things we're going to talk about this morning. We're going to give just tips basically about putting together the resume, the cover letter, and ATS. And if you see on the slide a keyword is there and that's really what so much of this is about. If we do a really good job at targeting a resume, we've already covered a lot to put together the cover letter and we've definitely covered a lot to get through the applicant tracking system. So we're going to talk about all of those things. Hopefully you can see my slide. Matthew, can you see my slide? We're good. Great. Thank you. So this is me. I'm David Robbins. I'm the senior instructor for the Job Search Accelerator program. I've been working at JVS for almost 13 years and in that time I've been teaching all the different job skills in our public workshops and then moved into the Job Search Accelerator program. I went full time with that and then also became a career advisor which I had some experience before I came to JVS. So it's a really heartwarming job for me to help people find their next employment, whether it's something that's a new job coming back to an existing career path or pivoting. So it's a lot of good feelings working one-on-one with our clients. So JVS is an organization that's been around for over 40 years. We provide free job training services. We specialize in the unemployed and underemployed people and most of our programs build in-demand skills. So we work with corporate partners and find out what kind of skills do you need and we help teach those skills. We make connections for our clients and help people land great jobs. We're funded by the government and private donations and corporate sponsors. We're completely non-sectarian. The J in JVS stands for Jewish. We're called Jewish Vocational Service but we've always been throughout the 40 plus years that we've been in existence. We've been completely non-sectarian. My headquarters in San Francisco, some people, some programs are offered around the Bay Area. Those that are now meeting again face to face, the program I'm going to be talking about primarily today is for the near future is going to stay in a virtual environment which makes it easy for the clients and safe for everyone. So this is the program, the Job Search Accelerator Program. It's a great way to relaunch or kick off your job search. There are a couple of things that are included in the program. It's all synchronous. It's job search essential training and synchronous meaning that you're going to have a live instructor the whole way through. We do have a lot of materials. We use Google Classroom and all the materials that we use are then shared and owned by the people who attend the program. So there is an application process and the application will be available online hopefully tomorrow but by Monday the latest and that would be for the next session which will be starting in looking at my calendar May 13th and we'll run two weeks so it'll run till May 27th. After the program you get ongoing support both from the cohort that you build in the people who are attending the program all at the same time and then their post-training services including career advisors for up to one year. Usually about 90 days and most of our people will then be successful in finding something but we'll continue supporting people up to one year. So we call it a two-week program but it's actually a one-year program. Mock interviewing, resume, cover letter, networking skills, all of the different skills are covered in the two-week program. We meet in the mornings and then we take a break and then we have an hour again in the afternoon. There's a link here that will take you to the job search accelerator. We'll explain more about it. This might be talking about the March program that just completed but the next program will be online and updated by hopefully by Monday. So you're here not to hear about the commercial so the commercial's over but let's talk about what we're going to talk about today. We have three sections from for this program. One we're going to talk about the resume. How to prepare to create it. A lot of people go right into the resume and say here's what a resume should look like and they talk about how beautiful it would be but we have to tell you that the beauty of the resume is not what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for. What they're looking for is a resume that tells them you understand what it is that the hiring manager wants, what the hiring manager needs and that you can actually accomplish that when you get hired. So it's really a content driven program. So we're going to talk about how to prepare to create it. What's important to go into the resume and then we're going to talk about industry standard formatting. We'll take questions after that. So as we have questions please put them in the chat. Lori will be watching the chat and when we get to the question part we'll have Lori read out some of your questions that you have from the chat. After you read that that first section if we get through the first section we're going to get into cover letters. Why do we use a cover letter? What's the format of a cover letter and do you send the cover letter in the old days you typed it on a typewriter and the header and put on your fancy paper we don't do that anymore usually sending it as an email. So we want to make sure we understand what that's about and who is really looking at the cover letter and who's not caring about it. We want to talk about that. There is a reality that a lot of people don't care about cover letters but if you just out of hand say I'm not going to do cover letters they take too long they're a pain they just say the same thing I said in my resume you're missing the point. So you have a lot of opportunity in a cover letter so we want to talk about that. And then when your resume is sent in through the internet usually most companies now are using the applicant tracking system the ATS system and it does two things. It tracks who is applying for what positions and then the recruiters and or hiring managers can actually set up filters on an applicant tracking system to eliminate people who they could see right away and not qualify. So they get hundreds of applications and there's a good percentage of applications that come in for a particular job that people just saw a title and sent in a resume and that is not going to get through an applicant tracking system that has filters in we should have time for questions all the way through and again please put the questions in the chat. So I'm going to get started. Tips these are tips we're not in the detail the detail is in let me say the devil's in the detail but we're not going to get into too much of the detail but we're going to spend a little bit of time particularly on resume because I think that is going to give us the tip that's going to help us with cover letters and the ATS system. First thing who's your audience for the resume? So the thought is that the hiring managers the audience well wait we know that before the hiring manager sees it the recruiter sees it and sometimes after the recruiter sees it somewhere in HR might see it and sometimes there's a saucer which is somebody who's looking at for example your LinkedIn profile you don't even send in a resume they're looking for people who have qualifications even if you haven't applied for the job. So there are a lot of different people who are looking for you or looking at what you submit in an application. So the hiring manager is in fact telling you what they want and what they need and that's usually in the job post. Now we at at JVS talk a lot about the fact that most people do look at job boards and look at job posts and that's a great way to understand what the hiring manager is looking for but don't only depend on that in your job search just another tip on a different topic but networking is so important in job search and we talk about that when we talk about our LinkedIn programs that I teach also here at the library. So the first thing is who's your audience? You're going to get a job description so here's a job description that came this is this was a real one University of California San Francisco this was for an administrative assistant the job code was administrative assistant too and this is in the Psychiatry Alliance Health Project of UCSF and then it tells us what the job overview is and a little more about the company or the organization remember that companies are selling you on the job because they want you to apply it's important to read this also and then a little more about UCSF and then qualifications that are down below so we want to take a look at this and say what's the first step in putting together your job description um excuse me but putting together your resume so the first thing is to analyze this job description you want to make sure that you can in fact identify the duties of the job so some people take a look at the title and they say oh I could do that I've done that before and they sent in a generic