 Hello everyone, my name is Colleen again, one of the directors of regional engagement in the Office of Alumni Relations. On behalf of myself, the Office of Alumni Relations and Kath Borgman, director of the Career Planning Center, I'm happy to welcome you to tonight's webinar how to build a real career in a virtual world. At this time, I would like to remind everyone to please make sure your microphones are on mute. There will be time later in the presentation for you to participate if you wish with some live Q&A, and any questions can also be submitted through the chat feature, which will be monitoring throughout. I would now like to introduce tonight's speaker Claire Chandler, class of 1993. Claire is a business growth and strategic leadership advisor and president and founder of Talent Boost. She helps ambitious companies scale painlessly by finding and fixing performance bottlenecks. She aligns executive leadership around a unifying vision that attracts and retains the right talent to accomplish the company's mission. Claire leverages over 25 years of experience in people leadership, human resources and business ownership to boost leadership alignment and effectiveness. She has extensive expertise in organizational effectiveness, executive coaching, leadership development, communication strategy, employment branding, succession management, employee onboarding and engagement, talent infrastructure and strategic planning. Her highly interactive and engaging facilitation style fosters the learning and commitment of diverse audiences, both small and large. In addition to her bachelor's degree from Fairfield, Claire holds a certificate in strategic HR leadership from Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a master's degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Whirlpool Effect, Inspire the Flow that Boosts Company Performance and co-author of Leading Beyond a Crisis, a conversation about what's next, both available on Amazon. Claire's clients include BASF, Johnson & Johnson, Covance Slash Lab Corps, CSL Bering, Sikorsky Aircraft, Echo Recovery Solutions, and Blue Phoenix and Ashcoe USA. To learn more about Claire, you can visit www.clairchandler.net. And now I turn tonight's presentation over to Claire. Thanks Colleen. Thank you for that great introduction. I barely have to do anything now, kind of took care of everything. We've been, I've already been chatting with some of the guests here just asking where people are from and we're going to dive into that a little bit more in a couple of minutes, but I'm so used to doing these things live in person in a room with everybody. So I kind of missed that interactivity. So I hope that everybody does do what Colleen had suggested and get very active in the chat. I want this to be as interactive as possible, but without further ado, we can kind of get started and get jump in. A little bit of my history. I am a very proud Fairfield grad and I don't hold anything back. So I will admit that I'm a class of 1993 grad. I lived in Jokes, Gonzaga, and senior year was in townhouse 111. I hope it's still standing. I once won a t shirt at a karaoke contest at the Sea Grape, which we just called the grape. And somewhere in there I was also editor in chief of the mirror and OMG that hair right. I got in trouble from time to time with the administration for what I wrote but you know that is the life of a journalist right. But once a stag always a staggy will see that in the background behind me. I am such a proud graduate. I miss my college days. You can tell because obviously I still had copies of the mirror. Thomas said class in 94. So you were right behind me, we probably know each other. All I can say is I'm so glad I went to school before social media. So I'll just leave it at that. Since graduating Fairfield in 93. I worked for close to 20 years in corporate America. I was everything from a writer and editor, department manager, people leader, a recruiter and trainer, and my most recent role in corporate was as a HR executive. And I worked everywhere from communications marketing operations customer service and human resources. And since 2011. I have been a consultant and a business owner and Colleen already bored you with with my details around that. Not that you were boring Colleen but my details can get a little bit tedious, but I appreciate the intro my my mission and I do work with leaders and companies to help them attract and routine the right talent. My mission is really to end workplace misery. So if you're looking to get lined up with the right job and the right way with the right environment. I'm glad you're going to spend this this hour with us. When I share some of the things that we're going to go through tonight. From a from a variety of perspectives as a as a candidate as a hiring manager as a recruiter. And most recently as an advisor to to leaders and companies who are trying to find the right talent to help them advance their mission. So that's kind of my my background. We've got people who signed up for for spending this hour with us spanning six decades of alumni and parents of Fairfield students and grads. So I thought that was pretty cool and I wanted to share that here. And you're logging in from all over the country because let's face it what else are you going to do on a Thursday night when we're still kind of in under restrictions during a pandemic right. And when you signed up for spending the hour with us, you were really open with giving us some of your input on what it is that you're looking to do. So some of you are looking for your first job. Some of you are looking to re enter the job market. Some are contemplating a mid career change, and some are looking for a new challenge during your retirement. So there's there's such a diverse background from all of you in terms of where you are where you came from and what you're looking to do next. So, let's have some fun tonight. You agree to spend an hour with me I'm spending our with you I don't want this to be a monologue. I don't want this to just be me telling you about how to format a resume. I am going to touch upon that because of course I'd be remiss if I don't give you some of those basics. But maybe you're here to learn how to build a real real career and stand out as both a candidate and an employee in this virtual environment, because that's where we are right now, you want a real job, but the companies and hiring managers and recruiters you're dealing with, they're largely trying to find you get to know you and decide if you're the right fit, all in a virtual environment. And we know that eventually if you get along the process far enough you're going to do some sort of an in person round. But a lot of these early steps and getting noticed your your networking your personal branding, even your first round interviews are take are taking place these days without meeting in person. And there are a lot of candidates in the market right now. So tonight I want to talk about how you can stand out in this virtual sea of candidates, because what may seem like limitations in this virtual world can actually give you a much broader and deeper reach into the companies and roles you want to be part of. So I am going to share some basics about how to punch up your candidate materials, but I'm also going to give you some insider secrets on how to differentiate yourself from the other candidates who were out there. And like I said, I don't want this to be a one way conversation. So if all of that sounds like you know a worthwhile way to spend the next half hour, hour or so. I want you to start interacting right here you've already started to share where you're where you're hailing from when you graduated. So this is something that you want to learn more about tonight and the time we've got together drop a heck yes, a yeah, a hell yeah if you want to write into the chat. Let me know that you're out there, I'm going to feed off of your energy. I like I said I don't want to love it love it I don't want this to just be a, you know, a one way thing so we're going to have some fun. So just Colleen that I would not drink wine during this hour. So I need to keep your attention I need to keep my energy. So use that chat, plop in some questions, provide some feedback, share where you're stuck. Like Colleen said, if there are a couple of people that you know bring up something that you're really struggling with, and you want to be brave enough to come up with me and have a quick conversation with me. We can, we can do that too. So, here we go. Okay. You really want to build a meaningful career, you need to understand the two keys to your success. And there were two traits that every genius level performer possesses and demonstrates. There's just two. The first one is self awareness, really understanding what your true talents are, why you're motivated to use them, and how you tend to use them. And the second one is authenticity. So once you're more self aware of all of that what you're good at what your genius zone is, really stepping into that stepping in your strengths and your style and letting your uniqueness out. And here's the good news. Anybody can acquire those two traits. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those two traits a little bit later tonight. But if you stay until the end of the workshop, I'm going to tell you how you can unlock both of those very, very quickly. So make sure you stick it out till the end. Okay, so speaking of the end, let's start with the end in mind. To me mission clarity is so important. It is what I focus on with every one of my clients. It's the very first step that I take leaders in their companies through is to get really crystal clear on what it is they're trying to accomplish. So I want to take a couple of minutes right off the bat to really push you to become more self aware because that's key to not just landing a job but landing the right next job for you. I want to give some thought to what the next role or career step is that you would love to take. Right, what would you love to take. I want you to get a very clear picture of that in your mind. What does it look like. What type of company are you in. What are some of the things you're working on. What skills are you using. What's the working environment like. What does the culture look like the people that are around you that you get to work with. Is that picture starting to get a little bit clearer for you. Anybody want to be brave enough to drop to drop a couple of those thoughts in the chat. What are some of the things that you're looking to do that you would love to work on and get paid to work on as your next job. You can almost hear you typing furiously. Let me give you a few more seconds to see if there's some brave souls who are going to drop a couple of thoughts in the chat. Awesome so Thomas wants to innovate new projects, new programs, new ways to grow a business. That sounds pretty fun. It sounds like something that not everybody can do, which is awesome, right, because part of finding your genius zone and playing in your genius zone is it's a zone that not everybody can play in. So that's a that's a great example. So keep going if you guys want to drop a couple more of those thoughts in the chat. I'd love to see, you know what what it is that you're looking to do and incorporate into your, it's your next step in your career and it might be your first step for some of you. Stephen wants to get to think outside the box. Yeah, you know, Steven one of the things that when I worked in corporate and by the way when I finished Fairfield, I swore I would never work in corporate America it just didn't seem like the right place for me. My roommate went into banking she's a very successful VP in a large bank. And I always remember like, you know, when when they would bring the recruiters onto campus, and they did the interviews. She always had to get very buttoned up into these, you know, these, these really conservative suits and all that I'm like, man, I would hate to have to do that and then sure enough, I ended up in corporate for for close to 20 years so you learn pretty quickly never to say never. And I love corporate, I mean, you know, despite some of the box that you do have the playing in, you learn a lot, you get a lot of best practices you learn a lot of structure. Jim book wants to assist people every day but have a flexible schedule Jim I think that is a very attainable goal, especially in this era of COVID. And it's not even the year of COVID. I think we all need to be realistic, and accept the fact that we are, we are in a new era, which has permanently changed the way that companies look at how they get work done, which I think is a silver lining