resume saying how wonderful they are but they're actually telling you the duties for this particular job so that's what the analysis is so important for uh you're going to analyze the duties of the job and you should match probably 70 to 75 percent of these duties in your experience you should be able to do these because that's what your job is going to be about now the other thing is it's going to tell you what the requirements are and if you don't match 90 percent of the requirements um it's okay to send in an application but don't hold it in high regard that this is going to happen because there are other people that are matching the requirements at 100 so they're telling you what the requirements are now I'm not going to tell you to eliminate yourself if you match 100 percent of the duties in your resume and 80 percent of the requirements give it a shot maybe they still like you so there are a few more things that we want to talk about in analyzing the job description and one is what's the culture of the organization because this also should be something that you match on your resume so the analysis of the job description and then beyond the job description the website um any social media about the company all of these things are part of your analysis before you even write a resume and then you have to think back through your own job history because you have a lot of transferable skills that may be appropriate in putting together a resume so what could make you stand out that you can put on your resume something that we call your special source so I'll make you the unicorn so in order to show you um how we do this and how we teach it I'm gonna I'm gonna take each piece of this one piece at a time here again is the job description and I'm going to just focus here on the job overview to see what are the tasks that the highway manager is telling you you need to be able to perform so here's the job overview and I highlighted in red what are the things that we could identify and we might want to actually write down on a sheet of paper here are the things that they're asking me to be able to do I'm going to be the initial point of contact for a member of the of the of the public I'm going to greet walk-ins to the building I'm going to provide them needed information or contact the appropriate staff or clinician I'm going to answer all incoming telephone calls and direct those calls as appropriate I'm going to provide administrative support to the clinical activities on site and I have to be able to interact pleasantly with a wide variety of personalities and have flexibility to perform well under shifting demands pretty much almost everything that was written in here is what you would be able to have to identify that you have this kind of experience so that's the first thing that you would look at now you can't stop there because there are other pieces so we said the first thing is to look at the job duties the next is to look at the requirements so where would you find the requirements usually it would say required or a primary requirement so there'll be some other word here and here's what we look at here the required qualifications for this job three years directly related administrative experience or a combination of education and experience Spanish language proficiency it's not just a want it's a requirement and minimum one year work experience using basically the PC not not too bad not a lot there those are things that just about everybody here in the room probably has one year working experience with PCs but three years of directly related administrative experience or a combination of related education experience might be something that you'd consider if I don't have that are they really going to give me a second look maybe I have one year of directly related experience well again if I have everything else maybe I could still apply to that job and think you're thinking about all this before you even write the resume the next thing is you're looking at the next section which are the preferred qualifications because these are the things that they're asking for but they're not making it required so these are the things that might make you stand out as a unicorn special sauce a previous UCSF work experience minimum six months working in a facility serving multicultural populations diverse and gender and sexual orientation that might be a little tougher but it's something that would help raise you up in the in the queue and then of course excellent verbal telephone and written communication skills because a lot of the things that are your job talking on the phone greeting people as they walk into the into the site now there's one more thing you want to look at and that is there's another section that is both telling you about the the alliance health project the ahp and I have to tell you when I would teach this with my clients after we go through all of this I would then say to them so what is the ahp and they all go and that's because they didn't even read this section of the job description the ahp is the alliance health project if you look at the top the department is in psychiatry and it's the alliance health project so these are the things that you can't miss in analyzing a job description so this tells you a lot about what's important to UCSF and the work that they're doing in this position and then there's more information about UCSF in general so all of this becomes information that you should analyze and identify and and yes I say even write it down somewhere saying okay here are the four things I was looking for here here are the job duties here are the requirements here's a little bit about the culture of the organization right here and here's what might make me a special sauce to prefer qualifications down here okay now that you have all that what do you do now you have to start step two you're not going to start writing your resume until you write the top of your resume now they say that hiring managers are known as top third readers they usually only read the top third of a resume before they give it to somebody saying okay this guy looks good check her out so you want to catch their attention in the top of the resume by letting them know that you are a good candidate for what they describe as their needs and wants so this is an actual response by Samuel Hernandez all the contact information of course is false binding will help professional with 15 years of public health and administrative experience I think they asked for how many years they asked for three years this person saying I have 15 years of administrative experience so right away that says okay this person we know has experience as an admin compassionately serving the San Francisco HIV AIDS and LGBTQ communities I can see that in the duties or the requirements HIV AIDS and LGBTQ but in the description of the alliance health project it said that that's the focus of this project supporting HIV AIDS and LGBT communities in the UCSF environment so in doing that analysis you now know to put that right in the top of your resume so that's the what many people call the branding statement this tells you this tells the reader something about you kind of generalized but specific to the job description and then if you go through each of these six bullets you'll notice they all relate to something that was identified in the job description that that Samuel Hernandez was reading and analyzing extensive experience providing agency information and support to diverse populations so it did ask for diverse populations excellent customer-facing telephone and written communication skills it asked for that both in the preferred qualifications but also in the job duties flexible and adaptable flexible was the word that was used performs well under shifting demands Samuel probably took that right out of the job description and put it into the top of his resume proficient in Microsoft Word Excel and PowerPoint now many of us think well that's not important everybody knows that but they called it out good for you to respond to it now the other thing is strong English Spanish bilingual proficiency it did ask for that it was a requirement to be Spanish literate so in the in the branding statement at the top bilingual that's fine but here we're very specific English Spanish bilingual proficiency now the one thing I didn't talk about is this fifth bullet familiar with UCSF policies now it asked for not just familiar with it said experience with UCSF that was a preferred qualification right Samuel Hernandez kind of twisted that because what do people see when they scan they don't read this word for word they scan and they're looking for the keywords they're looking for and one of the keywords they're looking for was UCSF and he gave it to them right here UCSF policies he said he's familiar with them which again is probably close enough and then he added some special sauce now I think that there are many of you in the room who know what HIPAA is right this is the privacy regulation that all health organizations have