and all of this because it opens up some opportunities to do work, you know, where, where you are where you reside where you're most comfortable where you are most productive. And that's a great one. Kristen wants to create, facilitate and manage inclusive and funny events or experiences for a wide range of attendees. Ooh, that sounds right at my island Kristen we should talk about that sometime might have some ideas for you on that that's great. Oh, these are great. Keep them coming I'm going to keep I'm going to move to the next one but keep these coming these are awesome. Okay, so you have a little bit of that mission clarity in mind right. Like I said before, if all you wanted was to find a job, any job, then this would be a really, really short workshop right I would tell you spell check your resume go on indeed and apply to every single opening until someone hires you. But that's not why you're here, you want to build a real career and it's not that kind of numbers game. It requires a different level of care. So now that you have a little bit more mission clarity around the type of role in the company that you want to pursue next. Now it's time to do a little bit of research. So, thinking of a couple of sites that you like for finding job opportunities, and I'll give you a quick recommendation. In terms of job boards, as a recruiter and as a candidate, my go to job board has always been indeed. And let me just tell you, I'm not a paid spokesperson for indeed. They don't give me any sort of you know advertising revenue. I just happen to think that it is a one of the most robust job boards but there are certainly a lot others out there. So we've got at least one person here who's looking for an accounting opportunity there are more finance and accounting specific job boards. And you can look on Google and find a number of those, but in terms of a general job board. I indeed gets my top vote, and then LinkedIn, you have to be on LinkedIn, we're going to talk a little bit more about that when we talk about your candidate materials, but even just looking for opportunities and networking which we're going to talk about LinkedIn is the place to be. So, when you look for some of these job opportunities part of the research that I want you to think about doing is going on indeed, going into the jobs section of LinkedIn, going into other job boards that you feel comfortable with, and look for job descriptions that appeal to you, right, some of the ones that that starts to align with this mission clarity that you that you kind of would just work through that that really sort of resembled or give you some opportunity to do some of these genius zone areas that you were you've been sharing in the chat. And you want to highlight the keywords from those qualifications. When it comes time to preparing your candidate materials right because part of this is you want to align your, your brand, so that it's authentic, right authenticity being one of those genius traits. But you also wanted to get the attention of the people that you want to hire you so you wanted to use some keywords from their, their job descriptions. You also want to do some research around the companies that interest you. So there may be specific companies that jump to mind immediately that either they're local to you and you happen to know that they have a big reputation. They are, you know, kind of world changers and you know you want to work with them, but find companies that interest you go on their website, get to know their mission, what they value, and of course potential opportunities. Stephen also added as part of his mission clarity helping others use digital media to make a difference. I love that that's so tech savvy, and yet you focus on impact. Stephen, I want you to copy and paste that line that you just typed into whatever notes you're taking through this, this workshop because that's the kind of line that's going to be an attention grabber to the companies that you want to attract. So definitely make note of that. So questions on just the research side of it I am going to keep moving ahead and we can go back and I'll answer whatever questions you post. But it's really important for you to sort of jump in to, you know, start applying to jobs the shop done approach does not work, especially in market where there are a lot of other candidates out there so you want to do this homework it's pretty important. So once you have these bits of information on hand you've gone through a couple of job descriptions, you've started to highlight some keywords that appeal to you that align with your genius zone and your mission and the things that you want to do. You've started to look at a couple of companies and done some research and found out, you know, those whose mission resonates with you and again aligns with, you know, things that you would like to be part of. So that's time to network and networking is not a dirty word I know a lot of people here networking and they go oh my gosh I have to go into a big room of strangers and talk to them. No you don't, not anymore. Welcome to the virtual world. So it's all networking, especially in the time of COVID the era of COVID, everything is about networking. So here are a couple of things to keep in mind. We're going to look again on LinkedIn, and we're going to talk about LinkedIn, you know, in terms of your candidate materials, but take a look at LinkedIn from a couple of perspectives, one of which is there are so many groups on LinkedIn that are specific to your region of the country, or, you know, function that you want to get into so accounting for example, or digital media or event planning. I just want to check for a second because I thought I heard somebody did somebody come off mute and ask a question. Nope, see folks when you get older you start to hear voices. Okay, so you want to look for relevant groups. What are they specific to your function. Fairfield has at least one alumni group I believe there are several right that are function specific. There are job opportunity groups so there are literally groups on LinkedIn that are all about networking to find and share job opportunities. So looking at those groups, join as many relevant groups as you can, because it's going to help get you noticed and get you in front of and connected to people that are going to help you move your career along. You also want to reach out to your social networks so I'm talking your LinkedIn connections your Facebook connections, especially, let them know your goal, right so going back to that mission clarity, where you're you're a little bit more self aware of what you want to do and what you can offer to to an employer. There is no shame in this game, right. So reach out to your network and let them know, hey folks, here's what I wanted you next. Who do you know what opportunities are out there, who can you introduce me to take a look at some of your trusted connections on LinkedIn, especially on LinkedIn because it is the professional networking site, and see who they're connected to. That research you did on companies and job opportunities. Very likely you have somebody in your network who either works at that company, or know somebody at that company. So you want to start to reestablish a connection and start to have some conversations with those people in your network, but let them know what you're looking for. Right, you can't, you can't find what you're looking for if you're the only one in that sea of candidates you've got to let other people know and help help you look. You also want to, we're going to talk about applying to jobs in just a minute, but when you do apply. Again, the power of LinkedIn is there are millions upon millions of people on LinkedIn, and chances are the hiring manager, the recruiter, or even a higher level decision maker is out on LinkedIn. So once you've applied to a position, go and find some combination of those people. Usually, when you're in LinkedIn and you're looking at a job opportunity, it will show you who the recruiter is. And sometimes if you're connected to them, it will show you that if you're connected in a second degree so in other words you've got a mutual connection, it will show you that you want to tap into that this is all networking. And it's not, it's not groveling, it's not begging, it's not cheating. It's really extending your network and making those connections to make sure you get the right attention of the employers and the opportunities that you want to pursue. The other thing you want to think about doing is let's say that there's a company that you found that you really love their mission and you really feel like deep down, that's a place where you could make a home, and you could make an impact. If they don't have a job opportunity, either they have no opportunities advertised, or they don't have an opportunity that aligns with your skill set. I have this, I dare say I'm going to call it magic, a two step message formula for connecting to them. So what you say in an outreach message on LinkedIn to request a connection, and then what to say to them immediately after that to hopefully open up a conversation. I'm not going to spend time on that today because I want to keep this moving, but if you are interested in grabbing that magic formula, just send me an email it's claret talent boost.net, and I will give you that magic formula. Okay, just check the chat real quick. Okay, I don't see any questions coming in yet so I'm going to move on to the next topic. So, you've got a little bit clearer on your mission so your self awareness is up a little bit higher. You started to do some research, and you're really starting to open up all of your possible avenues for networking. So now let me cover a couple of the basics. So, when you talk about your when I talk about your candidate materials, I'm talking about your resume and your cover letter, those are absolute basics. But it's really about your personal brand. Right, so it goes far beyond your resume and your cover letter we're talking about your entire virtual footprint. So the resume and cover letter first, they both need to be well written. They have to be absolutely free of spelling and grammatical errors. We are people of Fairfield, we don't have typos. And it's clean, and it's in a professional format, both the resume and the cover letter that's basic. So using an objective statement at the top of your resume get rid of that we don't do that that's been out for years and years. What's, I'm not even call it trendy but what's been very effective at the top of your resume is a headline and almost an executive sorry that really kind of highlights who you are and what you offer. So, when you're doing kind of your mission clarity. I think, Steve in that line about helping others use digital media to make a difference. That's a great line to incorporate into the summary at the top of your resume. Some of the key strengths that you have some of the and written in the same terms as some of the job descriptions that have been appealing to you during your research phase. So, you know, again, it's about aligning your candidate materials to the opportunities and to the companies that you want you to take notice. A couple of other basics for every work experience that you list, you want to focus on accomplishments not tasks. So it's not about a laundry list of you know what you were responsible for doing, but what did you actually achieve. As you impact the company in a positive way, where possible if you have specific numbers percentages results number of people you manage etc, you want to be as specific as possible. Quick thought about the cover letter, you want to customize it so it's relevant to the company to the role that you're applying for, and to the key qualifications that they're looking for. And again, you want to show alignment right so you want to show how what they're looking for matches up with what you offer. Now, you don't have to start from scratch with every single one there is a way that you can kind of templatize that and have mostly standard components of your cover letter. I want to make sure you know recruiters and hiring managers, a lot of people don't use cover letters anymore, and there's this big debate over whether they are useful or not. I don't know any recruiter who is turned off by, by an inclusion of a cover letter, but I know several recruiters who say, all else being equal if they didn't take the time to put a cover letter in there to kind of summarize for me, how what they need, I put them aside. Again, this is a very high volume candidate market, and you want to try to stand out. I'm going to tell you to be social but not stupid. And what I mean by that should