to abide by it wasn't mentioned anywhere on the job description but Samuel Hernandez knew that he's familiar with HIPAA and the organization is going to be a little bit impressed with the fact that he understands HIPAA even though they never mentioned it that's what might make him a unicorn that's the special sauce okay I'm going to catch my breath here so what happened from the analysis to the step two creating eye-catching professional summary Samuel Hernandez did not start writing a resume what he did is he focused on the top of the resume and he said I'm going to try to let them know in the top of the resume that I am a very good candidate for this position now does he have to continue absolutely he has to now complete the resume but the other thing is everything that's in this section here now has to be proved in the experience section he has to show that he really used Spanish somewhere in his experience he has to show that he provided agency information somewhere in his experience he has to show that he had customer-facing experience somewhere in his experience so by putting this together first it helps you identify what's important in your experience section as you get to the next step so step one analyze the job description step two create that professional summary or the top of the of the resume step three complete the rest of the resume how do you do that well you've already put in your contact information that was at the top your summary of qualifications that's what we just focused on and now you have to come up with your experience and you want to use accomplishment statements in your experience now I know some people like to add a skills section in your resume which is sometimes interesting if you have room for it but we work with a recruiter advisory council at JVS and and they're all very clear you tell me that you have certain skills I don't know if I believe that until you show me that you actually use those skills in your jobs which means that they want to see your accomplishment statement and they'll be able to see that you actually use those skills so they want to see the skills in context not just a list of skills I actually have a client that the entire first page of her resume is competencies and skills lists of those and I explained to her nobody's going to look at the first page they're just going to skip over it and go right to the experience section because they want to see what that means so you want to have your accomplishment statements we're going to talk about what an accomplishment statement is and then of course your education which is not just your education but any certifications that you have any honors that you've had if there are classes that are appropriate that are pertinent and relevant to the job you might include some of the classes one thing for people my age you don't have to put down any dates for when you graduated school so people are always worried about ageism that's going to happen later in the month we'll talk about that but you don't have to on a resume put the dates anymore for when you graduate you you could put down dates of your certifications especially if they're more recent because that says to an employer that you are still learning that you're still improving that you have a learner's mind and that's also important for the hiring manager to see a couple of other tips about putting together the rest of your resume you don't want to have a photo or any personal information on a us resume now in europe they want a photo they want your marital status they want your blood type they want how many children you have if you have a photo on a us resume many times the recruiter will actually shred it because they do not want to be biased when they're looking at that so don't have a photo we don't need it it's not expected some people have a lot of experience i mean i've been working since the 1800s so i have a lot of experience but you want to stay with two pages because what they're looking for is relevant experience for this job and you just did the analysis so you know what is relevant so you want to pretty much stay with two pages sometimes if you have to go into a third page particularly in science or or higher education if you're looking for a professorship then you're using using a different format using a curriculum vitae or cv format which is different from a us resume um each resume not just one resume for everything each resume is targeted to each job using appropriate keywords and phrases so that's one of the important lessons to learn having a generic resume saying how wonderful you are many times doesn't even get through an ats system because you didn't do the analysis to identify what the keywords are that the ats system is looking for that now samuel hernandez came up with right here and pretty much met all the requirements for meeting all those keywords so you want to make sure that you have a resume targeted to each job description doesn't mean you have to always write it from scratch because your experience is your experience but you may actually start changing the level the the sequence of bullets that are underneath each experience depending on what it is that was highlighted in the job description for that particular job okay then you're going to put together your resume there are two standard formats for resume there's the the functional what people call a functional um and then the chronological now i added the word hybrid and i'm including a link to an article that said that that says why recruiters hate functional resume because a purely functional resume doesn't give enough information for them it just says here's how wonderful i am and it doesn't give any information that they need a hybrid resume is different it's it's somewhere between a functional and a chronological but the chronological is the format of resume that most hiring managers and recruiters are used to seeing it's what they're used to getting they don't have to search for information they know what's going to be coming because the stand this the um the the format is pretty standard and at JVS what we teach in the job search accelerator program is staying with a very simplified format so that the recruiter can find the information they're looking for right off the top and it's easy to scan with a lot of white space so what do you need in a in a resume i think you all know this the first top of the resume is going to be your name and your contact information a couple of things that are important um you don't need to have your home address nobody's coming to your house and they're not sending you a letter so what you need to have is your name you need to have city and state you don't need a zip code because that again could deal with some bias when they know zip code relates to a particular part of the city which might lead to a demographic um so your name your city state um and then your phone number your email address and your LinkedIn address those are the things that you should always include at the top of your resume that's your contact information your phone number should be a phone that you answer your email address should not be something that you used years ago like pretty in pink at aol.com change it get a new one uh get away from hotmail and aol because that also says you you've been uh looking at email addresses uh much too long so go for something that's yahoo or google um but that's the top and that's pretty standard at the top of a resume the next section again standard is that summary of qualification what we call the top of the resume and we just showed you what that would look like with the standard Hernandez example please use that if you want to um you know copy that kind of format that we found is uh very helpful to the recruiters as they're scanning through a resume um now if you're in tech you might want to combine that summary of qualifications with a list of your skills and languages um because that makes it easy for them to see that particularly if it's called out as requirements you want to make sure that you're going to put that in so tech sometimes rather than a summary of qualifications would say tech skills and put some of that tech information down the next section is your experience and there you want to use accomplishment statements which we'll talk about in just a minute and that again that could go more than the the bottom of the page it could go on to a second page if you're going to have two pages make sure that um on the second page you have some a bit of your contact information because if they print those two pages out and we get separated they want they need to know that the second page goes along with with you so you want to make sure you have contact information somewhere on that second page and then the bottom part of a resume usually is education um in addition to the schools that you might have graduated from degrees that you have you could put down uh what are your languages that you speak particularly if it's called out certifications that you have that are relevant to