be fairly obvious, especially on on Facebook and Instagram. If you have any photos of you doing the people to kickstands anymore don't even know but if you do have photos of yourself doing any of that partying a little bit too hard, looking in any way out of control, unless your next job is his chief chaos officer, I would be really careful about not tagging yourself in those types of photos. Does it mean you have to go completely vanilla and totally sanitized in your, in your social presence. No, but many, many recruiters are now researching you as much as you're researching their company. So be smart about your presence on Facebook on Instagram. I don't know if you've noticed but it's a pretty polarizing political climate nowadays so even being careful about kind of being terribly outspoken, you know in the political sphere can tend to get you negative attention when it comes to recruiters. So, be careful about that. LinkedIn of course is absolutely a bare bones requirement in your candidate materials. I don't care where you are in your career I don't care if you are newly graduated you haven't even graduated yet your mid career, you're you know anything you have to have presence on LinkedIn that's where every company is that's where every recruiter goes to look. I'm not sure that your LinkedIn profile is aligned with but not identical to your resume, you can even attach your resume and as part of your profile it's that's perfectly fine. But you want to use so there's a there's a top portion this about section right. So it's similar to the summary that you're going to put in your in your resume. So before you can take a little bit more license and be a little bit more authentic to your personality. I find that LinkedIn summary is that tell a bit of a story around what you do, who you do it for, why you've made an impact and why you want to make an impact, you know for your next employer tend to be very compelling, and they tend to stand out versus, you know, sort of your plain Jane LinkedIn summary that says, I have x years of experience and this is what I've done and you know contact me for details. And again just like a headline on your resume, you want to use a very compelling headline on your LinkedIn profile that highlights what you want to be known for what you want recruiters and companies to seek you out for. In the work experience section when focus on accomplishments, not on tasks. So let me take a pause there because I think out of the corner of my eye I saw some questions. Okay, so Steven asked what are your thoughts on using a video profile to help introduce and promote yourself. Stephen I think that's a fantastic idea. LinkedIn has a great spot within the profile for you to house something like that. So you can put it into your, when you do the summary, there's an opportunity to have links. So what I have done and I have videos on my LinkedIn profile as well. They're out on YouTube, and then I just link out to the video. So a video profile. It's not quite a standard yet. And that is such a great example of something that's going to help you stand out in the sea of candidates, because so few people are doing that. And especially in this virtual environment, like I said, where some people are, you know, you're going through those first steps of being able to get the right companies to notice you video is going to be a great way to stand out and infuse more of your personality because rather than a two dimensional resume, they can now see you they can hear you they can kind of get a little bit more idea of your warmth and your personality. So I think that's a that's a fantastic idea. So a little bit about your, your, your second question about how different the LinkedIn profile should be versus your resume. Again, they should be compatible, but they shouldn't be identical. So especially in the summary section the work experience can generally be the same, but I would take a little bit more poetic license in the summary and really let your personality come out. Should cover letters be paragraph based or combined with bullets. My kind of best practice style is a combination of both. So an introductory paragraph, which again can be very templatized, and then a few bullets that really kind of itemize and summarize how your qualifications meet the qualifications that they're looking for and that's where you want to be really careful and thoughtful about using the words they use in their job description. So, great, great questions. All right, cool. So you've applied. And now you got an interview. So now what do you do. Okay, you've probably heard the concept of the elevator pitch. All these things in the interview and I've done more interviews than I care to remember because so many candidates walk in there and wing it. And unless you are super charismatic and totally know, you know, are so self aware and so authentic that you can walk into any conversation and just own the room. You're not going to stand out. So you don't, you know, this is really an opportunity for you and sometimes again, this could be a, you know, a zoom based interview you may not actually be in the room. But it's a really it is really important for you to be confident in what you offer and also show interest in them. I'll come right back to that. So, an elevator pitch is a slightly more detailed version of the high level summary that you've got in your, in your, in your resume. This is your opportunity it's either your opening statement or your closing statement right so it's it's usually you kind of know when to pull that out because the recruiter will say something like, tell us a little bit about yourself, or the very time you haven't gone there yet. They're sort of closing question to you is going to be, you know, is there anything else that we should know about you. That's when you pull out the good old elevator pitch, and many many candidates get this wrong because they don't prepare this. So you want to present your case for why your unique skills, your experience and your personality are the right fit to help them advance their mission. And this sounds silly, but you want to rehearse it in front of the mirror a few times. You want to get to the point where you're not literally trying to recite it. You're not reading it off of your notepad, but that you're delivering it naturally and authentically. Okay, so that's where that authenticity comes back in. The other thing that so many candidates miss. And if you can't tell it's a pet peeve of mine because I can't stand helping a company interview a candidate who hasn't prepared. You want to research the company and the role that you're applying for before you go into that interview. That's going to help you tweak your elevator pitch, right, so that you can speak to their specific mission. But it's also going to help you ask questions that show that you did your homework. Every single interviewer is going to ask you at some point usually at the end. So if you have any questions for them. You always should have at least one insightful question that you can ask and don't just ask how much vacation time would I get right, you want to ask something that is about their business about the impact that they make about their mission. It's not going to take you hours, but it's going to equip you with that one zinger question that I guarantee you recruiters are going to go wow they every time I get feedback from a hiring manager. The candidate or candidates who stand out to them are the ones they always say this one asked good questions. That's how you're going to stand out. The other thing that's going to help you vault ahead of a lot of candidates in the pile is a thank you note. That may sound very antiquated, and it is. It's a lost art and so many candidates miss that. And you know why it's so much easier to do that now in a virtual environment, because you don't have to take out your old flowery stationery. Hand write a note, put it in the mail and risk COVID going to the post office. You send it as an email, literally the same day, as soon as you finish your interview or as soon as as practical. You, you want to emphasize you want to thank them for their time. You want to reemphasize your interest in the role, and you want to point out again, even in a couple of bullets, why you are uniquely qualified to help make a positive impact, and help them move the needle toward their mission. These sounds so simple, but when you start to piece all of those things together. These are the winning formula literally that are going to make you stand out in a sea of candidates. I'm going to pause for a second because I do think there's another question. Okay, any tips on how to approach interviews and re entering the job market. Yeah, okay. Short corporate hiatus childcare, you know, Catherine, there are, there used to be a, I'm going to call it a stigma, right. People that have gaps in their resume of a dreaded gap, right, that they, they took time off for whatever reason, there was an illness in the family, they had a child. They traveled, they were laid off, and they didn't get, you know, another job in a short period of time. There are so many candidates now that have gaps. I typically advise candidates not to explain the gap on in their resume. Depending on the situation, I will advise people to explain it very high level very briefly in the cover letter, where it doesn't dominate the entire story. And one of the things that I recommend is when you sort of address that elephant in the room. First of all, it's a bigger elephant to you than it is to them. You know, in this day and age and when I'm perfectly honest with you because a lot of people have gaps. And, you know, when you, when you talk about it, you can just say, you know, very briefly, I stepped away from my career for, you know, family reasons or whatever. During that time, here's what I did. And, you know, very, very briefly, you might have taken a course, you might have done out some other self improvement. Even if you did nothing, there's always something you can say about how you spent that time, even though you stepped away from corporate or from your job or from the career search or what have you. There's always something you can include that shows that you didn't let the grass grow under your feet. Right. That's a great question if you want to talk about that more specifically, that's a great question though. So, as you start to apply these tips and hone in on the key words you want to incorporate into your resume, into your cover letter, into your elevator pitch. Here's another insider secret for you. There are two skills that every company needs, but very few candidates know to highlight. I'm going to tell you these because you are going to be able to bring them into your resume into your cover, cover letter and into your elevator pitch in ways that are going to help you stand out. Anybody just dropped me a heck yeah, if you if you're interested in that I mean if you don't if you don't want to stand out if you're just here because you know we're all fair filled we just want to bond. That's totally fine. Yes, Gabriella has a yes I need a heck yeah here for this cool okay. Two skills you wanted. This is well thank you Thomas I love to make you laugh. Two mission critical skills resilience and adaptability. If if this era of coven that we are in has not highlighted anything else. It's that companies that did not have resilience and companies that could not adapt to our new reality did not succeed. The same goes for candidates right so literally incorporating these two words somewhere in your resume somewhere in your cover letter somewhere in your LinkedIn profile, and somewhere in your elevator pitch is already going to make you stand out. Now, don't just put them in there and hope that the you know that the web crawler on indeed is going to pick you out as the standout candidate, but you know showing that you are resilient. And showing that you are adaptable are our absolute mission critical skills for every single company now. So you want to make sure that you answered that unasked question that yes you have resilience yes you have adaptability and there are ways to bring that into the conversation in in in an interview as well. So questions on that people are loving it. Oh, I love that you love. I love the love these skills are part of why you got your current job Susan Palmer absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, and you know companies have have learned this the hard way. This year who were who were so you know not prepared for for COVID I mean let's face it none of us were were prepared for the magnitude of you know a global pandemic, but candidates themselves candidates that can