this job position you could also have here if you have ruined your resume volunteering 60 percent of hiring managers like people who volunteer there are many companies that actually give their employees free time to volunteer so um all of that and then any professional associations you might belong to all of this at the bottom can go together under something that says education and certifications so that's your standard format for a resume and again we promote the chronological but if you think that um as people again with my experience say that um the chronological if I'm looking for a new corporate training position I worked 16 years at Eula Packard but it was a long time ago so chronologically it would be down at the bottom of my resume so I might want to use a hybrid format and move some of my experience and my accomplishments up closer to the top of the resume but still explain where I got that experience from at the bottom so I'll give you an article about the hybrid but we don't spend a lot of time on dealing with that format so I promise you we talk about accomplishment statements so we find that many people will just put in in their in their experience they'll put in something that almost looks like a job description uh cover the phones for for the for the company what does that mean how many calls did you get the day uh how many what did you do when you covered the phone what did you do with the information so there's more you could deal with so here is the idea of this is a target job skill in the art director working and influencing in a cross functional context leveraging research and data to inform the design of the experience okay this is what's called out now if you're familiar with star stories you should have a star story written for this and then you can adapt that into a resume bullet but the other way to do that is to think of it in these these steps um do I have this experience well yes um I had a visual look book for international streetwear there streetwear brand um and the result was it helped people stay on brand it highlighted and showcased and stayed true to the original design and client vision which is kind of what they're asking for here and then I want to make sure that I start the bullet with an action verb so conceptualized or collaborated I can use either one of those that might work because it says cross functional context collaboration might be something I want to point out so here I can put it together in a sentence form created a visual look book with art director in japan resulting in consistent design collaboration for three consecutive years metrics very helpful in an accomplishment stage as it is in a star story collaborated with an art director in japan to create a visual look book for a streetwear brand which resulted in dot dot dot or conceptualized and visual look book conceptualized a visual look book for Japanese international wear brand leveraging research and market data staying true to client design any one of those would be a good bullet that speaks to this does it say what skills you had well if you look at the any one of these three created well that's a skill right there right be able to create something working with the art director in japan so there's a skill working with an international uh an inter an international contact person that I'm collaborating and the result consistent design collaboration for three consecutive years and that's the result so that gives a metric that says this actually was important it went off in three years it was actually working so the skills don't have to be called out in particular they actually exist inside the accomplishment stage I think I have another one nope I have just one but I do have this resource for you why recruiters hate the functional resume so if you if you click on this you'll get an article that was written actually by job scan job scan is an application that emulates the applicant tracking system and you can use it to test your resume against a job description I don't I don't hold it in 100 valid results but it's a good way to get a first look at your resume and whether you're you're hitting those keywords I would recommend that you look at this article and you'll see again why a functional resume is not acceptable anymore what a hybrid resume is and then a chronological resume and then it tells you a little bit about the applicant tracking system which we're going to get to in the next section okay so I wanted to give you that resource and now any questions about resumes David I don't see any question in the chat if you if you have questions please feel free to put it in the chat Matthew Talbot has a question oh he makes some statement I can read I can read them out loud okay Matthew wrote I've used content directly from website of the employer verbatim so he he did exactly what you were suggesting us to do and also he's saying Matthew why why don't you what can you unmute yourself oh let me let me allow him to unmute yeah uh Matthew go ahead you can unmute yourself now okay can you hear me yes okay great um yeah I was just um not wondering whether you know a long-winded resume resume or just kind of more directly to the point it's preferable well they don't care about long-winded because remember their first look at a resume is about six seconds so um what they're looking for is what they're looking for they're not looking for all the things that you want to tell them about yourself they only are interested in what in what they are looking for which they've put into the job description uh which is here's what here's what your job is going to be do you have experience with that here are the requirements do you have experience with that um here's our culture is this going to be a good match for you and then if it's anything extra that you can add to that that talks about things that um that you might have gotten from the website or uh looking through um uh indeed or you know other social media to find out more about the organization but long long-winded they're not interested in and and me telling them how wonderful I am I mean I was the president of theater bay area for six years I'm very proud of that they don't care that I was the president of theater bay area unless I'm applying for a theater position or or a board of directors position so again I have a lot of experience that is not no longer appropriate for jobs I might be looking for as as a career advisor as a job skills instructor so you want to stay to the point and yes concise concise concise is very important okay and well as you customize each resume for the particular job that you're interested in absolutely okay great yeah we call it a targeted resume yeah okay now if you're if you're just sending a resume off to say a staffing agency um you're going to have something that is more generic because you don't have a job description give you keywords but it still has to be focused on what you're asking the staffing agency to look for for you which means you're going to need to know a lot more about what kinds of organizations are looking for people that have my experience and that that's how you that's the closest you would get to a generic resume but if you have a job description definitely target it to the resume I mean that's definitely target your resume to the job description great okay I hope that helps yeah for sure any other questions that came up yes yes we have a few um so this one was sent to me directly um question is it's certificate of attendance or completion enough if for example you have completed attending a workshop um they're not going to you're not going to put that really on a on a resume anyway and um if you are let's say you're in a program that's going to that's going to last six months um there's nothing wrong with saying um putting the dates there so let's say it's now we're we're now we're still in March so I could put down um the this is the certification and it goes from January to June of 2022 so that lets them know that I haven't completed it yet but I'm working on it and that's really what they're interested in that you have a learner's mindset and that you're you're you're working on something that is relevant to what they're looking for so you don't have to have and they're not going to ask you for a certificate of completion on your resume anyway that's going to come up after you get invited and that that's a whole different story okay question from lily how do you deal with a gap of not working due to being stay at home mom um you put down on your resume what did you do while you were a stay-at-home mom mom so um there's there's nothing wrong with and I've seen a number of articles about this now it's something that that I've been talking about for for a good number of years um uh one of my clients came up with the word sabbatical you know when when professors take time off from work it's called a sabbatical when you take time off from work you go oh no it's a gap no it's actually a sabbatical so there's nothing wrong with saying um sabbatical to uh to to focus on family care uh and that could be someone who's ill that could be a child care that could be an aging parent right but the other thing is what did you do during that time now we have two grown children I know that my wife actually took some time off from work uh but during that time she was the president of the pta and they raised 30 000 that year that's an accomplishment that goes right on your resume so they don't care whether it's paid experience volunteer experience or experience while you were in your what you call a gap put down what you did and show that you have professional experience even in that gap now to tell you also for those of you that maybe got laid off because of COVID every recruiter and hiring manager understands a gap from March of 2020 to the current day so if that's your gap don't worry about it there are other ways you can actually identify that that's because of a COVID layoff so there are a number of ways to deal with it more and more than we talk to our recruiters they don't care that you have a gap what they care about is after the gap have you studied have you brought your skills back up have you um have you done volunteer work right what kind of professional experience that have you had while you were in that gap where gap becomes a problem is people who work for six months at a job then six months of gap and then eight months at a job and two years as a gap and then one year at a job and then another that's the problem that people see and that's where you really have to work with a career advisor to figure out how can I talk about that really and make it look as if I'm I'm actually a good candidate for this job so I hope that helps with gaps thank you David um this question from abily what is a good length when I have decades of experience what is a good what what is a good length when I have decades of experience I think she meant how many years of experience should she list on her resume oh yeah I think if Emily you can unmute yourself and if I if I interpret it wrong uh you know I I hear um and some of my colleagues actually talk about it saying don't have more than 10 years of experience on your resume which um oh I'm I'm sorry uh David I interpreted wrong that Emily explained how long should my resume be how many pages yeah maximum two pages and and as far as how many years you go back remember the word relevant all right I again I'm I'm not going to put down all of my experience because it would be a six page resume they don't care about all that experience what they want to know is what's your relevant experience and um if you could get it onto one page I have to tell you people who've who have as much experience as I have rarely can get everything down onto one page unless they're really pivoting to something new and they can really identify just relevant experience that will fit onto one page um I have a two page resume I could as I said fill a six page resume but all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore so two page resumes about the max um I'll recruit to say that if there's a third page it's there they might see it they might not even look at it thank you David questions and directly to me um there was some mention of um I'd like to ask what is a story oh okay what is a star story okay so there's a whole section on that I thought a lot of people do know what that is star um and sometimes called a sore story or a par story um star stands for um situation or task action and result so it's basically three sections that when you look at um your experience you try to describe it in terms of a quick statement of context one or two sentence maximum and then a list of the actions you took to accomplish something and then what was the result so situation or task actions and result star stories are important because it'll help you put together your resume but they're extremely important when you're dealing with uh interviewing so uh you want to have star stories ready for your interview because they're going to ask you questions like tell me at a time that you had to overcome a challenge they want to know an experience you've had overcoming a challenge so that's where you would have a star story about that okay I'm going to hold any other questions till the end but let me talk about the other we have two more sections to cover and um I think that the important thing is that you understand how to analyze the job descriptions because it's it's going to help you in everything else that we're going to cover now so cover letters still a big debate should there be a cover letter should there not be a cover letter does anybody care about cover letters um all of the recruiters that we that we queried last time in our quarterly recruiter advisory council meeting none of them look at cover letters they just said we don't look at them we don't ask for them and we don't look at them which gives you one tip if they don't ask for a cover letter then it's probably your choice but I then went out to LinkedIn and put a survey up and tried to see because I had other information from other readings that I've had and it comes down to 60% of hiring managers never look at a cover letter 40% of hiring managers will not look at your resume unless there's a cover letter so if they're not asking for so if they're asking for a cover letter don't think you can stick it if they're asking for it you have to have a cover letter or they're not going to look at your resume if they don't ask for a cover letter and they only have a section and they're saying submit your resume here in that little box then just put in the resume but a cover letter can be very helpful to you so there's nothing wrong with adding a cover letter even if they didn't ask for it they're not easy to write but I'm going to give you also a link to a couple of cover letter templates that finally I found templates that I really enjoy so I'll share those with you too so what is a cover letter it's a sales letter you're selling yourself to a company for a particular position not just I'm David Robbins and here's my bio I have you know 25 years of experience doing this and 15 years of experience they don't care about that right you're selling your skills accomplishments your enthusiasm and your personality as it relates to this position for this company which you learn from your analysis when you're preparing your resume now the advantage of a cover letter in these last two words in a resume you can put in your skills and your accomplishments it's hard to put in your enthusiasm and your personality for this particular position so your cover letter gives you an opportunity to identify yourself a little more with your professional persona who are you as a professional the cover letter focuses on two key points why I want to work for you and what I can do for you it's not simply here's how wonderful I am just like the resume they don't care how wonderful you are they care about what can you do for me and why do you want to work here again that doesn't show up on a resume but it can show up on a cover letter and think about it two people with exactly the same skillset but one says I'm really excited about working for your company and the other one never mentions the company I choose this person so uh the why I want to work for you becomes an important point and you can add that into your cover letter so you want to focus on experience education or strengths relevant to this position not all of your prior experience so that's what a cover letter is why do we use it mention this already 40 percent of hiring managers want to see a cover letter it presents more of your personality your style and I have to tell you for for for jobs that have to do with editors or writers or jobs in publishing they want to see that cover letter because they want to see how you write so those are things that are important and the cover letter should state this is the company I want to work for and I have experience doing this job so that's the bonus you get from a cover letter so I did say the cover letter is not easy to write it usually takes me minimum an hour to write a cover letter and sometimes more than that because I I keep reviewing it and tweaking it and tweaking it I wanted to really make a statement about me and the job and the company so the structure I would say it should be no more than two-thirds of a page maybe three-quarters of a page and you don't want to cram everything in you definitely want to just like on a resume there needs to be white space white space between paragraphs short paragraphs and white space in between margins top bottom and side to side if you just have a block of black ink across the whole page they're not going to look at it so you want to make sure that I recommend no more than three-quarters of a page but I prefer two-thirds of a page you should deal with a standard font that is a sans serif times new roman is used a lot but that has these serifs a little extra things you know a tea looks like this but also has you little hangy things at the corners