demonstrate resilience and adaptability. You are absolutely going to to stand out, you know in this in the sea of candidates. Thank you Amanda I appreciate that feedback. So, all of this, your personal brand, your resume, your interview elevator pitch, the next role you ultimately land all of it, all of it depends on your ability to truly know who you are, and what you offer, right so that's that self awareness piece. And your confidence and letting your true self out, which is that authenticity piece. Dr Seuss I think says it way better than I ever could, when he says today you are you that is true than true. There was no one alive, who was you or them you. And just because you're looking for a job just because you're looking to go work for someone else, even if it's incorporate, even if it's incorporate banking does not mean you have to stuff yourself into a box and not let your person hell you out. So, get creative, be innovative, have fun, and be yourself, not just in your job search, but throughout your entire career you were going to be far more successful, and feel far more fulfilled. If you play in your genius zone, and I literally mean play, because when you are in your zone doing your thing and getting paid to do what you love. It feels a lot like play. Questions. Anybody want some hot seat coaching. Gosh that sounded intimidating does anyone want some live right on the spot coaching anyone have a very specific situation or point in your search where you're just feeling stuck or, you know, could could use a talking to you. I'm, I am more than inviting you and welcoming you to come up with mute and chat with me for a minute or two if you would like. Amanda, come on off mute come on down you are the first contestant. Thank you so much. Can you hear me. Yeah, thank you so much. This is awesome. One of the things I thought of right away when you said, um, you know, to the question about acknowledging a hiatus of some sort in childcare or in job is that I have, you know, kind of stepped away due to childcare since June. You know school closed camp closed and I was the one who kind of picked up that slack, but during that period, I did a really solve that problem and that you know I have created a pod with three other families and we've hired a teacher and it's pretty outside the box in terms of what a lot of our peers are doing here. And I wonder if is that too personal to talk about when I talk about okay. As you said, when you talk about the hiatus talk about what you did during that time. I mean putting this pod together was, you know, a ton of work and research and, you know, creativity and all of that is that but it but it's personal right I did it for my child. Is that too personal to talk about. So, first of all, I love that I'm sitting here like I wish I had a job to hire you in because that just sounds so resourceful and so collaborative. Right. And so, yeah, and so just inventive all the things that that you know that people needing companies want. So let me ask you because I don't remember if you dropped into the chat earlier. What are you, what are you looking for in this role what are some of the, what are some of the skills that you want to put to use. Yeah, I really want to do. I want to continue work that I've done in project management. And I want to, you know, perhaps take a role in a little bit of a different industry or arena, but I want to be a project manager I want to be someone who solves problems, which why I think this is a good example we have this problem of how to get our first grader in education. Full time right the hybrid thing didn't work for us the virtual didn't work for us. Right. And I think it's an example of problem solving which is something I want to do I in my next role I want to. I do want to do something different than I was doing before I want to really expand my project management role. So, and, and even though it's a personal example of putting together this pod with three families. It very clearly and adeptly to me anyway illustrates your project management and your problem solving skills. The way that I would do that is, I'm a little bit on the fence of whether to whether to advise you to put it in the resume, if you did, I would put it into a, you know, additional experience section, right, not make it like your current work experience, but I would definitely include in the cover letter. Got it. And I would, you know, so the when I was answering before, you know, do you do paragraphs to do, do you do bullets. This would be an example of you know you kind of do your leading your opening paragraph is like you know please to please to apply to exposition and you know blah blah and this is what I offer and here's here's just a few examples of how your experience lines up with your, you know, with what you're looking for kind of thing. One of those bullets and probably, you know, one of the very first ones because it's so recent is literally program and excuse me project management and problem solving, very brief description of, you know, here was here was the problem. And no one is going to say, what are you talking about was with education impacted like I don't understand where people out at school this year what did I miss right so everybody knows that it was a problem everybody knows it's still a problem. If everybody without exception knows at least one person struggling with this. Yeah, so I would absolutely use that as a, as a very real world, very real time example of what you can do, even in your quote unquote hiatus. Hey, thank you so much that's super helpful. You're welcome I that's congratulations to you I'm going to I'm going to maybe put you in touch with my sister a lot. It's crazy. I feel, I feel for everybody it's right. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so so much. Anybody else anybody else have any questions want to want to come on come off of mute. Go in the go in the hot seat wasn't too grueling Amanda survived going once I think Stephanie came off mute hello Stephanie where are you calling from I feel like we're on a we're on a call in show now this is great. Like, who has to be a millionaire for I know. Friend right this is great. Thank you for hosting this it's been lovely. I just curious so I've been working last 10 years and financial services. And I'm exploring moving like taking my skills but moving into a new industry. You know, still and maybe a finance capacity but I want you know if there are certain things to do with your resume or your LinkedIn profile that can show that you're, you know, versatile in moving industries versus people seeing just like one way straight for you. That's a great question. And thank you for coming off of mute to ask it, you know, this is where you were your keywords. Really come in handy because spending 10 years and financial services could potentially pigeonholing you if that's all the crew or sees right. So the way that you sort of dilute that pigeonhole quality, or that, you know, I'm a, I'm a one trick pony so to speak and I'm, you know, I'm a super specialist in finance to the exclusion of anything else. One of the ways that you kind of mitigate that is in the in the summary itself, and in the headline right the headline is going to be the biggest boldest. Typically all caps line on your resume, typically on your LinkedIn profile as well does not have to be identical. So let me just focus on the resume headline. Most people who have been in financial services for 10 years are going to play that up in their headline. What you were saying is I've got these skills they're transferable and I want to kind of downplay a little bit that it's all been in financial services because I feel like I could, you know, bring my skills to bear somewhere else. So what I would do is absolutely mention your financial acumen and your financial accomplishments. In my experience, a lot of candidates have zero financial acumen at all. So you were going to be, you know, to me you're going to have an advantage over other candidates, even in a non finance focused position, because you have such a firm grasp on financial concepts and, you know, just, just the implications of decisions right day to day on a business from a financial perspective. So going back to some of that research, doing some of your homework, looking at some of the job descriptions that appeal to you, some of the companies that appeal to you. Look at their, you know, I keep saying keywords but look at the vocabulary they use right how do they describe some of the job descriptions that appeal to you and how can you bring, you know, I wouldn't revamp your resume based on one job description. But as you start to look through ones that appeal to you, you're going to start to see common themes and common threads. And so you want to bring some of those keywords into your summary into how you describe what you've done. And find a way come up with a headline for your resume that is not finance focused right, you know, well well experienced financial executive with you know proven track record like don't yeah don't don't go there right. So it's really about, it's about the keywords. And I would, that's where your, your homework and looking through several job descriptions until you start to see some of the trends that pull you in. Then you're going to, you're going to have a better feel for what words to use. Was that helpful. Yes, thank you so much. You are very welcome. Okay, we are coming up on the top of the hour we've got time for one more quick question if anybody else has one that is just burning in their gut. That sounded very ulcerous, didn't it. Okay, seeing none, we are going to close this out. So, I want to thank you for keeping keeping the company tonight I hope you learned a thing or two. And I hope you feel a little bit more confident about your next steps. If you want a little bit more confidence. If you would like my help in creating, you know, your your personal branding, your career candidate materials. I do have a special offer this is not a sales presentation but I want to at least, you know, give you an opportunity to continue the conversation with me. We offer a career branding package where we very quickly unlock your self awareness and your authenticity, which again are those two traits that all genius level performance share. We have a 90 minute one on one coaching session so similar to just the quick questions I just answered now. We would go much more in depth specifically on where you're stuck where you want to go and how we close that gap. I'm not just taking that magic two step message formula that I mentioned earlier, but literally customizing it and writing it for you, and rebuilding your resume your cover letter your LinkedIn profile and crafting your your interview elevator pitch. Normally that's a that's a $2,500 package, but this is Fairfield. I love Fairfield I would do anything for Fairfield. So tonight I'm giving you a coupon code for the Fairfield you friends and family rate of $1,000 instead of $2,500. The coupon code is once a stag coupon does expire at the end of the year. So if you are interested in grabbing that offer just go to my website which is clear channel or net. There's a link toward the top right it says talk to Claire, and you want to book the 90 minute power session. So, if that's of interest to you I'm not going to dwell on that again this is not a sales presentation but wanted to just put that offer out there. And that's it wanted to thank you if you have any other questions as you're kind of going along in your job search. My email is up top there click there at talent boost net. Feel free to give me a shout. And I wish you the very best I think if you put these these these principles and these tips in use and really do your homework and really get, you know, more self aware of where you want to go and what you offer. But you're going to do great and you're going to you're going to find the right next role for you. So, I want to thank you and then Colleen I will turn it back to you to close this out. Thank you and thank you so much Claire again for giving your time greatly appreciated. Lots of great tips and blood. There's so much interactive questioning going on. People have asked I know they have friends who had registered and we're unable to make it tonight Claire was kind enough to let us record tonight's webinar so we will be sharing that. So if you attended and would like to see it again you can email us back to the confirmation email that was sent to you yesterday, which is just alumni at fairfield.edu. And of course, please connect with Claire again if she can continue to offer her services and hopefully we will see you all in person at an event soon. So thank you.