that just gets in the way so calibre aerial and there are a few others that that are without serif sans serif and that should be the same as your resume so the font that you're using your cover letter should be the match to your resume so it looks like they match the structure you have an introductory paragraph you should include here how you found out about the position particularly if somebody in their company referred you to this position right I'm excited to apply for this position as a corporate trainer that I that I was referred to by Bill Smith right because now they handle okay there's somebody that you know inside our organization or somebody in the industry that stands out very helpful right at the beginning and then they're interested in reading the rest why you're interested in applying for this position and then a very brief statement maybe one sentence on what applicable experience you have and that for me I might say I've been a corporate corporate instructor for over 15 years the next paragraph two or maximum three paragraphs would be the cell right since this is kind of a sales position sales document once you've introduced yourself convey the details about why you are the best candidate this is where you highlight your accomplishments using keywords from the job announcement and your analysis so we already did the analysis now you know what keywords you need to cover and maybe pick two accomplishments that relate specifically to this job and put those into one paragraph maybe two paragraphs then there's a closing paragraph here you again stress how you will benefit the company with your skills or expertise and how you're really excited about working for this organization you know I I've been reading about your organization and I noticed the acquisitions that you're making so I know you're in a growth mode and I'm really excited to grow along with your organization or add my value to your organization I love words like value I love passion I love love right I love this organization I love the way you do this or that your signature is simply your name now this structure actually comes from writing a cover letter but mostly you're going to be sending your cover letter by email now what some people do is they have pretty much a blank email and they attach a cover letter and a resume there's a better way to do that and that is to put the body of the cover letter into the body of the email so the email in essence is your cover letter so list your name and the job title in the subject line of the email message so they know who you are and what you're applying for include your contact information in your email signature not at the top as you would do with a regular letter but in email you usually have your contact information with your signature don't list the employer's contact information because you're emailing it to them so they don't need to see that skip the date because the email is already going to have a date and start your email message with the salutation now I don't think I have it here but let me tell you about the salutation if you can find the hiring manager's name dear Bill Smith if you don't have the hiring manager's name avoid to whom it may concern or dear sir or madam those are outdated they're not used anymore a better selection that you would have a better choice would be dear hiring manager if you know it's going to human resources dear human resources but stay away from doom and may concern and dear sir madam if you can get the hiring manager's name that would be great because then they can see that right at the top the cover letter is the body of the email and mention that the resume is attached so here are two articles I thought were really helpful one is two customized will cover templates for any job seeker by the muse the muse is a great resource for job search they they also post a lot of jobs that they know are open so this by going to this link you'll also get information about the muse and should you include a cover letter came from a LinkedIn podcast and if you could read that that also explains that it starts off with a recruiter saying I never look at cover letters you're a waste of time and that's because most cover letters that this person sees are simply talking about how wonderful they are or reiterating everything that's going to be in the resume but if you follow the structure I just gave you and you talk about yourself and you're you're you're wanting to work for this company in this job it really is something that could help the recruiter think that you're a higher level so two articles that could help you okay I'm gonna take one or two questions about cover letters if there are any yeah there are a lot of question prior to this section you want question only about cover letter right yeah let's talk about cover letters first and then go back to all things at the end okay sure let me find okay so a question from Harmony generally the cover letter is not mandatory on the application websites even though would you recommend to submit a cover letter yeah as you're reading these articles your choice if they didn't say submit your resume and cover letter then you have a choice whether you think it's going to be helpful to you or not um so that's up to you if they say submit your resume and cover letter don't skip the cover letter make sure that you submit it okay a question from Emily um how is all this information all these paragraphs uh only in two-thirds of a page short paragraphs really you want you want to be really concise you're not you're not giving your resume they're going to look at your resume your resume is all the other information that they need this is just something that says here's why I'm a good candidate so one brief I mean that besides the opening paragraph the second and third paragraphs one would be um here's experience I had doing this which relates to what they're looking for and then the next paragraph will be and here's more experience I've had doing this other thing which is what they asked for anything else they'll go then to the to the resume okay so yeah you're you're not there uh a two-page cover letter I I can pretty much assure you will not be read okay thank you there's actually a question for the library um this the library offer a cover letter review same as resume reviews mentioned um so um I mentioned in the introductory slide that we have the bringfuse job coaching you can in in addition to submitting your resume for review you can also submit your cover letter and you can also do a one-on-one section with a with a career coach Monday through Sunday from 1 to 10 p.m so the answer is yes and you can we also have in-person career coaching every Wednesday 3 to 5 p.m at the Ming library so you can check our library event calendar look for career coaching and make a reservation online to meet with the career coach in person in the library and I want to tell you that when when our clients ask for a resume review we ask them to submit the resume with the job description we will not look at a resume without a job description because it's not that meaningful we want to make sure that the resume is targeted to the job description so what we will do is do a very quick cursory analysis of looking for keywords then we're going to look at the resume and say hey I don't see any of these keywords you never mentioned what the company does in your resume so um that's the way we do a resume review we always unless there's a particular situation 90% of the resumes that we review and cover letters that we review we need to see the job description so we make sure that they're targeted let me go on and just cover this as we're getting into the last half hour the applicant tracking system is something that used to be used only by very large companies there is not one applicant tracking system there are many companies that create applicant tracking systems and and other companies license that applicant tracking system they they say what they're looking for in the job description basically and they um they then have all applications go through this applicant tracking system first so let's talk a little bit about what it's about um the applicant tracking system is used not only by large companies now they're used by small companies mid-sized companies a lot of companies using it because there are a lot of people who apply to jobs and they don't have any qualifications so I have a couple of dos and don'ts for you these are the tips um do apply to roles that you're qualified for how do you know if you're qualified for a role well do the analysis that was the first thing we talked about right what are the what are the jobs that they want you to do what are the duties and what are the requirements if you can't do those duties and you don't have any of those requirements the applicant tracking system is basically going to kick you out if it's using filters because you're not qualified so that's something that's going to be really important so companies use the ATS system because most candidates are not qualified for the position not just a few most candidates that submit their resumes are not qualified for the position and that's why they had to start using a robot to look at these before the humans spent all their time now not every company has filters uh sometimes they use the applicant tracking system just to analyze just actually to track who's been applying to our company to what kind of jobs and they don't have filters in which case the the recruiter has a harder job because they have to look to see who they're eliminating but the human is doing the same thing as the applicant tracking system they're scanning looking for the things they're looking for it should kind of make sense okay second bullet if the posting is for an entry-level accounting position the system will probably discard a resume from a dentist or a vice president to help the manager right that's what that's why they're going to be able to look at these things and they're actually going to eliminate what they think is outside the parameters if you're looking for an entry-level accounting position and your your all your experiences as a dentist it's not going to let you through analyze the job posting and only apply when you are qualified so that's one of the dos second is include the right keywords ATS algorithms aren't that different from human algorithms we're all kind of skimming for the same things so the ATS system looks for specific keywords like a google search look for the hard skills that come up more than once to mention the top of the requirements and jobters that's all part of that analysis that you did if you do the analysis first it's going to help you put together a resume that's going to get through the applicant tracking system put your keywords in context a list of skills is a way that people try to trick the applicant tracking system the applicant tracking system also like a human is looking for the skills in context which means they're looking for accomplishment statements so your accomplishments are unique to you your keywords are generalized humans want to see how you used your skills ensure your bullets are actually achievements use numbers and metrics to highlight your your results and don't just tell I did this but show I did this with these people doing this with this result that's more of a show rather than just a tell also choose the right file type I didn't mention this with resumes but this is important some people will send in a jpeg or a png because they're going to take a photo of their resume some people will use because they put this together in google docs they'll use that format some will use if you're a mac person you'll use a dot pages it won't be read by the ats system and many companies will not read a dot pages or a jpeg or dot png so if you if you create your resume in that format just export it and save it as a dot x or a dot pdf um those are the two contenders those are the ones that get through the system pds are best at keeping your format but dot x format is the most accurately parsed by the the ats system definitely use the format that the company's asking for if they say submit your resume as a pdf don't send it in as a dot x that says right away that you don't know how to follow instructions be careful of online resume builders because online resume builders have a lot of code underneath the text so if you go to microsoft and you go to microsoft word says use our resume format that has a lot of kind of junk underneath that makes it look beautiful it makes it very difficult to add or change things and the applicant tracking system gets confused because it's reading all of that code which it doesn't need to see so stay with the doc file stay with the pdf if you like the format from microsoft word copy the format but start again with a new document in microsoft word not microsoft word resume building so we recommend staying away from the resume build make your resume easy to scan now this is important because some people put columns um the ats system doesn't recognize columns it reads right across from left to right so if you have a column and another column it's going to read the first bullet here and the first bullet here it's going to go right across now if those both those columns are talking about the same thing like um here's a list of skills it doesn't matter which order the ats system reads them but if one of your columns is about your experience and the other column is your contact information it's going to mix those two things up and it's going to create a mess so ats systems are programmed to prefer chronological or hybrid combination resumes rather than functional recruiters also prefer those pure functional format without job history is not preferred by recruiters so those are a couple of the do's here's some don'ts don't apply to tons of jobs at the same company i really want to work at kaiser so i'm going to apply to every different position i see from janitor to um uh to uh web designer um the applicant tracking system is tracking every application that comes through with your name and it's going to see that you're applying to everything it's going to give that signal to the recruiter and now the recruiter doesn't trust are you applying to this position which one do you have experience for so um it's okay to apply to two very similar roles apply to both tailor the resume to target each role but don't just haphazardly apply to lots of jobs in one company thinking that's going to be helpful if they use an applicant tracking system that will actually knock you out don't apply to an entry level and a director level position at the same time uh even even you know weeks weeks apart again the applicant tracking system is going to tag that to the recruiter saying i don't know what this person's looking for and don't apply to a sales position a video editing role at the same time unless you really target each one with your experience and make them really look different okay one more slide of don'ts don't try to trick the ats uh some people take a whole bunch of keywords put them in to the resume at the bottom but they put the print as white so when it prints out you won't see that i tried to trick the ats system the ats system doesn't look at color everything is black and white so when it prints it out for the recruiter that whole list of skills at the bottom usually inside the uh the bottom margin is going to look really silly um so um ats system will display all text the same color at the other end you'll be labeling yourself as a cheater and even if it gets through the system um the reviewer is going to get annoyed don't try to trick the ats system it's there for a purpose apply to companies that you are qualified for there are lots of them particularly in this period lots of job openings out there look for the ones that you have a really good chance of getting and avoid the fancy formatting and the old days when we were sending in a hard copy it was great to use colors it was great to use columns it was great to use icons the ats system doesn't recognize any of that and the recruiter doesn't need it it just gets in their way so in order to scan for keywords um they will convert the document to a text only file and all of that fancy stuff will become corrupted avoid a few things if you put information in a box on your resume the ats system won't read anything inside a box so that's not going to be helpful so avoid uh logos avoid images so some people put a telephone next to their phone number you don't need that people recognize what a phone number looks like and they know it's a phone number so don't add these things thinking it's going to look great unless you're going to be handing a resume in that would be fine but if you're sending it in it might be going through an ats system which is just going to corrupt all of that okay um I think this is the last round of questions um I do have a summary after this so David we have a lot of questions but only one that's related to ats okay maybe we can we can answer this first and then the other ones this one is from Angela how many keywords to put in the top of resume for the employer's culture and eye-catching ats um the ones that are most relevant there's not there's not they're not counting so the main thing is in the top of the resume you are identifying yourself as a really good candidate and it's not just listing keywords remember it's it's listing um something that tells them why you're a good candidate so again follow what we did with the example for UCSF and Samuel Hernandez and the reason I put all that detail in there you said that you'd be able to go back to that you're going to get the slide set after this presentation and you'll get the video so you'll be able to review that but that's what you're looking to do okay thank you David any more questions um other question a question from Suzanne when relevant experience it's gained in business that closed should we put this on our resumes if you work there and you had experience definitely put it on the resume just because a company close has nothing doesn't mean you didn't show your wonderful accomplishments so yeah there's no no problem with that they'll look for the company and they'll realize it's closed but that's not that's not on you that's um that's just because the company closed I just see a new question it's about ATS um it's from Pam um David you say don't use headers or footers for the ATS where should your content information be on page two of resume if not in the header in the in the very first line just just a just a simple line we just have left justified would be your name in the middle might be your phone number and then right justified would be your email address that's it okay and then it should say page two sorry that would be good too okay going back to non ATS question question from Mary are there any pandemic or post-pandemic changes to resumes preferred by recruiter and hiring managers not that I know everything I'm giving you now is what our recruiters are looking for today not not pre-pandemic different and post-pandemic different it's so it's still all pretty much the same the only differences are over the years they're really looking for your LinkedIn address because I would say 90% of companies are going to look at your LinkedIn profile either before they look at your resume in detail or after they decide you're a wonderful candidate they're still going to go to your LinkedIn profile thank you David a question from Aaron I've hopped across different roads and industries if I'm creating a unique resume for each job my relevant experience will be short would you recommend adding in less relevant experience in order to fill the gaps and show the path I've taken um yeah I mean when you're talking about chronological resume you're going to put in the jobs that you've had in chronologically it's just that I wouldn't put six bullets of non-relevant experience under that job I would list the job and one bullet that shows transferable skill so experience that I mean for example if you were a great collaborator almost every job would love to have people who are collaborators so in that job even though it wasn't in the in the same career path but had collaboration I would just make sure you include that bullet for collaboration or communication so one or two bullets on the ones that are not as relevant and then try to make your your bullets close as close as you can but definitely don't don't skip something because you say well that that doesn't relate to what we're looking for now because chronologically they want to see what you did chronologically and the fact that you tried different things doesn't necessarily knock you out some recruiters like that they would go whoa okay this person's bringing a lot of ancillary experience to the job which is what they would like okay thank you David question from Catherine does it make sense to put courses from Udemy Gale or MOOC in a resume or these platforms are unimportant for managers perspective okay if you have room in your in and and particularly if they provided certifications because Udemy does um and Coursera does um LinkedIn says anything you any course you finish in LinkedIn learning they consider your certification they're not really but if you have room you might even have a separate section that says certifications but remember only include the courses that are relevant to this new job that you're applying to the fact that you did something in horticulture but you're applying for you know something that's not in horticulture then don't don't put that course down you can include all of your courses in your LinkedIn profile under courses or certifications because they're going to look there anyway and if they're interested they'll go looking looking for those but yes I would put down courses that are in fact doesn't matter who taught them if they're things that are relevant to the job you're applying to I would include them under your education section or in a separate certification section thank you David question from Gabrielle now that LinkedIn offer a few new options for the wording for some of these so-called gaps around pregnancies perhaps the same wording could be included on a resume absolutely yeah LinkedIn LinkedIn's not making stuff up um we work very closely with LinkedIn as a matter of fact I have a lunch today with with my contact at LinkedIn um uh they're doing that because they know that people have gaps and they wanted to figure out a way to add that into your LinkedIn profile but yes the similar wording um and then when I saw one of my clients use the word sabbatical I thought you know that's great um because sabbatical is understood by everybody as taking a break from um so I think that's great but remember whatever you did during that gap and I I just started learning about that LinkedIn a new LinkedIn feature um whatever you did during that break in your in your LinkedIn profile it could be anything but in your resume make sure you're trying to pick things that show transformable skills that would be useful on the job okay I've time for one more question then I want to cut close it down okay a question from Lily how do you work on yourself when you get the actual interview and you're one of those individuals who has a hard time talking about yourself and accomplishments and even finding answer to question ask on a spot any resources on this practice practice practice and practice we encourage first of all we do a lot of it during our cohort in the two weeks we build the power of cohort so people now are feel safe working with one another and then we tell people that you should do your job search with accountability buddies so find one or two other people to work with and when it comes to preparing for an interview have your accountability buddy interview you using the job description asking you questions that relate to that job and have you practice practice practice practice also working with the career advisors at brain fuse or the ones that are live at the library or sign up for our next cohort in May and and we work on that our first week is focused on resume the second week is focused on preparing for an interview and then we do a mock interview with corporate volunteers and then in the year that we continue supporting our clients we have a lot of mock interviews so there are a lot of them available if you look at the library but also look at event right they'll tell you when there are programs available and and activities available for you to go in and practice your interviewing or practice doing resume review and other things okay I'm going to take us past this last question and into a reminder of what we covered so resume key point each resume should match each job description or job posting and it should be easy to read it should actually should be easy to scan which means white space and have those keywords don't bold the keywords by the way I just heard from one of our recruiters saying they just got a resume where the person bolded all the keywords that's that's only distracting to them what they're interested in is for you to explain what you did in your experience cover letter no more than one page and make sure your keywords are in there and the ATS system again what you did your analysis for your resume that'll help you get through the ATS system if you write your resume according to that analysis use the keywords from the job posting and apply to jobs you are qualified for one so all of this is available with JVS we have a number of programs that are available for technical training for healthcare training for bookkeeping training for it support training and then we have the job search accelerated program which is industry agnostic we don't care what industry are coming from but we're looking to help people accelerate their job search in a two-week program so in getting this slide set you also get my contact information if you're going to actually want to connect with me on LinkedIn make sure when you invite me to connect with you on LinkedIn that you add a note explaining to me why you want to connect with me because I get a lot of people who just say mechanically they hit the connect button and I don't know who they are and I don't know why they want to connect with me I only connect with people who I know or have a reason to connect with me and that's it I thank you all for listening thank you very much for the questions by the way it's always good to get away to clarify what I'm trying to cover and hopefully I'll see you at the 50 plus or one of the LinkedIn presentations that I continue to hear at the library thank you so much David we really appreciate you taking the time to share with us some very valuable job search tips I also want to thank everyone for joining I hope you find the presentation informative and helpful to you I'll send out any values in survey together with David slide deck and a link to the recording later this afternoon please give us your feedback so we can continue to improve again thank you everyone and have the wonderful rest of your day bye bye